I learned about the dangers of spreading rumors from Veggie Tales when I was five. We all make mistakes, but there's really no excuse for peddling secondhand information when established facts are an internet search away at all times.

Good luck in life.

You could…correct your comment.

Does Russian journalists and political activists falling out of windows en masse tell you anything? Or would you say they were all experiencing mental health issues because there is otherwise no proof they were murdered?

I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

Under the 2021 deal, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing over allegations it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration so long as the company overhauled its compliance practices and submitted regular reports. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the investigation"

The 2.5 billion sound like a bribe to me, to avoid criminal charges. And Boeing thought that was enough, but it seems they did not assume that the FAA was also serious, that they still need to "overhaul its compliance practices and submitted regular reports".

I'm not aware of it ever happening before an indictment, either. People don't always know that they're under investigation, and, even if you know that you're being investigated, many (if not most) investigations don't end with indictments -- they're quietly dropped -- so it can be quite dangerous to do what you suggest, as it makes an indictment far more likely.

Every course of action is risky if you've done something illegal and the relevant authority is aware of it.

Whenever they have a temblor, buildings fall down, and people die.

There’s usually one or two high-profile prosecutions, with a lot of saber-rattling, but the hubbub dies down, pretty quickly, and it happens again, the next time there’s an earthquake.

And let’s not be under illusion that if my actions accidentally resulted in deaths of hundreds of people I would see any fresh air ever again

Also, don't fall under the spell of some absolute fairness of our current societies, of course ultra rich are treated differently than regular Joe (or ie former presidents, prime ministers, olympic gold medalists etc), at least until mass media gets in. And Boeing is a strategic military provider not only to US, more a typical 'too-big-to-fail' category.

And surely we know that society is not fair. That does not mean, we have to accept that.

Deferred prosecution should be eliminated and if a company is too big to fail then it should be nationalized and the execs should face prosecution.

The individual members will profit and some members even more.

Also note, that I did not claim it is a bribe, but that it sounds to me like this (as a non lawyer).

Because we are talking about potential manslaughter here.

To be honest it might have been just enough, since nothing was done. If they had been serious before, they would have planned some sort of check or control as a follow up to that 2021 decision, but they didn't.

But then doors started falling from the skies and people started to have questions about what kind of shoddy plane building they were allowing.

That's when the FAA started their investigations.

Boeing got unlucky in that sense. Had it been a flight out of Africa or Asia then I suspect regulators would still be turning a blind eye.

And there are a lot of them to charge. Start with the last two CEOs, add in the CEOs/COOs for Boeing Commercial aircraft, the test pilots, the program director(s) for the 737 Max, the engineers who designed MCAS and didn't add in any redundancy, and then move all the way down to the Spirit and Boeing employees cutting deadly corners on the production line.

Yes, this might be driven from a punishment thought of justice but it is important that there is an educational correction in the business to no longer calculate human life in terms of money which one may balance against.

"Just following orders" is not a valid excuse. Your manager being a piece of shit forcing you to skip on safety does not invalidate your guilt in skipping on safety.

A whole team circumventing the official process and forgetting to put back bolts they took out isn't something that can be brushed aside as "they were just pressured by management". They made a very serious mistake and all of them deserve at least a suspended sentence for it - it literally could have killed 100+ people.

A whole team of engineers designing a critical system that can crash a plane with optional redundant inputs on inputs that are known to get blocked/fail are irresponsible.

* An "everyone was doing it, and everyone knew" layer of junior employees aged 20 or so.

* An obfuscation layer, comprised of several levels of middle manager who regularly shift roles, companies and countries.

* An "I had no idea this was going on, and would have stopped it if I'd known" layer. This is the CEO and suchlike.

If the criminal behaviour comes to light, the top-layer employees pretend not to have known about it; the bottom-layer employees say (accurately) that everyone was doing it and they thought it was normal; and the middle layers split themselves between the two, relying on forgotten e-mails, miscommunications, and placing the blame on people who aren't around any more.

If the C-level knew, they were criminally culpable. If they didn't know, they were criminally negligent.

If it was your job to tighten the bolts and you didn't, that's one easy slam dunk coming your way. And they're right.

Any engineer with AoA failure information (which I assume in Boeing is an easily obtainable information) should have designed/reviewed/approved MCAS in a different way.

See the VW emissions case.

Documents get names and signatures for a reason.

Hell, I'm not anywhere close to aviation, just have an interest in it, and even I know that AoA sensors are prone to failure (relatively, for an aeronautics component), can easily get blocked by external stuff, and multiple crashes and accidents have happened due to that. It's nothing short of criminal negligence to design a system using only one.

That's why aviation has very strict reporting and documentation requirements, everything should be traceable. Of course Boeing failed at that too, with them being unable to say e.g. who actually worked on the famous missing bolts. Send them all to prison for egregious negligence, and maybe the other workers will start refusing to do subpar and deadly work.

In that kind of situation, it absolutely is a management responsibility.

> the engineers who designed MCAS and didn't add in any redundancy,

There is, but it's optional :))))

Validate the tests while knowing that they shouldn't. It's literally their main job, to confirm that the plane handles as it should.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/explo...

When your literal job is to test critical safety features, yes, you can be blamed for failing at it. Especially when people died because you knowingly failed at your job.

What's next, not blaming architects for designing an unstable building that crashes down? Not blaming a chemical factory's security inspector for OKing dumping of toxic waste into a river?

From experience with government contracts, aircraft certifications, and listening to directors speak, they will tell people whatever needs to be said to get the airplane to pass a final check to get a certification.

One exchange I overheard with some details changed: >you will get a warning light here but this is the end of the fiscal and we need to ship airplanes. It will break on landing then take one week to get the replacement part and we have the maintenance contract anyways. By then we will do the work to fix the issue before anyone else actually flies this aircraft. You can retest it before final delivery and you will also get a bonus or we have more test pilots who hate being drone pilots.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22727244/boeing-737-max-...

Test pilots have warned about this issue, we have emails proving it. Specific people have decided to release a dangerous plane, and those are people with decision making power higher up the food chain.

You could argue that the punishment is not harsh enough for deterrence, or not fast enough, but that's an issue with the government, not the market. Furthermore, the main reason why they are not more afraid of market repercussions is because they know the government needs them, they created a monopoly.

The system is mostly working as it should. The malicious players were found relatively quickly, through a mix of whistleblowing and the first relatively minor accidents getting a lot of attention (fourth estate and all).

Don't get me wrong, we need to keep making things better, there's so much work to do. But if the system were not working we would just have not heard about any of this and accidents would keep happening routinely while robber barons get filthy rich (literal violent monopolists, not plain billionaires), like 100 - 150 years ago.

So while there is some competition, the airline industry is very much controlled and regulated by government.

And here in particular there was a lot of failures in particular with the FAA allowing Boeing to self-regulate (when has that ever worked?) and then the DOJ failing to prosecute after the two deadly crashes.

It really seems like a systematic problem, not an exception to an otherwise healthy situation. Time and time again we see a lack of consequences to corporate greed when those actions are literally killing people.

You're quite correct that things are not as bad as during the robber barons era, but that is a pretty low bar. We can do much better.

In my anecdotal experience, the EU social-democratic model seems to be the most competent one right now specifically for this problem: more of these should be state-owned. Don't get me wrong, this is a crappy solution too, you are making a lot of sacrifices for it, but generally, these state-owned corporations do seem to be better at delivering critical services, and often (unintuitively) more efficiently than private ones.

My point was that this is not necessarily about "late-stage capitalism" (as I understand it), this was not a case of the open market harming society. Because indeed Boeing is a state-supported monopoly and that's the root of the issue, at least in theory capitalism abhors monopolies.

This happened because Boeing has both the duty to make the most money possible, and is protected by the government because they offer a critical service. There is something fundamentally broken in this incentive model. Either let them play in the open market and encourage competition, or make it non-profit and serve the state directly. A mix of both is a recipe for disaster.

My point was generally that the system (and specifically the current flavour of capitalism) is not fundamentally broken, it has the right shape of components and they are working roughly how they are supposed to, to balance each other. If it was broken, things would be way worse, as we have seen throughout history. But there's so much to improve.

I guess I am looking at it from a too wide lens. Sure things are working much better than they used to a century ago, such disasters were largely accepted as a normal cost of being productive, there was no system to correct them. But that's no excuse, I do agree with you, this Boeing mess was not acceptable, the system needs to do better.

>> Not really, it's just bad management

I believe the argument being made is that in "early-stage" capitalism a company could not afford that type of management, as it would immediately loose the market due to "true" competition and other "quality" options being available.

I think that the current version of capitalism is "working" (very relatively), exactly because there is substantial oversight from the government and the media, and there should be more.

An open and fair marketplace generally seems to be good at improving lives at scale. But I don't understand why so many people have this idea that it is a fundamental law of nature, that if you remove government intervention it will naturally become a more open and a more fair market.

An open and fair marketplace is quite artificial and needs so much enforcement to keep alive. Futhermore, even if it is good in general, there are a huge number of exceptional emergent behaviours that are bad and require intervention.

We clearly see from history that without oversight, the economy does not become an efficient market. It consolidates into rent-seeking monopolies, often defended and expanded by violence, controlled by an elite with a self-reinforcing long-lasting hold on power. In other words, different flavours of Feudalism, not always focused on land assets.

Capitalism is a birthday party and you're a present.

You'll notice that the capitalism detractors never advocate for greater capital management abilities. It is always to take away such ability so that they can feel less guilty about their choice in not wanting to manage capital. Can't really blame them. Managing capital truly does suck. But it is interesting nevertheless.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40787255

Capitalism allows private ownership of capital, just as (to introduce a comparison) you are allowed to have a birthday party, but you in no way have to participate. You can choose to forgo capital ownership entirely, you can hold public ownership with other people who wish to share in the ownership (e.g. co-ops), you can do just about anything you want. Even within the USA, you can find people doing all of those things.

What you probably cannot avoid is trade. I expect that this is what you really have in mind – it is oft confused with capitalism for some reason. Indeed, a human surviving in complete isolation from other humans without being able to share is an incredibly challenging feat, and, frankly, isn't realistic for anything more than a short period of time. Trade is not a feature of capitalism, though. Trade is something else, and is much more fundamental.

In reality, we all participate in capitalism. We all have to deal with this system, you can’t avoid it. It imposes its hierarchy on you from the day you are born, and getting out from under it is a lifelong endeavor. Nothing theoretical about the constant pressure coming from the top down. Maybe it’s not prescriptive of capitalism but you can’t deny it’s an emergent feature of the system, as if it’s an intended consequence. Cant really convince me at this point it’s not, sorry.

No I didn’t have trade in mind, listen to my words.

It is an emergent feature of trade. Realistically, there is always going to be someone who has something you want more than what they want from you, creating an imbalance. Trade and capitalism are not synonymous, though.

Consider the most primitive type of trade humans engage in: Sex. There is little question that the most sexually attractive "at the top" have way more power than those "at the bottom". People will fall over themselves for a chance to please the "hot girl" all while the "homely guy" doesn't even get the time of day. This is the same type of hierarchy that is featured in the larger discussion taking place here...

...Yet is not capitalism. If you do think that kind of sexual hierarchy is capitalism or a product of capitalism, you are not using a definition that aligns with any common usage. Sex appeal is not traditionally considered capital. Capitalism wasn't even invented when these human sexual dynamics came into existence.

> No I didn’t have trade in mind, listen to my words.

Your words are poorly chosen. I do my best to infer, but there is only so much to work with.

“Do better” with no extra object specified means the implied subject should improve with respect to itself. Grammar only requires an extra subject in instances such as “Do better than …”.

As a further example, someone talking to me might say “spend less time arguing with randoms on the Internet and performing other pointless pontification” and an listener/reader literate in the language being used would know not to need nor expect an extra subject to be specified.

You’re claiming that capitalism is “bad” because there’s a hypothetical you imagined where there could be better outcomes?

Everything is “bad” by that standard.

Eg, “Airplanes are bad because they don’t operate based on anti-gravity warp drives! If airplanes want to shake that reputation, they need to do better!”

…do you have any reason to believe better outcomes are actually possible?

Can you show the court, on the dolly, where dspillett said it was absolutely bad?

IIRC the closest I came to that was suggesting it had a reputation for doing some bad things.

Saying something can improve is not the same as saying it is absolutely bad in all imaginable ways, unless you live in a fantasy world where there is no “meh” only perfection and anti-perfection.

> do you have any reason to believe better outcomes are actually possible?

Not much, beyond a small and rapidly diminishing supply of hope!

Companies like to be treated like natural people when it suits them, but then when it comes to liability and accountability things conveniently don't apply.

Need to figure out how to do that without punishing the (presumably) innocent employees.

The thing is, companies are composed of people, and those people can just go to another company. Real people are composed of organs, but those organs can't just move to other bodies and commit the same crimes.

So, companies are just not people and the whole idea is stupid.

Corporate misbehaviour can be punished by fines, jail time for execs, and revocation of their business license - probably the closest thing to jail time

I agree that "corporate jail" doesn't make much sense, at least not in a direct analog to human jail. I think the closest you could come to "jailing" a corporation would be for the government to take temporary control of it, go through it with a fine-toothed comb to eliminate the corruption and malfeasance, and operate it for the benefit of the nation as a whole for a specified period of time, then re-privatize it in some manner as long as it wasn't some kind of a natural monopoly or necessity of modern life.

You need a bulletproof judiciary, that can rule fairly on which companies are taken over and which aren't, and all sorts of checks and balances to ensure that the government can't just abuse this ability to nationalize all the things.

Even though I proposed the idea of putting companies in jail, I was doing it tongue in cheek.

Ultimately fines are probably the only way to go. But the fines must be big enough in order to ensure it's an effective deterrent. It must hurt the company enough that it cannot just be considered the cost of doing business.

If a company is fined enough that it must actually close down/declare bankruptcy, then that's probably the few eggs you need to break in order to make the omelette I guess. A bunch of presumably innocent employees might be hurt by this decision, but overall it's for the greater good.

That's goofy.

Asking for a friend.

This is a case of American regulators putting an American company's business interests above safety. If it had been a foreign aircraft manufacturer, I doubt the FAA would have waited to ground the planes.

https://www.si.com/tennis/2023/03/29/peng-shuai-wta-principl...

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/chinas-sacked-fo...

I don’t know what is the name for this faulty programming but it is very disturbing. I guess this is some kind of default behaviour of nationalism?

Imagine that you live in a country where everyone is corrupt and everyone lies. If you don't lie you're an idiot.

Then you read news about horrible US government failures. If the problems are so large that they cannot possibly keep lying and they openly admit to their failures, then what fucked up things still are there that they don't admit to doing? China at least manages to keep it shush. Therefore, whatever they do, shit at least doesn't hit the fan.

It's very difficult to imagine that a different society might have different standards regarding things such as transparency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanlu_Group

"On 22 January 2009, Tian was sentenced to life imprisonment, while other Sanlu executives received sentences of five to fifteen years. Two other men were sentenced to death"

Changsheng Biotech Vaccine Scandal (2018): The chairwoman of Changsheng Biotech, Gao Junfang, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Kanghui Pharmaceutical Case (2007): The general manager, Ni Chunlin, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Case (2006): The factory director received a 7-year prison sentence.

Shanghai Hualian Pharmaceutical Case (2007): Two executives were sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment).

They aren't death sentences due to messing up airplanes due to mismanagement or cost cutting, but actually poisoning people on a mass scale or knowingly making bad drugs.

It's not comparable. Those things are more like the Sackler opioid case.

A couple of hundreds dead due to bad engineering is better than outright poisoning people by substitutions or killing people on a mass scale with bad drugs.

In the Chinese cases I mentioned, the executives did not personally kill people. They only committed fraud, which put millions at risk of death when using their inferior products, which is comparable to what Boeing did.

The executives intentionally and knowingly committed fraud, which put anyone at risk when they fly in a 737 Max (millions of people per year). It was not the engineers fault. The engineers and quality inspectors concerns were ignored by management. The executives prioritized stock price over safety. I am not exaggerating when I say the executives committed fraud. That is the view of federal prosecutors.

In total 346 people died, and there would have been more deaths if the entire global fleet were not grounded for several years by international regulators. It's not just the Max. Anyone who flies in any Boeing aircraft is at risk if the company is committing fraud at this scale.

Current stock owners will loose half their value (which is a good enough punishment for this lack of oversight), the state will have access to privileged company information which will allow the prosecution of human responsibles, top executives will be sacked (and their comp reduced by half since their comp is in stocks) and maybe the company will start on good base again.

I'm not opposed to this. But I think our corporations should be regulated by the government, not by shareholder oversight.

After all, shareholders are essentially powerless in the current system. Each individual shareholder's power is far too dilute, many people owning shares through pension funds don't even know they're shareholders, the minority shareholders have no way to contact each other to coordinate, and it's completely normal for the likes of Apple to spend billions on secret projects and the shareholders to only find out after the fact.

Hell, Google even has three classes of shares - one with no voting rights, one with 1x voting rights, and a special class with 10x voting rights for Larry and Sergei ensuring they have a majority of the votes even without majority ownership.

If we think shareholders are supposed to be providing oversight to companies, they need vastly more power to do so.

Not exactly true. And both the institutional shareholders and ultra-rich shareholders have the experience, resources, and connections to police corporate behavior far more tightly than they usually do...

But why should they bother policing behavior, when the maximum penalty for malfeasance has been wrist-slaps? (And similar for the banks and bond markets which large corporations rely upon.)

Vs. if the major investors knew that major corporate malfeasance could and likely would cost them $billions - they might very quickly grow more active and assertive, the Boards which they elected would not be passive rubber-stampers, and corporate executives would face regular hard scrutiny.

But all that would be real work. Vs. hiring lobbyists and schmoozing politicians, to make sure the maximum penalty is "wrist slap", is far easier.

They really don't, at least not in the case of index fund investors like Vanguard and BlackRock. Have you ever read about their operations? They run a very lean ship. The only reason you're able to invest in index funds with 0.005% fees is because they have essentially nobody on staff, at least compared with the number of companies they invest in. They definitely can't do the kind of investigation and policing you're talking about without radically changing their pricing

(and if they did do that, a competitor would come in offering to skip the inspections and go back to 0.005% fees, the money would flow there in droves, and we'd be right back where we started. The fundamental issue here is that passive investors don't care and you can't make them care.)

But that is quite different that saying that the Indexes & ETF's would for-sure sit on the sidelines if some more-active large shareholders were pushing a credible plan to force better behavior down the throats of a major corporation's C-suite. And the Indexes & EFT's backing such a measure - which effectively costs them 0.00000% to do - would likely prove the critical thumb sign from the Imperial Box.

I would be grateful if you could elaborate on this. Is this a strategy for a fund to make money that I don’t understand?

> The only reason you're able to invest in index funds with 0.005% fees is because they have essentially nobody on staff, at least compared with the number of companies they invest in. They definitely can't do the kind of investigation and policing you're talking about without radically changing their pricing

I think this is exactly what needs to happen. Why should passive investing pay off? The vast amount of 401k money that has poured into the stocks behind the S&P 500 with no strings attached has incentivized a lot of bad behavior and made just about every US citizen with a retierment account complicit. Bad corporate behavior _should_ hurt the bottom line of the owners; it _should_ cost more to invest; investors (all of us) _should_ worry about whether a mutual fund is protecting their investment by divesting from companies that engage in criminal recklessness; our government _should_ disincorporate companies that put lives at risk, especially when those companies are major defense contractors.

On a tangent, I also think monarchy results in better management of the asset that is the country than democracy. The leader is there for life, the country is his sole property and thus incentivized to improve it and views the country as his life's work. (Obviously there are plenty of exceptions.) On the other hand, democratical leaders more often than not tend to view presidency as a means to acquire wealth, lifetime immunity, power and reputation in a short amount of time. Once elected for a term, they can engage in however much legal corruption they want, they'll be gone in a few years anyways. The POTUS poses an exception in that the country itself is a monarch and a hegemon over the rest of the world. Meanwhile especially third world countries, but even developed countries like Canada and many in the Europe have presidents promising the heaven in the election season and keep being as corrupt as last president once they are elected.

Draw the parallels with Venture Capital, board directors and whatever else you want.

Obviously. The history of monarchy is full of bad heirs, succession crises and aristocratic disputes over legitimacy. Under monarchy, you don't get a say in the fact that your king is AEthelred Unraed, Tarquinus Superbus, George III, Ivan Grozny, or Leopold II. Say what you will about republican systems, they have their own issues. But monarchy, as a system, is just an absolutely miserable form of government. I wouldn't dream of trading the flawed republic that aspires to respect my rights for the caprice of a monarch. I don't know where you got your romantic ideas about monarchy from, but, my friend, read some history!

If (and I understand this is a huge "if") this kind of action was more common, you might think twice before investing into any companies that run a serious risk of direct government interaction to protect the public.

What you are suggesting will instead lead to a downward spiral of investor confidence in investing in American companies, and letting other world powers dominate in key tech areas of strategic interest where investors have more confidence and dont have to worry about gov punishing shareholders with no voting rights by taking away their shares

These kinda ideas often seem to originate from a place of revenge or vengeance on someone folks feel is responsible (here its ‘shareholders’)

Better to just install more government oversight (instead of more regulation) improve transparency, amend whistleblower laws to prevent retaliations that boeing did, etc.

Those are much more important and useful for this country.

Imagine there are two planemakers, each has a computer system to record when they removed the door bolts. One company uses it 95% of the time while the other uses it 100% of the time.

For the market to assign a different price to those companies, shareholders have to be able to tell which is which.

Investors cannot tell. The official reports don't include anything that wasn't officially reported. People who know first-hand have insider information, and are forbidden from trading on it. Shareholders have no power to enter the assembly floor and carry out spot checks. And "independent" auditors like Accenture are even bigger clowns than Boeing themselves.

I get that the idea of self-correcting markets are very appealing. But there are a ton of situations where they don’t work or don’t fix all of the problems they cause. Those situations are under the general umbrella of market failures. This particular market failure would probably be classified as adverse selection or more general information asymmetry.

I'm saying that when a corpo breaks laws (don't follow regulations and lie about it), the fines need to substantially hit their shareholders, so that shareholders are generally aligned with following regulations and will demand additional diligence. Otherwise the game will be as it is - commercial aviation is highly regulated, but Boeing is so big that the fines don't matter to them or their owners (i.e. shareholders).

1. Punishing shareholders doesn’t sufficiently discourage corporate management. They are usually fine even if the stock price takes a hit. The fact that corporate management may not act in the best interests of shareholders is a known example of the Principal-Agent Problem.

2. Shareholders might not know that bad behavior is happening, and even if they do, we want to discourage bad behavior that regulators might not find out about, and before it happens.

3. Many investors are not actively investing, but using robo investing services like Vanguard for their 401k. That means that even if you’re technically an “investor” you’re not actively investigating companies for fraud.

In particular, just in your comment, you name the planemakers—Airbus and Boeing—and the "independent" auditors.

If there were two dozen different companies manufacturing planes, all of which were required to comply with the same regulations, and two dozen different major auditing companies, the chances of any given manufacturer getting away with this level of illegal corner-cutting for any length of time drop precipitously. At the same time, the costs of doing so rise, as it becomes much, much easier for the US government and various airlines to cut a manufacturer out of their contracts the next time they come up.

Why? Just criminally charge and fine them into bankruptcy. This wipes out shareholders and lets the creditors—the government would be a big one, on account of the fine—reorganise the company and review all the books and records in a legally precedents venue.

Everyone keeps trying to invent new mechanisms for what fines and bankruptcy already do.

See the tiny fine the government handed the cellular providers for selling user data

Generally speaking, I don't think it is. If you own a significant stake, you should be worried about jailtime. It's no different than if your dog bites someone.

Fifth Amendment says no. I'm not even an American and I know that will never fly. The US is not China, which very much can and does do this.

It's not actually necessary either! There's plenty of scope for fines and compliance orders. Heck, the US government could even ban them as a supplier, putting them out of business .. if there was another plane company in the US.

The whole fiasco is the fault of wrongly approving the creation of a US plane monopoly in the merger with McDonnell-Douglas.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Final clause.

(this is why unrelated sub-clauses should be numbered, not just appended with semicolons)

They can be fined into bankruptcy and effective non-existence, the executives can go to jail, but no, Boeing can't be seized because we have rule of law.

Edit: I'm pretty sure if a company started selling cocaine in the US, something would happen to seize and stop that company.

That only follows to the extent that there isn't currently a law saying that a corporation can be seized due to massive malfeasance. If we passed a law providing for that as a punishment (or if there's already one on the books that fits, that you and I just aren't aware of) in clearly defined circumstances (or as clearly defined as such things ever are), then there would be no problem; it's not like there's a Constitutional right to never lose your corporation.

Powers of expropriation are the stuff of Communist dictatorships. "We don't do that here."

...as we have both just been saying...

> and any such law, would, thankfully, be unconstitutional.

[Citation needed]

If the government can liquidate assets used in a crime, then if "Boeing" commits crimes, it follows that the government should be able to liquidate Boeing, because the entire company is an asset, and the ones committing the crimes are, in any meaningful sense, the people in charge of Boeing. Using that asset. To commit the crimes.

Given that, it seems to be a pretty huge stretch to claim that seizing such a company, and operating it (especially temporarily) for the public benefit, in order to both deny access to the fruits of the crime to its perpetrators, and prevent further such crimes, would be unconstitutional. It would also be massively less wasteful and destructive to the economy and the lives of the many innocent people working there to simply change out the criminal leadership for government-appointed caretakers rather than sell it all off.

Again: I'm not saying there are any laws on the books that would permit this. I just think the idea that it is prohibited by the Constitution is utterly unsupported and, at best, an extraordinary claim.

The combination of the Fifth Amendment takings clause and the Eighth Amendment excessive fines clause. The government can fine Boeing what we would consider a lot of money (perhaps even into the billions), but expropriation isn't permitted in the United States. If they want the rest of the company they can eminent domain it but that involves paying the shareholders market value (after decades of litigation).

Not that either, for a company as large as Boeing, because of the Eighth Amendment excessive fines clause.

I 100% agree about numbering them.

Even though it will harm shareholders, they still have a responsibility in attempting to limit the behavior. (Although from the boards perspective they'll claim they can do anything as long as they're there)

Just like the unread targets in Wells Fargo, nobody asks for the fraudulent behavior by name, but the incentives often make it inevitable.

not only the internal structure of the firm, but the legal framework in which firms operate, not to mention the cultural mythology situating it all

diffusion of responsibility as one of the defining characteristics of the modern era

In olden times, the monarch's wealth was the state's wealth, and vice-versa.

CEOs being shareholders has a similar problem, in that the only monetary punishment possible against the collective necessarily also harms those with no power to prevent the actions which were punished because it's not a democracy.

(One dollar one vote != one person one vote; also the workforce generally, not sure about Boeing in particular, have minimal to zero shares/votes).

For this reason, I favour a degree of personal responsibility for management all the way from line managers to the board… and for government officials all the way from parking inspectors to presidents.

The details of such a system to make it fair and balanced are an entire constitution, not something I'd be qualified to write, and definitely to big to fit into this comment.

Most monarchies at least pretended to separate the state and privy purses, FYI.

Considering how tight boeing is with the government, which scenario is more realistic? :)

As will this comment thread. We saw the same rhetoric on Holmes and Bankman-Fried. Once they were charged it was obvious they’d get off. Once convicted that they’d get a light sentence. Once sentenced that they’d have their sentences shortened, et cetera.

It’s a lazy learned helplessness that’s always potentially right because it feeds into a type of cynicism that has always been part of human nature in every culture since the beginning of history.

The gp's key argument for Boeing is based on the "Too Big To Fail" idea. I.e. Boeing's deep relationship with the government.

So far in this subthread, nobody has actually engaged with that specific part of his argument. Mentioning Theranos Holmes and FTX SBF who are _not_ deeply intertwined with the government like Boeing isn't really a counter to that.

The cynicism comes from previous "too big to fail" situations such as 2008 Financial Crisis and nobody from Goldman Sachs, etc going to prison for fraud. Fines and financial settlements as punishments -- yes. But jail time for those bank executives -- no.

It points to a subtle part of gp's comment I think replies are overlooking which is "corporation" vs "employees":

- Boeing Inc the corporate entity may be criminally charged and found guilty. The corporation then pays punitive fine or settlement.

vs

- actual Boeing employees are found guilty and sent to jail. Gp's "this will go nowhere" frustration is based on this scenario which history has shown to be very unlikely to happen.

These are two separate concepts and you’re right, nobody has directly addressed them. Let me try.

Too big to fail “is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the greater economic system, and therefore should be supported by government when they face potential failure” [1]. A key part to it is financial institutions can’t meaningfully go bankrupt, they don’t materially have tangible assets, they just fail. (It’s why bad banks go into receivership.)

Boeing is not a bank. It, like the auto manufacturers, can go bankrupt without threatening its production. (GM and Chrysler went bankrupt [2].)

Put succinctly, Boeing is NOT too big to fail.

It does, however, have a deep and diverse relationship with government. It has, by design, employees in every Congressional district. And it’s strategically important to the U.S. and its allies. (It’s also got an industrial-strength wheel-greasing slate of suppliers.)

That broad base of employees protects the plants. But as we’ve already seen, financial failure and even prosecution of senior leadership doesn’t blow up the plants. The strategic importance, meanwhile, is a two-edged sword. Boeing has power because it’s useful. Not only is that usefulness preserved through reörganisation, but if someone can claim it’s increased through it, that becomes a source of weakness. (Nobody cares if Chik-fil-a is mismanaged. They do when Boeing creates a national embarrassment at the ISS.)

The only part that remains is the wheel greasing [3]. In this, Boeing is far from unique. It’s also quite unprotective against financial failure. Because, again, the wheels stay on if Boeing is reörganised. That may not be true if it continues on its current path.

Especially as we’re lining up for a potential war in the South China Sea, Boeing’s military-industrial ties may be what forces those who’d prefer to look the other way to stare down the problem. We can’t win that war, if we have to fight it, with Boeing a shitshow. And we’re more likely to have to fight it every time Beijing sees it’s a shitshow.

So yes, Boeing does have a deep relationship with government. But that doesn’t protect it from criminal prosecution or financial failure, and in some cases, may encourage the people pining for its reörganisation.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_2008%E2%80%93...

[3] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/05/revolving-door-lobb...

> Especially as we’re lining up for a potential war in the South China Sea, Boeing’s military-industrial ties may actually be what forces those who’d prefer to look the other way to stare down the problem. We can’t win that war, if we have to fight it, with Boeing a shitshow. And we’re more likely to have to fight it every time Beijing sees it’s a shitshow.

So this is a very interesting question, but it's not clear to me whether it can be resolved until the shooting actually starts. WW2 was a huge driver for fixing broken things (USN torpedoes didn't work reliably at the start, for example, in ways that only appeared under live conditions!). The Iraq war was on the other hand a huge opportunity for grift. Pallets of dollar bills vanished. Someone made a lot of money from non-functional mine detectors.

What's the difference? Well, the Iraq and Afghan wars were completely irrelevant and invisible to the Homeland, just a money and lives sink shown on TV, while WW2 kicked off with a bit of Actual America (Hawaii) being bombed.

The China war will probably have no real effects on the US until the GPUs stop arriving, at which point most of NVIDIA's $3tn market cap vanishes and Americans feel it in their retirement accounts. Then, and only then, will people take it seriously enough to overcome corruption.

Correct. But that’s still bankruptcy. It wipes out the shareholders and lets the creditors, which presumably includes the government, reörganise the company as it sees fit.

(I’d start with cleaving BDS from the rest of Boeing.)

> it's not clear to me whether it can be resolved until the shooting actually starts

Do you have a source on the torpedo story? Hadn’t heard that one before, and it sounds fun.

I recently read about how “the US went into [WWII] with fewer carriers than the Japanese, it was the US that was almost out of carriers in the Pacific in late 1942, and the US that had suffered the larger percentage of carrier losses—not the Japanese” [1]. We still won, as the author puts it, not with “the fleet that [we] started the war with,” but “the fleet that [we] ended it with.” How? Because “by December 8, 1941, the United States had already undergone 3 cycles of investment in only 8 years, with the last being one of the largest peace-time defense investments in US history.”

Put another way, it’s not clear we can wait until the shooting starts. What’s germane to this discussion is less whether that is true, but whether those in government with power over Boeing believe it is.

> China war will probably have no real effects on the US until the GPUs stop arriving

I’m not sure. Unless we try to fight it à la Ukraine, and it’s unclear that’s even an option, I expect the opening moves will involve the deaths of American soldiers. That brings it closer to “a bit of Actual America (Hawaii) being bombed.” (I assume a strike on a CVN would incur similar emotions, though that’s just a guess.)

[1] https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-and-deterrence-in...

Classic example of "anything inadqeuately tested turns out not to work": the torpedoes were "too expensive" to test in realistic scenarios. So they weren't. That meant a cascade of problems - wrong depth, early magnetic detonation, failed impact detonation - all of which showed up in live fire as "miss", which could be blamed on individual commanders until the problem became too big to ignore.

There's a very high chance that something which is a critical fancy weapons system that has not been used in anger will turn out not to work in actual combat.

I don't dispute your overall point, but I don't think this is right.

I couldn't read your source without a signup, so I went looking around. According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/1353080/wwii-japan-us-ai... the Japanese lost 14 carriers in the war, and ended with 18 in service, so they lost 14 out of 32. The US lost 5 and ended with 34 in service, so it lost 5 out of 39. That's really hard to turn into "the US suffered the larger percentage of carrier losses".

As I said, I don't disagree with your overall point.

As to the torpedo story: IIRC, there were two problems. The torpedoes themselves had an issue. I don't recall exactly, but it may have been that they didn't run at the depth they were supposed to. The second problem was the detonators. They didn't trigger if they hit square on, but only if they hit at an angle. So the better the shot on a ship, the less likely the torpedo was to actually explode. They didn't get consistently working torpedoes until September 1943.

Honestly worth the sign-up, but here you go in the meantime [1]. (Never mind, Substack got smarter.)

The greater loss ratio claim is limited to aircraft carriers in 1942. America lost as carriers as Japan that year and wound up the year in worse shape, numerically, despite Midway. What got us through wasn’t a decisive naval battle in June of ‘42 but the production infrastructure laid down in the decade prior. We built our way out of the hole, because in attritional war, stocks are less important than flows.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240611165959/https://phillipsp...

> in attritional war, stocks are less important than flows.

Yeah. And a prolonged war turns into an attritional war. And the US isn't in a great place for that right now.

One good thing about the Ukraine war is that it pointed this out to the US, now, while we're not directly involved.

>[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail

Dissecting the origin of "too big to fail" and the wikipedia cite isn't relevant to gp's argument because many journalists/observers in media already use "too big to fail" to characterize companies like Boeing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+%22too+big+to+fail%22

In other words, the "too big to fail" meme has already expanded beyond banking's original usage.

If you pay closer attention to HN and manage to read the comments before they are flagged and deleted, you will see some excellent points which are bound to piss off the people in power with powerful connections.

There’s a concerted multi-prong effort to muddy, confuse, silence, downvote and flag perfectly decent points made from perfectly decent people on HN.

HN is a sitting duck which cannot protect itself from being tampered with by a full-time influence group with a single agenda.

It’s unfortunate when interesting conversation is being clearly stifled by a particular entity.

Your counterargument is there are memes that say Boeing is TBTF, Q.E.D.?

I wasn't making any counterargument.

I can 100% agree with you that TBTF originally associated with the banking industry but simultaneously show that this isn't the meaning that others are using for Boeing. This seems like an obvious fact from a neutral viewpoint of seeing how language usage evolves (e.g. see the google examples) so not sure why stating it is controversial.

But that’s why it’s wrong. TBTF only works because financial institutions are built on confidence. You can’t reboot them through bankruptcy.

Boeing can be put into bankruptcy to facilitate reörganisation without causing ripple effects. (Like GM and Chrysler were.) TBTF as a general-purpose meme fundamentally doesn’t work.

Boeing has already lost some of this trust with the issues in the consumer aviation sector, but the space and defense side of Boeing is still going strong. A bankruptcy could risk Boeing's space and defense lines.

One big fault here is with Boeing's board. Boards are supposed to control the short-term greed of executives and protect stock value. Boeing's board should do a prophylactic firing of the C-suite (replace the CEO with someone who will fire the rest), putting the engineers back in charge, but I doubt they will do that.

Yes, all commerce involves confidence. The difference with banks is both sides of their balance sheet are not only entirely confidence based, they’re leveraged to the hilt on it.

Boeing can lose and re-gain confidence. (Albeit, at great risk.) A bank can’t; if it ever loses it, even momentarily, it fails. That is a dynamic that has increased as our world grew more interconnected, a dynamic we failed to fully appreciate until ‘08.

> bankruptcy could risk Boeing's space and defense lines

How? Worst case, guarantee BDS’s obligations as part of the bankruptcy.

Put another way: does restructuring threaten their defence line more than the status quo? I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s a valid question. (I’m familiar with their space lone and am halfway to writing it off.)

> big fault here is with Boeing's board

Totally agree. They seem clueless, more afraid of the bark than the bite.

I'll give you that defense is not in the same league as banking if you'll give me that defense is not in the same league as SaaS (even enterprise/F500 SaaS). By the way, defense companies do get a lot of leverage based on their federal contracting lines. It's 2024, a bank can get you leverage on a ham sandwich, and companies are usually pretty big users of it (they are encouraged to be).

> Put another way: does restructuring threaten their defence line more than the status quo? I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s a valid question. (I’m familiar with their space lone and am halfway to writing it off.)

Yes. Defense contracts in general cannot be awarded to firms in bankruptcy or that have been in bankruptcy in the last 5-10 years. That is because financial solvency threatens acquisition timelines, and in a bankruptcy, anything can happen.

Sure, though I’m not sure what leagues we’re talking about.

> defense companies do get a lot of leverage based on their federal contracting lines

Circle back when they’re financing a $4tn of assets on $300bn equity and $2.4tn of ultra-short term liabilities [1].

> Defense contracts in general cannot be awarded to firms in bankruptcy or that have been in bankruptcy in the last 5-10 years

Is this in statute or a rule? Does the contract officer have any discretion?

> in a bankruptcy, anything can happen

Government contracts are decently protected in bankruptcy, e.g. via the Anti Assignment Act.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/JPM/balance-sheet/

Going so strong that:

* The USAF really hates Boeing for pulling some Serious Legal Assfuckery(tm) to drop Airbus for the tanker program, only to then fail to provide tankers that can pump gas.

* They've failed to secure all but one fighter program sale, and that was only because Lockheed Martin (F-35) succeeded so hard they couldn't succeed any harder.

* They were laughed out of the bomber program, especially after the tanker failures.

* They keep crashing V-21 Ospreys, their most recent episode resulting in nationwide groundings in the US and Japan that were only recently cleared.

* The Starliner is increasingly looking unfit for human occupation.

The only reason Boeing is relevant in space and defense anymore is sheer inertia.

Indeed, criminally charging upper management hardly counts as the business “failing” at all.

Not for nothing, but Bankman's exposure was 110 years. He got 25 and that is after a massive public outcry, due to glove treatment resulting in him[2] and his parents[3], apparently, trying to derail investigation. Normally, as I understand it, the system would clamp down on anyone trying to subvert it. So the guy did get a light sentence given the circumstances.

Holmes I had less exposure to so I don't want to rely on just search engine since I am not sure what I am looking for.

<< It’s a lazy learned helplessness that’s always potentially right

I would argue that it shows simple pattern recognition. Some of us are just tired and therefore cynical. Join my podcast to go over trending ww3 news.

[1]https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/samuel-bankman-fried-sentence... [2]https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/27/sam-bankman-fried-tried-to-i... [3]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/11/sam-bankm...

Plenty of people comprehend it, from the JCoS through the GAO.

> If they go down, so does our country. It's that simple.

Sure. The same isn’t true about Boeing going bankrupt. (Bankruptcy doesn’t, like, blow up the factories.)

Part of the system’s vastness is its ability to survive some heads rolling.

Bankruptcy? There's indirectly trillions of dollars on the line if Boeing goes bankrupt. This is why I'm telling you, nothing significant will happen. Don't be an contrarian, just think about it. "Too Big to Fail", it's a real thing bud.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are literally above those compartments [1].

> No one person or internal unit can truly understand the inner workings of this machine

But they do! Not down to every nut and bolt. But we can say that about, like, a modern gaming console.

> indirectly trillions of dollars on the line if Boeing goes bankrupt

No? Silicon Valley tends to be naïve on how precise bankruptcy can be. Boeing going bankrupt doesn’t mean every supplier fails.

> Don't be an contrarian, just think about it

I assume you’re also personally familiar with the leadership of multiple Boeing suppliers?

I’m not saying that to dismiss you, but to give pause to your thinking anyone who disagrees with you just hasn’t thought.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff

Wat. I said Boeing is comprehensible and able to be held accountable. I also think they should, and will be, criminally charged, and that those charges carry material risk of bankruptcy. You, on the other hand, cast Boeing as a mythical beast unable to be comprehended much less checked.

We’re not discussing war and peace. But between those arguments, I’m not sure how you execute this pivot.

In a Boeing bankruptcy, roughly $100b of its paper money market cap may be "wiped out" (but for the company to go bankrupt that paper money would have to be worthless anyways), but the factories would keep producing. No "trillions" are on the line, even in that extreme case.

The company and its assets don't just evaporate when some executives go to prison.

If you’re intentionally mis-using the term WMDs your comment is in bad faith.

Anyway i was thinking more along the lines of fighter jets, etc…but then i realized that Lockheed manufactures most of the new advanced jets.

And point taken regarding bombs.

Military industrial complex takes down the USA?

Stop hyperventilating John Oliver’s talking points and look into the numbers.

Each big military contractor is a public company. You can read their detailed financial reports online, for free, right now.

The big ones range from 50B-120B each. At best they all add up to about 1T - absolutely nothing compared to total US wealth.

Yes, but why would they collapse? General Motors also had a web of suppliers when it went bankrupt. Preserving the value of a struggling company while it reörganises is why we invented modern bankruptcy.

B) it's still lazy learned helplessness

Source? I sort of pay attention to it, and it seems a lot of folks are still hoping it solves itself.

And I doubt that Boeing will ever be given a cost-plus contract ever again.

No they don’t.

> not exactly difficult for them to arrange a Mossad hit on your whole family

Go outside more.

But you are merely speculating based on nothing where my speculation is actually based on something.

Kettle to the pot much?

> my speculation is actually based on something

No, it is not. Especially right now, Mossad attempting a hit in Europe or America could literally mean the end of its existence as an organisation. Also, Mossad doesn’t do hits to protect beleaguered American companies.

Boeing is currently at the mercy of multiple forces in this country. It’s fighting for survival and it knows it. That might make some idiot executives personally desperate. But nobody in power is going to stick their necks out for it.

This isn’t just an “American company” like Starbucks or MacDonalds.. this “company” supplies the missiles used in the war against Gaza.

You trying to downplay Boeing into just an American company is utterly naive.

And your speculation that they would not perform a hit on anyone in Europe or the USA… you have a positive outlook on the world. But lets play a little devils advocate here - ‘if’ they were capable to do that, do you think the USA Govt would end their relationship with Israel as a result?

You tell me to “go out more”, maybe you should take off your rose tinted glasses already.

Sure? To be clear, you think Mossad will carry out a hit in America…to keep American missiles supplied to Israel? Because Boeing going bankrupt or being criminally prosecuted somehow ends its production lines?

> downplay Boeing into just an American company is utterly naive

You’re off the deep end if you think Boeing is controlled by foreign interests. Of course its affairs are global. But its control is not.

> ‘if’ they were capable to do that, do you think the USA Govt would end their relationship with Israel as a result?

No, of course not. But we’d force a change in government and significant weakening of Israeli sovereignty. Israel would also see a hit to its economy, which its rich and powerful don’t want, if you need a conspiratorial spin.

Same way we’re still trading with India, but we’ve demanded—and are getting—accountability at home and abroad for New Delhi’s recent nonsense with the Khalistan independence folks. (Except due to the Gaza war, the reaction would be much more severe. Jerusalem would go from having support on the right and centre to centre only, maybe not even that for a bit.)

There is no world in which Mossad coming out for Boeing makes sense for Mossad. Certainly not right now.

> maybe you should take off your rose tinted glasses already

Go out more. Seriously, a walk in the sun can do wonders.

I once spoke with someone very high up in the UK criminal underworld 15-20 years ago. The real deal. Complete with the cliche of having umpteen lap-dancing clubs. He explained that majority of ‘hits’ are actually about favours for each other. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back kind of thing. It was an interesting revelation which stuck with me. He even explained their surprising methods of hit opsec - but that’s another story for another day. It wasn’t something I was impressed by, just curious of.

Back scratching happens, no matter for the underworld of crime or the folk running the show at the top.

I am guessing the rose-tinted glassed comment got your back up, yeah?

Right, what you’re describing are cartel and corrupt law-enforcement dynamics in the U.S.

> Back scratching happens, no matter for the underworld of crime or the folk running the show at the top

Yes, but it takes different forms.

How did the last Boeing CEOs’ Mossad connections work out? Or the number of defence contractors over the past thirty years that have failed and/or been acquired at fire-sale prices?

“Mossad will kill anyone for Boeing!”

“No they won’t - that’s crazy and here’s why”

“I once spoke with a mobster about assassination”

Now those fair comments have been flagged, no-one will be able to verify your fakery (clever, but you are still trash for it - hopefully a moderator will ban your account)

I will give the benefit of the doubt ;)

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

But if you're top dog, would you want your flunkies making bad guns (just an example) when your country is concerned about a potential war with a peer?

No, you'd put them in line.

Everyone likes to point to the McDonnell Douglas acquisition as Boeing’s downfall but the truth is that Boeing executives had already gutted the company.

You’re leaning into the antisemitic conspiracy thinking a little hard.

That sort of approach undermines creating real consensus to root out kleptocracy.

Totally not antisemitic /s

I am interested in learning more on why IDF has deep ties to Boeing. Such a small country, how is it that it has captured so many behemoths. Should we just ignore this rather strange structural phenomena in geopolitics and national interest (speaking as an American here ..)?

In fact the entire world is curious to know exactly who is the premier "ally" in this strange US-Israel alliance. Who is the boss, an inquiring American wants to learn.

And by antisemitism, not a new or novel of antisemitism or something. This is actually the SAME type of antisemitism which has captivated large amounts of the world hardly three generations ago. It appears to be coming back in big way.

This is precisely the issue. A legitimate question as to 'what are the mechanics of this relationship?' and you have wholesale invented an "attributing malicious intentions"? Where did you read that in my post?

I would think that the label would be reserved for statements against the Semitic peoples, based on their heritage and culture? Not the overtly corrupt and often internationally illegal actions of their government?

It’s a very dangerous idea to put a nuclear capable nation above criticism.

I couldn't give a damn about the religion or the culture. But Israel government apparatus scares the shit out of me

Gaza becoming a humanitarian tragedy on the scale it has is largely enabled by Israel being largely above criticism.

I don’t know what the best solution is to the Israel/Palestine conflict, but I doubt it includes dropping 2000 lb bombs on civilian infrastructure. I support the eradication of HAMAS because I believe they are not only inimical to Isreal but also to the Palestinian people they claim to “protect “.

It’s perfectly clear by now that Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice every Palestinian life to meet their political goals, which are not well aligned with the Palestinian people. However, Indiscriminate measures do nothing to abate the conflict, only to fuel it. Bombing civilians is the best recruiting tool that Hamas has. To bereaved Palestinian families, the war sells itself.

I shudder to think that indeed, the Israeli government knows this. It follows then that this recruitment effect is probably not an undesirable side effect, but rather an intentional goal.

I think this shares some commonality with the trickle-treatment of Ukrainian military support from the USA. We are best served by a slow, agonizing, expensive if not catastrophic defeat of Russian military capability. A quick win would not be a win for America, or for NATO. Unfortunately, this means that Ukrainian soil will be fortified with blood for decades.

I think for Isreal, the situation may be similar. Under the current playbook, “Winning” in Gaza means killing every person that can be induced to fight. This is distinct from breaking public support for HAMAS. It is a genocidal extermination of every person with a will to fight, through what amounts to a systematic process of provocation.

That said, while I don’t agree with the methodology, I do understand the reasoning and agree that the goals can be seen as worthwhile if not necessarily worth the cost of achievement.

The gp wasn't being logically inconsistent if you see the rhetorical structure of his comment: anticipate and pre-emptively state the counterpoint and then counter that counterpoint.

- predict other side's possible counterpoint : "But Ebay execs went to jail"

- counter that counterpoint : "Yes but Ebay is smaller company that's not deeply interconnected with the government"

- gp's conclusion: Ebay situation is different enough that it is not proof that Boeing execs will go to jail

Readers' can have 2 different interpretations:

- I disagree with gp that Ebay and Boeing are different situations --> therefore gp is logically inconsistent

- I agree with gp that Ebay and Boeing are different --> gp is logically coherent

>OP is the one who brought that up in the first place, but they are using it to show it won’t happen. Which makes no sense.

Because the OP's reasoning is Boeing's "deep ties to the government" -- is what keeps it from happening.

I don't agree with OP. I'm just explaining what he wrote.

The readers' different reactions to OP's comment basically depends on how whether one buy's into the idea that the government's dependency on Boeing (military, space launches, etc) gives it an unstated immunity. The judgement of "logic" to his argument hinges on that.

I dunno, if it were me making this argument, I’d cite a case where a company was criminally charged and nothing happened. That would be a much stronger argument than using rhetoric.

Boeing will not face any consequences just like no one at Ford Motor Company has ever faced any consequences for dumping toxic waste in New Jersey in the 1960's. This has been a continuous issue for decades, and no one to date has been held to account.

Boeing will not face any consequences, just like no one in the Sackler family did any time for actively promoting opioids as a harmless pain killer. Please google the article, "NY Times 2023 - An Appeals Court Gave the Sacklers Legal Immunity. "

I can keep going. I'm not crazy or trying to trick anyone. There's messed up things companies do, and no one is held accountable. If I was a someone's handyman and hurt a client or a clients neighbor I would be held to the full extent of the law. There are families, companies, and institutions out there doing terrible things, with no consequences. Why? Because they hold all the power. That is a fact.

What the US did in Iraq was a major screw up but even that wasn't as brazen. The US, honestly and from day 1, wanted to go in and out. Iraq[1] was never going to become "Middle East Oblast", the 51st US state. And I'd argue that the US honestly feels bad about that decision.

[1] Afghanistan falls under a gray area where internationally it was seen as somewhat justified and I think not even China protested it much. Probably not a good intervention morally but Iraq was dark grey indistinguishable from black while Afghanistan can be said to have been much closer to actual gray.

In no small part because it was a strategic disaster. Iraq went from being a bulwark against Iran to, at best, contested ground.

Incidentally, the US knowingly and deliberately assisted Iraq in the use of chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War.

> According to Iraqi documents, assistance in the development of chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France. A report stated that Dutch, Australian, Italian, French and both West and East German companies were involved in the export of raw materials to Iraqi chemical weapons factories.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against...

> Declassified CIA documents show that the United States was providing reconnaissance intelligence to Iraq around 1987–88 which was then used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Iranian troops and that the CIA fully knew that chemical weapons would be deployed and sarin and cyclosarin attacks followed.[263]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War#Iraq's_use_of_ch...

Putin is a dictator behaving like a dictator, but is there a "we" who wants to punish Putin who is consistent in their opposition to other dictators or invaders?

For starters, everyone that had to get involved the last time a dictator started gallavanting around Europe.

Amazing how fast you get downvotes for challenging the western establishment worldview that it's (completely impartial!) application of morality is what the world should do.

Consistency not required. The British media has attacked Indian companies for doing business with Russia, but no one has a problem with Apple doing the same.

The last time a dictator wen gallivanting around Europe I can recall was when Putin invaded Georgia. Which countries did anything about that?

Correct. International relations exist in anarchy [1].

> British media has attacked Indian companies for doing business with Russia, but no one has a problem with Apple doing the same

Uh, India has been given a free pass on Russia by the West. China makes no effort to contain its frustration at the double standard.

> last time a dictator wen gallivanting around Europe I can recall was when Putin invaded Georgia

If you recall, the crux of the debate was whether Georgia is geopolitically Europe. It seems we concluded, once and for all, with no uncertainty, “maybe.” (So we got Ukraine!)

(Side note: “Please don't comment about the voting on comments” [2].)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relat...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How? The Allies defeated Hitler and more or less said no more wars of conquest, especially in Europe. That precedent was cemented with MAD and the bipolar world order.

Putin is relitigating that line. If anyone has a say in that (and the firepower to back it) it’s the Allies. (Or at least the ones that survived.)

I agree. Which is where Europe being different comes into play. Europe has a history of multilateral border agreements with external guarantors, from the Treaty of Westphalia (the actual one, concerning the Holy Roman Empire, not the meme) and Congress of Vienna to the Paris Peace Treaties and Maastricht/Lisbon. It’s also a clear American economic and security interest.

I’m not arguing for or against any specific action here. Just that if there is a group with a precedent of checking imperial dictators in Europe, it’s the Allies.

It’s as much our business as Hitler was. We didn’t go into WWII to stop the Holocaust, we went into stop Hitler.

> don’t think it actually affects someone in Ohio if the French were speaking Russian tomorrow

Ohio is an industrial and agricultural export powerhouse. 17% of its exports go to Europe, $1.1bn of which to France [1]. Even if we reduce this to a pockebook issue, Paris falling into Moscow's sphere of infuence makes Ohio poorer.

More pointedly: we made a promise to Europe, through NATO and various agreements, to protect it from Moscow. If Putin's in Paris, we're treaty bound to fight him. (And if Ukraine is a borderline issue in America, you know Western Europe won't be. Dithering on Ukraine increases the chances we get sucked into a massive foreign war.)

[1] https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/development.ohio.go...

Hitler plausibly threatened American security. I don’t see any indication that Russia could do the same. Realistically, Russia can’t even take over Western Europe.

Look, we know where playing world police—treating every border aggression like it’s literally Hitler—takes us. For the last 80 years we have pissed away trillions of dollars and countless American lives defending borders few Americans could find on a map. It’s not worth it, and most of the world (except Europe who gets to free-ride on the security we provide) hates us for it.

> Ohio is an industrial and agricultural export powerhouse. 17% of its exports go to Europe, $1.1bn of which to France

If we stopped dicking around being the world police, why would a Russian-controlled France stop buying stuff from Ohio?

As to NATO—it’s obsolete.

How? Hitler wasn’t in Cuba [1]. Putin challenges America directly in a way Hitler never did prior to our entering the war.

> It’s not worth it

I agree in general. Not in Europe, and not with Putin.

> why would a Russian-controlled France stop buying stuff from Ohio?

Same reason Europe and our allies in the Middle East preferentially buy from us. Commercial ties follow spheres of influence. It’s not some random coincidence our trading partners in the Middle East, Africa, Caucasus and Southeast Asia track our military alliances.

> NATO—it’s obsolete

You’d prefer another European free for all? Because again, when that happens, it’s obvious we’d get involved. You may prefer we not. But we would, and then you’ve got a major foreign war on your hands.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/russia-military-warships-caribbea...

It does affect someone in Ohio if any single government manages to get control the entire European Plain from France to Russia plus the current territory of Russia because a country with those natural resources and that population stands a decent chance of becoming stronger than the US -- maybe not right away, but after a few decades -- so it is good realist politics for the US to try to prevent that from happening. (Americans are significantly more secure than they would be if the US had only the second strongest economy and the second strongest military in the world.)

The reason the US shouldn't spend much money helping Ukraine is that the current Russian government does not want to expand that far (much too risky for its tastes) and that it almost certainly would fail if it tried. (It also should have stayed out of Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Neither Russia nor China seems willing play by the rules of a rules-based international order. OK, fine, that puts us into power politics — which means we get to make it our business, for reasons we deem sufficient. We're not bad guys for preferring, and exerting our muscle to seek, a Eurasian continent that's not dominated by China and Russia (and Iran), whose governments think it's OK to imprison or defenestrate dissenters or to blow up insurrectionists' planes in mid-air. Does that touch off Russian- and Chinese cries of "unfair" American hegemony-seeking? Tough shit — FAFO.

Our world is too small and interconnected, and the US is too big and interconnected to the world, for anything to be "not our business", whether we want it or not. Especially a major war in Europe next to our miliray allies' borders.

The fact that there was a war worth fighting 80 years ago doesn’t mean that the US needs to police every border in the world in perpetuity. Your own example proves it. Imperial Japan, alone, wouldn’t have been any of our business had it not attacked us directly. China and Korea could be speaking Japanese today and it would be fine for Americans.

Your logic may work with e.g. Taiwan: I don't think China would go on an expansionist rampage once it grabs Taiwan (or "returns", some would say). Should the US be just okay with that?

I think the notion that Russia seeks to take over the world is just Peddled by a bunch of Cold War holdovers who don’t have a job anymore. Whats shocking is that many people who should know better have bought into Dick Cheney-ism.

I don't think that Russia is trying to take over the world, Genghis Khan-style. But I see a strong tendency in the current Russian regime to restore the area of control and influence that the USSR used to have, and it's not a small and inconsequential alteration of the world map.

(As a homework, consider the consequences if the USA refused to follow on with this obligation.)

But they do imply they would want to start messing with Poland and the Baltics (and Russian leaders have stated as much openly).

I think the notion that Russia seeks to take over the world ...

No one is saying Russia seeks to "take over the whole world". But it is openly seeking to subjugate a country of 44 million people to whatever extent it can get away with, and has issued recent threats to other countries (see above) it has invaded previously, some multiple times.

The Baltics (and Poland) are currently in NATO, which means the US has signed a treaty that states is committed to defending them.

Which isn't random, and has nothing to do with Dick Cheney.

I am no Boeing apologist, but it’s blindingly obvious when HN has convinced itself that it’s an expert in an area that it clearly isn’t. HN is an expert in saying “MBA BAD!”, everything else is just a justification in service of that goal.

Can you read the author's mind? How do you know what they know?

It seems to me that perhaps all those things considered, they still think Boeing is at fault. It's not like you told us what the industry standard is, or any of that stuff.

Yes, they have to verify. Verification is necessary whether or not the component is sourced through a supplier or in-house. Verification happens after the sourcing step. And yes, you are criminally liable in the supplier case if your supplier commits fraud and you knew about it, as is the implication here.

Are they legally bound to do the verification themselves ? Seems like it would be more cost efficient to outsource that as well, which would just be prone to fraud.

I did not see it mentioned where they were aware that their suppliers were committing fraud. At these large companies the executives only look at the spreadsheets and take the contracts as fact, regardless if a third party can deliver.

If you want actual compliance, you have to send actual person (that you trust - it’s another big problem as that person can get bribed) in flesh and blood to verify everything and essentially be part of supplier team. That’s the only way.

If Boeing isn't doing the above they are at fault for the mistakes. No pushing this off on a supplier the buck stops at Boeing who could have solved this. There are other companies that do this correctly for the things they care about.

Of course you will not that many things use slave labor or don't have environmental control. The key is what companies care about.

In other words, if Boeing was using counterfeit material, it was either deliberately ignored or deliberately hidden by falsifying records. It is not uncommon to get material that has a Material Test Record that is within spec (because not all suppliers are scrupulous), but a PMI result that is out of spec. If that was what was happening here (which is what I suspect), then those PMI results were thrown out and whatever was written on the MTR were transferred to the receipt report or accepted as-is.

This gets at what has been reported as the fundamental problem at Boeing: It used to have a safety culture, when it was run by engineers. Now it's run by finance people, and it has a short-term profit culture. Instead of asking "will this plane be safe to operate for the next 30 years" it becomes "will this plane be slightly more profitable to sell next quarter". This is a major problem where safety is paramount.

To your point though, the material itself was correct to a rough level at least chemically. So most likely it was a problem with the forgings being contaminated or the forging process itself being slightly wrong (assuming it was a forged part, which it seems to be).

There is an old saw in manufacturing that “the only way to guarantee quality is to do it from the very start”.

The challenge is if you do that it is usually expensive.

Aerospace does all that paperwork nominally to try to guarantee that, and point the finger at anyone who tries to game the system.

But it is also eventually impossible to actually optimize cost without compromising the quality. So it has actual (usually visible) limitations in scale from a cost perspective. And if someone knows that what they are doing is wrong, of course they are going to try to stop a finger from pointing back to them.

so it’s inevitable when there is a lot of competition that suppliers run out of room to legitimately optimize, and they try to cut corners.

Shitty suppliers will try to cut corners right off the bat of course. Chinese manufacturers are notorious for almost immediately starting to put fake or out of spec components into things they make for folks once the initial ‘proof’ run is done and people stop paying as much attention. That is why Apple watches their manufacturers like hawks, including folks who work for them being onsite.

And there are a nearly infinite number of non-obvious ways to screw up the quality of something if someone is trying to cut corners, and from personal experience - Chinese manufacturers are uncommonly clever at it.

Same with wholesalers, subcontractors, and any other middlemen.

If the buyer is under similar pressure, they try to make up for it with ‘QA’. After all, even if the bag might be fake Gucci, if no one can tell, does it matter? Especially if it is half the cost?

Really lazy post-facto inspections or performatively checking paperwork are also a part of it, instead of actually verifying everything was done correctly from the start of course. Because having others believe it too is important for everyone.

That is inevitable in a ‘race to the bottom’, enshittification, etc. type scenario. As actually verifying quality is expensive.

As things get crazier, inevitably that QA gets looser and looser, and more and more corners get cut - until something breaks.

This is all due to the excessive low interest rate environment going on for so long, and the rising rates combined with a need to keep increasing stock prices causing a huge squeeze. Plus corporate idiocy and incompetence.

It’s no surprise the larger corporations are more visibly being screwed here, due to scale.

They aren’t allowed to be smart in the same way that small companies can, because they have to comply with all the other rules too even when they’re dumb.

In many cases a smaller company can actually produce a higher quality product for less, because they can hire people who are very competent but couldn’t pass a corporate hiring filter, or that hates the corp world, or that wants/needs something that the corp world can’t handle (like a competent boss, or flexible vacation).

They can also have folks like anal retentive asshole supervisors that would never make it in a Corp world, but could produce a better product. Or a chill supervisor that can enable creativity that the Corp world is currently squashing with anal retentive asshole supervisors.

Made worse by massive BS being normalized (political + advertising situation right) emboldening predators and scammers, and post COVID burnout.

Not that small companies are panaceas, they suffer from their own problems. But they do tend to be different - like capitalization issues.

It’s quite the perfect storm of factors. It’s actually pretty amazing Boeing is going through this - though this is a repeated pattern for them frankly - because they already have such a well protected and near monopoly position. Near as I can tell, they don’t really need to be shaving pennies.

And to answer the prior post - I doubt Boeing ‘knew’ (as documented) about the counterfeit parts, because that would require exceptional corporate stupidity. So definitely not impossible.

But there were definitely folks in key positions that knew it was a risk and was likely going on at some level, and chose to ignore the risk due to other pressures/concerns. Good luck nailing them on it, however, as I’m sure some scapegoats are being found as we speak. That’s why they’re going after whistleblowers too.

Personally, I imagine it’s even worse elsewhere, it just isn’t getting the press because it is at a smaller scale.

This is all part of so many folks doing the wil-e-coyote run off the cliff but don’t look down maneuver. Boeing is being forced to look down.

Others will too, sooner or later. No one wants to.

There's obviously no scape goat in Boeing. IT's systemically corrupt, which means Americans will happily try to make it look like that's normal and reasonable and "the best we can do". If not outright find the most dull, corrupt white guy and hold him up as a paragon of the perfect saint.

Correction - a lot of rich and powerful crooks,

Do you care about "Elevance Health" - they larger than Boeing according to the fortune 500 list (20 vs 52 in 2024) - but I hadn't even heard of them until I looked up the list just now. I have no clue what the company is up to (health informs my guess, but it is a guess). Companies like them can continue to do whatever and voters won't care.

Unfortunately, Americans and the peoples of many democratic countries have given up on verifying if their elected officials are actually doing what they say they are, so taking a ~~bribe~~ campaign contribution and lying about it is a medium-high gain and low risk activity.

As a bonus, you can then use those contributions to market yourself and your lies to the same voters even harder!

It'll take much much worse than a couple more crashes for the Boeing issue to eclipse all those things to become an issue people actually change their voting over.

If a plane full of Americans falls out of the sky and kills everyone on board, and it turns out to be because of negligence at Boeing, and it happens close to an election, that will definitely be used against any incumbent politician who could be portrayed as responsible.

Politicians want to avoid a scenario like that. But it does require several things to line up for that scenario to unfold, so they have no incentive to care beyond what is necessary to prevent it.

those may not be your side of the issue but it is clear a lot of voters care and are voting opposite of you.

Like 240 decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings

https://asn.flightsafety.org/statistics/period/stats.php

Can you name someone whose been scapegoated for 200+ deaths recently?

This is what you get in a society in which money is the only thing that matters. This is a stupid idea to even write here let alone build a society upon.

Boeing would be huge news, and would be in much worse trouble, if there was a flamboyant bad guy to hold people's attention. Being dull is an important quality for corporate leadership for exactly this reason.

This is part of a larger degradation of rules-based order. Companies do not fear regulators and certainly have no moral or ethical qualms about violating established rules. Ignoring rules is now an expected part of business. It is rewarded. We champion "disrupter" leaders who openly defy authorities and tear apart established norms of behavior. That needs to change. Shareholders need to stop rewarding such activity.

I agree with what you think needs to change, but I don't think anyone should be confused about corporations in the past somehow being more ethical than they are today.

And how, exactly, do you expect that to work? Shareholders are going to pay attention to what's profitable, and basically nothing else.

No; the government needs to stop turning a blind eye to such activity. We need the relevant enforcement departments to be better funded, the policies to be in favor of cracking down on violations of all types, and a mandate from the highest levels not to be shy about seeking the heaviest penalties even from the biggest, most lobbyist-endowed offenders.

Yes, that's what happens. If you leave a couple of bad apples in a barrel they off gas ethylene and spoil every apple in the barrel. You have to regularly get rid of bad apples before they spoil the bunch.

It's such a great metaphor, it's too bad it's so widely misused and misunderstood.

Keep in mind the whole “certify your own stuff” that contributed towards the Boeing mess is a US gov plan

And no, unfortunately this is not a tinfoil hat view. There is a long history of Boeing getting away with murder already.

[1]: https://blog.cheapism.com/business-crime/

Not even fun ones.

There is more to the rot in this company than just domestic customers falling out of the sky.

I would wager that there is a great deal of actual, very real misanthropy throughout the executive structure.

https://airwars.org/

Sounds good, but what's to stop those responsible spinning up another company?

If non-Boeing tickets were an optional upgrade when booking, I’d take it.

so much of US flight infrastructure is based around boeing and they're literally falling apart in the sky

nasa wanted competition with spacex so badly that they've pushed boeing to strand two of their astronauts in space

companies that fail due to inherent internal structural and corruption issues need to be broken down and sold off, but we can't even do that because the US is somehow reliant on it

why must we write out our own downfall through corruption with failing companies? i bet there's thousands of upstarts that would take 1/1000th the funding given to boeing for a lot of their important projects that would come up with genuinely innovative solutions to problems we never knew we had if there were actual competition in aerospace

It’s only going to get worse and in 10yrs we’ll be wondering why it’s even worse than it is in 2024 while people will still defend how necessary it is to national security to prop up a half useless megacorporation, when it’s actually harming it

Let them face risk, let the good/important parts be sold to better leaders, there’s plenty of money floating around to dump into the market to let competition take over the second there’s an opportunity for a new lively major business sector.

You want incentives for a corporations to follow rules? Ensure that there is more than one or two of them.

It used to be that companies existed to transfer value to shareholders by doing something. In the case of Boeing it was making airplanes. They build you an airplane, you pay them for it, they had a list of rules to play by in order to reduce the costs of making that plane in order to make a profit.

Boeing's incentives are to transfer as much value as humanly possible to its shareholders. They've made sure that large parts of their C-Suite, managers, executives, etc. are in on this by giving them shares.

Those people have decided they don't want to play by the rules anymore. There's little incentive for them not to. If the Biden administration gets voted out in November, most of these regulatory and law enforcement pushes you've seen here of late (Adobe, TicketMaster, etc.) are going to go away because the people in charge at companies like Boeing have participated in regulatory capture. Thus, there are no more rules.

You have to start throwing those people in prison (or worse) for the rest of their lives and make compensation in unrealized gains illegal if you want this to stop.

When we domesticated animals, we had to be very cognizant that they were not people. For example, bulls are extremely aggressive and extremely physically powerful. You can allow a person into a room with a baby in a crib. There are exceptions, and they are treated as exceptions. With bulls, you do not allow them into a room with a baby in a crib, by default or by exception. It would be considered criminally irresponsible for a person to say, this bull is an exception, I've had it for five years, it's a great friend, and based on its past behavior I'm going to keep it in the same room with my infant child. You just wouldn't do that.

We have enough experience with corporations to know that we need to start treating them less like humans and more like a species of partly domesticated but still extremely dangerous animal. Based on long experience with them, we should expect corporations to predictably lie, steal, and destroy whenever it is in their financial interest. We don't need to get rid of them (we don't have any good replacement for their role in the economy) but should structure the way we treat corporations around our knowledge of their destructive tendencies.

Our long experience with cattle has taught us ways to protect humans from their destructive tendencies while still extracting what we want from them. We keep cattle out of our residences, we castrate most of the males, and we manage intact bulls in a way that ensures human safety while allowing them to serve their necessary functions. We design fences and other management technology with their aggression and power in mind.

It is long past time to treat corporations the same way. In many small ways we have done this, but always held back by the human metaphor. Corporations are in a sense made of humans, and we feel a sense of respect towards fellow humans that we then unconsciously, and with horrible consequences, extend to the corporations they are part of. We need to consciously and decisively put that behind us. You don't have to be cynical about humans to accept that corporations are greedy and untrustworthy. That is their nature. How you square that with the nature of the humans who run them is irrelevant, as irrelevant as bovine neuroscience is to knowing that we should keep bulls out of our nurseries. We don't have to agree about humans to agree about corporations and stop giving them free reign to wreak havoc in society.

Lots of countries own state arms manufacturers. Doesn’t mean the state would takeover the entire supply chain.

Look I understand it’s not done enough thus my proposal to do so. It can be done, it should be done but it is not done widely because of $$$

Owning the primary arms contractors would make it easier to shift production into shells, rather than negotiating long term deals before breaking ground to expand production capacity

> Under the 2021 deal, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing over allegations it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration so long as the company overhauled its compliance practices and submitted regular reports.

So, if they want to prosecute, I'm assuming it's because Boeing didn't adequately overhaul its compliance practices or that it didn't submit regular (or truthful) reports. But what are the specifics of how they failed?

I also get frustrated reading these comments here, which are basically "Boeing bad, they only care about execs and shareholders, they ruined their engineering culture." I agree with all of that , but when the government wants to criminally charge someone or a company, they need some specifics (i.e. fraud). It's not enough to just say they had a lax culture or valued profits over safety. Again, to emphasize, not saying that's the case here, I just don't understand how folks can form an opinion on criminal prosecution without even knowing what specific charges are being proposed.