Trade win for Boeing _ rival Airbus got unfair aid

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By TOM RAUM and DONNA BORAK

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a victory for Boeing Co., the World Trade Organization sided with the American aviation giant Friday in finding that European countries had provided billions in illegal subsidies to chief competitor Airbus.

The preliminary ruling by the Geneva-based WTO, although expected to be challenged by the European Union, could begin to shake up the $3.2 trillion global market in new jetliners, in which Airbus has overtaken Boeing. The next shoe to drop will be a decision that may well go the other way: The international trade body will rule next year in an Airbus challenge to what it sees as unfair U.S. government support for Boeing.

Friday's decision confirms a complaint by the United States, filed in 2004, that "all Airbus aircraft have received illegal subsidies and that these have caused material harm to Boeing," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., among those briefed by U.S. trade officials on the yet-to-be released decision.

Another Washington state lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott, said, "We learned in a WTO ruling that Airbus has enjoyed an unfair competitive advantage over Team Boeing for decades."


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090904/D9AGPFB01.htm...

[zbdent]

1. I remembered that Airbus (foreign) was awarded a contract (under Bush) over Boeing (U.S.)

links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

but then you have Repugs worried that their contractor (lobbyist) would lose to the lowest cost ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Psephos]

2. Boeing perpetrated a major fraud on the US govt in 2001-2003 over tanker procurement

here's a decent take on it: http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/168964.asp

Part of the Airbus award was brushback against Boeing - and rightly so, in my opinion.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. Yes and no

A lot of the award had to do with Airbus promising to provide jobs to key southern states.

[Psephos]

4. Yep - Airbus did its political homework well.

Also, the Air Force thought the AirBus planes were a better fit to their needs and operational conditions.

[No Elephants]

9. Yep, and someone in Bushco used improper considerations in awarding the contract to Airbus, assuming

you and the other poster are correct about why Airbus got the contract.

Of course, that is no surprise with that administration.

[No Elephants]

8. Which is where Boeing and everyone else will likely send the jobs in the future.

Lord help me, but I do hate Bushco.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. Airbus won the tanker fair and square, by building the better plane

While Boeing tried to pitch a 767 tanker that was already a disaster. Boeing was just counting on nobody at the Pentagon calling the Italians and Japanese and asking them how they were making out with their 767 tankers which are a flying* punchline (* when actually flyable)

And the only reason the Italians and Japanese bought the 767 Tanker is because large portions of the 767 are outsourced to the Italians and Japanese.

The Airbus KC-330 has won every competition against the 767 tanker since its launch.

[No Elephants]

10. If you are correct, why did the WTO find unfair competition?

How can you say unequivocally that jobs for the states on which Republicans depend definitely had no part in the contract award, nor did the subsidies to Airbus (which would enable it to bid lower)?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. The WTO has nothing to do with the tanker program,

The A330 won the tanker competition because the Boeing bid was not worthy of serious consideration and Boeing had already failed to deliver on much, much smaller 767 Tanker orders to the Japanese and Italians.

I'm not too interested in anyones motivations, the A330 is the much better plane and it won.

The WTO ruled the launch aid for the A380 was illegal, they will also find the launch aid for the 787 was illegal and indeed more so.

The aviation industry worldwide is highly dependent on state support, nod and move on. Fighting over it at the WTO when everyone is guilty as sin is pointless when nobody is going to modify their respective policies.

[sabrina 1]

5. Boeing was implicated in the rendition of torture victims

through a subsidiary called Jeppesen. They made money from torture. I would never fly on a Boeing flight. I'd be happy to see them taken over by a company with integrity.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/061030ta_ta...

The C.I.A.’s Travel Agent

Boeing does not mention, either on its Web site or in its annual report, that Jeppesen’s clients include the C.I.A., and that among the international trips that the company plans for the agency are secret “extraordinary rendition” flights for terrorism suspects. Most of the planes used in rendition flights are owned and operated by tiny charter airlines that function as C.I.A. front companies, but it is not widely known that the agency has turned to a division of Boeing, the publicly traded blue-chip behemoth, to handle many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.

> snip

A former Jeppesen employee, who asked not to be identified, said recently that he had been startled to learn, during an internal corporate meeting, about the company’s involvement with the rendition flights. At the meeting, he recalled, Bob Overby, the managing director of Jeppesen International Trip Planning, said, “We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights—you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way.” The former employee said that another executive told him, “We do the spook flights.” He was told that two of the company’s trip planners were specially designated to handle renditions. He was deeply troubled by the rendition program, he said, and eventually quit his job. He recalled Overby saying, “It certainly pays well. They”—the C.I.A.—“spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.”

Overby, who was travelling last week, did not return several phone calls. Mike Pound, the head of corporate communications for Jeppesen, said that he would have no comment, and he added, “Bob Overby will have no comment as well.” Tim Neale, the director of media relations for Boeing’s corporate office in Chicago, said, “The flight-planning services we provide our customers are confidential, and we do not comment publicly on any work done for any customer without their consent.” The C.I.A. had no comment.

The ACLU sued on behalf of one of the victims of torture who was transported by Jeppesen. He was later released on orders from Condy Rice after it was determined he had been mistakenly 'renditioned' and tortured.

The ACLU said at the time that if Boeing could be implicated in the case, they would amend the suit to include them.

According to this article, after dropping off their victim, the flight crew flew Majorca where they stayed at a luxury hotel at taxpayer's expense. The CIA pays well.

Our tax dollars at work.

[Coventina]

12. You realize that by punishing the civilian side of the business

for the crimes of the military side of the business, that you are actually hurting thousands of American union employees?

Your anger and action would be better directed toward our government.

[sabrina 1]

13. Sorry, I have no sympathy for

collaborators to crimes of this magnitude.

I can't believe you meant what you said. As someone who has friends in the industry, I know they would not stay in a job that required them to be complicit with torturers or their enablers.

Using your logic, we should not have stopped the Nazis. So many people lost their liv .... I mean, lost their jobs when the regime fell.

When it comes tob lives V jobs, the choice is obvious. You can always find another job, hard to return from the dead or recover from the results of torture. And even harder for a country that engages in these crimes against humanity, which they could not do without collaborators, to regain the respect of the world and most of its people, until they hold those responsible accountable.

Don't take a job with businesses known to have collaborated in crimes against humanity. And don't use their services.

The employee who was interviewed in that article, quit his job. He is to e admired for that.

I will not fly on a Boeing flight and I will ask everyone I know to do the same. I will not be like the Germans who after the fact, claimed there was nothing they could have done or that they didn't know.

There are things people can do and one of them is to make certain that collaborators do not profit from aiding and abetting the criminals. And if they know, people who continue to work for them, become collaborators themselves, along with people who know and use their services.

[Coventina]

16. Okay, well I certainly hope you are not paying any federal income taxes.

Otherwise, you are a huge hypocrite, er, collaborator.

[sabrina 1]

17. So, your response to doing something about

not being a knowing and willing subsidizer of an airline involved in the torture business is this:

'There's no point in NOT adding to the profits of an airline involved in transporting victims to their horrific destinations, if you are paying taxes'. So go ahead and help keep them in business.'?

Here's what you don't get. If all airlines either refused to cooperate in the torture busines, or were put out of business, our tax dollars would not be going to them to pay for their nefarious crimes.

Putting pressure on torture profiteers by threatening their bottom line, could encourage them to get out of that business. At which point no ones tax dollars would be going to them at all.

Should those decent Germans who hid Jews and others from the Nazis, saving their lives in many cases, not have done so, because they too were paying the taxes that funded the Nazi Regime?

Your perspective makes no sense at all. So, I'll keep trying to put them out of the torture business if you don't mind.

[Coventina]

18. I just think you are being silly to punish American workers.

on edit: Workers who had no more to do with torture than you did.

[sabrina 1]

19. American workers who work for torture

enablers, deserve to lose their jobs imo. Just as German workers who supported the Nazis deserved to lose theirs.

Really attempting to emotionally manipulate people is not a good tactic. Far better to make an argument for your own pov, such as why Americans should support businesses that are actively profiting from human suffering via the torture business? I doubt claiming 'they need the convenience, or they need the job' would go over too well with Human Rights Groups working hard to end this vile, inhumane practice and/or decent human beings anywhere.

But, I'm glad you don't mind my working in my own small way to try to end it. I'd like to think when the history of these times is written it can be said that at least some of the American people tried to stop the killing and the torture.

[Coventina]

20. So by your logic, every government worker should quit or lose their job.

[sabrina 1]

21. Honestly, I don't know why you're having such a hard time

with this, it's pretty simple. If someone discovers that the people they are working for are profiting from torture, they are morally required to do something about it. See the whistle-blower in the article I linked to

I understand that you believe in the tactics you are engaging in, so I feel compelled to tell you what you have accomplished so far. You appear to be defending an airline that participated in the torture business. That makes you come across as an apologist for those who profit from torture and those who enable them.

I am aware that it is possible to make a ridiculous argument to excuse just about anything. What I also have observed in people who attempt to use such tactics is that they never address actual issues or the points made. They argue like defense attorneys who know that to address the actual issues, would harm their clients.

If you wish to defend that practice as I already said, that is your choice. But at least do so in an honest way, rather than attempting to divert attention from the horrific, inhumane acts by bringing up issues that are irrelevant and if they were, pale as far as the impact on humanity between the loss of a job, or being tortured for months or even years.

Which would you prefer? To be tortured by a foreign government for months, years maybe, hog-tied and thrown into a plane and taken to a gulag where expert torturers await you? Or would you choose losing your job?

I don't expect you will answer that question as you seem to prefer to avoid the ugly facts. As I said, I'll save my tears for the tortured over the unemployed. And I hope that if the situation is ever reversed and it is someone you love being spirited away to some dungeon somewhere, that there will be some who will not value their jobs more than the life of your loved one.

Oh yes, as for your original question. It would have been so encouraging to see a general strike of all government workers who work for a branch of government that is directly involved in torture, including the military. The muted response to the revelations was a sad commentary on the state of this country, not to mention the outright support for torture by a significant number of Americans.

I am realistic. I know how low we have sunk as a nation so I don't expect much anymore. I used to think we were the good guys, but that was delusional wasn't it? I mean did I ever think I would meet someone on a Democratic board who would be an apologist for torture profiteers? I didn't even think, naive as a I was, that I would find it on rightwing boards. But that was several years ago. I know better now.

[Coventina]

22. And I, in turn, don't know why you want to punish people for

crimes they did not commit, nor even KNEW about.

FYI: I do NOT support torture, if you knew anything about me and what I've posted on this board about torture you would know that.

I fully support the prosecution of ANYONE who ordered, conducted, or knew of and did not report, torture.

This does NOT include people who may have worked for companies or gov't entities who in no way participated in or knew of these acts. To punish people for crimes they did not commit is just as anti-American as torture. I don't know why you can't understand that.

The Boeing employees building airplanes have as much to do with torture as Forest Rangers. But for some reason you want to punish one group and not the other.

on edit: clarity

[sabrina 1]

23. You have gone off on a tangent

ascribing to me something I cannot find in my words anywhere in my posts in this thread.

I made a decision as soon as I discovered the role played by Boeing in the torture business, not to fly on that airline again.

You object to my decision for some reason, and have turned it into 'punishing innocent people'. A stretch beyond even the most imaginative mind.

What should have happened, but didn't, in a country where the law means something, is that the individuals responsible for making those decisions, the CEO named in the article I linked to eg, should have been arrested for participating in a crime.

But they weren't. Leaving those of us who DID know about it, a choice to ignore it or to do whatever we could to at least register some kind of objection to the crime. If my choice not to financially support the torture business upsets you, provide me with another option.

Your anger is mis-directed. Even if workers were to lose their jobs, it surely wouldn't be because I will not be flying on Boeing. All ramifications of this crime against humanity are the fault of the criminals who profited from the torture business. How it came to be anyone who refuses to participate in those crimes, is beyond me.

However, you have nothing to fear. There is very little will in this country to end torture as a policy. People have given their lives many times throughout history to end these kinds of injustices. Sometimes it does require sacrifice to achieve what we say we believe in. Here we already had laws against torture. All we needed to do was to apply them.

But to blame those who take some action, however small, in the apparently lawless society we live in, for any ramifications that occur, could not be more misguided. Blame the guilty parties, the torturers if you must blame anyone. It is beyond belief that you would direct your anger, especially if you oppose torture as you say, at anyone other than those responsible.

[Coventina]

24. First of all: Boeing is not an airline (you have referred to it as such several times)

which makes me wonder if you even understand what it is you are attempting to boycott.

Secondly, I'm not angry at you for anything but implying that somehow I condone torture which I do NOT and have NEVER done. I was merely trying to point out to you that rather than boycotting Boeing products (sure, knock yourself out, I'm "boycotting" them myself because I can't afford air travel) you should take up the issue of torture at the SOURCE: OUR GOVERNMENT.

Boeing (the civilian side of the business) is one of the last remaining major manufacturers left in this country. As it is, the kleptocrats at the top are outsourcing these good-paying union jobs more and more. Why give them an excuse to increase this movement? By "boycotting" Boeing, you don't hurt the people responsible for colluding with the government on torture, you merely give them an excuse (falling profits) to move more jobs out of the country.

BTW: these workers you want out of a job are from a heavily Democratic area: Seattle.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. This whole exercise is pointless,

As the WTO will also find the subsidies Boeing received for the 787 were illegal, anyone who wants to pretend aviation is not among the most highly subsidized industries on earth is insane.

[No Elephants]

11. The probablity is that Airbus raised the issue of subsidies for Boeing in this proceeding, in its

own defense, and the WTO found as it found anyway. I have no brief for either airline, but I would suspect the WTO was better informed about this than we are, as well as being more experienced in making calls of this kind.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. The EU complaint against Boeing is a seperate matter

it won't be ruled on until the spring at the earliest, but much of the 787 aid - especially that from the Japanese government is illegal. The 787 is the most highly sudsidized airliner in history.