[Pukin Dog]

A hypothetical situation for you, Willie:

Suppose Boeing was prohibited from signing trade agreements with other nations, who insist on taking a portion of manufacturing as part of the deal?

You have Airbus out there, willing to deal with anyone with a dollar, who undercuts Boeing on most sales deals anyway, able to win a much larger share of deals, resulting in less revenue for Boeing, with layoffs and plant-closings needed to remain in business.

When that happens, then you have an impact on every sub-contractor, who has to do the same. Then you have a bulge in unemployment, increasing costs (deficits to the states) resulting in reduced economic activity. In a place like Washington state, you are talking about an ecomomic full-blown depression.

Please dont tell me that trade agreements are anti-free market. The opposite is true. Transnational companies are not risk-averse, they are COST-averse. The cost of doing business determines how many people a company can employ.

[Willie Green]

A hypothetical situation for you, Willie:
Suppose Boeing was prohibited from signing trade agreements with other nations, who insist on taking a portion of manufacturing as part of the deal?

Considering the National Security implications of the aerospace industry and the dual-use technology applicable to both military and commercial aviation, that should be a common sense restriction to begin with. Frankly, I didn't care much for Boeing's merger with McDonnel-Douglass or the North American Aviation division of Rockwell, but Klintoon was in power and Boeing was his conduit for transferring our technology to the Chicoms. I'd have preferred seeing a North American / McDonnell Douglas merger independent of Boeing. With domestic competition, both companies could focus on technological improvement and new market development rather than simply outsourcing our National Security to the cheapest supplier. Lockheed Martin dropped out of commercial aviation sometime back, even though they're still active in defense contracts. I suppose they could sometime reenter the commercial market, but they seem better positioned to apply their expertise to the blossoming Maglev HSGT sector. Cool! Lockheed has a keen eye for developing markets! I like that kind of vision and corporate flexibility!

You have Airbus out there, willing to deal with anyone with a dollar,

Yeah, the Frenchies are prostitutes.
They were even supplying Saddam Hussein with banned technology.
The heck with them. They have inferior technology anyway.