This is a result of taxing dividends higher than capitol gains.  Simple tax reform that lowers the tax rate on dividends and all of a sudden “shareholder value” no longer means stock price.

Stock buybacks should just be outlawed. The only allowable reason for a company to buy back stock, is if the company is using the bought back shares to give to their employees as compensation.

I just conducted an RFP requesting pricing on very specific items, with makes, item numbers, and case quantities listed, and I still had bids with prices next to generic names that I had to go back and ask, “What the fuck is this?”

Most of the post-merger Boeing CEOs, and many other executives, learned their craft under Neutron Jack Welch, the man who probably has done more to damage American business competitiveness than any other individual. These guys are working directly from the Welch playbook.

Im studying to become a process engineer, would love to have a beer with you! Ha ha

To be fair, I must admit it is actually quite apt. I like it, in a cynical way. Just like a rocket explosion is a RUD, a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.

I was just explaining last week to someone that vendors just strait up lie and overpromise in their RFP presentations.

Situation was probably exacerbated because Boeing and Spirit have completely different QA systems. How this happened given that Spirit used to be Boeing would be a good story.

This MBA agrees. I worked in DoD acquisition and took great joy in calling out vendors’ bullshit because I could accurately predict their behaviors and excuses.

I will now announce “a quality escape occurred” when I fart in the car.

The effects of stock buy-backs rests solely in the reduced funds going into R&D and rather into the pockets of shareholders. The general public is led to falsely believe in the stability of a companies future relative to the marginal positive effect of higher valuations.

MBA

“We went to business school” pretty much sums up things right now, throughout history. Everyone is an expert, right Idiocracy?

All the engineers that knew what they were doing retired or left, and the suits were in charge. For such an enormous company with some many systems and processes- the tribal knowledge that was lost when that happened was staggering. You’re seeing the results now.  

here’s a better picture of the 225 to give you a sense of scale:

No love for the Princess?

Ha, me too. I grew up on the other coast near Moffet Naval Air Station (and the next door NASA Ames Research Center) back when it was known for having a wing of P-3 Orion sub chasers in what’s now Silicon Valley. And while those things were such a constant part of growing up there, you’d pause and take note of the…

I flew Hong-Kong to SF upstairs on a 747 in 1990...before business class was anything beyond a bigger seat.  The pilot invited me into the cockpit, where I was able to sit and watch the lightening sky as we flew east toward the US.  A very different view looking out the front, rather than sideways for once!

I remember, as a kid, being awe struck by the C-5s on the Dover airforce base and how they were the biggest things on the base, even bigger than the buildings in my memory.