4 ms·

>like all publicly traded companies do not have medium to long-term views for their business Why do people keep repeating this garbage over and over and over?

>like all publicly traded companies do not have medium to long-term views for their business Why do people keep repeating this garbage over and over and over? It just isn't true. Amazon literally didn't make profits for 10 years. Many other tech companies haven't made a cent yet, but investors are looking 5-10 years into the future for those. Some businesses just make bad decisions, others make good decisions. Overall the free market/public corporation system is a resounding success. Just because boeing messed up doesn't say anything about the rest of the system.

cwhiz 6y ago
>Overall the free market/public corporation system is a resounding success. We don't have a free market. The market is not allowed to implode. Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail. Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. Where you see a "resounding success" I see an absolute failure that is closer to a scam or a ponzi scheme than a legitimate system.
- cgh 6y ago
  Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and many others are evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure if Boeing will be "allowed" to fail if it's on that path, but your statement that "Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail" is simply false.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Yeah every decade or so we let a company fail just to set an example to the rest. WaMu, in particular, is a pretty hilarious example. We, the public, bailed out JP Morgan and with those funds they purchased WaMu at pennies on the dollar. What a deal!
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. So the mass layoffs are just a mirage, and not a failure at all, are they?
  - Icathian 6y ago
    Failure here is obviously defined as ceasing to exist. Deliberately missing the point of their argument does not strengthen yours.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  You’re right, we don’t have a free market. We don’t have the freedom to leave our homes and shop at will. Stores don’t have the freedom to be open. People don’t have the freedom to provide services. So until our government overlords deem it ok, allowing businesses to fail at-will in the existing climate makes little sense.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Most stores are permitted to be open, no healthy American is currently locked in their home, delivery services will bring anything you want to your doorstep, and only a few services are currently shut down. Yet for some reason, nobody's buying from the stores that are open.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    We should offer to businesses what we offered to individuals. A check of inconsequential value and a hearty “go fuck yourself.”
- Aunche 6y ago
  Boeing isn't allowed to fail because they're a national security risk. The government doesn't want Boeing's most talented aerospace engineers to move to a foreign company like Airbus or Comac. The government will happily allow businesses like Macy's or Uber go under. Boeing didn't take the money anyways, so I don't know why people are so riled up about it.
  - coredog64 6y ago
    AFAIK, Airbus won’t hire American nationals. Boeing will hire Europeans, at least on the commercial side. The defense part of Boeing used to be a separate company (McD). DoD could easily let commercial fail and spin out McD again, or just shrink to defense only. For a long time, Airbus has claimed that the DoD spending subsidizes the commercial side. So TBH, letting commercial fail would result in more bang for the DoD buck.
    - Xixi 6y ago
      About Airbus and American nationals, you might want to check out John Leahy: Head of Sales from 1985 until 2017, sold 16000 planes, brought Airbus inside US airlines, and overall probably the most well known Airbus executive. Regarding military activities, I don't doubt that there are engineering synergies between commercial aviation and military aviation. However I've always heard that from a commercial perspective the two are at odds: for a defense organization you want to make sure to keep as little cash on hands, as it's fairly easy to ask for more. There are always scope changes, delays and shit happening. The last thing you want is to have a war chest that your customers will ask you to tap in to cover the costs of contradictory requirements, feature creep and original underbidding to win the contract. See the A400M as an example: the civil side of Airbus is coughing up quite a lot of cash for that clusterfuck. On the other hand, developing civil airliners requires cash. A lot of cash. You can't ask American Airlines to cough up some extra cash because your 787 is delayed and is costing more to produce than anticipated. In fact the opposite is true: because your 787 is delayed, your customers will pay much less, and only when you can actually deliver the product (for the most part). Bombardier didn't have pockets deep enough to sustain the CSeries...
rchaud 6y ago
> Amazon literally didn't make profits for 10 years. Many other tech companies haven't made a cent yet, but investors are looking 5-10 years into the future for those. Amazon went public in 1997. Boeing went public in 1962. You get leeway as a young-ish public company, which will expire once you are an established player. How do you think markets are going to react if the bottom falls out of Amazon's business in 2055?
- myopenid 6y ago
  Just maintain the underdog start-up public perception, like Google, and all will be forgiven in 2055.
dan_quixote 6y ago
> Amazon literally didn't make profits for 10 years. Yeah, and they caught never-ending flak for it until AWS starting turning a profit and eventually dragged Amazon into the black. Amazon was/is the exception, not the rule.

cwhiz 6y ago

>Overall the free market/public corporation system is a resounding success. We don't have a free market. The market is not allowed to implode. Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail. Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. Where you see a "resounding success" I see an absolute failure that is closer to a scam or a ponzi scheme than a legitimate system.

cgh 6y ago
Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and many others are evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure if Boeing will be "allowed" to fail if it's on that path, but your statement that "Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail" is simply false.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Yeah every decade or so we let a company fail just to set an example to the rest. WaMu, in particular, is a pretty hilarious example. We, the public, bailed out JP Morgan and with those funds they purchased WaMu at pennies on the dollar. What a deal!
xyzzyz 6y ago
Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. So the mass layoffs are just a mirage, and not a failure at all, are they?
- Icathian 6y ago
  Failure here is obviously defined as ceasing to exist. Deliberately missing the point of their argument does not strengthen yours.
eanzenberg 6y ago
You’re right, we don’t have a free market. We don’t have the freedom to leave our homes and shop at will. Stores don’t have the freedom to be open. People don’t have the freedom to provide services. So until our government overlords deem it ok, allowing businesses to fail at-will in the existing climate makes little sense.
- vkou 6y ago
  Most stores are permitted to be open, no healthy American is currently locked in their home, delivery services will bring anything you want to your doorstep, and only a few services are currently shut down. Yet for some reason, nobody's buying from the stores that are open.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  We should offer to businesses what we offered to individuals. A check of inconsequential value and a hearty “go fuck yourself.”
Aunche 6y ago
Boeing isn't allowed to fail because they're a national security risk. The government doesn't want Boeing's most talented aerospace engineers to move to a foreign company like Airbus or Comac. The government will happily allow businesses like Macy's or Uber go under. Boeing didn't take the money anyways, so I don't know why people are so riled up about it.
- coredog64 6y ago
  AFAIK, Airbus won’t hire American nationals. Boeing will hire Europeans, at least on the commercial side. The defense part of Boeing used to be a separate company (McD). DoD could easily let commercial fail and spin out McD again, or just shrink to defense only. For a long time, Airbus has claimed that the DoD spending subsidizes the commercial side. So TBH, letting commercial fail would result in more bang for the DoD buck.
  - Xixi 6y ago
    About Airbus and American nationals, you might want to check out John Leahy: Head of Sales from 1985 until 2017, sold 16000 planes, brought Airbus inside US airlines, and overall probably the most well known Airbus executive. Regarding military activities, I don't doubt that there are engineering synergies between commercial aviation and military aviation. However I've always heard that from a commercial perspective the two are at odds: for a defense organization you want to make sure to keep as little cash on hands, as it's fairly easy to ask for more. There are always scope changes, delays and shit happening. The last thing you want is to have a war chest that your customers will ask you to tap in to cover the costs of contradictory requirements, feature creep and original underbidding to win the contract. See the A400M as an example: the civil side of Airbus is coughing up quite a lot of cash for that clusterfuck. On the other hand, developing civil airliners requires cash. A lot of cash. You can't ask American Airlines to cough up some extra cash because your 787 is delayed and is costing more to produce than anticipated. In fact the opposite is true: because your 787 is delayed, your customers will pay much less, and only when you can actually deliver the product (for the most part). Bombardier didn't have pockets deep enough to sustain the CSeries...

rchaud 6y ago

> Amazon literally didn't make profits for 10 years. Many other tech companies haven't made a cent yet, but investors are looking 5-10 years into the future for those. Amazon went public in 1997. Boeing went public in 1962. You get leeway as a young-ish public company, which will expire once you are an established player. How do you think markets are going to react if the bottom falls out of Amazon's business in 2055?

myopenid 6y ago
Just maintain the underdog start-up public perception, like Google, and all will be forgiven in 2055.

dan_quixote 6y ago

> Amazon literally didn't make profits for 10 years. Yeah, and they caught never-ending flak for it until AWS starting turning a profit and eventually dragged Amazon into the black. Amazon was/is the exception, not the rule.