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Airlines say they found loose parts in door panels during inspections of Boeing 737 Max 9 jets::Federal investigators are learning more about how a door panel flew off an Alaska Airlines jetliner last week.
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I always wondered what would happen if an army of accountants took over an engineering-heavy company and just gutted the engineering culture for profit…
This is absolutely crazy. Boeing was the undisputed number one maker of passenger Jet for decades, and McDonnell Douglas was 2nd. USA had a lead on passenger jets in the world where the competition was mostly irrelevant. Then Boeing buys McDonnell Douglas, so there is less competition in USA, but that only paves the way for Airbus.
It’s crazy how USA managed to lose their sovereignty in an area where dominance was almost total. But the lack of preventing monopolies in USA, was probably the cause, making the problem 100% internal for USA as I see it. Allowing ever more monopoly like companies since Reagan, is undermining the strength of American innovation and excellence.
This is probably also the reason the bean-counters took over, why bother with the technology, when there is almost no competition? We might as well make as much money as we can.I think that a Milton Friedman/Ronald Reagan style of anarcho-capitalist idiology will eventually become popular in any capitalist system, as capitalism demands endless growth at its core.
You can put some patchwork on top of it (social democracy-style regulations and safety nets), but since people are allowed to have enough power to buy governments and influence media conglomerates, it will just revert back into what we now call late stage capitalism.
Although even if we cap income, politicians are surprisingly cheap to buy. $10000 slipped into the right pocket could influence the vote enough for a deregulation-bill to pass, not to mention privately-owned media has the need to make a profit, and they’re going to want to make more profit so much, that they’ll do whatever it takes to do so.
I think what you describe is important to be aware of, and as things are now it rings mostly true. But I’m not entirely sure. Wasn’t USA even more capitalistic in the late 1800’s? then it turned towards actually improving conditions under and after the great depression. Which went reasonably well until the late 70’s, where it probably peaked with Jimmy Carter. Ironically the oil crisis reversed the direction. But I suspect the direction can be reversed again.
AFAIK Russians considered the 70’s as late stage capitalism, but instead it was the Soviet Union that collapsed.
But again as things are now USA with Republicans getting ever more extreme it is going really really bad over there IMO, But USA is a very poor democracy, where an undemocratic or at least far from ideal 2 party system is protected by first past the post elections, that undermines democracy, together with a flawed system of freedom of speech that allows the press to spread outright lies without repercussions.
Most EU countries have better and stronger democracies, and I don’t think we are seeing late stage capitalism taking over here. Although we have some right wing tendencies, that are mostly driven by high immigration from the middle east, immigrants that on average don’t adapt well into our societies. Compared to the compassion of democracies in that regard, we have seen almost zero compassion from communist countries, so with regard to human values, socialism/*communism seems to not be the answer.According to Professor Richard Wolff (economic historian and Marxist economist), capitalism fails on average every 47 years. The late 1800s to the Great Depression was about 50-ish years; the Great Depression to the 70s oil crisis was about 30-40 years (depending on when you start timing it, if post-Depression or during); the Reagan-era 1980s deregulation to 2008 was 30-ish years, 2008 to COVID was 12 years.
Also worth noting that what ended the Great Depression was both FDR’s social democracy-style of politics along with the economic boost that WW2 gave to the US.
The USSR failed for many reasons. One of which is totally their fault, where they didn’t adopt computers early enough. Another big fault, though, is the Cold War, where the US did everything in its power to overthrow Communist idiology wherever possible (see: Korea and Vietnam for extreme examples). That also includes economic sanctions, like we see today with the US and Cuba. When the US sanctions a country, they don’t do as well as when they have the ability to trade. This is because the US is a massive global economic superpower that produces a lot of important things needed to run a society, like medicine, technology, food, etc.
I’m not as well versed in current-day European politics, but do communist countries even exist in modern day Europe? If they do, then they’re probably poorer due to the probable economic sanctions levied by capitalist countries (the US generally forces countries that it trades with to also sanction US state enemies, which includes all countries considering themselves Communist, other than China since China became a massive economic superpower, in part due to the US establishing free trade agreements with Permenant Normal Trade Relations with China). I’m just guessing on this front, though. I also am not as well versed as to the timelines of social democracy on Europe, but I have been seeing more economicly right wing voices in European politics as of late.
Social democracy probably extends that 47 year timeline a bit, but deregulation will usually come at one point or another, since corruption can still exist. Not that Communism doesn’t have corruption issues either, because it definitely does. The issue is centralization of power. Marxist-style Anarchy might be an option, but TBH I’m not well versed enough on that subject to really comment on it or give an opinion on it.
There are no European countries that are communist anymore.
The only communist country that has ever done well economically is China, and that was after they threw away socialist dogma, and allowed capitalism in their economy.
I live in Denmark, which is part of Scandinavia, and we have been using the social democratic model since 1924 when we got a social democratic prime minister, who is also our longest sitting prime minister with 15 years.
Yes we are seeing an unfortunate turn to the right in recent years, as I mentioned before, probably to a large degree because of Immigration from the middle east. Where the right claim they will stop immigration. But probably also because we have seen socialism/communism is a failed model that simply doesn’t work.
Social democracy on the other hand does work pretty well, and is probably the strongest at protecting the population and observing human rigts. But currently people don’t want a humane government, they want the immigration to stop, because it threatens our democracies and economic model with a high degree of social welfare.100 years is quite a long time to maintain social demcracy.
While the right is using immigration to gain political power, I think if there wasn’t increased immigration, they would find some other way of gaining power. Idk which came first, but a lot of right wing politicians globally are taking notes from the US right (mainly Donald Trump), and the move towards fascism is gaining ground in many places right now, unfortunately. I can only comment on the US, really, but I believe in the US that this is successful due to people having economic hardship, which leads them to have more extreme idiologies (either socialism or fascism).
I hope Denmark will be able to maintain their social democracy and show that fascism is not the way.
Unfortunately, according to Marxist theory, social democracy will inevitably devolve back into straight capitalism, or worse. I hope Denmark can prove it wrong.
100 years is quite a long time to maintain social demcracy.
Yes it is, but it’s not a Social democratic government all the time, but even when it’s not, the policies of the right are leaning a lot towards it. Our right govern way more like the left than the Democrats of USA. We also once had a communist party, even with representation in parliament. But it collapsed with the Soviet Union.
a lot of right wing politicians globally are taking notes from the US right (mainly Donald Trump)
Yes, USA remains a huge influence here too, despite how obviously and incredibly stupid their policies are. We have a couple right wing parties that still at times take inspiration from Republicans. But luckily it’s impossible to actually use their policies here. For instance Gay marriage and LGBT rights are not in question here, and neither is the Scandinavian welfare model we build on. It’s sad that USA inspired democracy in Europe, but they haven’t been able to modernize it to better standards.
the move towards fascism is gaining ground in many places right now,
That’s what I’m seeing too. There have been some regressions in Europe too, mostly the old Eastern block, but also Italy and Netherlands. Netherlands is very disappointing IMO, because it’s a country that in many ways is like Denmark.
I hope Denmark will be able to maintain their social democracy and show that fascism is not the way.
Yes I sure hope so too, it’s funny that we are among the countries in Europe with the least amount of problems from fascism and Nazism in particular, probably more because rather than despite the Nazi party is actually legal here. That makes it easy for media to point out how stupid they are, and it makes it easy for security services to keep an eye on them.
Unfortunately, according to Marxist theory, social democracy will inevitably devolve back into straight capitalism, or worse. I hope Denmark can prove it wrong.
Funny story, my history teacher in the 70’s claimed that the reason Communist countries weren’t more aggressive towards capitalism, was that they expected capitalism to fail soon by itself.
Well I guess they didn’t account for the strength of democracy, which unfortunately isn’t as strong in USA and UK as it is in Europe.
Capitalism has reigned the west for 2000+ years where the Romans invented banks, saying that it will fail now for some reason, does not agree with the experience we have from history. The experience we have with Communism on the other hand is way worse. Maybe China has a model that can last IDK, but in general by Marxist theory, it simply doesn’t work, and neither do his predictions about capitalism. He was right on one point though, and that was that the exploitation of ordinary workers including child labor needed to be fixed. His way of doing that however was not it.In your defense, our social democrats are not what they used to be, they are more center now than left wing in the current government, but they’ve also lost a lot of support on that. Unfortunately that support has spread to both sides for some reason. Denmark is not as left leaning as I would like, and I shudder at the thought that most places are actually worse. 😱
Thisis what happened at litetally every good tech company.
Well that and “engineering culture” is now mostly “startup culture” where tech companies are spun up purely with an exit strategy in mind with the goal of growing in value for the founders as quickly as possible
Bolts needed additional tightening
Ratcheting up pressure on Boeing
Heh
Why do airlines still buy Boeing? New airplanes they make are clearly dangerous, and they don’t seem to be able to fix it for the next one, as we are already at the next ones…
Boeing advertises the 737 Max by saying that it works just like the old 737 so you don’t need to retrain your pilots and save money. The issue a few years ago with that is that these planes are not 737 so when some new issue happens the pilots don’t know how to deal.
There’s a long list of reasons:
- training pilots to change planes
- training maintenance teams
- changing procurement practices
- adapt supply chain
- etc
- and then on the bottom, 2 of the most important ones: cost control (maximize profits) and comfort
The cost of retraining their pilots would bite into their profits.
It’s near impossible to switch to airbus if an airline is preset entrenched in Boeing. You have to retrain everyone from ground crews to pilots to FAs to maintenance. On top of that you need new suppliers for spare parts, maintenance hubs and contracts.
Also supply is a major issue. Both Airbus and Boeing are back ordered for years, so there isn’t a way to easily switch fleets.
If that door plug hit and killed someone on the ground, then that would be some Final Destination shit.
More like Donny Darko
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The comments Monday from the National Transportation Safety Board came shortly after Alaska and United Airlines reported separately that they found loose parts in the panels — or door plugs — of some other Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” Chicago-based United said.
The findings of investigators and the airlines are ratcheting up pressure on Boeing to address concerns that have grown since the terrifying fuselage blowout Friday night.
Boeing has delivered more than 200 to customers around the world, but 171 of them were grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday until the door plugs can be inspected and, if necessary, fixed.
During Alaska Airlines flight 1282 on Friday night, roller guides at the top of one of the plugs broke — for reasons the investigators don’t fully understand yet — allowing the entire panel to swing upward and lose contact with 12 “stop pads” that keep the panel attached to the door frame on the plane, NTSB officials said at a news briefing in Portland.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the safety board was investigating whether four bolts that help prevent the panel from sliding up on rollers were missing when the plane took off from Portland or whether they blew off “during the violent, explosive decompression event.”
The original article contains 725 words, the summary contains 240 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Wait wait wait… A part of complex thing fell 20K feet out of the sky onto the hard ground.
And they say some of the stuff they found is ‘a bit loose’ ?
Hmmmmm…
