US vs China War?

[Admiral Yi]

Not in perpetuity now, but in the short term wouldn't that (perceived) stability keep the stocks from crashing now? But I've said before the stock market makes no sense to me

The government bail out/subsidy/free money would need to compensate for the lost profit from sales to China in perpetuity, since the share price reflects the infinite stream of future profits.

[Valmy]

People counting on them being to big to fail and thus the government bailing them out?

In perpetuity?  I doubt it.

My guess is they're thinking these tariffs are as phony as all the others.

Except the Chinese are ones taking action in this case. Are they thinking Xi is bluffing?

[Admiral Yi]

Except the Chinese are ones taking action in this case. Are they thinking Xi is bluffing?

They're thinking China's actions are reactive and will be dropped as soon as Trump does.

[Tonitrus]

Boeing share price oddly unchanged.

Was it already in the toilet due to random malfunctions happening to them all the time?

Boeing has been going downhill ever since they moved their HQ away from their home.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Boeing has been going downhill ever since they moved their HQ away from their home.

Really since they stopped letting engineers run the company.  The flashy HQ move was more a symptom of that.

[crazy canuck]

Boeing has been going downhill ever since they moved their HQ away from their home.

Really since they stopped letting engineers run the company.  The flashy HQ move was more a symptom of that.

I read a very good piece a while back, I can't remember the source, which made a strong case that when the management of the company was moved away from the engineers, that actually knew how things worked things started falling apart, literally.

It's a point that comes up in the literature time and time again, and particularly in studies investigating the impact of work from home practices.

When the doers are separated from the deciders a lot of information gets missed because all the informal interaction gets lost.  And it turns out that those informal interactions are where a lot of of the really important information gets transmitted.

[Razgovory]

I posted an article like that, from the Atlantic.

[Valmy]

Yeah that is one of the reasons I try to have meetings in person. Sometimes the informal chatting right before or after is more important than the meeting.

[crazy canuck]

I posted an article like that, from the Atlantic.

Ah, that is where I must've read it. Many thanks.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah that is one of the reasons I try to have meetings in person. Sometimes the informal chatting right before or after is more important than the meeting.

This was a point made by Rory Stewart on a recent report about the UK government's tend to "everythingism" (key argument: "The State has been paralysed by a powerful force: Everythingism. Everythingism is the belief that every proposal, project or policy is a means for promoting every national objective, all at the same time.")

He talked about when he was Secretary of State for International Development with a deep personal knowledge and experience in the Middle East. Obviously there were lots of meetings on UK's contribution in the fight against ISIS and then aid in Syria afterwards. It was from an aid perspective the highest priority issue at that point.

He asked his senior civil servants why he was the only person from his Department at the meetings in London with the Foreign Office and MoD. It was explained that in order to support regional regeneration priorities and to prioritise on front-line spending (the aid budget was protected from austerity) the DfID team were based in, I think, Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. He said they needed to be in meetings and was told they'd dial in which would be fine.

He pushed back that they needed to be there in person for the informal conversations around meetings, just chatting with counterparts in other departments etc. So the civil servant that's fine they'd arrange for people to come down for meetings. Which happened for a week or two and then it was back to dialling in. Stewart asked why and it was explained that the transport was causing a big issue with the departments carbon budget and net zero commitments.

As he put it - basically all of the other objectives like regional regeneration, net zero etc were all really important and right to do but they were getting in the way of the main thing for the department in charge of foreign aid. It's a problem with the state here but I think it's a problem with organisations and businesses too when they let things drift from the fundamental thing they're meant to be doing - definitely read about it in relation to Boeing.