Share holders of a big, established company want long-term and stable profit. Short-term profit at the cost of increased risk is not something that share holders of a company like Boeing are looking for.
There’s an almost religious belief in whatever keeps the analysts happy this quarter is the right move. While this is done in the name of the shareholder, it happens to align with the compensation of the managers and directors making that decision.
I see Boeing as a defense/aerospace version of HP, GE, or IBM. In the case of Boeing, management went so far as to move a couple of thousand miles from most of the company. All of these firms chose to put themselves on the path to decline, and did so in a way obvious to anyone who looked closely.
On the other side, it happens all the time that a company has a single blowout quarter and the shares fall.
I think shareholders of Boeing would also expect stable growth through sound risk management
Nickel and diming on safety features and training is playing with fire.
Perfectly rational investors with infinite lifespans might do what you say, but in reality most people are fickle, short sighted and don't actually do much thinking.
As an example, when I worked for IBM, they furloughed the entire Systems technology group (essentially the folks working on things that aren't pure software or contracting) for a week.
This was done purely to reduce the payroll for the STG so that it's income would look better on the quarterly earnings.
Neither the inability to get anything done for 2 weeks (furlough was staggered so only approx half of folks were out each week) nor any of the follow on effects on project or work force was not enough to impede this type of roughshod pursuit of quarterly accounting numbers.
I mean, if you want "long term thinking", does that mean that WeWork is a better model than Boeing? Because people seem to hold it up as a failure of capitalism just as much.
A bond holder doesn't get paid their interest payment, it's a crisis. The government doesn't get the taxes due, it's a crisis. An employee doesn't get their paycheck, it's a crisis. Dividends are an "if we feel like it" thing. Many, many companies simply say "we have never paid any dividends and we may never pay any at all".
Stockholders by definition can only rely on the nebulous entire future of a company for stock value - either it will be sold some day for $X, or the dividends will total $X. That's a longer term perspective than anyone else has.
The only people they really care about and are accountable to are the shareholders and investors. And they want infinite profit at the sake of everything else. If you want to solve this problem then you need to remove them from the equation entirely because given enough time they will run a company into the ground and run away with the proceeds.