Hacker News Reader

Comment by markus_zhang | Hacker News Reader

What I always find weird but understandable is that Boeing's stock price never really suffers from all these kinds of things. Yeah I know it went to $400 before, and recently shot up to $250, but that was more like a short time thing. Its stock price hasn't changed much comparing to 2020, when COVID hits every stock.

I say this is also understandable because 1) The government is probably going to bail BA out for the next 10 mess-ups; and 2) The stock market, since 2010, and perhaps further before, has been a money game, mostly dictated by monetary policies instead of corporate performance.

View on HN

My first job was at a large defense company and let me tell you why Boeing's stock never drops- they can't lose money. The contracts are already signed. The money will be paid regardless. There is no consequence to failure because there are no true competitors when contracts are re-bid. I was baffled at how my employer could possibly be making money given the sheer amount of waste I observed on any given day, but as I got more involved in projects I started doing estimates and saw how much money we were making and I realized that we billed by the hour with a hefty profit margin built in and that by intentionally making the business inefficient and ineffective we could just bill more hours, and because we had bought out anyone else with experience in the niche industry we were in, there wasn't much anyone could do about it.

It was really discouraging to me and as a result I have sworn off doing any kind of government sector work again because it was just depressing.

Thanks for sharing. I agree it is pretty depressing for any engineer that worths its salt. That's probably the reason many others quitted BA.

The government bailed out GM in 2009 after it went bankrupt. A Harris administration will likely follow that playbook due to its success and the overlap in personnel.

Yes, the government will bail out Boeing if necessary; Boeing will continue to build planes, most Boeing jobs and plants are safe.

However stockholders and executives are not safe. The government may demand bankruptcy for its bailout.

For more, read about the difference between chapter 11 and chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Because sophisticated investors know that the Black Projects and revenue are not affected. Because the command information equipment sold to the navy is not affected.

I think the concern for Boeing is being broken up rather than going bankrupt.

People forget the current situation is both a recent development and one that happened under unique circumstances. In the 80s and 90s there was a 1-2 whammy neo-liberal fiscal policy which basically abandoned all opposition to acquisitions, and the end of the cold war which made the government think it didn't need a robust aerospace/defense sector any more. The environment has changed considerably in the intervening decades.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com