Is every business in the USA basically just living off of the handouts from imperialism and not really providing much in the way of services? Not just thinking of Boeing. Like the USA is having trouble supplying Ukraine, Hollywood movies are terrible (moreso than usual?), etc., etc. Like the entire USA is just designed to appreciate the value of assets based on holding a gun to the head of the global south.
Since the financial crash finance capital has been hollowing out every single industry in this country, and that’s gone into overdrive since covid
Something something decline in the rate of profit
Financialization.
88% of all S&P500 companies (2017 data) now have their top shareholders as one of the Big Three institutional investors (BlackRock, Vanguard, or State Street). This number was 25% in 2000.
Almost every major American corporation you can think of, with few exceptions like Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Walmart etc., are practically owned by institutional investors. People like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk are really the few exceptions left of individual capitalists you see in America, and even their controlling stakes in their own companies are slipping.
The rest of Corporate America are owned by the “faceless” bourgeois class who invests in the corporate assets through institutional investors while being divorced from making key decisions about the companies. The only purpose left is for the line to go up, even if it means all the established corporations are stripped bare in the process.
This is what financial oligarchy really means (I really don’t think most people truly apprehend the significance of this).
Hollywood movies are terrible (moreso than usual?)
The same thing is happening with Hollywood. If you’re interested in the nitty gritty details, read this paper titled Financialized Hollywood: Institutional Investment, Venture Capital, and Private Equity in the Film and Television Industry
The upshot is that all the major media companies: Disney, Time Warner, CBS, Comcast, Netflix, Verizon, AT&T are all essentially owned by the same Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street), collective owning an average of ~15% controlling stake in those companies and wield disproportionate amount of influence.
I have a prior career in equity research and M&A. It was always shocking to me how little direct involvement there was with institutional investors. They typically just try and find competent people to sit in their place on the board, but these board members are so disconnected from the businesses themselves. Most board members sit on the boards for multiple companies and are involved with any one company for a day or two each quarter, and that’s about it.
I am also very curious to see how the growth of passive investing, index funds, managing investments by sector/asset class, really any sort of investing other than single business-level among institutional investors impacts the future of capitalism. Vanguard invests almost entirely this way. 40 years ago this type of investing was much more rare, now it’s the dominant form. They aren’t interested in the performance of a single company, only the performance as a sector / asset class / economy.
I have been doing some research into this (also where I got the figures above from), and it seems that the institutional investors generally don’t actively engage in the decision making process (i.e. leaving it to the board of directors), but what they found is that the board of directors could already have adjusted their behavior, on their own, to track with the investors’ goals.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/hidden-power-of-the-big-three-passive-index-funds-reconcentration-of-corporate-ownership-and-new-financial-risk/30AD689509AAD62F5B677E916C28C4B6
Through an analysis of proxy vote records we find that the Big Three do utilize coordinated voting strategies and hence follow a centralized corporate governance strategy. However, they generally vote with management, except at director (re-)elections. Moreover, the Big Three may exert “hidden power” through two channels: First, via private engagements with management of invested companies; and second, because company executives could be prone to internalizing the objectives of the Big Three.
Yes, the USA is in terminal decline, it has been since the dotcom bust. The USA gets a little shittier every year.
- it was 10 weeks old? fuck
- is the 737 MAX a death machine or what? the fuck is up with Boeing. neoliberalism...?
Alaska Airlines when they land: "I'm gonna give you a $5 food voucher to fuck off."
Expires in 20 minutes, only for use at the one restaurant on the other side of the airport
better run if you want to make it in time, hope you don't have any bags
I’m still willing to bet they’ll get the safety waiver. Boeing is too influential to not get its way.
When I was an Inspector the regional FAA manager in Arizona would roll over for any small business tyrant throwing a tantrum, Boeing could get a plane made of paper and duct tape certified if they wanted
I worked for a jet company for a while and the ease with which the FAA accepted business arguments blew my mind and scared the shit out of me. The chances of failure were still small, but I could get anything through by comparison (fairly close if you take specific values)+it's not profitable to change
It's normal for 10 week old planes to still be teething. Nothing to see here.
Wow so snowflakes can't handle a little wind on their faces. If your first reaction is to freak out from the plane coming apart at 30,000 feet maybe you should carry a safety blanket 😂😂😂
See you say that, but their early attempts to make the MAX self-grounding were poorly received.
That aircraft (MAX, naturally) has an emergency exit that not every airline uses. When not in use it's plugged and covered up. Seems like the plug failed or something.
except no one has indicated it was an exit, it was just part of the fuselage
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/01/boeings-737-max-is-still-a-mess.html
has a picture of the missing section from inside the plane
The McDonnell-Douglas merger destroyed Boeing's engineering culture.
Who knew that cutting out any thoughts of build quality to earn the shareholders some extra money would backfire.
One of the inherent problems with capitalism is that it always tends to this shit. Once you are a market leader companies just start cutting quality. Nobody cares about long term thinking, just immediate gains.
I'm genuinely fearfull of flying on Boeing Aircraft. I fucking hate that the U.S. Government let them buy McDonald-Douglas. The MD88, now that was a real aircraft.
I didn't see any mention of it being the door. As far as I've read and seen it was just a section of the plane.
It is an optional emergency exit, if you don’t want it they plug it. But it is still a “door” that you can theoretically open from the outside; you just find a wall on the other side.
