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I’m guessing that it’s considered a strategically important business to US defence? The US government would presumably be unwilling to allow all those teams of

• philjohn 7y ago
  Arguably those people would be able to form new, competing, companies with their know-how and a degree of investment. They would, naturally, have to start out small and grow from there - but Boeing was tiny once, as was McDonald Douglass, Lockheed etc. etc.
  • macintux 7y ago
    Boeing was tiny when it didn’t take billions of dollars to design any new aircraft.
  • magduf 7y ago
    They don't need to start out small and grow. If Boeing goes under, there's going to be a huge worldwide demand for large passenger aircraft that cannot be satisfied by the one large manufacturer left (Airbus). Simultaneously, there's going to be a couple of huge factories, plus engineers and technicians and other employees, and the supply chain that used to feed Boeing, all up for grabs. The simple solution is for either Airbus or a large Chinese company to buy up all the assets for dirt-cheap, or perhaps even a Japanese conglomerate, and get back to work building airplanes.
• bradleyjg 7y ago
  Maybe we shouldn’t outsource tasks that are strategically important to the nation’s defense (assuming for the sake of argument that they are.)
  • CydeWeys 7y ago
    No assumptions necessary; being able to manufacture cutting-edge aircraft is clearly strategically important to a country's national defense.
    • bradleyjg 7y ago
      Oh? Which country would be able to successfully invade the US if we didn’t have cutting edge aircraft?
      • CydeWeys 7y ago
        Air supremacy is of paramount importance in modern warfare. Look at how thoroughly we were able to dominate the conventional land battles in Iraq and Afghanistan because of it. You can't have an effective national defense (or offense) these days without a good air force. And we're fortunate that ours is home-grown, not bought. Just go ask Iran what it's like having a non-home-grown air force; they have a bunch of F-14s they can't even fly because the necessary replacement parts have been sanctioned for a long time.
        • bradleyjg 7y ago
          I note that you didn’t answer the question. It may (or may not) be reasonable to want a Big Swinging Dick military that goes around devastating third world nations, but it isn’t defense.
          • CydeWeys 7y ago
            Air supremacy is necessary for defense as well, especially so.
  • iguy 7y ago
    Outsource implies that it was once an in-house operation, but I don't think this was ever true. However, allowing mergers until there are only one or two companies which can make strategically important things means you have painted yourself into a corner. You can bet that these companies will be well aware that they are immortal, and behave in ways which exploit this. You will not get the efficiencies often ascribed to private enterprise.
• megablast 7y ago
  It is considered a strategically important business to world commerce and tourism. Almost every single world economy would suffer without Boeing and Airbus.