Thanks, CR.ChalkRocker wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2020 7:42 pmAI respect the heck outta you, and your intellect, DC, but there're a lot of angles on that.
One bro works for Boeing. Of course, he's a good guy. NU and CU, tho'.
He and his cohorts have a LOT of complex views abt how that firm came to be where it is.
They work hard, pay dues (not union), and fret the bills like the rest of us.
Drop kick 'em, and who builds the the helos, tankers, etc. that we take for granted?
and, flip, yes. I get it. They fu*ked a LOT of stuff up. They get it, too. They are no shot-callers, tho'.
If all of them, and their fams, hit the UIB line, while we wrestle w/ everything else, and we kiss goodbye, likely FOREVER, an entire high, high, high-tech industry (decimated at most other levels), does that make us better when this is over? I can 't see how.
It'll be over at some point.
Here's the thing, as I'm sure you know. Boeing is asking for $60 billion -- after using $44 billion of its $58 billion in free cash flow (75%) over the last ten years to buy back stock. In his 4-plus years as CEO, Dennis Muilenburg "earned" in the neighborhood of $50 million of that bought-back stock (which is to say in stock awards alone, not counting cash and bonus compensation). Take all executives, plus all board members and total their haul, and its almost unconscionable to allow the company to have access to taxpayer funds.
The same goes for the airlines, which, collectively, used 96% of their free cash flow over the last five years to buy back stock.
Executives and directors should be forced to put some skin in the game before taxpayers foot the bill for their irresponsibility and wealth accumulation.
I'm not sure how you do that AND protect workers. I don't want to give them the full AIG treatment, but there's some serious moral hazard that has to be addressed.
I'm sorry this affects you personally. And it's important that we're all reminded, from time to time, that there are real-life consequences and real people who are affected by all of this. But it's the irresponsibility of these people -- the Boeing executives and directors -- that has put ALL of us, especially your brother, in such a shitty position right now.
Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell turned the markets into a political utility. Obama and Trump took political advantage of that, and people like Muilenburg took economic advantage of it. And the rest of us are getting fucked for it.
