Boeing is a prime example of bailouts going bonkers. It flew to the government’s fuel pumps fast like a jet plane to beg the government for relief on the basis that the airline industry was disproportionately hit by something no one could see coming.
While that much is true, we all know Boeing was proportionately hit before the Coronacrisis for problems it created for itself because of its own greed. If it weren’t already in the ICU for tripping over its own wingtips, it might merit some kind of bailout to get it through an event that couldn’t be helped (for the sake of the American workers). Had it never wounded itself with its own greed, it could fly above this storm fine.
Had it also never given its own shareholders about $50 billion in bonanza buybacks, it could get through this viral event on its own even in its present wrecked state! Interestingly, the amount of total Airline bailouts Boeing is lobbying for on behalf of itself and its friends at $60 billion isn’t that far from the amount Boeing could pay on behalf of the whole industry with its own buybacks alone! Boeing could have single-handedly saved its entire industry right now by just not doing buybacks to launch its stocks into orbit!
And that’s the main point not to lose sight of here.
I’m glad to see some of television’s big babbling heads are already responding with statements roughly like, “Hold it! Why should you get a taxpayer-funded bailout when you’ve distributed billions from your cash supply to shareholders through buybacks, which is cash you could be using to get through these times if you hadn’t used it all to make shareholders rich?”
Yeah.
Read the rest here: https://thegreatrecession.info/blog/bailout-bonanza-is-back-boeing-goes-boing/
Nationalizing corporations.
Who wins and who loses?
Keep an eye out for who smiles while their mouth and a$$ bleed.