Boeing was never cuddly, but old-timers remember a company led by engineers with an uncompromising focus on quality. In recent decades, leaders have shifted attention to stock buybacks and schemes to squeeze concessions out of workers and taxpayers.
Following 737 crashes, the GOP presidential hopeful helped crush a proposal to force more disclosure of Boeing’s spending to influence safety regulators.
The plug door that ripped off an Alaska Airlines plane only exists because of cost-cutting production techniques to facilitate cramming more passengers into the cabin.
William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger
TomDispatch
Will fear, exaggerated threats, and pork-barrel politics be enough to keep the Pentagon and its contractors fat and happy, even as the urgent priorities of so many of the rest of us are starved of much-needed funding?
“Had they done the right thing upfront, they might have had slightly higher costs upfront, but they would have saved billions in the long term,” Mr. Sullenberger said. “But that’s hard to do in this world run by Wall Street.”
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