One of the things that has not been considered in the debate over the horrific new TSA security procedures is the economic impact that all of this is going to have. The rest of the world is watching what is going on, and millions of people are going to decide that they simply do not want to go through the hassle of flying to the United States. There are some cultures where allowing a strange person to touch your private areas is unthinkable. In 2009, 54.9 million tourists visited the United States, and those tourists spent approximately 93 billion dollars. That doesn’t even count all of the internal tourism in the United States which is far greater. Tourism is the first, second or third biggest employer in 29 U.S. states. So what happens if a significant chunk of tourists decide that they are simply not going to fly because of the new full body scanners and the new “enhanced pat-downs”? (Read More...)