And a good thing too. Boeing has a backlog of 900 plus orders for the new all-plastic 787 jetliner at $150 mil a piece. That's $135 billion worth of business, if they can keep it. The 787 is late, and the strike made it later. It hasn't made first flight yet. Yesterday Boeing discovered a mistake in the drawings that will require replacement of thousands of fasteners in the already half built aircraft. Program is two years late and it will get later. Sooner or later, the customers will start canceling back orders and buy Airbus instead.
The terms of the strike settlement are unclear. Aviation Week says the new contract will go for four years, up from three. Pay hikes are 15% over four years. Pension contributions go up $83 a year.
The major work rule issue concerned Boeing's newly instituted practice of having suppliers deliver right to the shop floor. They used to deliver to the loading dock and Intnl Assn of Machinists workers would move the product from the dock to the line. Boeing is only doing this on the 787 line, but wants to make the practice general to the 737 and 747 lines. The compromise allows vendors to deliver to only a few spots on the line rather than everywhere. The machinists claim the jobs of 2920 union forklift operators were saved. Which is an astounishing number of fork lift operators. In USAF we only had a dozen forklifts for an entire Air Force base.
With the rest of the economy sliding down the tube, it's good to get Boeing back to work.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
So what went wrong?
I managed to get thru the entire day without turning on the TV, not even to watch the stock market croak. Unwinding from the election is called for. Do not start thinking about the next election, let the victors of this one do a little governing before resuming the unending election battles.
But, while the memory is fresh (and painful) let me set down some causes of GOP defeat. Exhibit A, a photograph I took on the opening of GOP headquarters in Littleton. Group shot of all the local republicans in front of the storefront. "How come everyone in the picture is old and greyhaired?" asked my mother. Whereas Obama was running a children's crusade. Maybe if the GOP decided to legalize music downloads? Hollywood and the labels wouldn't like it, but they don't like the GOP anyhow, so what's to loose? A few campaign contributions?
There were a lot of specific things McCain should have said and didn't. On the other hand Obama said little or nothing of substance during the campaign, so maybe what you say on campaign doesn't matter?
Party platforms. The NH GOP had a state party platform 20 pages long, written in lawyerly obfustication, making it useless as a campaign document. We streamlined it, boiled it down to a few simple statements in ordinary English and presented it to the state party convention. The convention turned down the new platform in favor of the old, the 20 pager that didn't really promise anything. Was that because they feared making even vague campaign promises?
McCain never promised the electorate anything you could put a word too. Hope and change worked well for Obama. Next time the GOP ought to at least promise prosperity and a 14000 Dow.
Trashing Ayres, Wright, Rezko and that Islamic fellow wasn't bad, but you can't win just by pointing out the the other guy has scumbag friends. You have to offer reasons to vote for you, not just reasons to vote against the other guy.
McCain wanted to equalize the tax treatment of helath care between the company workers and the self employed. He presented the plan, but neither he nor Palin explained that feature. The democrats attacked it saying McCain was going to tax health care benefits. The GOP never hit back saying it gives the self employed the same tax break on health care that the company workers enjoy.
But, while the memory is fresh (and painful) let me set down some causes of GOP defeat. Exhibit A, a photograph I took on the opening of GOP headquarters in Littleton. Group shot of all the local republicans in front of the storefront. "How come everyone in the picture is old and greyhaired?" asked my mother. Whereas Obama was running a children's crusade. Maybe if the GOP decided to legalize music downloads? Hollywood and the labels wouldn't like it, but they don't like the GOP anyhow, so what's to loose? A few campaign contributions?
There were a lot of specific things McCain should have said and didn't. On the other hand Obama said little or nothing of substance during the campaign, so maybe what you say on campaign doesn't matter?
Party platforms. The NH GOP had a state party platform 20 pages long, written in lawyerly obfustication, making it useless as a campaign document. We streamlined it, boiled it down to a few simple statements in ordinary English and presented it to the state party convention. The convention turned down the new platform in favor of the old, the 20 pager that didn't really promise anything. Was that because they feared making even vague campaign promises?
McCain never promised the electorate anything you could put a word too. Hope and change worked well for Obama. Next time the GOP ought to at least promise prosperity and a 14000 Dow.
Trashing Ayres, Wright, Rezko and that Islamic fellow wasn't bad, but you can't win just by pointing out the the other guy has scumbag friends. You have to offer reasons to vote for you, not just reasons to vote against the other guy.
McCain wanted to equalize the tax treatment of helath care between the company workers and the self employed. He presented the plan, but neither he nor Palin explained that feature. The democrats attacked it saying McCain was going to tax health care benefits. The GOP never hit back saying it gives the self employed the same tax break on health care that the company workers enjoy.
Hope disappointed
Things didn't look good early in the evening TV show and it just got worse. So, we have a president Obama, and the democrats swept New Hampshire. We are blue and getting bluer. Democrats retained the state house (no surprize there) won the open senate seat and retained both house seats. As of this morning I don't know how my local candidates did. Bummer.
Well, now that the democrats have Congress and the presidency, let them fix the economy, keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, and keep the entire middle east out of Al Quada's hands. At least I no longer have to listen to inane TV talking heads endlessly rehashing the latest poll results.
Let us hope that the Obama administration improves the economy rather than kicking off Great Depression II.
Well, now that the democrats have Congress and the presidency, let them fix the economy, keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, and keep the entire middle east out of Al Quada's hands. At least I no longer have to listen to inane TV talking heads endlessly rehashing the latest poll results.
Let us hope that the Obama administration improves the economy rather than kicking off Great Depression II.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
How to get a suntan in November
Simple. Sign up for poll standing. Up here in northern Grafton county, we organized poll standers for Littleton, Franconia, Lyman, and Bethlehem, plus Whitefield which is really in Coos country but since Republican organization is a little thin up here, we did Whitefield too.
I nailed together totem poles of campaign signs, passed them out to volunteers. Weeks of telephone calls had rounded up enough volunteers to give sketchy coverage at all the polls.
Rose with the 6:50 alarm clock and rolled down to Franconia with my totem pole sticking out the window of the car. Arrived a few minutes after poll opening to find a few Republican volunteers already on the job. Weather was fine, clear sky and warm. Turnout was heavy, both voters and poll standers. Drove around to the other polling places to see how we were doing. Looked good everywhere. Sunset was shortly after four, it was pitch dark by 5. I finally hung it up after 5, leaving a few other volunteers to cover the last two hours.
GOP did clearly better than '06 where we only had one GOP pollstander in Franconia, and it snowed all day. This time we had 4 to 5 pollstanders all day, as many as the democrats, again unlike '06 when the democrats had us beat hands down.
We don't have any worthwhile election returns yet, but I remain hopeful of a McCain win.
I nailed together totem poles of campaign signs, passed them out to volunteers. Weeks of telephone calls had rounded up enough volunteers to give sketchy coverage at all the polls.
Rose with the 6:50 alarm clock and rolled down to Franconia with my totem pole sticking out the window of the car. Arrived a few minutes after poll opening to find a few Republican volunteers already on the job. Weather was fine, clear sky and warm. Turnout was heavy, both voters and poll standers. Drove around to the other polling places to see how we were doing. Looked good everywhere. Sunset was shortly after four, it was pitch dark by 5. I finally hung it up after 5, leaving a few other volunteers to cover the last two hours.
GOP did clearly better than '06 where we only had one GOP pollstander in Franconia, and it snowed all day. This time we had 4 to 5 pollstanders all day, as many as the democrats, again unlike '06 when the democrats had us beat hands down.
We don't have any worthwhile election returns yet, but I remain hopeful of a McCain win.
Monday, November 3, 2008
GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out)
According to the Wall St Journal, insurance giant AIG relied upon a computer model to assess the risk of the trillions of dollars of "credit default swaps" it did. "Credit default swaps" are Wall St code words meaning bond insurance. For a premium AIG insured mortgage backed bonds against default. When the real estate bubble popped in 2006, the insured mortgage backed securities began to default, and AIG had to pay them off. The losses on bond insurance completely overwhelmed the earnings from the rest of AIG's insurance business, and requiring a $105 billion bailout by us long suffering taxpayers.
One has to wonder how senior management at AIG was gullible enough to beleive any kind of computer model could predict the default rate of mortgage backed securities. How can a computer program know the true value of the mortgaged property, keep up with the fluxuation of the real estate market, know the equity in the property and understand the borrower's ability and willingnes to make the monthly payments on time? Short answer, it cannot, and the managers that OK'ed the deals were totaly clueless. Probably all a bunch of MBA's.
One has to wonder how senior management at AIG was gullible enough to beleive any kind of computer model could predict the default rate of mortgage backed securities. How can a computer program know the true value of the mortgaged property, keep up with the fluxuation of the real estate market, know the equity in the property and understand the borrower's ability and willingnes to make the monthly payments on time? Short answer, it cannot, and the managers that OK'ed the deals were totaly clueless. Probably all a bunch of MBA's.
If an arm is worth $10 million, what's a leg go for?
A young woman suffered a horrible medical condition. Injection of a drug caused a dreadful infection of her arm, so severe the arm had to be amputated. She sued. She sued everybody in sight, including the maker of the drug. She won in Vermont state courts. The drug maker appealed to the US Supreme Court, claiming that they had complied with all the FDA's rigorous requirements for drug approval, testing, labeling, and good manufacturing practice.
The drug maker has a point. They manufactured a product in accordance with all the rules, and there are plenty of rules. Should they, their employees, and their stockholders be penalized for doing the right thing? Only the Supreme Court can know.
It's terrible for a young woman to loose her arm, but does this justify taking money from a company that did everything the rules demanded?
The drug maker has a point. They manufactured a product in accordance with all the rules, and there are plenty of rules. Should they, their employees, and their stockholders be penalized for doing the right thing? Only the Supreme Court can know.
It's terrible for a young woman to loose her arm, but does this justify taking money from a company that did everything the rules demanded?
It's almost over. Thank the good Lord for that
The news media are completely locked onto poll numbers. That's all they report, in between clips of McCain and Obama giving their stump speeches. Everything else in the world is on hold until the election is over.
I think McCain can do it. The poll numbers show strength, and the difference between the two is less than the error in the polls for this January's NH primary. The polls projected an Obama win by 5%, actually Hillary won by 5% which means the polls were off by 10%. And surely Obama has to have scared a lot of voters by now. Think tax hikes, Iraq defeat, and turning a stock market crash into the second great depression.
I think McCain can do it. The poll numbers show strength, and the difference between the two is less than the error in the polls for this January's NH primary. The polls projected an Obama win by 5%, actually Hillary won by 5% which means the polls were off by 10%. And surely Obama has to have scared a lot of voters by now. Think tax hikes, Iraq defeat, and turning a stock market crash into the second great depression.
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