In addition to what tullius said:

Many people like an Econ-101 "free market", with perfect information, competition, and zero barriers to entry for competition or lock-in for customers. This never exists 100% in real life but often it's close enough. Here, not so. For aircraft construction, a specialized field with long lead times and expensive products, the barrier to entry is huge. So competition is thin.

Which is all a good argument for regulation, and why the FAA exists, maybe our aircraft safety standards need some updates.

This isn't exactly great for shareholder value either...

IMO, this is the system WAI: Boeing pushed the limits, had a high profile incident (in which injuries were minor), and is now reeling to rebuild their reputation with regulators and in the market.

Of course Boeing self-certifies planes. Who else is better equipped or incentivized to not fuck this up?

Oh I dunno, maybe the government agency that used to do it before regulatory capture became overt?

The FAA can't wave a magic wand and declare a jet safe, and frankly they never have. Air safety is now and always has been the result of collaboration between the FAA, aircraft manufacturers, and pilots.

The bolts in that door plug weren't installed; it was a one-off due to some maintenance work. Do you propose the FAA systemically review every bolt in an airplane before they declare it airworthy? Every third bolt? Every third bolt of every third plane?

At what point do you just accept that fundamentally, nobody other than Boeing has the resources to check that a plane is safe?

The party to blame here is Boeing. The FAAs job is not to make sure they never step out of line, it's to correct them when they _do_ step out of line.

The FAA is doing their job just fine - I'll remind you, again, that even flying on the 737 MAX is quite safe and you still run a higher risk of death on the drive to the airport than on the plane.

I mean that's a pretty solid take if you elide the raft of engineers at Boeing that have raised any number of concerns over the last few years. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that jazz...

There are always engineers raising concerns. The FAA is not funded to preemptively investigate companies with good safety records.

True, but perhaps it should be.

Plenty of people like free-ish markets with a moderate amount of regulation to prevent disasters, unsafe business practices, particularly blatant consumer or employee exploitation, etc.

I honestly think this is because the framing as "free market" is bullshit propaganda, just like anti union regulation is touted as "freedom to work" as if people are champing at the bit to be crushed by their employees and be exploited. The real term for conservative free markets is an unregulated market. The freedom in free markets is for corporations to do as they please