[worldwidelies]

My comment isn't coming out of thin air. I'm trying my best to look at the big picture. What I see is that the military industrial complex is bigger than anyone (including myself), can comprehend. They are an immovable force. If they go down, so does our country. It's that simple. This isn't eBay or some couple billion dollar fraud, we are talking about. It's much much bigger. This is trillions bigger.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What I see is that the military industrial complex is bigger than anyone (including myself), can comprehend

Plenty of people comprehend it, from the JCoS through the GAO.

> If they go down, so does our country. It's that simple.

Sure. The same isn’t true about Boeing going bankrupt. (Bankruptcy doesn’t, like, blow up the factories.)

Part of the system’s vastness is its ability to survive some heads rolling.

[worldwidelies]

You're referring to compartmentalized departments. No one person or internal unit can truly understand the inner workings of this machine. This is by design.

Bankruptcy? There's indirectly trillions of dollars on the line if Boeing goes bankrupt. This is why I'm telling you, nothing significant will happen. Don't be an contrarian, just think about it. "Too Big to Fail", it's a real thing bud.

[n2d4]

Bankruptcy means the shareholders and potentially some lenders are wiped out; it doesn't mean the company ceases to exist.

In a Boeing bankruptcy, roughly $100b of its paper money market cap may be "wiped out" (but for the company to go bankrupt that paper money would have to be worthless anyways), but the factories would keep producing. No "trillions" are on the line, even in that extreme case.

The company and its assets don't just evaporate when some executives go to prison.

[JumpCrisscross]

> You're referring to compartmentalized departments

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are literally above those compartments [1].

> No one person or internal unit can truly understand the inner workings of this machine

But they do! Not down to every nut and bolt. But we can say that about, like, a modern gaming console.

> indirectly trillions of dollars on the line if Boeing goes bankrupt

No? Silicon Valley tends to be naïve on how precise bankruptcy can be. Boeing going bankrupt doesn’t mean every supplier fails.

> Don't be an contrarian, just think about it

I assume you’re also personally familiar with the leadership of multiple Boeing suppliers?

I’m not saying that to dismiss you, but to give pause to your thinking anyone who disagrees with you just hasn’t thought.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff

[lurking_swe]

isn’t doing nothing actually MORE harmful for this military industrial complex? who cares if boeing is part of the industrial complex if it’s manufacturing junk? garbage in garbage out…

[worldwidelies]

It's not manufacturing junk. It's manufacturing weapons of mass destruction at a massive scale. A few of their planes malfunction, ok. The bombs they produce are a different story. They work, and they fuck up thousands of lives in a short amount of time.

[lurking_swe]

Not just planes, recently there was a problem at the ISS after astronauts docked. Embarrassing.

Anyway i was thinking more along the lines of fighter jets, etc…but then i realized that Lockheed manufactures most of the new advanced jets.

And point taken regarding bombs.

[worldwidelies]

@JumpCrissCross I can't reply to your sub comment, but yes, Boeing manufactures weapons systems. It's their bread and butter. You thought they only built airplanes and partially functional spacecrafts?

[JumpCrisscross]

> Boeing manufactures weapons systems

If you’re intentionally mis-using the term WMDs your comment is in bad faith.

[worldwidelies]

Okay you're right, weapons of mid destruction.

[FredPret]

Trillions?

Military industrial complex takes down the USA?

Stop hyperventilating John Oliver’s talking points and look into the numbers.

Each big military contractor is a public company. You can read their detailed financial reports online, for free, right now.

The big ones range from 50B-120B each. At best they all add up to about 1T - absolutely nothing compared to total US wealth.

[lupusreal]

That doesn't include their innumerable contractors and suppliers, spread out across the country. In many cases these are the major employers in that region and their collapse would trigger the collapse of that whole local economy. The economic harm of the big MIC companies going kaput would be immense.

[JumpCrisscross]

> their collapse would trigger the collapse of that whole local economy

Yes, but why would they collapse? General Motors also had a web of suppliers when it went bankrupt. Preserving the value of a struggling company while it reörganises is why we invented modern bankruptcy.

[shrimp_emoji]

Nothing compared to Apple or Nvidia.