from Hacker News

It's Time to Nationalize and Then Break Up Boeing

by samsolomon on 1/13/24, 5:06 PM with 155 comments

• by obblekk on 1/13/24, 6:10 PM

  I agree with the sentiment more than the solution.

  In the American system, the gov should assess punitive fines for regulatory failures, revoke self regulation privileges, and impose consent decrees on company behaviors.

  The combined impact of these actions would cost Boeing billions which would result in shareholder action to replace management.

  Perhaps the gov should also investigate willful neglect on the part of management. If it’s found that engineers complained about policies for reasonable safety concerns and management ignored them, then personal liability, perhaps even criminal, would extend to the directors and executives.

  I don’t know how much of this would happen, or be found guilty in court. But I do hope this isn’t just another administrative slap on the wrist like 2019.

• by testfoobar on 1/13/24, 7:02 PM

  Perhaps it should be something else - there should be an upper limit to the size of companies.

  The problem is that successful companies converge towards regulatory capture to maintain their advantage - this includes buying up all competitors in order to maintain cartel/monopolistic market positioning. Look at Ma Bell. It was broken up. It slowly reconstituted its old self - albeit in a more competitive, less monopolistic landscape.

  Boeing, like the too big too fail banks, like the airlines during Covid is already quasi-nationalized. Perhaps we should make that relationship explicit and demand divesture of business units in order to increase competition and transparency.

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

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

• by PaulKeeble on 1/13/24, 7:04 PM

  We live in deeply corrupt times where corporations have taken over large chunks of the mechanisms of state that are meant to regulate them. Nationalising it or asking for regulatory intervention isn't going to solve it because its one big club. This isn't just about Boeing, there are criminal corporations openly abusing customers, their staff and buying the government avoiding consequences every day. The electoral system ensures its nearly impossible to fix especially since this collective interest runs the media too. I do not see a way to fix such widespread corruption of democracy especially since its happened throughout the western world and dawned a new age of Feudalism and populism.

• by crop_rotation on 1/13/24, 5:48 PM

  Wouldn't that make it much harder for Boeing to compete with Airbus due to the size disparity?

  One interesting observation I have is that in Europe, a career at Airbus is competitive with the other industries for talent, due to the relatively lower salaries at big tech and even lower at others. Whereas if you are in the United States, a job at Boeing or in Airspace is mostly not competitive with the tech options (even for a non tech job). SpaceX is doing well, but SpaceX compensation is better due to stock options and hiring is easier due to the Elon cult of personality/or the SpaceX mission.

• by amadeuspagel on 1/13/24, 6:29 PM

  > [Airbus] was incorporated as the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) in the year 2000 through the merger of the French Aérospatiale and the German DASA, and later acquired full ownership of Airbus, a collaboration of European aerospace companies originally incorporated in 1970 to develop and produce a wide-body aircraft to compete with American-built airliners, which would later merge together.

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

  Europe created Airbus by merging different companies, but the US should break up its only competitor?

• by nightski on 1/13/24, 7:25 PM

  We should not be nationalizing anything, sorry. The government should not be running companies as it takes away all natural market forces. While private ownership can be corrupt, market forces / competition can keep it in check. If anything we have seen the government's corruption fail us by allowing too much M&A destroying competition.

• by wg0 on 1/13/24, 7:39 PM

  Unless Americans want America to look like Argentina. Nationalization has a not a great story almost anywhere.

  Regulatory measures are what can force bean counters to respond.

• by roenxi on 1/13/24, 7:38 PM

  This seems like an overreaction. According to Wikipedia [0] the rate of fatal crashes has gone from 0.2 per million to 4 per million. That isn't a change that requires a crisis response. Even grounding the planes is probably overdoing it. Aircraft travel is already safer than makes sense for it to be.

  [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX

• by dudeinjapan on 1/13/24, 6:17 PM

  Boeing can be broken up without being nationalized in the process.

• by dehrmann on 1/13/24, 7:03 PM

  Did the article really make this argument without mentioning Spirit? It's not the same as being broken up, but a lot of the work has already been outsourced.

• by Lammy on 1/13/24, 9:13 PM

  Meta: I would love to see “It’s Time To…” added to HN’s list of automatically-edited-at-submission title clichés, like “How…” and “The Story of…”

• by georgeplusplus on 1/13/24, 6:40 PM

  Its Boeings cozy relationship with the FAA that is leading to these engineering problems. If the FAA cannot do its job what makes people think nationalizing the whole thing will make it any better?

• by gessha on 1/13/24, 7:30 PM

  I see a lot of comments about nationalization but I don’t think that is the American way.

  There should be a range of regulatory/policy actions that could be taken with nationalization being the most extreme.

  Just like the banks are regulated by FDIC so can be Boeing. They’ve done great things before and they can do it again. You “just” need to figure out the right incentive structure.

  If regulating it doesn’t help, throw some billions into establishing a new Boeing, the US has a history of establishing new industries based on national priorities- most recently with the space industry, before that was the semiconductor industry, etc.

• by fl0ki on 1/13/24, 5:54 PM

  Regulation can raise the floor of company quality, but nationalization also lowers the ceiling, especially if it means no competitors are ever viable. This needs more regulation, not nationalization.

• by RagnarD on 1/14/24, 8:31 AM

  Translation: advocating that DC steal $131.7 BILLION from a large number of investors who hold Boeing stock.

• by 4ggr0 on 1/13/24, 6:29 PM

  socialize losses, privatize profits

• by MilStdJunkie on 1/13/24, 11:28 PM

  Oh yeah, let's tie what might be an actual ongoing crime scene to political ideology. No. That's a Ninja Smoke Bomb trick.

  Maybe chunks of BDS, later, after people are actually for-real prosecuted, you know, instead of yet another tax[1] on the shareholders who have absolutely zero power in the organization. Yet. Another. But talking about this right now? No.

  I have a Wierd Al style parody of Bowie's "Starman" in my head, except it's called Straw . .MAAAAAAAN . .

  [1] That's all the big fines are, incidentally. Moves the risk of bad behavior to the lowest tier of stockholder. Very often lower-tier Boeing employees.

• by yyyfb on 1/13/24, 5:47 PM

  Why, would US govt run it any better?! If you think financial types can't run an engineering and manufacturing business, wait until you see the politicians try.