Comments

2

America needs to follow the lead of Seattle in its attempt to take control of the private housing industry. Nationalize Boeing, sure why not. Oh yeah, we are not a communist or an authoritarian dictatorship. But Charles' thinking is in line with President Trumps.

3

No doubt, we can then beat Tupolev at their game.

Turn Delta into Aeroflot too?

4

Yes yes, Nationalize Boeing, that will improve their safety record.

FYI when it ends up those planes are actually fly-safe, are you going to pretend like this never happened?

5

I want a pony for Christmas, while you're at it.

6

It should be a worker’s cooperative. That means run by the workers and responsible to the community.

7

That’s not a stretch, the workers already know how to run it because they do the work.

8

@7 Never had a real job that doesn’t involve being told what to do have you?

10

I never thought you were actually stupid until today.

11

@9:

Well, the workers certainly couldn't do any worse running the company than the jackasses currently in charge who appear hell-bent on running it into the ground...

12

"(Please think about and attempt to picture this possibility:
Boeing might have made $100 billion worth of worthless of planes.)"

Ah, not to worry -- Homeless Camps!
Remove those now-worthless engines and let the people customize them.

I got dibs on First Class.

OR -- put Boeing's largest Stakeholders on the Board of Directors; they have a very vested interest in seeing those planes make it from Point A to B.

Boeing's strip-mining itself for financial Profiteering needs oversight -- if it isn't too fucking Late.

Capitalism unbridled will destroy this (OUR Only) Planet.

13

@11 I’ll be you $10,000 it would be worse. Far worse. This is a blip in Boeing’s history. I’d fly on any Boeing or Airbus any day, both make safe planes despite their rare mistake (Airbus 330 crash in 2008).

New York Times magazine did an excellent piece pointing out that while the plane had problems, only shitty airlines with poorly trained pilots would have had these accidents. There’s a reason Ethiopian Airlines safety manager is seeking asylum in Europe now.

14

If the workers run Boeing I guess I’ll stick to Airbus A320s, the 737’s main competitor, now made in Alabama in a non union factory since 2015.

Airbus picked ‘Bama for a reason!

15

"New York Times magazine did an excellent piece pointing out that while the plane had problems, only shitty airlines with poorly trained pilots would have had these accidents.

Sorry Boeing Bob -- I'm having a difficult time believing that article exists.
Please provide a Link?
Thanks!

16

Executives at a place like Boeing actually do work - $100 million dollar assets don't sell themselves in a competitive market; those paychecks they send out every other week draw on an actual bank account filled with cash which doesn't fill itself up by magic. The workers could do a great job designing and building a plane, but they'd be bankrupt in 6 months and see their clientele switch to AirBus or another firm. This isn't a coffee shop where passerbys will swing by because it's convenient, every sale Boeing makes is done at the highest level.

17

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/business/boeing-737-max-ethiopian-plane-crash.html

The Boeing executives, Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Bomben, explained that the company did not believe that pilots needed to know about the software, because they were already trained to deal with scenarios like the one on the doomed Lion Air flight. All pilots are expected to know how to take control of an aircraft when the plane’s tail begins moving in an uncontrolled way because of a malfunction, nudging the aircraft toward the ground.

“The assumption is that the flight crews have been trained,” Mr. Sinnett said in the meeting. He added later: “Rightly or wrongly, that was the design criteria and that’s how the airplane was certified with the system and pilot working together.”

18

@15 Don’t read much do you?

“Malfunctions caused two deadly crashes. But an industry that puts unprepared pilots in the cockpit is just as guilty.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.amp.html

“ The paradox is that the failures of the 737 Max were really the product of an incredible success: a decades-long transformation of the whole business of flying, in which airplanes became so automated and accidents so rare that a cheap air-travel boom was able to take root around the world. Along the way, though, this system never managed to fully account for the unexpected: for the moment when technology fails and humans — a growing population of more than 300,000 airline pilots of variable and largely unpredictable skills — are required to intervene. In the drama of the 737 Max, it was the decisions made by four of those pilots, more than the failure of a single obscure component, that led to 346 deaths and the worldwide grounding of the entire fleet.”

19

Thanks! From your article:

"After both accidents, the flight-data recordings indicated that the immediate culprit was a sensor failure tied to a new and obscure control function that was unique to the 737 Max: the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). The system automatically applies double-speed impulses of nose-down trim, but only under circumstances so narrow that no regular airline pilot will ever experience its activation — unless a sensor fails.

Boeing believed the system to be so innocuous, even if it malfunctioned, that the company did not inform pilots of its existence or include a description of it in the airplane’s flight manuals."

You know, I thought I'd read that somewhere. Thanks!
Again:

"Boeing believed the system to be so innocuous, even if it malfunctioned, that the company did not inform pilots of its existence or include a description of it in the airplane’s flight manuals."

20

I have a better idea: let's all sue Boeing and hold the corporation criminally accountable for putting CEO bonuses and profits ahead of passenger safety. Start by grounding all Boeing 737 MAXes, redistributing benefits and sustainable wages back to the employees, and stop blaming the pilots for defective equipment (source: "After the Crash", Alec MacGillis, November 18, 2019 issue of The New Yorker Magazine, pages 50-61).

21

New billboard sign coming soon: 'Will the last person to leave Boeing turn out the lights?'

22

"In the drama of the 737 Max, it was the decisions made by four of those pilots, more than the failure of a single obscure component, that led to 346 deaths and the worldwide grounding of the entire fleet.”

Read the conclusion, after the writer weighs up all the arguments.

Something you should have learned in a freshman writing class.

23

"Boeing believed the system to be so innocuous, even if it malfunctioned, that the company did not inform pilots of its existence or include a description of it in the airplane’s flight manuals."

Exactly, Boeing didn't factor in shitty pilots flying for shitty airlines in under developed parts of the world. That was their mistake.

24

I think I remember a previous article where it said Boeing had spent 60-70 billion on share buybacks. Bet they wish they had some of that cash now.

25

Two comments from that same article in the NYTM:

"I have a Pd.D. in aerospace engineering, a number of years in the industry as a full-time employee and consultant, and have taught courses in design for many years.

This article placing the blame on pilot error, while trying to minimize Boeing's responsibility, is deeply disturbing. It could serve as a textbook example of an attempt to shift the blame to the user, and victim, for disasters caused by errors in basic design practice."
--Chasseur Americain, Easton, PA Sept. 18

One response:
"@Chasseur Americain Perhaps the argument presented here is a bit more nuanced than just blame shifting. It seems the bottom line is that Boeing has built their aircraft systems on the assumption of a certain level of training, competence and creative capability in the pilots that fly them.

Mr. Langewiesche makes it clear that this assumption is faulty given the pilot training programs in the developing world. His analysis is less about assigning blame than it is about clarifying the layers of complexity and failure possibilities in a global system that is beyond anyone's control."

26

Shitty pilots? Let the Market decide?

Airbus's fly-by-wire takes the pilot (mostly) out of the equation. Boeing's probably gonna hafta follow suit.

But they STILL have all those 737 MAXes scattered all over the Planet....

27

@20 you want to make the workers financially responsible for the crashes?!?!

28

"Airbus's fly-by-wire takes the pilot (mostly) out of the equation."

Yes, and let's remember how well that started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cv2ud1339E

By the way, that Airbus A320 series for the US market is now built in Alabama, by a non-union workforce.

29

@23 You sir a business genius.
Solution, don't sell airplanes to brown people.

Never mind that those airlines and pilots have logged millions of hours on the previous generation(s) 737 and that the US pilots union and Sully think you and Boeing are full of shit.

Let's go with your plan, start cutting up those Max airplanes as they won't have any customers.

Wait by your phone, I think Boeing will be calling you.

30

The Tragic Crash of Airbus A330 Shows the Unlikely but Catastrophic Consequences of Automation

The tragic crash of Air France 447 (AF447) in 2009 sent shock waves around the world. The loss was difficult to understand given the remarkable safety record of commercial aviation. How could a well-trained crew flying a modern airliner so abruptly lose control of their aircraft during a routine flight?

https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-tragic-crash-of-flight-af447-shows-the-unlikely-but-catastrophic-consequences-of-automation

31

@27: Read my comment @20 again more carefully, Sporty. Better yet, download and read Alec MacGillis's article, "After the Crash" in the New Yorker Magazine from November 18, 2019, pages 50-61. The shameless level of unchecked greed at the top is what should be held fully accountable for Boeing's gross negligence and recklessness.
How is it that Boeing engineers building the planes, once regarded with respect by their employer and afforded sustainable lifestyles are now left voiceless and the good company benefits they used to get redistributed to CEOs by way of annual multi-million dollar bonuses---and corporate stock buybacks? Is it a pilot's fault when a faulty automated system overrides the crew's proper flying of the aircraft and suddenly they only have ten seconds of response time before catastrophic fatalities occur? This is corporate greed run amok at its ugliest. Profits over people. I will not be remorseful if Boeing ends up bankrupt as a consequence for its blatant disregard to airline passenger safety. Don't blame the pilots or engineers. Thanks in part to the rise of Reaganomics and the demise of government checks and balances, the overpaid idiots mismanaging the company have dug their own hole.

32

Charles, you need only look to the US's most recent economic crises to appreciate that we don't nationalize companies or economic sectors. That runs counter to US economic philosophy held since its founding. Instead beginning in the 20th century, when a vital part of the economy falters, it asks for and usually receives a US government bailout.

For example, this was done in the real estate led economic crash in the early 90s (the over-valuation bubble burst) when the government bought up all the bad housing loans and merged the now-defunct S&Ls with commercial banks. And it was done again by the Obama Administration for the second real estate led c crash of 2008-2009 (another burst over-valuation bubble). In the second crash, gigantic US commercial banks, believed to be vital to the US economy and deemed "too big (to be allowed) to fail" were bailed out of their billions of dollars of bad real estate loans. US automakers (GM, Chrysler, Ford) were bailed out in 2008.. And for Chrysler, that was its second government bailout, the first having taken place in 1979.

So it will go for Boeing if it begins teetering on the edge of collapse. Its executives will appear before Congress, hats in hand, appealing for federal funds to help it get back on its feet and operating profitably. And those funds will be appropriated because Boeing will be considered too vital to the US economy and the US military to be allowed to fail.

However, Boeing will not nor ever will be nationalized. That simply is unacceptable in the long-entrenched and dearly-held American view of how the world should work.

I have no idea how long you've lived in this US, but you obviously haven't learned this most basic tenet of American economic philosophy. You should realize that what you propose would simply never fly (pun intended) in the US. Instead, you sound like some scraggly, wheezing, long-in-the-tooth, left-over Communist sympathizer from the 1950s or 1960s.

33

There is no one better than Charles at name-dropping ivory-tower academics, but his essays always reveal a lack of real world knowledge and experience.

We already see the nationalized Boeing at work. Boeing has been a NASA government contractor for decades, and they have the contract for the Starliner that flew this week. Boeing has managed to bill American taxpayers for billions of dollars while being years behind schedule on developing America's next crewed space vehicle. Boeing keeps getting funded even as they repeatedly fail to meet contract requirements and schedules.

Starliner's maiden voyage was almost as much of a debacle as the 737 MAX. It missed its planned orbit (!), and was therefore unable to rendezvous with the International Space Station and deliver its supplies. In other words, unable to complete its mission. After expending fuel to get it back on track, mission controllers had to make careful use of the remaining fuel just to get it to land safely.

Now contrast the over-budget, behind-schedule, government-funded Boeing with Elon Musk's privately funded SpaceX. SpaceX has accomplished far more, much faster, with a much smaller budget than Boeing has. The SpaceX vehicle has already successfully serviced the ISS, and with reusable boosters.

Because we do not nationalize these industries, the USA has one thing that no other country does: Multiple private space programs, advancing rapidly, thanks to competition and capital investment, creating multiple ideas, approaches, and options. As we have seen in other examples throughout history, these entities will eventually be able to outperform the single nationalized space program that other countries have, and that we were lucky to move beyond.

This completely misreading of reality is not unusual for Mudede. I support and use public transportation, but his diatribes against the automobile are unreal. As in, unrealistic. Sure, I think we're too auto-oriented. But I walk, use buses, and light rail enough to know that there are many types of trips that are best taken with a car. Mostly involving loads and routes that are not well handled in a timely manner on the public transit of any nation.

One of the craziest articles Mudede recently wrote was about how Apple was out of ideas and doomed because nothing interesting came after the iPhone. Mudede's badly researched article seemed to be unaware that although iPhone sales were down, as expected, Apple total revenues were still consistently up...because Apple has wisely been developing other products, and importantly, services revenue that is growing at a rate fast enough to compensate. He failed to contrast Apple with Samsung (a chaebol with...you guessed it, strong ties to government), who has had shockingly major losses in recent quarters even as a dominant smartphone maker. And Mudede is seemingly not aware of new product categories such as Apple Watch and AirPods, which are leaders in their new categories and are now billion dollar product lines themselves. Mudede simply does not know.

Mudede also seems unaware that writing that "Apple is doomed" has been a popular sport for 30 years, with all those far more informed journalists getting it wrong to this day...not a sport for drop-in amateurs unaware of history.

I realize this article is about Boeing, but as you can see, even as someone most would call liberal, I am getting tired of seeing another Mudede headline worded as if maybe he's just trolling, then realizing with alarm that he is actually being serious. It's almost like I'm watching Fox News in a mirror universe.

34

"Many where baffled"

I'm baffled you can make a living writing.

36

@31 you purposes redistributing the company to the workers while adding the company or if existence. Costing those workers a ton of money, more than if we simply did nothing whatsoever. In what way is that not making the workers financially responsible?

37

@36 ugh phone. "while suing it out if existence".

38

SIGH! Charles used to be quite interesting to read. Come back, old Charles.

39

@35: That is pretty nakedly racist.

40

The board of directors allowed Boeing's Managers to steal Boeing's best asset -- its good name, and sell it on the open market and are now worth many many Millions. They sold their souls, but they made a Killing.

So, Boeing's Board needs to be held accountable.

One way to do that (and would, seemingly, keep the Managers' heedless Greed in check) would be to put Boeing's biggest stakeholders -- its Union Employees --- on its Board of Directors. Allowing Boeing's Managers to steal the company, prossibly trashing it beyond repair, or at least requiring a Heavy dose of SOCIALISM -- there's that Word again! -- oughtta be against the fucking Law.

And it WOULD be, if We, the fawking People MADE those laws.

But we been Bought Out (thnx, repubs). So, sorry, suckers:
YOU gotta (indirectly!) Bail Out the managers.
Speaking of too. much. taxes....

41

@39 -- it's a MAGAt.
What else would one expect?

42

@41 kristofarian, love your satire. Only Auntie Grizzled meets the same level of comic genius.

43

That 'MAGAt' Stung a bit, did it, titsie?

Good.

44

@42 -- from the Googles:
"Titania is the largest of the moons of Uranus."

My, how fawking Fitting.
Happy Xmas, titsy!

45

@30, that crew couldn't have been highly-trained if they couldn't spot that the plane had suffered a high-speed stall, and was dropping out of the sky like a bowling ball.

47

Uh-oh, @46. looks like your du docteur Ahmed Usman's gone and turned you into a Newt! I mean, a Frenchman! Is there any Cure for that?

Good luck!

48

Why is it that people like Charles, and Kshama, and Cary, and the whole crew of "let's nationalize 'em" Seattle, have never had real jobs involving any complexity?

49

4: Why do you assume, after two of those planes crashed in short succession immediately after they were put into commercial service, that they WILL prove to be "flight safe"?

Boeing was forced to undo the "cost-saving measure" that caused the crashes, after all.

50

I'll extend the suggestion to the idea that Boeing should not only be nationalized, but put under worker ownership and democratic worker management. The people who work for Boeing know how to make safe, affordable planes...it was the arrogance and obsession with false "efficiencies" and "cost-saving" measures-terms which are nothing more than euphemisms for what we used to call "cutting corners" are the cause of the vast majority of plane crashes in the world. Let the workers run the shops, let them find the best ways to make the best planes, for they are the ones who know more about how to do that than management-especially the kind of cynical, disinterested "all that matters is high 'short-term rate of return' for our investors" types. And move to an economic model that is focused more on smaller, but sustainable returns over the long haul. That's how to avoid a repetition of the type of avoidable disasters which happened here-disasters which happened because the undemocratic, selfish, arrogant management of the sort we have now decided that human life mattered less than profit. The workers know what needs to be done-the rich don't. And the rich don't care about making safer planes. They care about high short-term rate of return for investors and nothing else.

51

@48: Kshama is an economist. That academic discipline is all about complexity. And it's not as though arrogant, short-term obsessed conventional management is doing any better with complexity. Elon Musk can't even design an unbreakable car window.

52

@23: Seriously? You're blaming the pilots for not using a system they hadn't been told was there?

And why the hell are so many people posting here invested in defending the status quo at Boeing? It's not as if anyone other than the CEO's and the shareholders benefit from it. Ordinary Seattle residents and the world's airline passenger community gain nothing from things being done the way they are currently done at Boeing-a company where product quality, decent treatment of the workers who create Boeing's wealthy, and the safety of the people who fly and ride those planes matter less than high dividends for the damn shareholders, where life matters less than profit.

53

@51: "Kshama is an economist"

Best line I've heard all day. Marxist economic reductionism is hardly complex, and uniformly unsuccessful in practice. Nor are noisy, self-aggrandizing political theater productions that complex. Rocket science, it ain't.

56

This is why I will only fly jets made in the former Soviet Union. At least I know my safety is state approved. Lol...

57

"I wouldn't want to fly on a government built aircraft."

With the FAA shackled to the bed with Boeing
have you much choice?

I know, Bailing Boeing out -- to the tune of what, 50 Billion$? -- makes way more sense than handing Boeing over to its Employees.

How 'bout we settle for Boeing's Union Employees having 50% representation on its currently-flailing/failing Board of Directors? These totally-outta control Capitalists (apparently) must be saved from themselves.

Look at Big Oil -- in the late 70s, they KNEW fossil fuels were goinna toast the Biosphere, and what did the do about it? Same thing Big Tobacco did -- LIE. Ofuscate. DENY.

PROFITEER.

And here we are today -- one or two "thousand-year" storms every year; wildfires burning up the Planet (NOT HERE!!!!)(not YET); the Oceans dead and dying (not quite yet). Sure, Big Oil's made a Killing -- Hell we still SUBSIDIZE the Fuckers -- and Capitalists don't give FUCK about the Planet.

And Boeing can't keep their planes in the Sky and haven't a fawking Clue when -- IF -- they'll ever them get aloft again.

Yeah, good ole Capitalism -- it's NOT Really the Answer.

58

@36 & @37: Get back to me when you're not on your phone, Sporty.

59

@44, @47, & @57 kristofarian: I love you, kris--you're the best! Happy holidays and keep rocking the house in 2020 and beyond. :)

60

Thanks, Auntie Gee!
Happy New Year et al to you too!
And Thanks for Being Here! and
for co-fucking with them
fawking Fascists!

May they too See the Light
Before it's pitch fawking Dark.

61

@60 kristofarian: My pleasure, comrade! Hopefully the MAGAt's see the light much sooner than later. And may the deaths of the GOP and AutoCorrect come just as swiftly.

62

@50 & @52 AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell and @54 Johnny88: Spot on and well said.


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