This is a perfect example of the phenomenon that once government has a particular power, it must be fought over. Boeing would not be smart to stay out of the political arena; it must try to exert influence because to do so is 'easy money.' But when you make a deal with the devil, you know the payment's coming due sooner or later ...
Boeing is not free to make its jets at the factory of its choosing, according to the National Labor Relations Board -- it must make them in Washington state, using union labor.
This extraordinary abridgement of economic freedom might suggest an anti-Boeing vendetta from President Obama, except that this administration's Export-Import Bank has subsidized Boeing with nearly $15 billion in loan guarantees in the past two years -- roughly three-quarters of all of Ex-Im's guarantees during that time.
This puts Boeing in an awkward position. The NLRB is surely overreaching in trying to block Boeing from making some of its 787s in South Carolina, a right-to-work state (NLRB calls this illegal retaliation against the machinists and aerospace workers union for its 2005 and 2008 strikes). In its effort to fight back, Boeing could be defanged by its reliance on big government. It's a cautionary tale for Obama's other corporate allies -- from the drug industry that benefits so much from Obamacare to the tech, agrichem, coal, and other industries that have benefitted from the president's corporatism.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/04/boeing-lives-big-government-dies-big-government#ixzz1KYv3NL00
Boeing is not free to make its jets at the factory of its choosing, according to the National Labor Relations Board -- it must make them in Washington state, using union labor.
This extraordinary abridgement of economic freedom might suggest an anti-Boeing vendetta from President Obama, except that this administration's Export-Import Bank has subsidized Boeing with nearly $15 billion in loan guarantees in the past two years -- roughly three-quarters of all of Ex-Im's guarantees during that time.
This puts Boeing in an awkward position. The NLRB is surely overreaching in trying to block Boeing from making some of its 787s in South Carolina, a right-to-work state (NLRB calls this illegal retaliation against the machinists and aerospace workers union for its 2005 and 2008 strikes). In its effort to fight back, Boeing could be defanged by its reliance on big government. It's a cautionary tale for Obama's other corporate allies -- from the drug industry that benefits so much from Obamacare to the tech, agrichem, coal, and other industries that have benefitted from the president's corporatism.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/04/boeing-lives-big-government-dies-big-government#ixzz1KYv3NL00
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