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Breaking Boeing up would make it ineffective and likely lead to its failure. You could maybe spin off a couple small divisions, but not more than that. National

by sgc 2y ago

Breaking Boeing up would make it ineffective and likely lead to its failure. You could maybe spin off a couple small divisions, but not more than that. Nationalization is a non-starter in the US - not worth wasting the time and effort to try to make it happen. The only real option is to remove the current leadership, and place the company into Conservatorship to force the new leadership to do the right thing - ideally for at least 10 years, but 5 to 7 years would be the more likely political outcome of such a move. I think virtually anybody who wants to see Boeing succeed long term, would get on board with this option. At the same time, the FAA needs to be reformed (and funded) to bring it back to the enforcement agency it should be. They got into bed with Boeing and their lack of oversight in civilian aircraft let the corporate sickness fester and have a safe space from which to spread throughout the organization.

icegreentea2 2y ago
It's not clear to me that splitting up Boeing in commercial+business jet, defense, and space would make it more ineffective than its current incarnation? Boeing's ability to purpose build commercial jet frames for defense applications both seems to be... a) not performing well (see KC-46), and also b) not a future growth industry with the focus shifting to the Indo-Pacific and peer conflict (given the vulnerability of these types of platforms).
- sgc 2y ago
  It's not a technical problem. It's that they need to stay too-big-to-fail, to be able to resist the very aggressive competition of other aircraft manufacturers. If they are broken up, the smaller companies would not be able to compete effectively, and they would also be immediate acquisition targets by largely foreign competitors. I agree with others here that think they need to be a quasi-government-run company, but in the US that is done through oversight, managing the manager rather than stepping into the management role directly. Of course we have to absolutely gut that awful management with extreme prejudice, to start.

by sgc 2y ago

icegreentea2 2y ago

It's not clear to me that splitting up Boeing in commercial+business jet, defense, and space would make it more ineffective than its current incarnation? Boeing's ability to purpose build commercial jet frames for defense applications both seems to be... a) not performing well (see KC-46), and also b) not a future growth industry with the focus shifting to the Indo-Pacific and peer conflict (given the vulnerability of these types of platforms).

sgc 2y ago
It's not a technical problem. It's that they need to stay too-big-to-fail, to be able to resist the very aggressive competition of other aircraft manufacturers. If they are broken up, the smaller companies would not be able to compete effectively, and they would also be immediate acquisition targets by largely foreign competitors. I agree with others here that think they need to be a quasi-government-run company, but in the US that is done through oversight, managing the manager rather than stepping into the management role directly. Of course we have to absolutely gut that awful management with extreme prejudice, to start.