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Comment by marginalia_nu | Hacker News Reader

It's kind of strange that there isn't more of a pushback from the US government against this sort of self-cannibalization of a company that is arguably a strategic national asset.

If it was e.g. a Chinese or Russian company that had merged with Boeing, kicked out the engineering management and started dismantling the company from within, I think it would have been viewed as an act of hostility, but when domestic MBAs do the same, well that's just another day in capitalism?

Ultimately, if Boeing is bled dry, then the entire civilian airliner market has been ceded to (European) Airbus.

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Usually corporations tend to act in their own good. Usually, corporations are better and faster at reacting than a government.

Here the problem is executives who are absolutely shit at understanding what the product of their company is (efficiency AND safety). And absolute shit at understanding that yes, you can extract some additional value in short term by reducing standards, but it will eventually catch up with you and the party will be gone.

If I was investor in Boeing I would be screaming to get these executives fired as they obviously are not acting responsibly with good of my long term investment in mind.

Usually corporations tend to act in their own good. Usually, corporations are better and faster at reacting than a government.

Neither of those statements are supported by facts. It's very common for corporations to be driven to ruin by poor management, or just scraping for parts. It's very common for governments to have to regulate entire industries out of their self inflicted demise (see any financial crisis)

Not to take a jab, but you should ask yourself why you're repeating this (i.e: where you're getting it from, over and over again) because it's plainly false.

> it will eventually catch up with you

No it will catch up with the company, you will have already cashed your bonus check.

Most investors are "institutional investors" which is a fancy way of saying they represent large funds on behalf of others. There are serious principal-agent problems that align incentives away from responsible long-term management.

> If it was e.g. a Chinese or Russian company that had merged with Boeing, kicked out the engineering management and started dismantling the company from within, I think it would have been viewed as an act of hostility, but when domestic MBAs do the same, well that's just another day in capitalism?

I cannot say how China handles this, but for Russian companies it is the norm for domestic management to dismantle the company from within. The only thing they need to remember is to hail Putin all the time. MBAs at least could maximize short term profits, but in Russia they couldn't do even this. You can look at the history of Roscosmos for example.

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