Today, I covered the Boeing saga on my “Politics Done Right” program. I have been stating for some time that our economic system is designed for the profit of the few, the oligarchy, and its benefactors. Profits, bonuses, and shareholder value trump public safety, investment in innovation, and much more in the airline industry and many other corporations.
Thom Hartmann wrote an excellent article about the corrosive nature of stock buybacks, highlighting the former. The following passage from Hartmann’s article is probative.
The last year that Boeing invested in creating a new jet airplane from scratch was 2004. While it costs around $7 billion to develop a new plane, Boeing chose to save that money by “upgrading” their 737 line to the infamous 737MAX, which has now killed hundreds of people.
But just between 2014 and last year, Boeing showed a profit of over $95 billion. If they didn’t spend that money on improved safety, new products, or paying their workers better, where did it go? Follow along…
Just as an example, let’s say you and I owned a publicly traded corporation with 100 shares that sold for $100 each (yes, it’s a very small corporation!). You own ten shares ($1,000 worth of stock), I own ten shares (ditto), and the general public owns 80 shares. The notional stock value of the company is 100 shares times $100 each, or $10,000.
So, how do you and I increase the value of our stock so we can sell some or all of it (or borrow against it) for a profit?
The way businesses have traditionally increased the value of their shares — all the way back to the invention of the modern corporation when Queen Elizabeth I chartered the East India Company on December 31, 1600 — has been to grow the company.
Develop new products. Build new airplanes or widgets. Open new stores. Invest in a sales-force or advertising campaign. Expand manufacturing capability and/or open new factories. Improve employee productivity and retention with better pay and benefits.
But what if there was a way to make our stock price go up without any real work on our parts? No need to develop new products, open new outlets, increase worker pay, or sell a single extra widget?
Turns out, there is. All we have to do is take some of the company’s profit this year into the public marketplace (the stock exchange we’re listed on) and “buy back” from the public, say, 20 shares for $100 each and “retire” or, essentially, destroy them.
Instead of 100 shares, our company now only has 80 shares, but it’s still worth $10,000. Which means each share magically went from a price of $100 to a price of $125! ($10,000 divided by 80 = $125 per share.)
The value of your and my investment in our company each went from $1,000 to $1,250 without either of us having done anything other than executing that stock buyback: if we sold our stock today we’d show an instant profit of $250 each. All our other stockholders are happy, too, because their stock also went up in price.
A listener called in, sympathetic to the corporations, which was concerning. He implied that because millions of flights take off successfully on the Boeing Super Max 737, we did not know what we were talking about. All of these crashes are proven to result from the effects of the modified 737 design.
Boeing illustrates that defending corporations seeking profit distribution over innovation & safety.
An article in the reputable IEEE Spectrum is an important technical but understandable read.
How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer – IEEE Spectrum
I have been a pilot for 30 years, a software developer for more than 40. I have written extensively about both aviation and software engineering. Now it’s time for me to write about both together. …
The 737 first appeared in 1967, when I was 3 years old. Back then it was a smallish aircraft with smallish engines and relatively simple systems. Airlines ( especially Southwest) loved it because of its simplicity, reliability, and flexibility. Not to mention the fact that it could be flown by a two-person cockpit crew—as opposed to the three or four of previous airliners—which made it a significant cost saver. Over the years, market and technological forces pushed the 737 into ever-larger versions with increasing electronic and mechanical complexity. This is not, by any means, unique to the 737. Airliners constitute enormous capital investments both for the industries that make them and the customers who buy them, and they all go through a similar growth process.
Most of those market and technical forces are on the side of economics, not safety. They work as allies to relentlessly drive down what the industry calls “ seat-mile costs“—the cost of flying a seat from one point to another.
Source: How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer – IEEE Spectrum
As the article explains, Boeing compromised on the stability of the plane with software to make it less perceivable to the pilot. This was done to keep the same rating and saved a lot of money for both Boeing and the airline companies, as pilots would not need certification, and a newly well-engineered plane was avoided. These were business decisions even as the company was washed in profits.
And where did Boeing invest much of its profits? They bought back much of their stock, transferring money to the shareholders and executives. So much for excessive profits to ensure innovation!
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