Can Boeing Be Saved from Bankruptcy??
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Boeing, know the story on Boeing. did some last week. Wall Street Journal has passed. Basically, cribbing, echoing the statements that we’ve been making about this company now for, geez, over a decade. What went so wrong with Boeing? But anyway, I’ll tell you what Boeing needs. One fix Boeing. Boeing needs Carl Icahn, Elon Musk, or the Bobs. You’re not familiar with the Bobs, you’re gonna have to watch Office Space.
What exactly do you say you do here? Anyway, story today in the Wall Street Journal talking about the many potential villains that have done in Boeing, a culture that put financial engineering before aerospace engineering. No way. Well, you mean to tell me, you mean to tell me the Ivy League, McKinsey, MBA types?
They’re wrecking a company? No, say it ain’t so. It’s an aerospace company, An outsourcing strategy that shifted work to lower cost factories or suppliers. Again, you make airplanes, you make rockets, you’re a defense contractor. A pursuit of production goals.
over safety goals. You make commercial airplanes and distant leadership removed from employees. Yeah, the last CEO worked out of his house in New Hampshire. I shit you not. Whatever the cause, Boeing has reached a point where people are genuinely asking, could Boeing fail? And what an end game look like in a scenario involving a national icon? Again.
They always play these woe is miss stories. Last week, we talked about Greg Gap in the Wall Street Journal. my God, what it means for national security. Nonsense, nonsense. Why do I mention Carl Icahn? If you haven’t seen it, it’s a great story. really is. Carl Icahn, I don’t know what year this was, was being interviewed at some CNBC conference or some, I don’t know, some business conference by Andrew Ross Sorkin. And…
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He was recanting a story back in his younger years where he bought a company that he still owns. called ACF Industries and ACF Industries makes rail cars. And he bought the company and he saw all the assets that he had and he thought he bought it on the cheap, but he still couldn’t figure out why the company wasn’t able to make money. And they had this,
sales office rental all this stuff in New York City Third Avenue. He telling the story. It’s on Third Avenue, New York City, 12 floors of the building. So he goes in there. He goes in there and he’s trying to after he bought the company, he’s trying to determine what exactly is going on in this building, what people do when he goes upstairs, goes to one floor and he tells a story in a really neat way. Can’t figure it out. Comes back. Still can’t figure it out.
Wants to find this guy out of St. Louis that kind of like the main guy, not the CEO, but the guy kind of was, you know, basically the operator for the company, handled everything, goes out and visits him. And basically tells him, says, hey, you know, listen, you don’t need those people in New York. Still, icons hesitant. Goes back, spends $250,000, bunch of college.
types professors from Columbia to come in and they provide for him in a few weeks this big huge book he makes fun of it they hand him this big huge book with all these charts and graphs and what all these people on the 12 floors are doing and he tells her I told me he says I’m not gonna read this damn thing you just gave me I said explain to me I said I’m a numbers guy you know I did well in school explain it to me make it you know pure and simple and they broke it down I said listen you were straight with us we’re gonna be straight with you we don’t know what they do
And in the end, he fired fired every single person, 12 floors of the building, no service interruptions, no problems with anything. Company worked just fine. Then turned around and I guess sold the lease for $10 million on top of that. Elon Musk did the same thing with Twitter. Same thing with Twitter. Came in there like you’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone.
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I always think that scene too when the movie, there’s television show Entourage when Ari takes over the the agency, the talent agency that he got, the rep is our agent and he goes around with a paintball gun just shooting people that are fired. You’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone. That’s what you need. The new CEO, mean, again, he’s trying. He’s being honest. He said the trust in our company has eroded. It’s going to take time to return Boeing to its former legacy.
You know why it’s gonna take a lot of time? Is because unfortunately the CEO, I think he’s afraid. He’s afraid. All the problems that Boeing had, should be a mass firing should take place. Mass firing. Pretty much picture the New York Jets at the end of the season. Everybody must go. All the ex-government types, all the people. again, this is one of these and again, it’s a two.
big to fail company. actually even mention that in this Wall Street Journal article today, something we’ve been saying for a long time. You can’t fix Boeing. You can’t make it it’s too big to fail. The people that you have working there are connected to government. There are a lot of ex-Pentagon types that are there and they make a ton of money. Carl Icahn actually, and it was interesting in his, towards the interview, he talks about that’s problem in America today. It’s too many.
executives, too many mid-level managers that are there that are making way too much money and don’t care. Don’t care. And again, this has always been a problem. This company’s getting fat and happy in the C-suite. I’d like to see Boeing turn around. We’d like to see it not fail. But again, I thoroughly encourage some of the things that this guy’s saying. He’s saying the right things, but your actions are going to speak.
a little bit louder. Should have stepped in there and it should have been, you’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone, you’re gone, gone. You people are a part of the problem. And keep all the MBA, McKinsey, consultant types away from that company. Watchdogonwallstreet.com.
