[indymike]

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise.

If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap. Eventually, the illegal part gets people (even CEOs) sued, fired and/or jailed, but the company might continue if it can afford to pay the legal bills.

> These big companies are applauded for being amoral because their stock prices go up.

I don't think any investors are applauding the mismanagement at Boeing. I suspect the leadership team there is checking to make sure their "golden parachute" isn't an anvil. Being amoral works for a while, but it is a very poor long term strategy.

> Boeing can replace their management and the company continues.

Society has decided that closing down large employers is a cure worse than the disease. Closing a misbehaving company sure seems like justice, but to the 43,000 people who depend on that company for a livelihood, and the communities, even small manufacturing towns that the amoral company is keeping alive, well, the network effects are serious. So the consequences are usually in the form of inflicting financial pain to the company, or directly enforcing consequences against the people who do illegal/tortuous things.

[dmix]

> Society has decided that closing down large employers is a cure worse than the disease.

This sort of thinking is exactly why companies like Boeing get a free pass to do whatever it wants. Local govs protect them like the mob because "jobs" and then Congress panics every time they see the market only has 1-2 options for national security stuff and then reinforces monopolies that slowly eat away at the country's competitive advantage for short term relief. And all were left with is the same small group of untouchable, completely mediocre mega corporations living off past glory when there was actual real competition and risk.

Every time you kick the can you just delay getting the medicine you need. Then instead of having a wildly successful company making new products and dominating the global market - which is something employees and govs benefit from via salaries/taxes/local development, foreign competition takes those jobs or protectionism creepingly increases the cost of doing business because a dying corpse is propped up. Then employees get squeezed and suddenly the mega corporation is getting billions in welfare. And the public gets worse and worse products, which impact other industries that depend on them.

[Spartan-S63]

Why not solve the "jobs" crisis of shutting down business in this situation by inverting liquidation preference and injecting employees to the front of the line? When the business liquidates as a result of close of business, creditors and investors become last in line and the preference adds employees (ICs first) with executives, creditors, and investors either completely cut out or left at the end of the line.

The folks who did the job on the floor walk away with a chunk of change that's runway for them to find a next job, or whatever they want to do. Creditors, investors, and execs are left holding the bag, as they should.

[ryandrake]

I think there are more options than just "disappearing" the company. Why not break them up into commercial and defense companies? Or even better, tell them: You need to figure out how to break your staff and assets up into four separate, competing companies that all produce airplanes. Go! Probably many other ways to skin the cat, but the US population (proxied through government) is just unwilling to do anything. We treat companies with kid gloves and just let them walk all over us.

[projectileboy]

The 1-2 options is a big part of the problem. Government has been willfully asleep at the wheel allowing massive mergers to take place for decades. Then, oops, all of the few remaining companies are now too big to fail, so now what? This isn’t only a problem in the defense industry.

[resource_waste]

>If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap.

What is moral about the American Medical Association using Taxes to fund their artificially scarce residency programs which causes consumer prices to go up?

Okay, so that one falls outside the venn diagram.

With lobbyists writing the laws, I'm really wondering if there is as much overlap as you think.

[throwaway4220]

I keep hearing this idea of artificially restricting residencies like some sort of opec cartel. The fact is no one wants to do primary care there are easy residency spots for family med, peds, internnal med and psych all across the country. 94% of residency spots filled in the country last year (nrmp)

But then again I am a decade out of all that stress of matching so I’m over it.

[resource_waste]

>I keep hearing this idea of artificially restricting residencies like some sort of opec cartel.

Yes this is real. Look up the ACGME.

Physician wages are non-market and artificial due to limited supply.

If we can import Physicians from other countries, I'll ease up a bit. But the reality is that Physicians are collectively doing immoral things.

[afavour]

> I don't think any investors are applauding the mismanagement at Boeing

Even with everything going on Boeing’s stock price is higher than it was ten years ago. Five years ago it was 4x, I’m sure it’ll recover a good amount from today’s number.

My cynical take is that a lot of investors don’t see what Boeing is doing as mismanagement. They’re in a hugely enviable market position: only one competitor that can’t scale quickly, customers are captive. Boeing management moved to reduce costs (i.e. get rid of expensive unionized workers) while still churning out a large number of planes: success. Some people have died as a result of that, sure, but did you see those profit and loss numbers? Wow-eee.

A year from now Boeing’s stock price will have rallied and they’ll continue on. Maybe an exec or two will take a golden parachute for PR purposes but it won’t mean anything.

[panick21_]

The investors are simply seeing the reality of the situation.

But they do see the mismanagement and still want it to be better. Sure having a higher stock price is good, but an even higher one would be better.

[colonwqbang]

I can understand wanting the executives to be held accountable. But why is it important to punish the stock holders of Boeing? Do you feel that they had a hand in these disasters?

[gravescale]

If owning shares means having an, admittedly small when it comes to a firm the size of Boeing, part in the decision making process and a financial stake in the company, then yes, in principle. Shares aren't a vacuum-sealed number-go-up game, taking a share means an interest in supporting a company via investment or a desire to be involved in the decisions (which usually requires a substantial investment as a proof of stake).

It gets a bit murkier when it's all mashed and derived and packaged to death which results in things like the Church of England accidentally (or at least they divested when it was pointed out) having shares in things that it doesn't share philosophies with such as oil companies.

[afavour]

I never said they should be punished but it's an interesting thought exercise. A long-time stock holder in Boeing has indirectly profited from the death of innocent airplane passengers, I certainly wouldn't object to them losing that profit. And if punishing executives is permissible... well, those execs serve at the pleasure of the stockholders. There's surely _some_ responsibility there. But no, I'm not saying we should lock up the stockholders.

[thejazzman]

> illegal part gets people (even CEOs) sued, fired and/or jailed

This really doesn't seem to be true anymore to those wise enough to lawyer. Arbitration clauses maybe the biggest culprit but I mean, Tesla Supervised Full Self Driving? Sure that cross country zero intervention demo in 2017 was great but...

[salawat]

>Society has decided that closing down large employers is a cure worse than the disease.

Cure: Don't allow excessive consolidation/break up TBTF.