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Boeing workers vote to strike

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#111

Post by darkfloo »

bombcar wrote: post #99
cced wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me the theory of stock buybacks? How is this not just financial engineering? How are you meant to differentiate companies who’s stock goes up because they’ve been productive and made great products from those that increase their stock prices using buybacks? Are there rules against taking out loans and using them to perform stock buybacks?

Stock buybacks are mathematically identical to dividends if you work it out. And yes, people track that, and yes taking loans to pay dividends is a favorite trick of dying companies.

Do you have to pay taxes on dividend under American law ? If so I guess that makes stock buyback better from a point of view of shareholders

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#112

Post by altacc »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32
NotACop182 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe had the company not prioritized greed and instead invested in itself they wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t blame the workers for this and a company that depends so heavily on the government to keep it afloat shouldn’t be allowed to buyback stocks. Unions in a good place because Boeing isn’t going anywhere. Mismanagement allowed the greedy management to cash out already why not the workers.

I see this repeated often - blame placed entirely on management and not the workers. Why do you believe that? Do you honestly believe that they have not contributed at least partially to the decline of Boeing? That union protectionism has not affected productivity? That hostile bargaining and strikes hadn’t hurt their finances? Accusing the company of prioritizing greed and blaming the boogeyman of management sounds…

Management defines the culture the workers operate in and define the policies that they adhere to. Good quality work requires the time and facilities to complete that work and remedy any issues. From what I've read of Boeing they moved to a culture of deadlines over quality. The workers stayed the same but were driven to complete work faster and when a quality issue was raised the policies set by management meant that they were largely ignored. That's management squeeze, not willful worker dereliction.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#113

Post by MereInterest »

bombcar wrote: post #99
cced wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me the theory of stock buybacks? How is this not just financial engineering? How are you meant to differentiate companies who’s stock goes up because they’ve been productive and made great products from those that increase their stock prices using buybacks? Are there rules against taking out loans and using them to perform stock buybacks?

Stock buybacks are mathematically identical to dividends if you work it out. And yes, people track that, and yes taking loans to pay dividends is a favorite trick of dying companies.

Aren’t they taxed differently, though? To my knowledge, dividends are taxed as ordinary income, whereas sales following a stock buyback may be taxed as capital gains (if they were held long enough before that point).

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#114

Post by Dalewyn »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45
darby_nine wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know boeing won't be "wrecked"; they're too critical for state interests to be allowed to fail. If they're smart they'll either nationalize the company to remove the profit inefficiency or force the company to split to remove the profit inefficiency. Either way, the profit motive and lack of any competition is clearly a national security risk.

> We all know boeing won't be "wrecked"; they're too critical for state interests to be allowed to fail People keep repeating this without context. The auto companies are strategically significant. That didn't prevent them from going bankrupt [1][2]. Wiping shareholders doesn't mean blowing up the factories. I'm increasingly convinced Boeing needs to go bankrupt. It can then shed unprofitable units--through spin-offs…

>I'm increasingly convinced Boeing needs to go bankrupt.

I agree and hope they do go bankrupt, but I hope so because the country needs a fucking wake up call: American Exceptionalism(tm) is simply no longer true.

I sincerely think we need to see one (Boeing), maybe even a few (Intel? US Steel?) paragons of American Excellence(tm) go down in smoking ruins so we have to accept that we are not 1970s America taking mankind to the Moon and beyond anymore.

Once we realize that, we can actually get started on Making America Great Again in a real, meaningful way instead of a dumb political catchphrase.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#115

Post by riffraff »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #68
JackYoustra wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda fun, right? The whole point of tying executive compensation to share price was to have them have some rough stake in the business, but even that didn't prove enough: there's always a longer term, and doing a visible, clear NPV boost is usually accretive to market cap even if it introduces long-term risk, because the long term risks are usually hidden from public eye and very mushy. Ironically, I think the…

Then blame the board imo. They define the objectives for the CEO, the incentives for achieving them, and the governance framework for governing their execution. If shareholders want this “short term thinking” that always gets brought up, then they have every right to it. Of course this “short term thinking” trope is just a meme that the armchair commentators like to pedal out. If the system was dysfunctional enough t…

> If the system was dysfunctional enough to prioritise short term profit seeking to this extent, then all a competitor would have to do to monopolise any market is do enough “long term thinking” to outlast all their failing competitors.

isn't this exactly what's going on with Boeing?

> Airbus last year topped Boeing for the fifth straight year in the orders race, with 2,094 net orders and 735 delivered planes. Boeing had 1,314 net orders and delivered 528 aircraft.[0]

I 100% agree the majority of investors don't seem to take the long view, and that's been the case for a while.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/boeing-airbus-airline-safety-manu...

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#116

Post by kwhitefoot »

darby_nine wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all know boeing won't be "wrecked"; they're too critical for state interests to be allowed to fail People keep repeating this without context. The auto companies are strategically significant. That didn't prevent them from going bankrupt [1][2]. Wiping shareholders doesn't mean blowing up the factories. I'm increasingly convinced Boeing needs to go bankrupt. It can then shed unprofitable units--through spin-offs…

> The auto companies are strategically significant. Not really, they're more politically significant than economically critical. I've certainly never owned an american car and never plan to. We'll be fine continuing to rely on foreign companies to produce our vehicles. Foreigners certainly don't want our cars (outside of maybe tesla in the nordics, i guess?). None of this is true for the plane market, or at least not…

> Foreigners certainly don't want our cars (outside of maybe tesla in the nordics,

The Nordics are not all the same, Norway is far ahead (20% of private cars already full EVs) of the rest with Denmark a distant second when it comes to electrification of transport.

But also the Tesla Model Y was the best selling car in the WORLD in the last twelve months, not just Norway. Of course quite a few of those were built outside the US so perhaps they don't count as US cars.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#117

Post by throwaway2037 »

darby_nine wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all know boeing won't be "wrecked"; they're too critical for state interests to be allowed to fail People keep repeating this without context. The auto companies are strategically significant. That didn't prevent them from going bankrupt [1][2]. Wiping shareholders doesn't mean blowing up the factories. I'm increasingly convinced Boeing needs to go bankrupt. It can then shed unprofitable units--through spin-offs…

> The auto companies are strategically significant. Not really, they're more politically significant than economically critical. I've certainly never owned an american car and never plan to. We'll be fine continuing to rely on foreign companies to produce our vehicles. Foreigners certainly don't want our cars (outside of maybe tesla in the nordics, i guess?). None of this is true for the plane market, or at least not…

    > Foreigners certainly don't want our cars
FYI: Tesla sold 600,000 cars in China last year. It is a huge market for them. They also sold more than 200,000 cars in Europe last year.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#118

Post by IntelMiner »

csomar wrote: post #84
Y-bar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on if you are a shareholder for the long terms (many years) or a short-term trader. I don't own stock in Boeing (or any of their main competitors), but when there is a strike like this in a company I hold stock in I generally get more bullish for the long term because it means that: 1. It signals employees still care about the company enough to not just quit and go elsewhere. And employees who care make a bet…

[dead]

>There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. For investors, it's both the short and long term that's f*ked.

This is the most blatant disregard for or lack of understanding of labor history I have seen in a while

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#119

Post by IntelMiner »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32
NotACop182 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe had the company not prioritized greed and instead invested in itself they wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t blame the workers for this and a company that depends so heavily on the government to keep it afloat shouldn’t be allowed to buyback stocks. Unions in a good place because Boeing isn’t going anywhere. Mismanagement allowed the greedy management to cash out already why not the workers.

I see this repeated often - blame placed entirely on management and not the workers. Why do you believe that? Do you honestly believe that they have not contributed at least partially to the decline of Boeing? That union protectionism has not affected productivity? That hostile bargaining and strikes hadn’t hurt their finances? Accusing the company of prioritizing greed and blaming the boogeyman of management sounds…

>I see this repeated often - blame placed entirely on management and not the workers

...What do you think management does exactly?

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#120

Post by lupusreal »

fyrn_ wrote: post #49
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Union labor is only going to be better if the work is compensated enough that people stay around. Unions are not magic. Boeing has not been doing that. They underestimate the value of retaining people who have actually seen a few full plane lines start. They are in a situation now where there are not enough senior personal to properly guide new hires as they rotate through every 1-2 years. You want good people, you h…

If you've got a bunch of morons on payroll (because management spent years asleep at the wheel), paying the morons more and retaining their services for many more years so they become experienced morons won't do you a whole lot of good. Management is clearly the root cause of the problem but the solution must include trimming the incompetent workers from the company.

I am not saying that unions are bad or this union striking is bad. What I'm saying is that if you think this union action will turn Boeing around and get them flying right again, you're mistaken. Boeing needs an invasive surgery to cut out the necrotic tissue (both management and workers) if they are to have any hopes of survival as anything more than a zombie kept animated by government necromancy.

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