[djyaz1200]

Counterpoint: How about the government subsidize Boeing on the same level as the EU does with Airbus?

The original sin of the Max disasters was rushing to make the 50+ year-old 737 something it wasn't meant to be to counter Airbus's success in the narrow body segment.

[guardian5x]

It’s important to note that Boeing has indeed received substantial subsidies and tax breaks over the years, comparable to or even exceeding those provided to Airbus by the EU. For instance, Washington state alone has granted Boeing tax breaks worth about $9 billion. Additionally, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that both the EU’s support for Airbus and the US’s benefits to Boeing violated trade rules, leading to tariffs on both sides.

So, while the EU has certainly supported Airbus, the US government has also heavily subsidized Boeing, creating a complex and competitive landscape in the aerospace industry. This context is crucial when discussing the challenges and decisions faced by both companies.

[piva00]

> So, while the EU has certainly supported Airbus, the US government has also heavily subsidized Boeing, creating a complex and competitive landscape in the aerospace industry. This context is crucial when discussing the challenges and decisions faced by both companies.

LLM-generated comment is becoming quite obvious to spot.

On the main topic: Boeing not only received subsidies from the government as stated on the two parent-sibling comments as they've also attempted to kill Bombardier CSeries competition by judicial means in the USA. Instead of providing a better product they attempted to delay Bombardier's sales of the CSeries by starting a long judicial process accusing Bombardier of price-dumping when they didn't have a competitive product.

Unfortunately for Bombardier it was a big blow to their sales of the CSeries, fortunate was Airbus who could pick up the pieces and start production of the jets in the USA to circumvent the main argument Boeing tried to use against them.

> The original sin of the Max disasters was rushing to make the 50+ year-old 737 something it wasn't meant to be to counter Airbus's success in the narrow body segment.

Completely due to mismanagement of Boeing's product line, they lost against Airbus A320neo/A321 and Bombardier CSeries, they weren't competitive and didn't have a product in the works to compete. Against Bombardier they tried their dirty tricks, and failed.

It's all on Boeing, they rushed a subpar product in a panic because of their own failures to read the market, in the process killing hundreds of people.

[izacus]

And that doesn't even account for massive amount of government money being funneled into Boeing in form of military contracts.

[nocsi]

The Washington state tax package was to coerce Boeing to stay. To which to ate it and proceeded to move its HQ to Chicago and migrate manufacturing to North Carolina. WA state != US gov. Contrast Microsoft to Boeing. Taxpayers dob’t have to feed Microsoft to get them to work on public works. They are self-motivated to improve their environment, which in turns improves the quality of life for their workers and the residents.

[whamlastxmas]

ChatGPT says it was only 5.7 billion in tax breaks. And it doesn’t seem to think it gets subsidies outside of that really, however it does of course get massive bloated US contracts. Airbus has had $22 billion in subsidies

[_heimdall]

Did you fact check ChatGPT? Its only giving you a statistically likely human response, the data could absolutely be wrong.

[ceejayoz]

ChatGPT makes shit up.

[ceejayoz]

> Counterpoint: How about the government subsidize Boeing on the same level as the EU does with Airbus?

They do, just via different methods.

https://www.reuters.com/world/highlights-17-year-airbus-boei... has a blow-by-blow summary of the various convoluted WTO rulings on each side's versions.

[_heimdall]

Counterpoint: How about the government doesn't get involved to begin with?

Boeing (and Airbus) is a massive corporation with a large market position. Why do they need government subsidies at all? Is the business, or a specific product, not viable? If they aren't viable, why should the government continue to prop them up?

[piva00]

Pure free marketism is not the answer to everything. Things that are risky, demand a lot of capital investment, and are strategic are not best done by the free market since there are gaps between the profit-motive incentive and long-term strategic assets.

Boeing and Airbus are the backbone of civilian aviation, if one was to falter there would be a massive gap in the market until a new entrant would be able to create a good enough product to fill it, during this period a shortage of planes would have cascading effects through many other industries.

The theory of an efficient market doesn't consider the in-betweens where these gaps can exist, in the long run an efficient market would stabilise itself but who is supposed to suffer the pain of a market failure until it stabilises itself when that can take decades? Government is the way humans have found to collectively act on those gaps, it's not the most efficient way per the free market utopia but it's necessary to dampen market swings when they happen.

This applies to many other industries, it's naïve to believe that no company should have support, it's also unfair in the general sense that some get it. It's a trade-off and finding that balance is where complexity hides away, just trying to shove that complexity away from a spherical cow model of the economy is not realistic, it's pure dogma.

[_heimdall]

While I agree that free markets aren't always the answer, I also don't think government intervention is either. We don't have to have a civilian aviation industry, we definitely don't have to have it at the scale it exists today. If the business isn't viable then so be it. We can fly less, pay more for it, or accept planes with fewer features and creature comforts.

Companies will expand, and spend, to fill whatever space they are given. If a government poor's money into the industry they will find ways to spend it. A company is ultimately trying to maximize the capital it has, sitting on profits and paying the taxes that go along with it don't do the trick.

Markets are much too complex to say what they would look like after removing subsidies, but with something like air travel it absolutely isn't a necessity that must be protected. Travel is great and all, but it isn't as fundamental as food, water, or shelter.