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DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

cnbc.com

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Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#41

Post by bergstromm466 »

csours wrote: post #13
RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

> Who do you think should?

Boeing should be forced to publish all trade secrets that were used in their planes which contributed to the deaths of these people (so basically all IP that Boeing owns), and they should have all their patents annulled.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#42

Post by grogenaut »

blendergeek wrote: post #34
haltingproblem wrote: post #15

There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and safe products. This great culture was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3]. This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the li…

You fully and entirely misunderstand the argument. The argument is that after the McDonnel Douglas merger, the "idyllic culture of building great and safe products" was pillaged and destroyed by greedy corporate overlords. At this point (so goes the argument) all the "good engineers" who would have most certainly spoken up were laid off and were replaced with dime-a-dozen engineers who were overworked, underpaid, and…

Side note, there is a definite trend of blaming this on McDonnel Douglas. Growing up in St. Louis and now living in Seattle I notice it all the time.

I do think the way you said it may be more true (with no evidence) that a management culture which had switched more to acquisition choked out good engineering culture. You are essentially correlating it with the acquisition in timeline.

Note I'm in no way attacking you, just adding what I've seen online and heard in bars.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#43

Post by bazooka_penguin »

csours wrote: post #13
RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

How about the guy who is handsomely compensated in assets, who's supposed to be ultimately responsible for the company and its operations?

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#44

Post by haltingproblem »

blendergeek wrote: post #34
haltingproblem wrote: post #15

There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and safe products. This great culture was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3]. This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the li…

You fully and entirely misunderstand the argument. The argument is that after the McDonnel Douglas merger, the "idyllic culture of building great and safe products" was pillaged and destroyed by greedy corporate overlords. At this point (so goes the argument) all the "good engineers" who would have most certainly spoken up were laid off and were replaced with dime-a-dozen engineers who were overworked, underpaid, and…

Sigh. The mythmaking contines. In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality. Every proximate event can plausibly be claimed to be the cause for a subsequent event. As they say for want of a nail the war was lost. We don't say the war was lost because the nail was missing because 20 years ago they changed the way they cataloged the nails in the hardware store which sold the nails because the owner of the store changed their inventory system.

What is plausibly the cause for the engineering fiasco of the 737 Max? Why go back to the merger in 1997 and why not blame the 9/11 attacks or the election of G.W Bush or Obama's for this disaster?

Why go back to the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas? Because it allows Boeing engineers to deflect blame for the terrible product they built and foisted on the flying public by coasting on their past reputations.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#45

Post by salawat »

tomxor wrote: post #12
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think so. Boeing lost a lot more than this just to market forces -- the cost of lost business, the cost of repairs, the loss of future good will. There is no way a recall coordinator with a global view of the company's welfare in mind would have made the decision to go forward.

I agree it probably would have been less expensive, but I'm not sold on the company necessarily believing that at the time. > There is no way a recall coordinator with a global view of the company's welfare in mind would have made the decision to go forward. When the information about the sensors and software first emerged everyone was saying there was no way any one engineer would have not spoken up about it... It w…

Those $9 an hour engineers did not work on MCAS. They worked on one of the MFD's (Multi-Function Displays).

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#46

Post by chii »

mayneack wrote: post #39
csours wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

The DOJ certainly seems to think a law was broken. As I see it you charge the most obvious person and let them try to blame someone else. Eventually you either find people you can blame and if you can't go up a level until you reach the CEO. If the CEO goes to prison, other CEOs will care more than this one, if some compliance officer does, the next one won't be as willing to bend to implied pressure from leadership.

that just leads the blame onto a scapegoat. It doesn't fix the problem at heart - which is that the responsibility for safety has to be taken at the org at every level.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#49

Post by BurningFrog »

mayneack wrote: post #39
csours wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

The DOJ certainly seems to think a law was broken. As I see it you charge the most obvious person and let them try to blame someone else. Eventually you either find people you can blame and if you can't go up a level until you reach the CEO. If the CEO goes to prison, other CEOs will care more than this one, if some compliance officer does, the next one won't be as willing to bend to implied pressure from leadership.

> The DOJ certainly seems to think a law was broken.

That fortunately doesn't matter.

To send someone to jail, you need to convince a jury they committed a serious crime.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#50

Post by [deleted] »

csours wrote: post #13
RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

[deleted]
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