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Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

nytimes.com

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Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#51

Post by alistairSH »

tormeh wrote: post #46
gok wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is inconsistent at all. They're laying off mostly people in their rail division, which is based in Germany and doing poorly. They're asking for some government support for the aerospace group, which is based in Canada and doing ok, but facing lots of competition from Airbus and Embraer, which also receive government support.

I wonder why governments subsidize production of commercial airliners so much. There are no network effects or lock-in, so there is nothing to milk after you've gotten big, just more need for subsidies. And jet fighters etc. are usually made by different manufacturers altogether, except for military freighters.

National pride. Looks good to constituents (high paying, high-tech blue collar jobs). Profit (assuming Boeing eventually pays more in taxes than the value of the subsidies)

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#52

Post by DominikR »

lmm wrote: post #25
arethuza wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it was a very good place to work - lots of extremely smart people, which is probably why I remember the apparent failure (or unwillingness) to make that inference.

Maybe they were aware of it. There's still no way a small or even large company can change the dynamics at play. Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow.

> Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow.

Because it is not free market economic activity governed by real demand. It is just government officials deciding to use other peoples money to create demand in certain sectors.

If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or that their money is wasted.

But when the government does it you end up building natural gas filling stations in Afghanistan for millions of dollars servicing a total of 3 cars running on natural gas in that country which on top of that has to be rebuilt multiple times because the Taliban bomb it again and again.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#53

Post by cstavish »

In 2014, while in college, I did a co-op rotation at the Bombardier Transportation facility in Pittsburgh, PA. The rail division may be based in Germany, but there's a sizable rail engineering contingent in Pittsburgh. I worked with a lot of good people and engineers there--I hope they do alright. Even in 2014 there was grumbling by the engineers about upper management, and I remember attending an "all-hands" meeting where a visiting executive talked of belt-tightening. In a fairly tone-deaf delivery, he spoke of limiting his own business-class international travel.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#54

Post by gok »

tormeh wrote: post #46
gok wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is inconsistent at all. They're laying off mostly people in their rail division, which is based in Germany and doing poorly. They're asking for some government support for the aerospace group, which is based in Canada and doing ok, but facing lots of competition from Airbus and Embraer, which also receive government support.

I wonder why governments subsidize production of commercial airliners so much. There are no network effects or lock-in, so there is nothing to milk after you've gotten big, just more need for subsidies. And jet fighters etc. are usually made by different manufacturers altogether, except for military freighters.

Er, there are huge network effects and lock-in. Maintenance and type certification mean that pilots and mechanics get locked into your type. That in turn means that airlines tend to try to buy from as few manufacturers as possible, so as they grow they're more likely to buy from the manufacturer they bought from last time.

There are of course self-sufficiency reasons too. If the West put an embargo in place against China for airliners, they'd be SOL. This is why they're trying to hard to make their own planes (and perhaps more importantly, engines).

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#55

Post by lmm »

DominikR wrote: post #52
lmm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they were aware of it. There's still no way a small or even large company can change the dynamics at play. Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow.

> Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow. Because it is not free market economic activity governed by real demand. It is just government officials deciding to use other peoples money to create demand in certain sectors. If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that i…

> If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or that their money is wasted.

Isn't people in a community pooling their money together what a government is? Often the increase in property values alone is more than the cost of building the bridge, the difficulty is co-ordinating them.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#56

Post by alistairSH »

gaur wrote: post #33

There are hundreds of millions of people in North America. Why do people act like gaining or losing a couple thousand jobs is some kind of earth-shaking development? I get that losing jobs sucks for the people involved, but sometimes I even see US jobs reports delivered as breaking news in national newspapers. Why?

In the case of aerospace, the jobs are frequently high-skill, high-pay blue-collar. That type of job is quickly disappearing in N. America. So, even though the absolute numbers might be small for any given event, the sum of the losses has a noticeable impact on the economy.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#57

Post by DominikR »

lmm wrote: post #55
DominikR wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow. Because it is not free market economic activity governed by real demand. It is just government officials deciding to use other peoples money to create demand in certain sectors. If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that i…

> If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or that their money is wasted. Isn't people in a community pooling their money together what a government is? Often the increase in property values alone is more than the cost of building the bridg…

Ideally yes, but practically it more often than not isn't, especially if it's the federal government that decides.

If governments owning and directing whole economic sectors truly was an efficient way to manage an economy then Socialism (government demand driving the economy) would've beaten Capitalism (private demand driving the economy) easily and by a long shot.

It didn't just fail being more efficient than Capitalism, it even consistently ended up impoverishing and corrupting any nation that tried implementing it.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#58

Post by karmelapple »

tormeh wrote: post #46
gok wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is inconsistent at all. They're laying off mostly people in their rail division, which is based in Germany and doing poorly. They're asking for some government support for the aerospace group, which is based in Canada and doing ok, but facing lots of competition from Airbus and Embraer, which also receive government support.

I wonder why governments subsidize production of commercial airliners so much. There are no network effects or lock-in, so there is nothing to milk after you've gotten big, just more need for subsidies. And jet fighters etc. are usually made by different manufacturers altogether, except for military freighters.

Jobs. The amount of people and documentation required to develop anything FAA-certified is enormous.

Re: Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail

#59

Post by jandrese »

mtgx wrote: post #44

Time to invest in hyperloop technology? With robotized cars and cheaper and cheaper air travel, rails are becoming a thing of the past.

Kind of like saying "lets divest from Ford/GM/Toyota/etc... because Moller promised that the Skycar will be ready in 3 years".
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