It's working exactly as it's supposed to. |
Can't wait to read on Twitter Trump congratulating himself and telling Time what a wonderful magazine they are. |
I realize the thread has moved well beyond this, but I have to reply to this: The aerospace industry is consistently one of the best supplier of quality jobs for people without college degrees. You want to be a skilled tradesperson? Become an airplane mechanic or electrical tech for LM or Boeing and you will have a decent, reasonable paying, quality career. How in the universe does hurting Boeing and threatening to cancel one of their soon-to-be major contracts (since, you know, the actual contract doesn't exist yet) help "save US jobs"? |
You do know that most A&P (airframe and power plant) mechanics have 4 year college engineering degrees? |
We can argue the Constitution and Executive Orders issues until the cows come home but NONE of that is relevant here. You cannot make the comparison that OP wants to make. Consider this - based on his tweet, Boeing's stock price dipped temporarily. If I get time, I will look at how Boeing traded volume-wise after his Tweet. If I am a significant Boeing investor or employee, I am pissed. He impacted the stock price with a ill-advised misinformed tweet. He lost people money - at least temporarily. What he has to get is that he is soon to be the POTUS and his words can shake the markets. Tweeting about what he is going to do to certain companies is market manipulation pure and simple. I suspect that he will soon get a nice letter from the SEC and the OGE. If he want to do procurement reform, I am all for it. THIS was not that. |
Paying for overpriced defense contracts in the name of saving US jobs is ridiculous. I have no idea if Boeing is overcharging or not, but as a general approach trying to get a better deal for the US on trade deals, defense contracts, etc. is not a bad approach. Everyone in gov't that ok's these things wants to get a job post retirement with the likes of LM or Boeing - do you really thing they are driving hard bargains? |
Its a shot across the bow. He knows exactly what he's doing, with this and the Taiwan call. He's telling a lot of folks that business as usual is coming to an end. |
THis argument would be a lot more plausible if it hadn't turned out that the Taiwan call was arranged by a pro-Taiwan lobbying firm. And, there's nothing revolutionary about reviewing expensive defense contracts, especially when a new POTUS comes into office. Obama did the same thing with a Lockheed helicopter contract when he came into office. Difference is, he did not do it by denigrating Lockheed in a public way and hurting a US-based company. Instead, his DoD performed a review of the program and ultimately selected a much lower cost contract from Sikorsky. |
I think that people in government are like people in general (I used to be a person involved in non-military procurement decisions). Some are ethical and view themselves as defenders of taxpayers, and some do not. I've also worked in the private sector. There are better but not perfect checks in government, *except* insofar as Congress members intervenes to bring pork back to their districts. |
This is NYC and Northeast US negotiating in general, if you have ever spent time there. In short, they tell their negotiating partner how horrible their product/service/transaction is then ask for concessions. Not a particularly enjoyable way to do business, but it's what they do. |
I think you are giving him more credit than he deserves. You are saying his lack of impulse control is genius and calculated. I like my leaders to be a bit more measured. I am not sure that it is a good thing to willy nilly impact the market like this. Also, it is difficult to credibly say that it will not be business as usual when he has surrounded himself with Wall Street and DC insiders. But I get it. Many of you want a despot. Someone who will "strike fear" in these corporations and bend them to his will. Well, my father used to tell me that people will tolerate you as long as you are not messing with their money. If he starts costing these corporations money, things will get very hard for him. Don't forget, many on the Hill depend on these corporations. I predict that Trump will be reigned in before too long. |
I know his target was Boeing, but Trump really screwed with a lot of people in the Air Force and the DoD Acquisition system. Major new Defense programs/systems/aircraft/ships are developed step by step over an established cycle of milestones to make sure they meet or exceed all the stringent requirements. They do R&D on new capabilities, then they make prototypes, test and evaluate them, work out the bugs, and only then do they move to the next phase. This is not a penny-pinching procurement system that would just buy a commercial aircraft and rebrand it with gold paint, the way Trump operates. |
Just like Darleen Druyun used to do it! |