>Overall the free market/public corporation system is a resounding success.
We don't have a free market. The market is not allowed to implode. Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail. Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. Where you see a "resounding success" I see an absolute failure that is closer to a scam or a ponzi scheme than a legitimate system.
Boeing isn't allowed to fail because they're a national security risk. The government doesn't want Boeing's most talented aerospace engineers to move to a foreign company like Airbus or Comac. The government will happily allow businesses like Macy's or Uber go under.
Boeing didn't take the money anyways, so I don't know why people are so riled up about it.
AFAIK, Airbus won’t hire American nationals. Boeing will hire Europeans, at least on the commercial side.
The defense part of Boeing used to be a separate company (McD). DoD could easily let commercial fail and spin out McD again, or just shrink to defense only. For a long time, Airbus has claimed that the DoD spending subsidizes the commercial side. So TBH, letting commercial fail would result in more bang for the DoD buck.
About Airbus and American nationals, you might want to check out John Leahy: Head of Sales from 1985 until 2017, sold 16000 planes, brought Airbus inside US airlines, and overall probably the most well known Airbus executive.
Regarding military activities, I don't doubt that there are engineering synergies between commercial aviation and military aviation. However I've always heard that from a commercial perspective the two are at odds: for a defense organization you want to make sure to keep as little cash on hands, as it's fairly easy to ask for more. There are always scope changes, delays and shit happening. The last thing you want is to have a war chest that your customers will ask you to tap in to cover the costs of contradictory requirements, feature creep and original underbidding to win the contract. See the A400M as an example: the civil side of Airbus is coughing up quite a lot of cash for that clusterfuck.
On the other hand, developing civil airliners requires cash. A lot of cash. You can't ask American Airlines to cough up some extra cash because your 787 is delayed and is costing more to produce than anticipated. In fact the opposite is true: because your 787 is delayed, your customers will pay much less, and only when you can actually deliver the product (for the most part). Bombardier didn't have pockets deep enough to sustain the CSeries...
Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and many others are evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure if Boeing will be "allowed" to fail if it's on that path, but your statement that "Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail" is simply false.
Yeah every decade or so we let a company fail just to set an example to the rest. WaMu, in particular, is a pretty hilarious example. We, the public, bailed out JP Morgan and with those funds they purchased WaMu at pennies on the dollar.
You’re right, we don’t have a free market. We don’t have the freedom to leave our homes and shop at will. Stores don’t have the freedom to be open. People don’t have the freedom to provide services. So until our government overlords deem it ok, allowing businesses to fail at-will in the existing climate makes little sense.
Most stores are permitted to be open, no healthy American is currently locked in their home, delivery services will bring anything you want to your doorstep, and only a few services are currently shut down.
Yet for some reason, nobody's buying from the stores that are open.
We don't have a free market. The market is not allowed to implode. Mega corporations and banks are not allowed to fail. Boeing is not allowed to fail, and that fact, more than anything else, explains why they are such a poorly run company. Where you see a "resounding success" I see an absolute failure that is closer to a scam or a ponzi scheme than a legitimate system.