Last month, a longtime Boeing employee, John Barnett, was found dead in his car. Barnett's lawyer suspects that he died a natural death, that is, he was killed. However, the preliminary police investigation found that it was a suicide, and there is no further explanation so far.
The 62-year-old veteran employee who has worked at Boeing for 32 years has exploded a lot of negative Boeing materials, such as "cutting corners", defective oxygen supply systems, and workers will even take substandard parts from the scrap bin and install them on airplanes under construction.
Barnett then claimed that because he pointed out the problem, he incurred Boeing's denigration of him and hindered his career. Since retiring in 2017, he has been engaged in a long-term legal battle with Boeing. Until the day before his death, Barnett was in a lawsuit with Boeing and was questioned by his lawyer.
In light of this, combined with the successive failures and problems of Boeing aircraft, we did a program last month, mainly to say that the U.S. manufacturing industry is in decline, and the United States, as a representative of heavy industry, has seen a visible decline in the United States. By way of comparison, China's 919 aircraft are taking off vigorously.
And yesterday, April 9, according to the Wall Street Journal, Boeing had another "whistleblower".
When chatting with the US media on the 9th, a Boeing engineer Saleh Poole mentioned that he discovered in 2021 that when Boeing assembled the 787 Dreamliner, it actually "took a shortcut", which led to problems with the connection of various parts of the aircraft. This will greatly reduce the life of the aircraft and greatly increase the risk of "catastrophic failure" of the aircraft.
Salehple said that he did not fail to tell Boeing's management about it, but Boeing actually "retaliated" against him by transferring him to the Boeing 777 program. As a result, when he arrived at his new post, he soon discovered that the 777 aircraft also had manufacturing problems, and there were many more problems.
But what made him even more chilling was that when he reported the problem of the 777 aircraft to the management again, he actually received the threat of dismissal.
Salehpour revealed that the number of aircraft involved in these problems is not small, with more than 1,000 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and more than 400 Boeing 777 aircraft. His lawyers, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, also spoke, saying: "It's clear that Boeing has left safety behind in recent years in pursuit of profits, and U.S. regulators are too conniving with companies." ”
According to the report, Salehpool filed charges with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in January this year, the Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation, and the Senate investigation team of the US Congress will also hold a hearing on April 17 local time.
We hope that Salehpur will not die as unnatural as Barnett did, and that he will not claim that he will not commit suicide. Because Barnett once told his friends before his death, "If something happens to me, it will never be suicide." But the claims and informs did not work, and the suicide was also suicidal. So Salehpur must take care to protect himself.
Salehple also stated: "I don't do this because I want Boeing to fail, but because I want it to succeed and prevent the crash." The truth is, Boeing can't go on like this, and I think it needs to do a little bit better. ”
With such intentions and motives, we would like to call Salehpur a "whistleblower" and once again hope that Salehpur will be safe.
Well, we will introduce the situation of Boeing's whistleblower again, because I want to use this as an introduction to expand my horizons and see what kind of prospects European Airbus aircraft will have in the context of US interest rate hikes.
Friends who care about the economy know that everyone's expectations for the United States to cut interest rates in 2024 this year are very high, for example, UBS strategists predict that the Federal Reserve may begin to ease policy as early as March 2024, and the rate cut may be as high as 275 basis points. As a result, March is over, and the Fed has become more hawkish.
Now even the forecast for a rate cut in June has been reduced to less than 50%, and institutions are more inclined to cut rates in September and December, and the rate cut will not be too large. Some people are even more pessimistic, and may not be able to wait for the Fed to cut interest rates this year.
Some people say that the United States maintains high interest rates, what does it have to do with Airbus in Europe? Well, let's see how Boeing is going downhill in the United States, and sooner or later the United States' toughness will also affect Airbus.
We often say that the manufacturing industry in the United States is hollowed out, and the fundamental reason is that the financial industry and high technology are more profitable, and capital is profit-seeking, so it naturally goes to the place of high profits. Slowly, low-margin manufacturing was abandoned.
However, abandoning it does not mean that the Americans do not have ordinary industrial manufactured products, and China and third world countries have undertaken these low-end manufacturing and used cheap labor to support the United States, and the United States only needs to export some high-tech products and engage in transnational services and financial industries.
From luxury to frugality, not only capital, but also workers are reluctant to engage in low-end manufacturing, so the general manufacturing industry in the United States is slowly hollowing out.
In fact, we don't just laugh at the United States, this is the nature of human beings, in our country, most of the people who can still do hard work are the post-70s and post-60s who have suffered hardships, and for the post-90s and post-00s, they have not suffered hardships, even if their income is higher than that of white-collar workers, they are not willing to engage in these hard jobs. It's all the same.
The United States is not without manufacturing, and what the United States has left behind is high-profit manufacturing, such as chips and artificial intelligence, drug manufacturing and research and development, which has caused an economic phenomenon that we can't understand now, that is, the interest rate hike has been increased for two years, and it has not caused a recession in the United States, but various indicators have set the best records in history, such as the stock market, such as the unemployment rate, economic growth and so on.
Although some people suspect that the United States is fraudulent, even if there is an element of fraud, the macroeconomic performance of the United States is indeed okay, and this is not the kind of prosperity that can be maintained with a risk-free return of 5 points in traditional economics.
If you want to explain this phenomenon, there is only one theory: the average rate of return of the major domestic industries in the United States must be more than 5 points, otherwise it would have collapsed long ago. Right? It's better to sleep in the bank.
The financial industry in the United States, lawyers, medicine and medical care, high-tech manufacturing, chips, etc., there is no doubt that the returns must be very high, even if the risk-free rate reaches 5 points, it basically does not affect the injection of talents and funds, so they can perform quite well, which is also in line with the facts we see.
Industries with profit margins of 5 to 10 points, especially manufacturing, are more or less affected by the high-interest environment, and industries with profit margins of less than 5 points cannot survive in the United States, and they have long been killed. Heavy capital investment, even if you have a higher rate of return, will be affected.
For example, if I have to invest 10 billion to get 8 points of gain, then I really have to think about it, because I still have the possibility of losing money, and it is impossible to make a steady profit in business. Then I might as well be safe, earn 5 points without risk, it is a little better than risk to earn 8 points, and it is also an important option to stabilize with large funds.
To sum up, in fact, the manufacturing industry with an annual yield of less than 10 points will be affected in the high-interest environment of the United States, and Boeing, although it is the crown of the American manufacturing industry, will not be spared.
Of course, we are only talking about one of the reasons, there are other factors that may have a greater impact, but today we will only talk about the impact of market interest rates. Even in the low-interest financial environment in the United States, Boeing has times when the yield is negative, but the low-interest environment can still be helped, and the high-interest environment can only make matters worse.
Then the point is that the current interest rate environment in the United States is being replicated in Europe, and Europe does not have as many high-profit industries as the United States, nor does it have the same free bond financing methods as the United States, and the euro does not have the same market and acceptance as the dollar. But interest rates in Europe are not much lower than in the United States.
So, under the financial environment that is even worse than that of the United States, let's think about it, Airbus, which is also a large aircraft manufacturer, will its life be better?
Of course, it may also be a little better, because Airbus's industrial layout is a little more dispersed than Boeing, for example, in China, there are Airbus assembly plants.
If the United States can really bite the bullet this year and not cut interest rates, then I really want to boast about the United States, which is to wipe out the capitalist manufacturing industry in the environment of the dollar system, including but not limited to Europe, Japan and South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Of course, China is not among them, and the Belt and Road countries that are closely connected with China, such as Vietnam, are not among them, and if the United States can bite the bullet and not cut interest rates, it will objectively promote the expansion of China's manufacturing system.
We started with the Boeing whistleblower, and we have discussed so much, mainly to explore some essential objective connections in the intricate economic spider web, rather than blindly trying to win the hemp. Our point of view is not to win the big win and the small win, but to analyze whether there are any of these connections that I have mentioned, and in what direction it will develop in the future.
Of course, China is now also desperate for the United States to cut interest rates as soon as possible, and the world's loose environment is of great significance to China's economic recovery.
But at the same time, the United States is also deeply aware of this, so it will grit its teeth and insist, not hesitating to risk the collapse of domestic banks, and also want to delay as much as possible in order to blow up China.
Europe, on the other hand, has become the biggest victim, Japan and South Korea can still rely on currency depreciation to hold on, the euro is relatively strong, and there is no capital to support it.
The manufacturing industry under the capitalist system has suffered a wave of nerve-wracking weakening in the context of the US dollar interest rate hike, which is already a visible reality.