[psynister]

Boeing's relationship with government agencies is beyond alarming. There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well as workers in the aviation industry. People's lives are more important than profit. I can't believe this is a controversial position in our society.

[jakeinspace]

Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, RTX (Raytheon), etc are essentially subsidiaries of the DoD, with privatized returns. They are too vital to the US military to be allowed to fail. Many countries like Russia and China have more overtly state-owned weapons manufacturers, whereas the U.S. pretends that theirs are legitimate free-market suppliers. When your business is deemed essentially to national security, and when the government signs trillion-dollar multi-decade contracts for equipment and maintenance, market forces no longer apply.

[ethbr1]

There is no guarantee that a country has to have a leading-edge aircraft manufacturer. On either the civilian or military side.

If companies lose too much money and don't receive bailouts, they simply cease to exist.

And you can't magic a new one on demand, given the specialized expertise and subcontractor requirements for something this complex.

So the reality is the government is stuck with a multi-variable optimization problem -- what combination of price, competition, and sustained R&D/production capability is best?

There is no easy answer. The modern, less-competitive, merged market is a deliberate consequence of the US refusing the spend Cold War levels of money to keep a larger number of manufacturers afloat.

[alexsereno]

Effectively all of the aerospace and defense industries are like this. I’m not even sure it’s controversial, it’s just so normalized

[kevmo]

"New Spin on a Revolving Door: Pentagon Officials Turned Venture Capitalists" - https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/30/new-spin-on-a-revolving-door-pe...

[tgv]

I don’t think it is controversial, but rather overlooked whenever it’s convenient. Yes, that would speak ill of the people involved.

[bendergarcia]

Beoings relationship with the U.S. only barely starts at commercial planes. They support the U.S. mission militarily. It is and should be alarming but also not surprising. The gov cozies up with any corporation that can further its interest

[golergka]

If that's how they cut corners in civilian aviation, which is used by the public all the time, how can they cut corners when they deliver obscure military hardware that just sits in the warehouse waiting for WW3?

[robertlagrant]

> There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well as workers in the aviation industry

The people providing oversight were the problem. Any progress here needs to avoid an "another hull on the Titanic" sort of proposal.