This is one of the supposed benefits of the free market. If left alone, under normal conditions, what’s supposed to happen is that badly ran, uncompetitive firms end up showing themselves the door, making room for new market competitors who may not be so badly managed. Don’t fucking save them, especially don’t advocate for saving them if you claim to love free markets.
The problem with free markets is they are incredibly unstable and create booms and busts and people don’t like this so we get the worst of all worlds which is unfettered capitalism and no competition or failure weeding out poorly managed companies. Maybe free markets are just a shitty ideal?
Maybe free markets are just a shitty ideal?
Yes. The answer to that question is yes. Free market capitalism encourages cutthroat competition in which the only factor in any decision-making process is maximizing profits. Safety isn’t a factor. Employee well-being isn’t a factor. National security isn’t a factor. The economy at large isn’t a factor. Long term investments aren’t even a factor. Line go up this quarter equals good quarter. Regulations ensure mandatory minimums for societal prosperity.
Until corporations realise they can cheat and change the game by bribing politicians to tip the scales in their favour.
Business exists only for one thing; exploiting systems, even if that means meta-exploitation, since that’s the highest form of exploitation, and the inevitable endgame.
free markets are a shitty idea, but ive never seen one in real life before.
I think America would actually benefit from switching to a free market economy, instead of our current bullshit where our politicans are too spineless to tell companies like Boeing “sucks to suck” when they ask for yet another handout instead of doing any real work
Agreed, but the big players have their hands tied up in Congress and the military so much that it’s not gonna happen.
Then they should be nationalized, because they’ve already got the benefits, but none of the downsides, while the public get none of the benefits, and all of the downsides… At this point “too big to fail” are essentially critical government infrastructure setup by wealthy criminals to steal directly from tax payers.
Nationalizing industries? In America? We don’t do that here, friend. We give corporations massive bailouts and forgive all felonies.
Ya know… I was going to say “You dropped this /s”
But then sadly, I realized you didn’t :-(
I mean the US came shocking close after the Penn Central collapse, even operating Conrail for several years as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Federal Government for several years
I would bring back Conrail immediately.
I think you could make the argument it is already nationalized if the government bails them out to protect it’s military industry sector.
That’s actually really sad to think about.
Historically I don’t think that’s what the term “free market” was referring to, although some people do use it that way now. As always, we need to remember that there are no normal conditions, and free markets aren’t free. If you don’t have anti-monopoly legislation, if you don’t have anti-corruption legislation, then large corporations will win.
we dont have a free market. We have what i can only describe as Inverse Socialism
its socialism for the wealthy and the corporations, and “free market” for everyone else
this is part of the reason why theft of property from the rich, or violence against them, is not morally wrong.
They get tax breaks that we all pay for, and they influence policies that help themselves while killing us.
You cant steal what you already paid for, and its not murder when its self defense
It is, afaik, the literal, actual, unironic definition of the fascist economic model. Basically, the public sector only really exists in the form of “private” companies that are tightly coupled to the government.
thats what they taught us about communist Russia when i was in highschool
Our economics class learned that their “public” sector was a mix of private companies acting as both private citizens AND government agencies.
And my teacher was like “imagine if all the roads and utilities and infrastructure for the country was run by private, FOR PROFIT businesses that benefit from laws written for citizens, AND from laws written for corporations but are not bound by either”
20 years later i realize thats how its been here the whole time
Look I’m fine if the govt wants to say a particular corporation is too big to fail. But trying to let that company remain private is not how too big to fail works. If you want a bailout, the govt owns your company, and the govt is obliged to maintain ownership for as long as it’s deemed too big to fail…e.g. critical to national interests.
Personally I think all publicly traded companies should be partly owned by the people… Like sure you can have an IPO, and still make a zillion dollars… But society automatically owns a large enough share that you have to check with us before doing anything drastic
That’s called taxes.
Lots of decisions are made with our taxes and we aren’t consulted.
So maybe tax megacorps so much that they have to pay with shares?
That’s why the government owns us.
While I don’t disagree with you in principle, this begs definitions of what “us” and “anything drastic” means, which could vary to such an extent as to prove whatever law you’re proposing meaningless or to be so draconian as to stifle all technological progress.
Yeah… It would need to be fleshed out for sure
To big to fail should mean splitting up the company. At the very least when bailed out. Intresstingly the US actually made a profit bailing out banks in the 2008 crisis.
If I remember it correctly, that “profit” was nominal, i.e. without including the devaluation of that money due to Inflation, much less doing the proper investment accounting (as the Finance types do) were profit is a yield above a risk free investment (which, curiously, is normally Treasuries) and if it’s below that it’s not a good investment and beyond this the risk of losing your money also determines if the yield is worth.
Pretty much by definition the yield wasn’t worth it in helping the banks at the interest rate the Government got, as why nobody else was willing to lend them the money at that interest rate.
I’m so sick of companies pissing away all of their profit and money to make rich people richer then when the smallest problem hits it is our problem. We pay. Fuck them.
Looking at this (below) with some super sloppy math they have made in the last ten years 25 billion in profits and 5 billion in losses totally 20 billion in profits (give or take as my interest in totalling this accurately is zero). The fact that they used their money irresponsibly and didn’t say for a raining day, or it’s raining planes day, is not the tax payers that need to save them. I’m in my mid 30s, you know how many times I’ve seen extremely profitable and successful “too big to fail” businesses bailed out. Fuck the fucking fuckers and anyone who trys and correct my math.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BA/boeing/gross-profit
Just-restrained-enough fact-based rage is damn sexy
Oh yeah, I’d bang Herding Llamas. And I’m a straight guy!
Between 1998 and 2018, the plane manufacturer also manufactured a whopping $61.0 billion in stock buybacks, amounting to 81.8 percent of its profits. Add in dividends and Boeing’s shareholders received 121 percent of its profits.
Stock buybacks should be illegal or at least heavily regulated. They’re stealing money from their employees, putting their company in peril by not having cash on hand, and stunting innovation. Imagine if major companies had to put profit back into their company? Instead it’s a game to see how much you can exploit the working class, how little you can innovate and still get by (it’s easy when you have no competition), and gamble (after lobbying with minimal money) that your political plants will force the taxpayers you’re exploiting to bail you out. It’s pretty disgusting.
https://greenalphaadvisors.com/boeings-struggles-highlight-the-perils-of-stock-buybacks/
https://www.tipranks.com/stocks/ba/buybacks#google_vignette --> they’re still doing it as of March of this year.
Stock buybacks aren’t really the issue, if they didn’t exist they’d just be paying dividends with the money instead. The real issue is the reckless pursuit of maximising shareholder payouts, particularly for too big to fail corps.
While you are correct that dividends would be paid, it just wouldn’t happen on this scale or to this detriment, imo. Buybacks are used as a crutch to generate Short-term profit and lead to executives and companies focusing on short-term goals. They artificially increase EPS for executive compensation. This is all exacerbated when companies know they’re going to be bailed out by taxpayers because there are only 2 companies that make planes now, or 3 media companies setting prices together.
Can’t correct that which is correct. Shine on, fam!
If it is of national importance, then let’s nationalize it
That would make a lot of sense …until we’re reminded that USA is a kleptocracy, masquerading under a thick coating of we the people, freedom!™, liberty and justice for
alla select group of people. Then it becomes clear the obvious and only solution, is for the government to pump a couple billions into Boeing.
Maybe Boeing should have thought of that before making poor decisions. It should learn a little something called personal responsibility and if it goes broke, well, that’ll be a shame. Anyway!
If Boeing had just put a few dollars a week into a savings account when it was 18, it could have retired by now.
Boeing stopped pulling on its bootstraps and wants government welfare.
Can’t wait to see another multi-billion dollar corporation get bailed out while I still don’t have health insurance, and I’m still paying off credit card debt from during the Pandemic when the government gave people a measly $2400 over two years but handed out PPP loans and forgiveness to anyone that asked.
Fuck this country makes me ashamed to be a veteran.
there’s a long, proud tradition in this country of screwing over veterans starting in 1776
Don’t believe the homeless…many homeless people are not veterans. Many were just regular citizens like you and I who worked their asses off every day but then got screwed and into the streets.
veterans are a sizeable portion of the homeless, most American service men/women come from extremely poor backgrounds, they are the workers.
there is a reason it’s called a poverty draft.
learn some solidarity.
I was being sarcastic. However you’re right. At least back in Sandy San Diego, a bunch of the homeless people I got to meet were of different backgrounds. Some were migrants, many were veterans but I would say more than 50% were people down on their luck. I used to walk by St Vicents on my way to school. Many of them were on drugs. Over the years the population changes a lot though.
being honest here, “down on their luck” is already a fucking joke. these people arn’t poor because they diden’t have enough luck, they are poor because the system they live in wants them to be poor, poverty and homelessness isn’t a symptom, it’s a feature.
Yeah, basically. You know, I don’t think there is an evil mastermind behind any of it. We just basically made up a system that causes homelessness, but because it doesn’t affect us, then we do nothing to fix it. Later on, when we are affected in old age or when we loose our home, we simply don’t have a voice to say anything about it. So we do nothing.
the funny thing about that, the rich have class consciousness, they know from rational self-interest what to do
If you have not filed for VA compensation, you need to. If you want some help with the process let me know, I don’t feel like typing out a book.
Capitalists: Under capitalism inefficient companies fail, and this is good.
Also capitalists: Save Boeing!!!11oneone
Boeing isn’t the best example of a capitalist enterprise. It’s too big to fail. The US government is too dependent on it and the country depends on Boeing strategically.
Boeing is basically a pseudo-state corporation.
It’s too big to fail.
Then FTC has some work to do. Or nationalize.
What would the FTC do? Boeing builds aircraft for the US military. Breaking up the company or allowing it to fail jeopardizes the US’s strategic interests.
Nationalization is an option but the political climate in the US is extremely hostile to that option. Instead what I expect will happen is a massive bailout and a forced reorganization of management to fix all the issues. The government will dictate the changes the company needs to make but otherwise will remain hands off. This is how the US has done these things in the past.
What would the FTC do?
Break it up. So it won’t be “too big”.
Breaking up the company or allowing it to fail jeopardizes the US’s strategic interests.
Ah. So you see the problem with capitalism.
The government will dictate the changes the company needs to make
And what will happen if nothing changes? Another bailout?
Ah. So you see the problem with capitalism.
It’s a double-edged sword. Boeing developed these aircraft. They’ve given the US the military advantage they’ve enjoyed since the Second World War.
Boeing developed the aircraft with taxpayer money, they build the aircraft with taxpayer money, and then they get a ton of money as profits from our taxpayer money, and lastly we bail them out with our taxpayer money.
*Engieneers hired by Boeing
*Engieneers hired by Boeing
Oww, poor litlle boeing, not having enough money :C
Maybe they would still have some, if they didn’t pay hitmen, they probably don’t come cheap.
Let 'em die. No, fine them even more, and lock up the management.deprivatize the aerospace industry. imagine the boon to the American economy if these failing, debt-ridden, dysfunctional aerospace manufacturers and airlines were replaced by a massive jobs program with the goal of optimizing air travel safety, affordability, and access. we’re a big country. we could massively benefit from an aeronautical empire that gives any person safe, enjoyable 30 dollar flights, coast to coast.
(edit, oops, forgot a prefix. wow)
Sure, but only after we fix the rail system first.
Here me out:
What if the trains… Could fly…?
I got you, fam: maglev
Aviarail tickets
“Departing to Samara, please fasten your belts”
If any politician would run this on a platform I’d make a bingo game of the canned responses you’d see all over the “free thinker” side of social media.
Better yet, reduce reliance on domestic air travel by building a modern high-speed rail network
In my opinion, HSR is a supplement, not a replacement. Flying is still fast and in some cases easier to get to than rail.
30 dollar flights anywhere means you can kiss the planet good-bye.
Cut the budget airlines dedicate to lobbying against HSR and you might get better results
No. If flights are dirt cheap, people will kill this planet using them. It’s not about the price, it’s about the amount (& type) of energy used to accomplish transportation.
If flights are dirt cheap
HSR is generally more convenient and less expensive than air travel, thanks to the ability to run trains directly out of the center of major cities while airports are flung to the outskirts. If you’ve got the choice between a $30 plane + hours of driving and TSA and boarding and landing, or a straight shot to your train station and then $30 to pop on the next one that’s scheduled to leave, its an easy choice.
it’s about the amount (& type) of energy used to accomplish transportation.
Its also about speed and convenience. We’ve made train travel painfully obtuse. Other countries don’t do it this way, so people spend far less time in the air.
My apologies, when you referred to HSR, especially considering the context of Boeing, my brain deciphered that as “health & safety regulations”. I take it you are talking about a train system operator / railway network? And yes, train network in the US sucks compared to Europe, if I may say so as a European. But also here (Germany), it is painfully expensive - and I want to lynch some responsible politicians for making train tickets more expensive than regular flights for even short distances…
If a for-profit company needs to be rescued they usually shouldn’t be rescued.
oh, I see how it is, you want poor American workers to lose their jobs, eh? now give us money fucking slave.
We could take all the theoretical bailout money and just give it to the newly unemployed workers.
They would just blow it in penny whistles and Moon pies! /S
Government: It’s too big to fail!
Me: The last time you said that the Banks you bailed out made record profits.
Fuck Jim Cramer by the way.
………… 🫨
Boeing now officially top buy, inverse Cramer is a valid Strat
The GF wanted to do some Inverse Cramer this morning…and brother, I am just not as flexible as I used to be…
Or we talking about something else?
Gotta remember to warm up first or you could sprain your kazoo getting it setup - don’t ask how I know
Broken clocks…
Cramer loves broken clocks - he’s bought some this morning or if he hasn’t he’s wishing he had, just rolled up his sleeves and got to work on it - they’ve been on the line and off the line, two at a time, three at a time, and now all the guys on the phones on the floor are saying they missed it. Broken clocks are going one way folks, and that’s up
^after hours: BRKCLK down 25%^
here’s some bootstraps mate, good luck!
also get fucked. what needs to be saved is the people from your utter disregard for human life.
you should use the last bit of your money to fly your CEO and entire management on one of your shitty planes and watch them fly through whatever fucking hole inevitably opens up.
You mean like a dimensional portal?
no, like a hole in the side of a plane.
Hrmm… I miss the part where that’s my problem.
