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fairuzfan · 7 months

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Have you heard about the global day of action on March 2?

Yes! I have! Here's more info about it (click). Here, from the "About" section:

There is a growing global movement for a Free Palestine. Across the world, millions of people are engaging in demonstrations and organizing major marches in solidarity with Palestine. Our demands for an immediate ceasefire, cutting all aid to Israel, and lifting the siege on Gaza have broader support than ever. On November 4th, over 500,000 gathered in Washington DC for the largest march in recent times to stand in solidarity with Palestine. Protests with half a million people erupted on the streets of London, constituents across Canada occupied over 17 MP offices from coast to coast, and Belgian dock workers' unions have refused to transport weapons by plane or sea that are destined for Israel. We must keep building momentum and increase the pressure with more marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action directed at the political offices, businesses, and workplaces that fund, invest, and collaborate with Israeli genocide and occupation. NOW is the time for our mobilizations to grow in size, frequency, and focus; building a political climate that makes Israel’s business of genocide unsustainable.

Already protesters have shut down highways, train stations, and bridges in the United States; activists have targeted Israeli weapons manufacturers; Belgian dockworkers’ unions have refused to handle weapons transports to Israel; Bolivia has cut diplomatic ties with Israel while Jordan, Chile, and Colombia have recalled their Israeli ambassadors. Be part of the change, take action, and make your voice heard as the global struggle for Palestine enters a new phase.

Join the Shutdown for Palestine on Friday, December 8, 2023. We call on movements, organized labor, youth, students, media and healthcare workers, and all members of society to join us in demanding an immediate ceasefire, cutting all aid to Israel, and lifting the siege on Gaza. This call to action started on November 9, but we will continue to build up the momentum with ongoing days of action. No business as usual until Palestine is Free!

Walk out from work and/or school

Picket Israeli embassies and consulates

Picket against companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Elbit Systems)

Host speak outs

Wear kuffiyehs

Wear black armbands

#palestine #gaza

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probablyasocialecologist · 6 months

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If Plan Dalet was a settler-colonial script for the destruction of Palestine from 1948 onwards, it was preceded by – and had its conditions of existence in – the imperialist vision of an entity imposed on the land of Palestine for the protection of the interests of the core: access to raw materials and markets, prevention of subversive projects, buffer zones and counterweights against more distant rivals. In 1840, it was cotton, Muhammed Ali and Tsarist Russia. 127 years later, when the occupation was completed, it was petroleum, third world liberation and the Soviet Union. We are dealing here with an exceedingly deep structure, not an event or two; a ratcheting up and escalation across two centuries, a worsening and intensification of patterns first developed in the early nineteenth – also, not coincidentally, the temporal form of global warming itself. I have pointed very quickly and superficially to three further pivotal moments of articulation. In 1917 and after, the British occupation of Palestine was part of the transformation of the Middle East into a foundation for fossil capital, by dint of its oil resources. In 1947 and after, Western support for the new Zionist state was informed by the consummation of that order; in 1967 and after, by its defence. The steps along the way to the destruction of Palestine were simultaneously steps along the way to that of the Earth.

[...]

The destruction of Gaza is executed by tanks and fighter jets pouring out their projectiles over the land: the Merkavas and the F-16s sending their hellfire over the Palestinians, the rockets and bombs that turn everything into rubble – but only after the explosive force of fossil fuel combustion has put them on the right trajectory. All these military vehicles run on petroleum. So do the supply flights from the US, the Boeings that ferry the missiles over the permanent airbridge. An early, provisional, conservative analysis found that emissions caused during the first 60 days of the war equalled annual emissions of between 20 and 33 low-emitting countries: a sudden spike, a plume of CO2 rising over the debris of Gaza. If I repeat the point here, it is because the cycle is self-repeating, only growing in scale and size: Western forces pulverise the living quarters of Palestine by mobilising the boundless capacity for destruction only fossil fuels can give.

#palestine #israel #zionism #british empire #fossil fuels #a long essay but a good 'un

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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Boeing, Spirit and Jetblue, a monopoly horror-story

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables TONIGHT (Jan 22) at 8PM. Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

Last week, William Young, an 82 year old federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, blocked the merger of Spirit Airlines and Jetblue. It was a seismic event:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.254267/gov.uscourts.mad.254267.461.0_6.pdf

Seismic because the judge's opinion is full of rhetoric associated with the surging antitrust revival, sneeringly dismissed by corporate apologists as "hipster antitrust." Young called America's airlines and "oligopoly," a situation he blamed on out-of-control mergers. As Matt Stoller writes, this is the first airline merger to be blocked by the DOJ and DOT since deregulation in 1978:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-block-the-jetblue

The judge wasn't shy about why he was reviving a pre-Jimmy Carter theory of antitrust: "[the merger] does violence to the core principle of antitrust law, 'to protect] markets –- and its market participants — from anticompetitive harm."

The legal arguments the judge advances are fascinating and worthy of study:

https://twitter.com/johnmarknewman/status/1747343447227519122

But what really caught my eye was David Dayen's American Prospect article about the judge's commentary on the state of the aviation industry:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/01-19-2024-how-boeing-ruined-the-jetblue-spirit-merger/

Why, after all, have Spirit and Jetblue been so ardent in pursuing mergers? Jetblue has had two failed merger attempts with Virgin, and this is the third time they've failed in an attempt to merge with Spirit. Spirit, meanwhile, just lost a bid to merge with Frontier. Why are these two airlines so obsessed with combining with each other or any other airline that will have them?

As Dayen explains, it's because US aviation has been consumed by monopoly, hollowed out to the point of near collapse, thanks to neoliberal policies at every part of the aviation supply-chain. For one thing, there's just not enough pilots, nor enough air-traffic controllers (recall that Reagan's first major act in office was to destroy the air traffic controller's union).

But even more importantly, there are no more planes. Boeing's waitlist for airplane delivery stretches to 2029. And Boeing is about to deliver a lot fewer planes, thanks to its disastrous corner-cutting, which grounded a vast global fleet of 737 Max aircraft (again):

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-01-09-boeing-737-max-financial-mindset/

The 737 disaster(s) epitomize the problems of inbred, merger-obsessed capitalism. As Luke Goldstein wrote, the rampant defects in Boeing's products can be traced to the decision to approve Boeing's 1997 merger with McDonnell-Douglas, a company helmed by Jack Welch proteges, notorious for cost-cutting at the expense of reliability:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-01-09-boeing-737-max-financial-mindset/

Boeing veterans describe the merger as the victory of the bean-counters, which led to a company that chases short-term profits over safety and even the viability of its business:

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075

After all, the merger turned Boeing into the single largest exporter in America, a company far too big to fail, teeing up tens of billions from Uncle Sucker, who also account for 40% of Boeing's income:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-and-then

The US government is full of ex-Boeing execs, just as Boeing's executive row is full of ex-US federal aviation regulators. Bill Clinton's administration oversaw the creation of Boeing's monopoly in the 1990s, but it was the GOP that rescued Boeing the first time the 737 Maxes started dropping out of the sky.

Boeing's biggest competitor is the state-owned Airbus, a joint venture whose major partners are the governments of France, Spain and Germany – governments that are at least theoretically capable of thinking about the public good, not short-term profits. Boeing's largest equity stakes are held by the Vanguard Group, Vanguard Group subfiler, Newport Trust Company, and State Street Corporation:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-01-18-airbus-advantage/

As Matt Stoller says, America has an airline that the public bails out, protects, and subsidizes but has no say over. Boeing has all the costs of public ownership and none of the advantages. It's the epitome of privatized gains and socialized losses.

This is Reagan's other legacy, besides the disastrous shortage of air-traffic controllers. The religious belief in deregulation – especially deregulation of antitrust enforcement – leads to a deregulated market. It leads to a market that is regulated by monopolists who secretly deliberate, behind closed board-room doors, and are accountable only to their shareholders. These private regulators are unlike government regulators, who are at least nominally bound by obligations to transparency and public accountability. But they share on thing in common with those public regulators: when they fuck up, the public has to pay for their mistakes.

It's a good thing Boeing's executives are too big to fail, because they fail constantly. Boeing execs who are warned by subcontractors of dangerous defects in their planes order those subcontractors to lie, or lose their contracts:

https://www.levernews.com/boeing-supplier-ignored-warnings-of-excessive-amount-of-defects-former-employees-allege/

As a result of Boeing's mismanagement, America's only aircraft supplier steadily has lost ground to Airbus, which today enjoys a 2:1 advantage over Boeing. But it's not just Boeing that's the weak link aviation. US aviation is a chain entirely composed of weak links.

Take jet engines: Pratt & Whitney are Spirit's major engine supplier, but these engines suck as much as Boeing's fuselages. Much of Spirit's fleet is chronically grounded because the engines don't run. The reason Spirit buys its engines from those loveable goofballs at Pratt & Whitney? The Big Four airlines have bought all the engines for sale from other suppliers, leaving smaller airlines to buy their engines from fat-fingered incompetents.

This is why – as Dayen notes – smaller US airlines are so horny for intermarriage. They can't grow by adding routes, because there are no pilots. Even if they could get pilots, there'd be no slots because there are no air traffic controllers. But even if they could get pilots and slots, there are no planes, because Boeing sucks and Airbus can't make planes fast enough to supply the airlines that don't trust Boeing. And even if they could get aircraft, there are no engines because the Big Four aviation cartel cornered the market on working jet engines.

Part of Jetblue and Spirit's pitch was that they hand off the routes that they'd cut after their merger to other small airlines, like Frontier and Allegiant. But Frontier and Allegiant can't service those routes: they don't have pilots, slots, planes or engines.

Spirit hasn't been profitable since 2019 and is sitting on $4b in debt. Jetblue was proposing to finance its acquisition with another $3.5b in debt. The resulting airline could only be profitable by sharply cutting routes and massively raising prices, cutting 6.1m seats/year. With a debt:capital ratio of 111%, the company would have no slack and would need a bailout any time anything went wrong. Not coincidentally, the Big Four airlines also have debt:capital ratios of about 100-120%, and they do get bailouts ever time anything goes wrong.

As William McGee reminds us, it's been 14 years since anyone's started a new US airline:

https://twitter.com/WilliamJMcGee/status/1747363491445375072

US aviation is deeply cursed. But Boeing's self-disassembling aircraft show us why we can't fix it by allowing mergers: private monopolies, shorn of the discipline of competition and regulation, are extraction machines that turn viable businesses into debt-wracked zombies.

This is a subject that's beautifully illustrated in Dayen's 2020 book Monopolized, in the chapter on health care:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

The US health care system has been in trouble for a long time, but the current nightmare starts with the deregulation of pharma. Pharma companies interbred with one another in a string of incestuous marriages that produced these dysfunctional behemoths that were far better at shifting research costs to governments and squeezing customers than they were at making drugs. The pharma giants gouged hospitals for their products, and in response, hospitals underwent their own cousin-fucking merger orgy, producing regional monopolies that were powerful enough to resist pharma's price-hikes. But in growing large enough to resist pharma profiteering, the hospitals also became powerful enough to screw over insurers. Insurers then drained their own gene pool by combining with one another until most of us have three or fewer insurers we can sign up with – companies that are both big enough to refuse hospital price-hikes, and to hike premiums on us.

Thus monopoly begets monopoly: with health sewn up by monopolies in medical tech, drugs, pharmacy benefit managers, insurance, and hospitals, the only easy targets for goosing profits are people:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

This is how you get a US medical system that costs more than any other rich nation's system to operate, delivers worse outcomes than those other systems, and treats medical workers worse than any other wealthy country.

Now, rich people can still buy their way out of this mess, but you have to be very rich indeed to buy your way out of the commercial aviation system. There's a lot of 1%ers who fly commercial, and they're feeling the squeeze – and there's no way they're leasing their own jets.

Stein's Law holds that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." America's aviation mergers – in airlines, aircraft and engines – have hollowed out the system. The powerful, brittle companies that control aviation have so much power over their workforce that they've turned air traffic controller and pilot into jobs that no one wants – and they used their bailout money to buy out the most senior staff's contracts, sending them to early retirement.

Now, I'm with the people who say that most of US aviation should be replaced with high-speed rail, but that's not why our technocrats and finance barons have gutted aviation. They did it to make a quick buck. A lot of quick bucks. Now the system is literally falling to pieces in midair. Now the system is literally on fire:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/us/miami-boeing-plane-engine-fire.html

Which is how you get a Reagan appointed federal judge issuing an opinion that has me punching the air and shouting, "Yes, comrade! To the barricades!" Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. When the system is falling to pieces around you, ideology disintegrates like a 737 Max.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/21/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever/#will-eventually-stop

Image: Vitaly Druchenok (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ECAir_Boeing_737-306_at_Brazzaville_Airport_by_Vitaly_Druchenok.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Joe Ravi (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panorama_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_Building_at_Dusk.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #aviation #antitrust #monopoly #boeing #jetblue #spirit airlines #oligopoly #air traffic controllers #airbus #steins law

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bigairplaneblog · 2 months

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Antonov An-225: The Biggest Airplane in the World

When it comes to airline airplane models, there's one that towers above the rest—quite literally. The Antonov An-225, known affectionately as "Mriya" (which means "Dream" in Ukrainian), holds the title of the biggest airplane in the world. This massive aircraft is not just a large airplane model in the figurative sense; it's the largest in every conceivable dimension.

The Antonov An-225 was originally designed in the 1980s to transport the Buran spaceplane, the Soviet Union's answer to NASA's Space Shuttle. But its capabilities far exceeded its original mission.

With its maiden flight in December 1988, the An-225 quickly became a symbol of Soviet engineering prowess, and later, an indispensable asset in global heavy-lift cargo transportation.

So, what makes the Antonov An-225 the biggest airplane in the world? Let’s delve into the details.

A Giant Among Giants

The sheer size of the Antonov An-225 is mind-boggling. This large airplane model has a measure of 84 meters (275 feet) in length, with wingspan size of 88.4 meters (290 feet). To put that into perspective, it's longer than an American football field and has a wingspan wider than a Boeing 747. The An-225 stands at 18.1 meters (59.3 feet) tall, nearly as tall as a six-story building.

This airline airplane model is equipped with six turbofan engines, each capable of producing 51,600 pounds of thrust. These engines, combined with its enormous wings, allow the An-225 to carry a maximum takeoff weight of 640,000 kg (1,410,958 pounds). This includes the cargo it carries, which can be up to 250,000 kg (550,000 pounds). This impressive lifting capability makes it the go-to choice for transporting oversized cargo, such as wind turbine blades, military tanks, and even other aircraft.

The Unique Capabilities of the An-225

The Antonov An-225's cargo bay is so large that it could fit 50 cars. The interior is 43.32 meters (142 feet) long, 6.4 meters (21 feet) wide, and 4.4 meters (14.5 feet) high, making it spacious enough to accommodate a wide range of oversized items. Unlike many other cargo aircraft, which load through a rear cargo door, the An-225 is loaded through the nose. The aircraft's nose lifts up, allowing direct access to the cavernous interior. This feature is crucial for loading extremely large and heavy objects that cannot be easily maneuvered.

Another notable feature of this large airplane model is its 32-wheel landing gear system. This complex system allows the An-225 to land on runways that would be unsuitable for other aircraft of its size, providing flexibility in the types of airports it can access.

The An-225 also has a range of 15,400 km (9,569 miles) when carrying a smaller load, but this decreases as the payload increases. Despite this, its range and payload capacity make it ideal for long-distance heavy-lift missions, and it remains a vital tool in global logistics.

A Record-Breaking Aircraft

Throughout its operational life, the Antonov An-225 has set numerous world records. In 2001, it carried the heaviest single cargo item ever transported by air—a 189-ton generator for a power plant. In another instance, it transported a 130-ton piece of machinery from Germany to Kazakhstan, marking the largest payload ever carried by an aircraft.

The An-225 has also been used in humanitarian missions, delivering supplies to disaster-stricken areas around the world. Its ability to transport large quantities of aid quickly and efficiently has made it an invaluable resource in times of crisis.

The Legacy of the Antonov An-225

The Antonov An-225 is not just a marvel of engineering; it's a symbol of what human ingenuity can achieve. Despite being over three decades old, this airline airplane model remains unmatched in terms of size and lifting capacity. Its continued operation is a testament to the foresight of its designers and the enduring need for such a massive aircraft in today’s world.

However, the An-225's future is uncertain. The only existing model has been in and out of service due to the high costs of operation and maintenance. There's also been speculation about building a second An-225, but financial and logistical challenges have stalled those plans.

Despite these uncertainties, the Antonov An-225’s legacy is secure. It continues to capture the imagination of aviation enthusiasts and the general public alike, reminding us of the heights—both literal and figurative—that human technology can reach.

In conclusion, the Antonov An-225 is not just the biggest airplane in the world; it’s a symbol of human achievement. From its origins as a Soviet space transporter to its current role in global cargo transportation, this large airplane model has set records and exceeded expectations. Whether or not it continues to fly for years to come, the An-225 will always be remembered as a giant among giants in the world of aviation.

#aviation #aircraft #airplane model #aircraft model #airplane

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dangerousthingobservation · 8 hours

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The Boeing B-52H is in its fifth decade of operational service. It primarily provides the United States with immediate nuclear and conventional global strike capability. The B-52H is the most combat capable bomber in the U.S. inventory. Due to its high mission-capable rate, long range, persistence and ability to employ accurate standoff weapons and Joint Direct Attack Munitions, the B-52H continues to be a major contributor to the U.S. and allied forces.

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liesmyth · 4 months

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Asking because I don’t know how to tag properly/don’t have enough tlt brainrot followers on my own blog: I had this revelation that New Rho Could be short for “New Rhodesia” which would say a LOT about the original colonists of the planet (the trillionaires(?))

ooh this is juicy! For context: "Rhodesia" was the name given to Zimbabwe and Zambia by the British, after Cecil Rhodes (you may know him from the Rhodes scholarship. also the imperialism)

I started replying to this and it went horribly long so I'm gonna put it under a cut. My tldr is that I don't think it's a direct reference, both because of naming patterns in TLT and because I don't think the trillionaires who escaped earth would be referencing Cecil Rhodes on purpose, but I also don't think it's a wild leap to make.

I'm throwing this in the tags and I'm 👀 to know what people think.

On the name

I always assumed that New Rho was a reference to the greek word / letter Rho (ρ). This would fit both the naming patterns of the Houses (which are partly inspired by classical mythology) AND what little we see of the naming patterns of BoE, who apparently like to name places after ancient or mythological locations on Earth — see also: Lemuria, Ctesiphon wing, Troia cell.

Note that we actually don't know for sure whether "New Rho" is the name given to the planet by the locals or by the Houses — the only person who actually uses that name is Ianthe during her speech, so it may very well be the case that the Empire renamed New Rho unilaterally, and the name doesn't reflect what its actual inhabitants call it. I don't believe that's the case (because, again, it fits with other naming patterns BoE seem to have + to a lesser extent, I think there would have been hints in the text if that had been the case, extra jeerings from the crowd or whatever if they felt strongly that their planet had another name) I'm just bringing this up here for completion's sake.

About the trillionaires:

I've given a lot of thought to the demographic of the TLT fleet. Although IDK how widespread of an opinion this is in the fandom but, personally, I feel pretty strongly that the bunch of ultra-rich people who would have fleed Earth leaving everyone to die would NOT have been the kind of demographic keen to reference British colonialism.

Like, I think it's important to note that the "first wave" of ships that launched from Earth didn't seem to include ANY major politician from a Western country that we know of — they managed until the last moment to keep up the pretence that it was "just" the first of many trips, and to me the lack of panic points to the fact that many public figures weren't on board. The world leader John puppeteers is heavily implied to be the US president, and even he wouldn't have been on board. John's flashback arc pits him very strongly against the global north, but more than that — imo, it's telling that the only sympathetic governments he could get to listen to him were the NZ government and parts of Oceania. It wasn't just John vs. the West, or John vs. OECD countries. It was John vs. the uber-wealthy, and those exist all over the world.

What I'm getting at is: that the trillionaires weren't overwhelmingly white. Many of them would have been USamerican or British or European, but so many people on board those ships would have been Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Russian, Thai etc. I'm thinking about 2024 data on List of countries by share of income of the richest one percent and List of cities by # of billionaires (keeping in mind also that in the NtN flashback arc, the stock market has crashed and the economy is in shambles. I would also assume that many Silicon Valley / tech fortunes have dramatically shrunk, and most "trillionaires" would be people who materially control access to resources.)

Basically what I'm getting at is that, TO ME, the TFL fleet was an escape pod put together by a group of people who had the means to decide they should save themselves and fuck everyone else, rather than a colonising project, and that most of them wouldn't be in a rush to identify themselves with the British empire. Many of them, maybe even a majority, wouldn't be white. They're the scifi equivalent of French noblemen fleeing the revolution. Uber-privileged people who became refugees.

Anyway. This is a book.

Everything I've written above explains why, TO ME, whoever on those ships made it out alive + successfully colonised a plane wouldn't be thinking about the British Empire in an especially positive light. However! TLT as a story doesn't exist in a vacuum, and Taz Muir (who exists in the world, and lives in Oxford) would 100% know who Cecil Rhodes is. I can absolutely believe that she settled on a Greek-mythology-inspired naming pattern and then, out of all the available options, decided to reference the colonialist whose statue got removed while she was writing the book.

#fuckyeahpostingshiton #SORRY THIS IS SOOOO LONG #tlt thoughts #elle tlt posting #ntn #new rho #tlt worldbuilding #tlt meta #ask

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chainreactionpodcast · 2 months

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Economic Slowdowns, Geopolitical Tensions, and Industry Shifts

What if the global supply chain you rely on every day is more fragile than you think? The latest episode of the Chain Reaction Podcast dives into this very question, tackling the pressing issues shaking up supply chains worldwide. From China’s economic slowdown and the troubles in their property market to the escalating protectionism impacting trade rules, this episode equips you with a nuanced…

#Airfreight #Boeing #Business #China #Complexity #Economic Slowdowns #EU #EV #Geopolitical Tensions #Germany #Global Supply Chains #Industry Shifts #Malaysia #strikes #Supply Chains #US #Volatility

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head-post · 4 months

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Boeing sales plummet after multiple scandals

Boeing sales continue to fall amid the Alaska Airlines disaster and other safety scandals. The beleaguered airline received just four new orders in May, and none for the 737 Max. That plane has been at the centre of several disasters, including a January Alaska Airlines flight when a door plug flew off in the plane minutes after takeoff, Daily Mail reports.

The same model was involved in two disasters four months apart that killed more than 300 people. The Lion Air crash in 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash were both caused by the same sensor malfunction. Whistleblower allegations of safety failures, coupled with reports of falsified inspections, have only made Boeing’s situation worse.

By comparison, rival manufacturer Airbus recorded 27 orders in May. Boeing also had to contend with Aerolineas Argentinas cancelling its order, bringing its total sales last month to just three aircraft. This follows poor sales in April, when Boeing reported seven sales and no sales for its 737 Max.

More from Maureen Tkacik

But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.

Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.

#boeing

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longwindedbore · 7 months

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• The desire to push R&D costs off to the company’s suppliers meant that Boeing was essentially building its planes from kits that weren’t designed together, didn’t fit together, and didn’t meet the standard of quality the company had once been known for. This move may have been a short-term boon for company profits, the share price, or for CEO bonuses, but the reduction in quality has given rise to the phrase “If it’s a Boeing, I ain’t going.” I’m not sure there has ever been a more aggressive about-face on a company’s view by the global public. •

===================================

The problems are Systemic and require an expensive, extensive, and prolonged effort to correct.

Tying bonuses to safety - as announced by Boeing - ignores the potential and now realized Systemic catastrophes possiblities when mating components designed by different manufacturering entities. (As opppsed to subcontractors manufacturing to specifications and blueprints produced by Boeing.

The different components may all pass their individually manufacturers quality control as well as Boeing’s. As INDIVIDUAL components but FAIL to mesh in the completed aircraft.

The burgeoning examples are coming faster and faster. Executives aren’t going to solve these known issues let along figure out other weaknesses if Boeing has lost depth in engineering staff.

What a nightmare.

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kineticpenguin · 7 months

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One funny but also infuriating thing about the progression of time is that like, okay, you might be able to see why car manufacturers fought against safety regulations back in the day (for example), because these guys had basically been accustomed to being able to build and design their cars with whatever constraints they chose (because they felt this would make the most money), and now suddenly someone's telling them "no actually your cars need to not be deathtraps. That's a thing I am legally requiring you to design around." You figure, eh, I see why you'd be mad about that but it had to happen.

And then people argue for degregulation, saying we went too far, and that we're actually making people less safe and can't compete in the global economy, and you're like, "okay yeah, sure, maybe we didn't figure it all out decades ago, let's vote for these neoliberal free market guys"

And then all of a sudden Boeing airliners aren't the safest in the industry anymore, they're suicidal

Nope business executives are just the same thoughtless "line go up no matter what" dumbasses every fucking year every fucking decade every fucking century

#john oliver's show leaves out the important fact that when Boeing was a paragon of safety it WASN'T A MONOPOLY

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azspot · 3 months

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The bulk of our taxpayer dollars are seized by a relatively small group of corporate war profiteers led by the five biggest companies profiting off the war industry: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon (RTX), Boeing, and General Dynamics. As those companies have profited, the MIC has sowed incomprehensible destruction globally, keeping the United States locked in endless wars that, since 2001, have killed an estimated 4.5 million people, injured tens of millions more, and displaced at least 38 million, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All

#mic

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probablyasocialecologist · 6 months

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John Barnett had one of those bosses who seemed to spend most of his waking hours scheming to inflict humiliation upon him. He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed. “John is very knowledgeable almost to a fault, as it gets in the way at times when issues arise,” the boss wrote in one of his withering performance reviews, downgrading Barnett’s rating from a 40 all the way to a 15 in an assessment that cast the 26-year quality manager, who was known as “Swampy” for his easy Louisiana drawl, as an anal-retentive prick whose pedantry was antagonizing his colleagues. The truth, by contrast, was self-evident to anyone who spent five minutes in his presence: John Barnett, who raced cars in his spare time and seemed “high on life” according to one former colleague, was a “great, fun boss that loved Boeing and was willing to share his knowledge with everyone,” as one of his former quality technicians would later recall. But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs.

[...]

By now you know what became of Swampy: He was found dead a few weeks ago with a gunshot wound to his right temple, “apparently” self-inflicted, on what was meant to be the third day of a three-day deposition in his whistleblower case against his former employer; his amended complaint, which his lawyer released last week, is the basis for much of this story. It is worth noting here that Swampy’s former co-workers universally refuse to believe that their old colleague killed himself. One former co-worker who was terrified of speaking publicly went out of their way to tell me that they weren’t suicidal. “If I show up dead anytime soon, even if it’s a car accident or something, I’m a safe driver, please be on the lookout for foul play.”

#Boeing #John Barnett #neoliberalism

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