You are wearing blinders if you think investment has no relation to betting. The very reason there are different kinds of investments with different interest rates is because some are riskier than others. Risky -- an interesting word. Implies something might or might not go as planned. Implies you might be betting. Implies you might lose.

In both cases, the investor and bettor try to make the best choice they can. Whether it's betting on the spread of a game, a 100:1 longshot at the track, or a subprime mortgage, it all comes down to analyzing the situation and making an informed guess. Some guesses are better informed than others. Chance always plays its hand too.

Betting, it's called.

Has anyone ever done any kind of study on the tradeoffs? Hub flying requires twice as many landings and takeoffs compared to direct flights, for the passengers, but it can use bigger planes and fewer flights, so the overall total comes back down. I remember first thinking about this when I read of Airbus's rationalization for the A380, that the increasing number of passengers would require some combination of bigger planes, more airports, and more flights, but the last two factors were already near maximum. Boeing was betting that the last two factors had room for expansion, that passengers hated super hubs and long out indirect routing, and that there wasn't enough market for huge planes to justify a completely new product.

In between the hub and direct choices you get multiple hubs, which is basically what happens when regional jets come into the picture, altho they don't call them that. Lots of smaller hubs and more transfers per passenger, but not the ludicrous indirect routes you had with the few super hubs.

So I wonder, has anyone ever done studies of this? Maybe it will just take a few more years for the optimum hubbiness to settle out.

The military certainly has weapons which are not available to civilians, and they shoot ammo not available to civilians. But infantry rifle ammo is common enough, and I don't know of any not available for the civilian version (AR-15; not full auto).

But even if the ammo is different, it still uses lead bullets, probably jacketed, with brass cases, gunpowder, and primers, all of which are pretty much the same for everyone.

I suspect that flying is just like almost every other activity we humans can think up -- 90% of it is routine to the point that a monkey could do it, or it could be automated. I have a 3 hour drive twice a week. Most of it is boring and could be automated. Someday it will be computer controlled, safely, and I can snooze or read. But all you have to do is check the statistics for accidents by teenagers and see that experience counts for something, sooner or later, and while on the job training may be acceptable to the general public when it comes to cars, it is not acceptable when it comes to flying hundreds of people around the sky, and that is what pilots get paid for. I dare say that if car drivers had to have the same training and the same licensing tests as pilots, we could cut traffic accidents in half.

This interview went nowhere fast, and I quit reading after the first page. According to this interview, he is only saying we need to prioritize spending to the most effective strategies. There is only so much money to go around. Much like it is better to spend money on safety where it gets the most bang for the buck -- if vaccination saves one life per $10 and airplane seat belts save one life per $1000, which is a better value? (I made up those numbers out of thin air.)

What I digressed from is that the interviewer spent the first page beating this dead horse, trying over and over to trick the interviewee into saying the opposite of what he had already said. It was obvious the interviewer wasn't interested in what the interviewee said, and one page of that is enough.

Next time listen the your subject and respond to what he says. Stop pushing your own agenda -- you are interviewing him, not vice versa.

I followed the link to the Italian page, and followed a link there to your bio, where it says you are a furloughed pilot.

Hop to it, man! Be Prrrroud! :-)