Reagan Fucked Up America's Defense Industry

Between "conservative" penchant for outsourcing core military procurement functions and MBA/banksters mania for mergers and shit like that there, our military-inducstrial base has been hollowed out.

Frankly, what they did is nothing short of economic sabotage. The USSR/Russia and China could not have done it better to us if they tried.

Milton Friedman and his doctrine of "shareholder value über alles" was to American industry what Thomas Midgely, Jr. was to the environment.

NBC News Falling Down the Same Rut as Boeing

Cesar Conde is not the typical leader of a major news institution.

A Wharton-trained executive who revived the fortunes of Telemundo and sits on the boards of Pepsi and Walmart, Mr. Conde had limited experience in journalism when, in 2020, he became the chairman of NBC’s sprawling news division, including MSNBC, CNBC and franchises like “Meet the Press,” “Nightly News” and the “Today” show.

Now he is trying to navigate the biggest crisis of his tenure: a journalistic firestorm that prompted an open revolt among his stars and has fueled internal questions about just how neatly Mr. Conde’s corporate experience and ambitions gel with the unique challenges of the news business.

Conde is yet another American manager, a species of critter that believes they don't have to know jack-point-shit about the business they are running in order to be an effective manager. They don't have to know anything about making airplanes or washing mashines or producing phearmaceuticals or reporting in order to run businesses that do those things. All they need to do is be able to interpret a spreadsheet and then hire or fine people as needed to make the numbers improve.

Do you want to know why your refrigerator only lasts six years instead of three decades? MBAs are running things. Do you want to know why airplanes have started shedding parts in flight? MBAs are running things. Do you want to know why the local news no longer pays attention to your town unless there is a triple homicide? MBAs are running things. They only give a fuck about the quarterly/yearly numbers and how the stock market reacts. They don't care about the prodcuts they make, the workers making them or the people using them. Not one good goddamn. As long as the stock price goes up and they get to cash out, it's all good for them.

Oh, there may be some MBA managers who actually care about the businesses they run and know the fine details of how the sausage gets made, but in this great and glorious country, you could not find enough of them to fill the seats on a city bus. (Not that any of them would ride a bus, mind you.)

It's Easier to Bribe Make Large Campaign Contributions to Politicians Than Build Good Airplanes

That is the essence of this long story about how Boeing has repeatedly made large campaign contributions to politicians.

I've been told that the CEO of Boeing has been making the rounds of the plants to try and rally the troops. But no new programs are being launched to improve inspections of work being done. No plans or promises to hire more QC inspectors. Just the usual management smoke, mirrors and fresh horseshit.

Along with upping the amount of cash going to the campaign coffers of strategic politicians, no doubt. At this point, Boeing is operating like a Russian corporation: Make shitty products and bribe the right people.

Fly in a recently-manufactured Boeing aircraft at your own risk.

If You Want Good Pasta Sauce, You'll Have to Make your Own

Campbell Soup is set to buy Sovos Brands, the maker of Rao’s pasta sauces.

In a Monday announcement, the two companies said they had entered an agreement for Campbell’s to acquire Sovos for $23 per share in cash — reflecting a total value of about $2.7 billion.

The managers and beancounters at Campbell's will start mucking around with it. They'll change one ingredient for a cheaper one after convincing themselves that the taste didn't change. Then they'll change another ingredient and another and end up adding high-fructose corn syrup to try to mask the taste of the changes changes.

Hell, they'll probably try wrapping jars of Prego with the Rao's label. Because when big companies buy small companies that make a notable product, nothing good happens for consumers.

ETA: Campbell's says they won't change the sauce. Yeah, sure they won't.

In a pig's eye.

Southwest Airlines (and Boeing): Ruined by the Beancounters

(NB: I received this from a source. I was at first reluctant to run it, but it has since appeared elsewhere.)

One consistent feature of American corporations: Those run by MBAs and beancounters, as opposed to those run by people who know the relevant industry, are, in the long run, doomed to fail.

This is the view of a SWA pilot on the SWA Pilot's Association Facebook page:

Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) Voices From The Line: Larry Lonero

What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.

Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.

Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day to day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy in. Everything that was needed to run a first class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.

Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches the neither do the lower levels of leadership.

Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day to day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.

They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.

But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?

We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.

A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.

When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.

Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.

But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.

The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.

We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.

The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.

I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.

It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.

Herb once said the the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was.

I miss Herb now more than ever.

If It's a Boeing, It Ain't Going

At least when it comes to the Starliner.

Boeing’s astronaut capsule is grounded for months and possibly even until next year because of a vexing valve problem.

Boeing and NASA officials said Friday that the Starliner capsule will be removed from the top of its rocket and returned to its Kennedy Space Center hangar for more extensive repairs.

Right, and at this point, Boeing looks to be roughly three years behind SpaceX, despite receiving a shitload more money for their so-far-non-flyable spacecraft.

It was almost two years ago that Boeing touted their experience in manned space flight, experience that, as I pointed out at the time, hasn't been relevant for 58 years, now.

This is what happens when a tech company ousts its engineers and scientists from management and turns things over to marketeers and MBAs-- it goes right down the shitter.

Dear Boeing: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS?

Boeing’s troubled KC-46 tanker program now must fix a Category 1 deficiency for leaks in the fueling system, the Air Force has announced. That means the problem could cause death, loss of the aircraft, render the aircraft incapable of performing its mission or stop the aircraft from completing testing. Boeing, per its contract, must use its own money to fix this problem.

The Air Force provided few details about the latest problem bedeviling the airborne tanker in its terse statement last night, saying only that it had “upgraded an existing deficiency of its KC-46 Pegasus fuel system to Category I. The Service’s KC-46 Program Office first identified excessive fuel leaks in July of 2019 after an air refueling test.”

Boeing offered a few more tidbits in a statement provided by a spokesman: “The U.S. Air Force discovered several KC-46 aircraft requiring fuel system repairs. The KC-46 fuel system is equipped with redundant protection for fuel containment. In some cases with this issue, aircraft maintenance crews are finding fuel between the primary and secondary fuel protection barriers within the system.”

This is the fifth Category 1 deficiency finding the supposedly low-risk KC-46 program has racked up. ... Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony earlier this month that because of continuing “profound problems,” he would not put the KC-46 tanker into service unless it was needed in a “high-end fight” with peer competitors — basically, war with Russia or China.

I suspect that this is just another symptom of what happens when you put business guys in charge of a manufacturing process. Those birds don't think there is anything different between making paper clips and making airplanes; it's all a process of some kind. They believe that they really don't have to know anything about the product or how it's made in order to manage it.

Which is just insanity. That's why McDonnell-Douglas went down the tubes and, when Boeing bought McD-D, the transplants from McD-D brought their business virus to Boeing and infected them.

Would trust buying a car from a company run by people who had no idea how to drive a car, let alone how to make them? Then why would anyone with a functioning cortex think that it is a good idea to buy airplanes from a company run by such people?

I don't know if riding an airplane that Boeing built in the last twenty years is more dangerous than riding in one of those deathtraps operated by Aeroflot, but it's no longer a rediculous question.

At Boeing, Quality is Job Number Something

Boeing's crisis-hit 737 Max jetliner faces a new potential safety issue as debris has been found in the fuel tanks of several new planes which were in storage, awaiting delivery to airlines.
...
The US plane maker said it discovered so-called "Foreign Object Debris" left inside the wing fuel tanks of several undelivered 737 Maxs.

A company spokesman told the BBC: "While conducting maintenance we discovered Foreign Object Debris (FOD) in undelivered 737 Max airplanes currently in storage. That finding led to a robust internal investigation and immediate corrective actions in our production system."

What sort of FOD? Dust? Rags? Metal shavings? Tools? Bodies?

The budget-cutters are wrecking Boeing.

A company can spend a very long time making quality products and then, through inattention, wreck everything. Right now, the only thing that is saving Boeing is that their main competitor can't make enough new airplanes to steal market share.

Boeing's Board of Directors Looks to be a Collection of Hacks

You can look up the composition of the Board here.

Does anyone know what particular aerospace expertise is brought to the table by Nikki Haley or Caroline Kennedy? Or Ronald Williams, former CEO of Aetna, and Ed Liddy, former CEO of Allstate, because insurance and aerospace are natural fits.

Almost none of the directors have experience in industries that make hard goods. There are two retired four-star Admirals (access to Ft. Fumble) and an airline guy.

Which, I respectfully submit, goes to show why Boeing can't seem to make decent shit anymore.

One of the things that Boeing did over the years was cut the size of the QA/QC staff. Oh, I'm sure some MBA said "we can trust those guys on the floor to make it right without checking them." Which is, of course, hogwash. Having strong QA/QC signals that a company cares about the quality of the work being done. Not having it signals that they don't care.

And if the bosses don't care how good of a product is turned out, only a MBA or an utter fool would think that the workers will care. (But I repeat myself.)

It's really amazing. Since Airbus is a conglomeration of national industries run by governments, one might expect that it would be a collection of chuckleheads and that a well-run (mostly) private competitor would run rings around Airbus. But that isn't what is happening, at least, not since Boeing surrendered to the diktats of the beancounters on Wall Street.

Compare Boeing to SpaceX. One company is run by beancounters. The other is run by people who are passionately committed to flying the best spacecraft and boosters that they can. Boeing/United Launch Alliance is flying two rockets whose first models are sixty years old or better. SpaceX is flying a far newer design that they've been able to make into a semi-reusable launcher.

The way that Boeing is trending, they could unintentionally revitalize the long-haul railroad passenger network.

The Soup Sandwich Aerospace Company

That would be Boeing, which seems to be about that fucked up.

A NASA safety panel is recommending a review of Boeing’s software verification processes after revealing there was a second software problem during a CST-100 Starliner test flight that could have led to a “catastrophic” failure.

That new software problem, not previously discussed by NASA or Boeing, was discussed during a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that examined the December uncrewed test flight of Starliner that was cut short by a timer error.

That anomaly was discovered during ground testing while the spacecraft was in orbit, panel member Paul Hill said. “While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure,” he said.

Boeing seems to be betting that they'll have to refly the unmanned test flight to the ISS. Whether or not that would even happen this year is debatable.

Boeing's response, so far, has been mostly been smoke and misdirection and has been that way for well over a decade.

Is It Now "If It's a Boeing, I'm Not Going"? (Updated)

After a Boeing 737 crashed near Amsterdam more than a decade ago, the Dutch investigators focused blame on the pilots for failing to react properly when an automated system malfunctioned and caused the plane to plummet into a field, killing nine people.

The fault was hardly the crew’s alone, however. Decisions by Boeing, including risky design choices and faulty safety assessments, also contributed to the accident on the Turkish Airlines flight. But the Dutch Safety Board either excluded or played down criticisms of the manufacturer in its final report after pushback from a team of Americans that included Boeing and federal safety officials, documents and interviews show.
...
In the 2009 and Max accidents, for example, the failure of a single sensor caused systems to misfire, with catastrophic results, and Boeing had not provided pilots with information that could have helped them react to the malfunction. The earlier accident “represents such a sentinel event that was never taken seriously,” said Sidney Dekker, an aviation safety expert who was commissioned by the Dutch Safety Board to analyze the crash.

Dr. Dekker’s study accused Boeing of trying to deflect attention from its own “design shortcomings” and other mistakes with “hardly credible” statements that admonished pilots to be more vigilant, according to a copy reviewed by The Times.

One of the longest-running gripes of pilots is that, when there is an accident investigation, it seems that the easiest thing to do is blame the pilots. They're usually dead and they can't speak as to what happened. Manufacturer's reps on an investigation are almost always going to be biased, ever overtly on unconsciously, toward deflecting the blame away from their company.

As a result, design lessons were not learned that could have prevented the 737 Max crashes.

Air travel remains the safest way to go. But still, when booking a trip or boarding a flight, one shouldn't have to wonder whether or not the airplane has some badly-engineered system that the aircraft manufacturer knows about, the pilots don't know about and which can kill everyone.

UPDATE: Boeing's press release about "ungrounding" the 737 Max. "Ungrounding"... heh. If there's any further proof needed that Boeing's been taken over by MBAs and idiots, it's the use of the word "ungrounding".

UPDATE II: Everything sucks for Boeing.

Boeing, Boeing

This is the transcript of a speech by Boeing's general counsel at a Boeing "leadership meeting" in 2006.

Read it and ask yourself: "Did they listen to this guy?" Because the shit that keeps coming out on the 737 Max would seem to indicate that the answer is "naw, not really."

I mentioned in a comment that some Boeing insiders were saying that it was the corrupting culture of McDonnell-Douglas that lies at the root of a lot of Boeing's problems in this century. They're now saying it openly.

About Time This Head Rolled

Boeing’s CEO is resigning amid ongoing problems at the company over the troubled Max 737 aircraft.

The Chicago manufacturer said Monday that Dennis Muilenburg is stepping down immediately. The board’s current chairman David Calhoun will officially take over on January 13.

I love that "Chicago manufacturer" shit. Because Boeing doesn't make anything in Chicago, other than stupid decisions. They are a manufacturer whose headquarters is located a three-hour airplane ride from where they actually make the things that people regard as "Boeing aircraft".

Oh, sure, they're only an hour's flight away from the McDonnell plant where F-18s are still being made (and reworked). But only the drain-bamaged refer to F-18s as "Boeings".

Besides all of the stupid stuff, such as allegedly getting the sales people involved in detailed design, Boeing's dumbest mistake was to move corporate HQ away from where they did the business of making airplanes.

Second mistake was making airplanes in South Carolina.

Boeing would do well to find executives who have actual experience running successful manufacturing operations, with points taken off for having a MBA degree and/or accounting or law degrees. They need people running the company who know how to make shit that isn't as useless as rubber dogshit.

More Bullshit from Boeing

Outside of charging NASA 63% more for flying people to space than SpaceX, Boeing had this jaw-dropping claim:

"Starliner flies on the most reliable lifter in the business, an Atlas V modified for human spaceflight safety by people with actual experience in the domain," the company stated.

The last Atlas that carried a human into space flew on May 15, 1963-- 56 years ago. It's pretty safe to say that there is nobody working for then-Convair, now Boeing, who worked on building the man-rated Atlas boosters between 1959 and 1963.

Boeing might as well tout their experience in building seaplanes.

Colt: Managed by Imbeciles

Sumdood did a side-by-side comparison of a Colt Python and a Smith 686, which had this line in it about the Python:

"I can’t imagine a world where the gun isn’t in production, and where a solid working gun becomes a collector’s item."

Yeah, well, the material for a doctoral dissertation (or six) in management ineptitude awaits somebody who can mine the Colt corporate archives for the last quarter of the 20th Century.

Oh, sure, you'll find lots of anti-unionists who blame the unions for Colt's decline. My experience has been that when management-labor relations are toxic, you can almost always trace that back to management. I'll bet that was true at Colt.

To say that Colt has almost a singular inability when it comes to innovation is like saying that it snows in Hartford, CT during the winter. But I've ranted about that before.

Raping the Pony (Colt Bankruptcy Ed.)

Colt has filed for bankruptcy.

I've been anticipating this for awhile.

As Bloomberg News reported, a vulture capital firm, Sciens Capital, has pretty much raped and pillaged Colt.

Colt has managed pretty much to fuck itself into the ground, even without the help of the vulture capitalists. They've hitched their wagon to government sales and ignored the consumer market. Colt doesn't make a civilian handgun design that didn't exist before the Great War. They gave up innovating eons ago. All of the other major gunmakers got into the CCW market, but other than the .380 Mustang, Colt ignored it.

If it wasn't for government sales, Colt would have dried up and blown away in the 1990s. and since they are run by vulture capitalists, who can't think long-term past the length of their dicks, the chances of Colt joining the ranks of modern gunmakers is almost nonexistent. For when it came to innovation when it came to handguns, Colt's just not there.

Colt's Getting Closer to the Drain

No surprise. The hedge fund pirates and the vulture capitalists have about finished their work.

Colt Defense LLC’s debt rating has been cut to the lowest level possible after the hand-gun maker skipped an interest payment and extended its deadline for creditors to approve either a debt exchange or a prepackaged bankruptcy.

"The R51 is the Product of Countless Design Hours and Thousands of Rounds of Ammunition."

And not to mention a complete recall of the first batch of guns, which Remington screwed up worse than the Hubble Telescope.

I hope that they did it right this time, I really do. For they really screwed the pooch the first time around.*

The PR piece does seem familiar, though....

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* And to all of those who have been lambasting Colt's unionized workers for "destroying a great American arms maker", allow me to suggest that the now-closed manufacturing plant in North Carolina was likely not unionized.

The Corporate-Christianist Brainwashing of America

The "America is a Christian Nation" crap has only been around for about seventy or so years. It's basically advertising by a group of amoral sociopaths (corporations) to wrap themselves in the mantle of religion.

And it's worked. The Preachers to Millionaires (now billionaires, I guess) just skipped over those passages in the Bible about loving others and caring for the poor and the sick because there was no money in it for them. In short, money bought a religious cloak for greed and naked self-interest.

Colt is Dying?

Colt is going to default on its bonds.

I have mixed feelings about this. I've owned at least one Colt for almost all of my adult life (currently have a Government Model, a Gold Cup, a Detective Special and a AR-15). The 1911s are Series 80s and I can't say anything bad about them. The firing pin block might not have been the best solution to the "drop...boom" problem, but it works.

But here is the sad truth about Colt: They've been riding on their past glories for far too long. They pretty much make three guns for the civilian market: The 1911, the AR-15 and the Single Action Army. For every one of them, there are lots of competitors that make the same damned gun and, in some cases, both better and less expensive.

Colt has done a lot of stupid shit over the last few decades. RUMINT is that the reason Colt discontinued all of its double-action revolvers was that they ran the tooling and machinery into the ground. Colt signed onto the Clinton "smart gun" initiative, sparking a consumer boycott. They tried to jump into the Wonder-Nine era with the All-American 2000, which was a major piece of shit. Colt hasn't really done anything innovative (other than the aforementioned A-A 2000) since they bought Eugene Stoner's AR-15 design from Armalite 55 years ago. They've had labor unrest. The recurring incompetence of Colt's management has been enough to earn several Ph.D.s for business scholars.

Colt also hitched its wagon to military/LEO sales for its rifles. The military is largely immune to the siren call of new-model consumerism.[1] Once a war winds down and the Army finds itself with enough rifles in its armories to more than equip everyone, they're not going to place large orders.[2] The last great convulsion in military small arms took place over fifty years ago, everything since then has been a matter of evolutionary tweaks. Armies don't buy on that basis until what they have in their racks wears out.

Most every other gun maker sells some guns that you can't get anywhere else, maybe somewhat similar, but not exactly. You want a classic DA revolver in .41 Magnum, you're buying a Smith & Wesson. You want a heavy-caliber Single-Action, you're buying a Ruger.[3] The other gun-makers also innovate, which is why you can see modern cartridges coming out from time to time labelled ".XX Ruger", ".XX Remington" or ".XX S&W". The last new cartridge that came out expressly designed for a Colt product, to my recollection, was the .38 Super.[4]

Colt has been riding on its past glories for longer than most of my Dear Readers have been shooting firearms. Maybe it's indeed time to put the old pony down.
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[1] Special forces operators notwithstanding.
[2] Not that Congress would let them if they wanted to.
[3] You want a revolver that might not work, buy a Taurus.
[4] It has been over a century since the introduction of the last cartridge that had the word "Colt" in its designation.