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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 6th, 2023

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  • If the management is so shook about financial stability, it’s time to act like the adults they pretend they are, and curb executive pay and buybacks:

    • President and Chief Executive Officer David L. Calhoun - $32,770,519

    • CEO of Commercial Airplanes, Stanley A. Deal -  $12,200,851

    • Chief Financial Officer Brian J. West - $11,910,638

    • CEO of Global Services Stephanie F. Pope - $9,537,503

    • CEO of Defense, Space & Security Theodore Colbert III - $8,963,171

    In each case, easily 75% of their pay package is from stock options - their loyalty is to the line going up, not steady and organic growth by restoring a solid foundation to the company and investing in their (little) people.

    Especially so in parallel with the $68 billion in stock buyback Boeing leadership has done since 2010. All done to boost stock price by reducing the float - $68 billion that wasn’t spent investing in the company’s future, safety standards, quality controls, the end product, or workforce.


  • Maybe stop sending them billions in weapons then, eh?

    I see at least three actions in that statement:

    1. Stop giving them billions in free weapons
    2. Stop giving them any weapons
    3. Stop them

    #1 should have happened a long time ago imo, if not used as a leverage to prevent an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, the West Bank, Lebanon, striking enrichment at Natanz. “Free bombs for crimes against humanity” is a bad moral play, bad politics, and bad diplomacy outside the US:Israel sphere.

    #2 Is politically hard normally, impossible in an election cycle. I hate it, but here we are in the house we built. Make FEC the only campaign funds - it’s OUR government, not the highest bidder’s.

    #3 The US’s geopolitical track record shows that we’ll tolerate some awful, terrible people if they’ll get ‘on our side’ even if there’s a trend of massive and foreseeable blowback, the diplomatic corps don’t learn lessons.


  • So we throw away the “rules based international order” and return to the pre-1914 unilateral rules and all the brutal wars that bought? So much better, amirite? Might makes right, and we’ve got the might for now!

    The US stance on Israeli leadership is decimating our ability to wield soft power influence. We are global hypocrites blocking ANY action, whilst expecting the world to fall in line to support Ukraine against Russian revanchism - even NATO members dissent from the US position. The global south is turning to China/OPEC+ trading blocs. They already tried to break the petrodollar, which would be a huge blow if successful.

    Even taking a realpolitik approach, without soft power all those US military bases used for ‘power projection’ lose their local consent, and become occupation sites inside non-allied nations. The Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan is a chill spot for launching COIN drone missions - whereas the Conoco base in Syria is constantly under drone and rocket attack.

    Supporting Bibi’s wars of aggression is a stupid play on multiple levels.


  • They already did surrender to both sides. UNFIL had/has a mandate to preserve the blue line, and afaik does not actively permit Hezbollah to cross - they’re just not too bothered about seeking them out. And they backed down from enforcing it against the Israelis…

    On 31 October 2006, eight Israeli F-15s… came in at what was interpreted as an attack formation, and the peacekeepers were “two seconds away” from firing at the jets with an anti-aircraft missile.

    Which clearly sparked some back-room diplomacy, because soon after:

    On 6 September [2006], during a European Union meeting in Brussels, the French Defense Minister announced that the Israeli Air Force had stopped mock air attacks over UNIFIL positions. On 17 November, two Israeli F-15s overflew UN positions at low altitude and high speed while two reconnaissance planes circled the headquarters of the French battalion. French peacekeepers responded by readying their anti-aircraft batteries, and warned that Israeli warplanes conducting mock attacks could be fired on.

    The IAF continued its reconnaissance flights over Lebanon, and despite strong protests, UNIFIL peacekeeping forces did not follow through on their threats to fire at Israeli aircraft.









  • We were hoping you rubes would just take it, there’s c-suite pay and the market to worry about

    • President and Chief Executive Officer David L. Calhoun - $32,770,519

    • CEO of Commercial Airplanes, Stanley A. Deal -  $12,200,851

    • Chief Financial Officer Brian J. West - $11,910,638

    • CEO of Global Services Stephanie F. Pope - $9,537,503

    • CEO of Defense, Space & Security Theodore Colbert III - $8,963,171

    In each case, easily 75% of their pay package is from stock options - their loyalty is to the line going up, not steady and organic growth by restoring a solid foundation to the company and investing in their (little) people.

    Especially so in parallel with the $68 billion in stock buyback Boeing leadership has done since 2010. All done to boost stock price by reducing the float - $68 billion that wasn’t spent investing in the company’s future, safety standards, quality controls, the end product, or workforce.


  • But they know that, which is why healthcare costs have consistently increased higher than inflation.

    Healthcare is one of THE MOST demand inelastic commodities or services. People do not say “oooh that’s a lot of money - is there a worse doctor who is cheaper?”, instead they say “100% yes I will remortgage my home and sell assets to pay for the cancer treatment my child needs.” Nobody is at the free clinic by choice, they’re there because they cannot afford or borrow to pay for better care.

    Capitalism is incompatible with ‘rational consumer purchasing choices’ that apply to clothes, food, TVs, etc. because when there’s death or life altering negative outcomes, the only rational decision is to pay WHATEVER the price demanded is. Healthcare has a demand wall, not a demand curve.


  • The lesson he’s trying to teach, is that there is no ‘right’ lock, only ‘better’ locks. Layer your security and have an honest assessment of threats and replaceability. Locks really only:

    1. Keep opportunist thieves honest
    2. Raise the skill threshold needed to bypass, and
    3. Take longer to bypass, risking detection for the attacker

    #1 Can be achieved by the most bottom tier vendor-garbage stacked zinc/brass body lock #2 & 3 Is where most lock ratings come from, but nothing is perfect.

    This monstrosity is what the military uses on secure ammo dumps, vehicle storage, etc and that thing still gets other dudes with guns protecting it. If the Army left it completely unguarded, things like thermite, oxy-acetylene, or grinding would not have any trouble getting past.

    Inversely, your mid-to-good bicycle cable lock outside the corner store only really works because of the risk of exposure as people leave and enter the store. Bolt cutters might be a two-minute job all said and done, but there’s significant risk of discovery mid attempt.





  • Really wishing all the boomers had gone the way of Heinlein. Bobby was no saint and some of his views aged terribly (and others weren’t great even at the time) but a free-love humanist hippy who has a ‘realist’ grounding’? A lot better than the Reaganism, “greed is good”, and culture war pearl clutching we did get.

    I never understood how that generation could be given so much more than those before, grow up with all that opportunity, and become such cantankerous assholes.