[obblekk]

I agree with the sentiment more than the solution.

In the American system, the gov should assess punitive fines for regulatory failures, revoke self regulation privileges, and impose consent decrees on company behaviors.

The combined impact of these actions would cost Boeing billions which would result in shareholder action to replace management.

Perhaps the gov should also investigate willful neglect on the part of management. If it’s found that engineers complained about policies for reasonable safety concerns and management ignored them, then personal liability, perhaps even criminal, would extend to the directors and executives.

I don’t know how much of this would happen, or be found guilty in court. But I do hope this isn’t just another administrative slap on the wrist like 2019.

[Morte42]

Boeing spread its operations over as many states as it could some time ago so any changes made to Boeing would impact a lot of politicians, changes that leave some losers and some winners will be fiercely contested. Its clearly a situation that requires some sort of change but since the government became involved with Boeing, things have gotten worse. Maybe the decline is not associated with that change in particular but I feel very sceptical about further government involvement being a cure.

Boeing is just too integrated in too many places to interfere with. The governments of both Republican and Democratic states would need a comprehensive agreement to even consider making small moves on Boeing. Thats the issue, the biggest fight isnt with Boeing itself but the stake holders and beneficiaries. Boeing are very astute when it comes to business, they covered their bases well long before this drama started.

[pylua]

I refuse to believe the only thing that can be broken up at Boeing is its planes.

Maybe no one has the guts to take proper action.

[wwtdtgotiatl]

Who went to jail or faced sky sort of justice for the sub-prime mortgage crisis and subsequent harm it caused?

[michaelsshaw]

In the US the only one was Kareem Serageldin.

[AtlasBarfed]

(Looks at antitrust enforcement over the last 50 years)

... yeah, no one has the guts.

[arrosenberg]

> revoke self regulation privileges, and impose consent decrees on company behaviors.

Why? I'm on board with punitive fines, but why should the government be in the business of being a babysitter to these spoiled executives. If they can't do their job without committing crimes, send them to jail and break up the company if it's too big to fail.

[salawat]

>why should the government be in the business of being a babysitter to these spoiled executives

>If they can't do their job without committing crimes, send them to jail

I'm getting mixed messages here. So you want them to be the Government's problem or not?

[arrosenberg]

Yes, the government should investigate crimes and prosecute them. They should not make consent decrees and babysit them.

[salawat]

But the government ends up babysitting them either way... Either operationally, or in imprisoning them...

So if your goal is to not have governmental babysitting, are you advocating the death penalty for corporate crimes?

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

I hope the other poster ignores you from here on out, this is such a shitty way to argue with someone.

It's a false dichotomy dressed up as something else.

[ToucanLoucan]

It's difficult to imagine any meaningful consequences for any of these massive corporations. Their brass rotates in and out of the same regulatory agencies meant to be overseeing them. Conflict of interest, as a concept, is a joke in these spaces: these people all know each other and work together extremely closely. Better jobs in industry get you better jobs in regulation get you better jobs in industry and round and round they go, practically waving as they pass in the hallways.

[Andrex]

The entire airline industry was nationalized at one time. I wonder how safe things were during this period versus today.

[jagged-chisel]

Don’t forget to control for advances in technology.

[ric2b]

Yes, the most accurate comparison would probably be comparing public and private rail across different countries. There are probably other factors that would need to be controlled for as well, though.

[hawthornio]

Private vs public rail might be a good proxy—e.g., britain’s privatization under thatcher, NYC acquiring various independent subway operators

[eterm]

UK Rail privitisation wasn't under Thatcher.

[anigbrowl]

How has that approach been working out? It's become common for CEOs to massively cut corners in pursuit of profits and then fail up or retire in comfort unless. Occasionally one goes to prison for fraud if they've directly lied to stockholders, but 'looking the other way' and hiding behind bland assurances generally pays great. We have one political party that reliable decries any sort of regulatory action as interference with the free market or outright communism; the American system is infested with bad faith actors.

[fuzzfactor]

Nationalize?

It would make more sense for the government to Engineerize.

Maybe mandate qualifications for executives of certain types of engineering companies beyond a certain size.

Looking at the fundamental engineering tasks that are under the umbrella of the chain of command, each entire chain from task to top executives should be composed of engineers having deep experience starting at the lowest levels of task performance.

Where outstanding task performance, engineering ability, and experience can be crafted to overcome the sad situations where corporate ladder-climbing is instead favored to allow those without proper engineering ability to end up making important decisions.

IOW if the tasks were design, manufacturing, and maintenance, each of those departments would be headed up by the best leader in the company at that particular task. Maybe a 10-year time frame, from first progress as task operator to leadership at this level.

Before being laterally transferred to an adjacent department which retains its established leader, and the transferree retains their title and pay while actually having to spend some time performing some of those entry-level tasks for familiarity before being mentored back up the leadership chain in their new department in a much fewer number of years. Before further being given the immersion treatment within another key department.

Enough of this and you've got the company's best leadership candidates having the deep and broad capabilities to lead the departments all together in a combined way.

And eventually the top executives will be people like this and no other.

The best the company has to offer, proven from the ground up.

For some types of engineering where the business follows the design, manufacturing, maintenance progression, it might be ideal for some promising new engineers to start in maintenance, then move through manufacturing, then design. Which is in reverse, but that might be one of the ways to get the best designs more consistently. Provided this type of engineer has what it takes to be an outstanding designer to begin with, and from the start visualizes how each of their non-design tasks will be able to leverage their future design efforts to no end.

And each of the leading engineers should have appropriate managers working under them to handle the non-engineering staff needs.

Anything less and you're fooling yourself.

If there were only some kind of national aeronautics administration within the government that had enough qualified engineers to oversee something like this for Boeing.

It might just get off the ground.