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Boeing workers vote to strike

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#181

Post by nemetroid »

beaned wrote: post #167
GuB-42 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Boom is not any aerospace company, they want to make supersonic planes. Supersonic travel is expensive and environmentally unfriendly, and it will probably always be, because it requires more energy, because physics. All that for the minor advantage of saving a couple of hours on select flights. What it means is that it is a privilege for the wealthy (because it is expensive for what you get), at the expense of…

I think that take is a little cynical. If it's only for the rich then the prices will be high. Meaning the capitalist mechanism of resource distribution will be even higher (more paid by the rich received as income by the non-rich). It will also take demand from existing airlines making fares lighter for everyone else. It also employs people. It also drives technology forward. And ultimately it does let people travel…

> To some extent emissions are not as bad as you'd think since they are being emitted over less time in the course of a shorter journey.

Emissions are usually compared in amounts per passenger-kilometer.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#182

Post by Cheer2171 »

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]

Sure buddy, can't have pensions, how else would Boeing afford $43 billion in stock buybacks?

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#183

Post by foobarian »

jmyeet wrote: post #133
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Boeing spent $43B on stock buybacks between 2013 and 2019 while paying their CEO ~$30M/year. > To support its share price, the company under McNerney poured billions into stock buybacks instead of investing profits into the kind of research and development needed to stay competitive. McNerney decided not to spend billions of dollars building a new plane to replace the 737. Instead, Boeing tweaked and updated the exis…

> Boeing spent $43B on stock buybacks I am very sympathetic to this line of criticism but I also find that "stock buybacks" are misunderstood and, as a result, overly demonized. So I just want to explain a few things for anyone who reads this. The question with a corporation is what to do with surplus profits. The first iteration of this was to pay dividends. These legally are paid equally among shareholders. If you…

I wonder if a non-profit aerospace competitor would be viable, if this would force all profits to be invested back into the company. Or maybe a hybrid with some kind of profit cap.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#184

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

meiraleal wrote: post #173
GuB-42 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Boom is not any aerospace company, they want to make supersonic planes. Supersonic travel is expensive and environmentally unfriendly, and it will probably always be, because it requires more energy, because physics. All that for the minor advantage of saving a couple of hours on select flights. What it means is that it is a privilege for the wealthy (because it is expensive for what you get), at the expense of…

Computers used to be very, very expensive. Residential telephone lines were acquired through mortgage a couple decades ago in my country so being expensive now doesn't mean expensive forever.

unlike with computers, there's some pretty obvious barriers that limit the efficiency of supersonic airplanes. your volume has a strict lower bound from the size of passengers and luggage, your engines have a lower bound since there's only so much air you can push against, and your drag has a lower bound of a perfectly smooth aerofoil that produces lift and can fit the people and luggage. Even if you take the most optimistic assumptions that didn't violate physics, your fuel burn isn't going to be reasonable.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#185

Post by refurb »

thrance wrote: post #124
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 used to be illegal in the States up until 1982. You can thank Raegan for that too.

> Stock buybacks used to be illegal in the States up until 1982. You can thank Raegan for that too

This is not true, but seems to come up a lot. I guess it makes for one of those fun "internet facts" that people like to repeat without any investigation. Bonus points for blaming Reagan.

Stock buybacks were not illegal before 1982. If you sit down even think through it, it doesn't even make sense they were illegal. Just like issuing new shares (or doing a stock split), companies have legitimate business needs to buy back stock (reduce the quantity of outstanding shares).

What happened in 1982 was that the government made Rule 10b-18, which outlined the "safe harbor" requirements for stock buybacks, where if followed, the company could not be found liable for stock manipulation.

https://www.skadden.com/-/media/files/publications/2020/03/t...

So stock buy backs were legal before 1982, but companies faced a risk of stock manipulation if they were reckless in how they did it.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#186

Post by VerminOctopus1 »

wtcactus wrote: post #179

Unlike the idea I’ve initially got from reading some of the comments here, the workers aren’t striking for long overdue measures that will save the company and get engineers back in charge of Boeing. They are striking to get the biggest share possible of the pie before Boeing completely crumbles down. Reading the news, there isn’t a single demand from the workers that’s about trying to get the company back on its fee…

And why would they demand that? That’s management’s responsibility. The workers want fair compensation for their labor.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#187

Post by contagiousflow »

radu_floricica wrote: post #138
photonthug wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means. If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead

That's taking something that happened about a century ago and using it as an argument for the current situation. If you're looking for something much closer to home, look at how in the past half century unionized corporations were forced to take over pensions, and how they're doing now because of this. Pensions are a financial product, which should be paid for by each employee - quite likely with supervision and safe…

Yeah, if you want to talk about long term results that kind of necessitates talking about actions that happened a long time ago...

Or would you like to talk about the long term results from actions of unions last year?

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#188

Post by vundercind »

meiraleal wrote: post #173
GuB-42 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Boom is not any aerospace company, they want to make supersonic planes. Supersonic travel is expensive and environmentally unfriendly, and it will probably always be, because it requires more energy, because physics. All that for the minor advantage of saving a couple of hours on select flights. What it means is that it is a privilege for the wealthy (because it is expensive for what you get), at the expense of…

Computers used to be very, very expensive. Residential telephone lines were acquired through mortgage a couple decades ago in my country so being expensive now doesn't mean expensive forever.

What’s expensive, largely, is the fuel to shove something through the air faster than the speed of sound. Short of sci-fi frictionless materials cheap enough to cover an aircraft, I don’t think you’re going to see a big breakthrough there.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#189

Post by refurb »

MereInterest wrote: post #113
bombcar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If you're talking about the US, then no, dividends are given special tax treatment at a reduced rate if they are "qualified dividends". If they aren't, then yes, they are taxed as regular income.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#190

Post by teraflop »

MereInterest wrote: post #113
bombcar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

"Qualified" dividends from long-term-held stocks are taxed in the same way as long-term capital gains.
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