Airlines Shouldn’t Be Given Better Bailouts Than Small Businesses

The Federalist ^ | March 25, 2020 | Georgi Boorman

[CodeToad]

Oh, I’m not saying Boeing or the airlines deserve any bailouts. They did this to themselves.

The Max was a total cluster f*** Boeing’s board allowed their CEO to create. There should be people in jail over that fraud. (The fraud was Boeing delivered an airplane that wasn’t to the specs it was certified for.)

[CodeToad]

“If I’m going to give Boeing all that money. I would demand the resignation of all corporate officers and Board Members as a condition.”

Seems fair.

[CodeToad]

” let them drink themselves to death, let them commit suicide.”

Well, if that’s the type of people they are maybe they shouldn’t be building airplanes.

[The Pack Knight]

Frankly, part of me was hoping the deal would fall through.

The airlines should either save themselves or work it out through bankruptcy. That’s what bankruptcy is there for. The airlines can still operate in Chapter 11, and if they can’t, someone else will buy their assets and fill in the gap.

I don’t have any problem with stock buy backs, but airlines’ shareholders enjoyed the benefits of the buy back and should bear the cost when the risk didn’t pan out and their shares go to zero. If you buy stock in a company with a thin balance sheet, you bear the risk that the company will go bankrupt if when is a down turn.

That small business owners were left out is unsurprising. Small business owners and the self-employed are the red headed step children of American politics. Democrats hate them because they aren’t dependent and don’t fit into their class-warfare worldview. Republicans mouth platitudes about them but really couldn’t care less about them.

[Redwood71]

“...they need to have cash set aside precisely in case this happens again (and it will!)”

We all know with the history of flu related deaths worldwide that this situation is not out of the ordinary. Factually better than some years. Outside of banks I don’t know of any business that carries the liquid worth to handled a coup as a vast majority of business run on demand and are not using other people’s worth.

This government coup is there to accomplish two things: one to make people forget the impeachment debacle and it’s stupidity to protect their candidates from discovery, and two, to try to make Trump look bad right before election using the first available thing they can pass on to him without being discovered part of it until after the election when they have to clean it up and admit their errors.

So they are willing to destroy an entire nation financially and get a bunch of people killed for their power needs. (See Pelosi’s bail out bill) And the GOP needs to say that right in the voters’ faces. But they won’t. I read that you should never try to outwit a idiot. They will drag you down to their level and kick your keyster for you. And that’s exactly what the GOP is doing.

rwood

[Wuli]

There is one caveat to what you say.

This crisis is not of their making, and much of the effects on them come from actions governments have mandated the airlines and their customers make. So part of their situation comes not by a natural, normal course of economic activity, but from demands of governments. So, government should not be part of the solution getting the airlines back to normal?

So the government declares “you must do this, in spite of what the costs may be”, and then the government says, when its over, “now you are on your own”.??? That’s in affect your position it seems.

I am not for “bailouts”, and do hope any aid that the airlines get is in the forms of loans. BUT, I do understand the legal logic of government making costly extraordinary demands on businesses “in a crisis”, that will be very costly to those businesses, and then government being part of the financial solutions to those businesses as they too recover from the crisis. This is totally different than the “Chrysler” bailout which was precipitated only by Chrysler’s own actions, not the governments.

[lodi90]

Airlines would be better off shedding their union contracts in bankruptcy. Somebody else could just buy the airline company brands and 99% of the public would never know the difference.

[The Pack Knight]

It would probably be a good time to renegotiate fuel contracts, too.

[Svartalfiar]

This crisis is not of their making, and much of the effects on them come from actions governments have mandated the airlines and their customers make. So part of their situation comes not by a natural, normal course of economic activity, but from demands of governments. So, government should not be part of the solution getting the airlines back to normal?

All these Red Mayors and Governors forcing businesses to close is just a subset of eminent domain. Let the cities and States compensate the force-closes businesses appropriately, not the FedGov just writing blank checks.