I’ll just bet you aren’t surprised to learn that the words “private equity” played a role in the door that an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 lost shortly after it took off from Portland International Airport. When you hear private equity, you hear rich guys, and when you hear them, you hear profits, and when you hear profits, you hear cost cutting, and when you start cutting costs in the manufacture of airplanes, they start falling out of the skies and losing doors, which is exactly what happened with the 737 Max 9 made by the Boeing Corporation.
Lucian, I’m a retired scientist from NIST—the National Institute of Standards and Technology—with 26 years of experience in metrology; i.e., the “Science of measurement.” Central to that is the calibration of gauges, instruments, and the traceability that is part of that process. Traceability is the contiguous line of measurements and documentation to prove that a given process or instrument is “within spec,” meaning that it will measure a certain quantity within specified limits.
Torque wrenches, for example, would be one of the most basic, obvious examples of that traceability process. It’s straightforward and doesn’t require any significant amount of science or technology to back it up. But, what it does require is the quality-control systems to ensure the instruments are always within specification. And if they’re not…well, door plug failures might be a good example of what can happen.
This is a perfect example of why “unfettered capitalism” and Trumpian cries to “Deconstruct the Administrative State!” are so threatening. Who else is going to do this stuff than boring government entities with no allegiance to any particular company? That is precisely NIST’s charter; the government organization 99% of the public has never heard of, in spite of the fact that NIST has at least five Nobel laureates on staff or emeritus. Celebrity culture never caught up with NIST, unfortunately.
Think about that the next time you board a flight. Who do you want responsible for the tools and measurement systems used to verify the integrity of the aircraft you’re on; a private-equity-funded corporation? Or objective, neutral government experts in measurement science and instrument calibration?
Thank you David Walker for this crisp lucid presentation about NIST--new to me, but it is essential to any rational responsible business structure---which does not include the current breed of venture capitalists. The only way to make more money is to hire fewer people, do things more quickly, and make things more cheaply or out of cheaper material...... and siphon off all the money you can, by hook or crook.....
To be clear, Boeing’s problems are more in the realm of robust (or not) quality-control (QC) systems than the measurement science that NIST specializes in, but central to any QC involving instruments and specifications is an unbroken chain back to NIST as the lead government agency for any uncertainty statement (that is, a measured quantity is X +/- Y). Another way to think of this concept is that a number (X) is meaningless without an uncertainty estimate (Y). Even a lowly torque wrench might give nominally the correct value…plus or minus what? 1%? 10% 100%? Who checks it? How often? Is it documented?
Also, NIST is *not* a regulatory agency; that would be the FAA, primarily, in this case. Some people are pointing the finger at the FAA saying it’s their fault. While they’re involved, for sure, isn’t it up to Congress to give the FAA the tools, including funding, to do their jobs? And don’t even start with me about the years-long “problem” of too few air-traffic controllers, which started with Reagan’s firing them all in 1981. If Congress wanted to solve these problems they most certainly could, but half of them are more interested in tax cuts than funding public safety.
There is no excuse for lax test and measurement standards. I have spent most of my life designing and building "stuff". From crude to ultra precision. A + 7 .5" Deltronic plug gage is
0.5007. with no variation in a set over decades, forever. Inspection of measuring instruments is a routine part of the manufacturing process. Private equity is the bane of our existence. Boeing will ultimately loose out to Airbus because they shave time and accuracy insread of $$$ to win contracts. Will Alaskan, Southwest and United stick with Boeing and keep their fingers crossed, or will they chose safety that will protect their bottom line better?
Deconstruction of the Administrative State...that was a key mantra of one Steve Bannon, who, along with a few other cohorts, ran the Trump administration while he golfed or changed his Depends.
A Trump victory will allow these fiends back in the White House!
Sad memories of the Challenger space shuttle disaster and faulty engineering of the O rings Boeing used to be a premier engineering company until the short term profit people took over. Look how thy have ruined healthcare
Do you remember where you were when the news came in that the Challenger had exploded? I sure do, right down to the room, the lighting, the people around me, the stunned silence. It still haunts me. And, just like Boeing today, it wasn’t so much faulty engineering as it was a failure of safety protocols that should’ve scrubbed the launch in sub-freezing temperatures that day. In other words, same old, same old: Bad executive management with a culture of ignoring the technical experts.
I believe it's private equity firms that are sucking up newspapers, firing journalists and other staff, making their quick profits, and then leaving the shell of the paper to rot. The "masters of the universe" need those profits so they can buy up more companies, strip them of their value, and take those profits to buy more companies and continue this cycle of greed. It'd be a pathetic pissing contest if it weren't for the death and destruction these people cause and leave in their wake.
This article needs to be read widely. Thank you for your investigative work and putting together these facts..and putting it into a larger story, one that most of us would have never known.
Engineers used to run Boeing, not anymore. Now it's plug and chug engineering, basic level models and no one is expected to understand the load path through components. Sad stuff.
Private equity is a scourge, as are all the big ego heads of investment firms (private or not). One of the economics mags (Bloomberg???) had an opinion piece on the constant firing of employees to downsize company size---noting that such things used to be very rare; the fact of downsizing was taken to mean management was failing. Companies had stable workforces which means people had stable lives. ALL I can see in the financial world/corporate world today is GREED---at the expense of safety, health, communal stability, etc etc----basically the result of the fact that capitalism has been REGULATED to some degree since the New Deal. Now as the regulators are banished by SCOTUS we can expect more than loose bolts, falling, door plugs--- ALAS. Vote like your life depends on it---your life and the lives of your children and grandchildren do.
I have no understanding of money lust, but it seems to be human nature. The people with less want more, and the people with a *lot* want more. As for private equity ... those guys get around. They are wrecking the newspaper business because it is something they neither care about nor understand. They see it as a money making vehicle, cut corners, eliminate bureaus, people quit, and then they close down or try to sell a diminished product. Tom Wicker told me, in an interview, that people would always want to hold a newspaper on their hands (relative to the Internet). The question now becomes:
will newspaper stick around, and how many will there be?
Print media brought it on themselves, the likes of the NYT leading the way and sadly taking down the entire industry. Craving access to politicians they ignored their mandate to stand up to corruption and graft. I mean have you once heard any mainstream newspaper call what Thomas and Alito does is bribery (which it so painfully and obviously is) and called for their arrest and prosecution, as well as for the people that bribed them? If they have I haven't noticed. Hopefully independent media can still make a comeback.
The Chain Gang: One Newspaper Versus the Gannett Empire
Richard McCord. University of Missouri Press, $15.95 (290pp) ISBN 978-0-8262-1064-7
McCord has battled the Gannett newspaper giant twice and lived to tell about it in this fascinating book. Frustrated with big-city life, McCord and his then-wife light out for the territory--Santa Fe, N.M., to be precise--and start their own weekly. But when the Gannett media empire buys the town's daily paper, McCord has cause for worry. Some of the freewheeling business practices he ascribes to Gannett, such as lying to advertisers and setting prices off the newspaper rate card, are ethically dubious, while others border on antitrust. But Gannett's influence on the rest of the newspaper world makes it difficult to get the word out as McCord fights first for the survival of his own weekly, and then for that of a daily owned by a friend in Green Bay, Wisc. McCord tells it all from the viewpoint of a small-town underdog, and as he travels from Salem, Ore., to Little Rock, Ark., and Green Bay, discovering how Gannett subverts the good journalism it claims to champion, readers won't be able to help but cheer him on. Be warned, however: McCord is a quirky character. When he digresses from his battles to talk about his inner feelings, the narrative turns slightly mawkish and underwhelming (the reader feels every mile of a road trip described in Chapter 15). Overall, however, this book is nearly impossible to put down, for the media curious or those who just like a good scrap. (July)
One of the biggest under-told stories of the past twenty years is the swallowing up of small independent newspapers by large corporations. This is the dramatic account of two battles waged by Richard McCord with his independent newspapers against the Gannett Company, one of the country's largest newspaper chains.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, McCord owned one of two small local papers. When Gannett purchased his competing paper, McCord set out to investigate the tactics Gannett had used in the past to obliterate independent competition. His research yielded such ominous reports that McCord decided to publish them in a preemptive strike against the competition. Now it was war-and McCord would soon learn first-hand what he was up against in keeping his paper alive.
JFC! What happened to QC? That’s quality control, for you young’uns, where the work of one is checked over by maybe two or three others. The same thing is happening with healthcare. Hospitals are looking at the numbers, not necessarily the quality of care. In fact, isn’t it all about quantity? How many planes can we produce in a year? The bottom line, of course, is the almighty dollar. Efficiency is lacking and those of us who fly once in awhile, want to be safe and protected. Feeling anxiety before and after takeoff is bad enough but just knowing that the plane could literally come apart at the seams, midair, is terrifying! We should be their number one concern. Thanks, Lucian. All fired up now.
Back in probably 1966 I got a job at Lockheed building C-141’s. I spent 2 weeks learning how to drill very very precise holes at exactly 180 degree’s, (I’m still a wizard with a drill), and then how to rivet pieces together. One person wields the rivet gun which is a form of hammer and another holds the bucking bar which makes the mushroom shape on the back side of the rivet making it impossible to pull out, it seems simple but there is a lot that can go wrong, if you hammer it too much the mushroom on the back side will be too thin and not have structural integrity, if the rivet gun is not held at precisely 180 degrees to the rivet it will deform the rivet and possibly dimple the aluminum which might be the skin of the aircraft, requiring the removal of the entire panel, which might have hundreds of perfect rivets in it. There are 3 or 4 hundred thousand rivets in a C-141 every one of which had to be inspected by 2 or 3 inspectors. I lasted on the production line for 2 weeks before I decided that it wasn’t a job for me. I used to enjoy flying especially when I flew first class which my contract required, not anymore, now I fly in the back. Take a look around the next time you land and are waiting to get off, people often look like they are shell shocked by their experience, crammed together with total strangers, where you can hardly move, for hours is not pleasant for anyone, all to cram more seats into a limited space, to make more money. The bastards have even investigated seating where you stand the whole time packed in like sardines. It was bad enough when the company whose name was on the plane was responsible for it, but now that they are farming out production of major components, the question should be why. Do you really want to fly in a plane with your family, built by the lowest bidder and made as cheaply as possible, I’d rather drive if at all possible.
@Dick Montagne—Before NIST, I worked at McDonnell-Douglas in St. Louis, in the F-15 Static Test Division. I know from whence you speak, and feel pretty much the same as you about the whole Quality Control vs. Shareholder Value (translation: Profit over People) corporate philosophy.
Dick, thanks for that “riveting” (sorry, couldn’t help myself😇) explanation! I remember the days of flying with Eastern Airlines and receiving a real plate with delicious food along with a real silverware. Most of all, the seats were comfy. We have all been reduced to a number. That’s what we represent to these corporations. We are not real to them.
I feel the same way about flying, even though the facts prove constantly that it's significantly more hazardous to be driving around on big city streets, depending on the circumstances.
But we of course, thankfully, rarely see a pile-up car and truck collision that takes as many lives as a downed passenger jet, though the rate of automotive and truck deaths is much higher.
Yeah, but there’s an intangible human factor to consider. We’ve all heard the tiresome stats about how “statistically “ planes are safer than cars. In a car or truck, you’re at least on terra firma. You have a feeling of some control over events (if you’re the driver) and a fighting chance to survive an accident. When you step into a plane you are 100% committed—to the safety and integrity of that tube in the sky that whizzes you from A to B in a hostile environment where humans are not meant to be, and you can’t get out until it lands. Anything bad or wrong happens to that tube in the air, you’re done. You have zero point zero control over your fate. It’s the totality of aircraft accidents, I think, that spooks many of us. It fails, you die. Not always true in a vehicle.
Oh yeah I am 100 % with you on all of these considerations, AEN! In fact if it wouldn't spook passengers even more, and run afoul of all kinds of regs in place for very good reasons, it would be interesting to see if an airline could issue an announcement that already vetted passengers with parachute training would be issued those!
Just kidding, let me find the link I was too busy to find earlier for this column:
Great investigative reporting. So many factors seem to be involved, but primarily corporate greed and lack of quality control. A simple check off list initialed by n both workman and an inspector would catch any mistakes, even new buildings and remodeling jobs in homes have to pass inspection. The torque wrenches seemed a very big problem but again, periodic testing would take care of that. All this coupled with no pride in workmanship these days, especially when the bosses are putting pressure on the worker to work faster. A resentful worker is not going to give his or her best under any circumstances. Lastly firing the person who complains borders on criminality. He should be given a bonus for possibly saving the company from an expensive lawsuit, not to mention a loss of confic dence in potential customers.
Great reporting Lucian, this is where the Vulture Capitalists lead us. It always makes me think about JD Vance and Mitt Romney, proud VCs both with no concerns about the companies they eviscerated in the name of profit. If the Magas and S.Ct have their way its only going to get worse. Yay freedom!
Adding: private equity is wrecking housing -- Nashville is a good example, but it is happening all over the place. And the AirBandB vulture, er venture capitalists are a major part of the problem.....
Adding thanks to lucian for shining his bright spotlight on another trashy, sickening, corrupt mess.....
You hit a cord with me. Airbnb and VRBO are black market VC built outfits that took control of the vacation rental industry at its inception. They actively promoted the black market Fromm their inception by not require licensing in order to list with them, although they have recently conceded to at least suggest it. They use enormous tax dollar carrots to get state and county legislatures to create laws blocking the restriction of the commercial short term rental industry anywhere at all and especially in our residential neighborhoods which they are filling with traveling strangers, not neighbors.
Neighborhoods and residential communities in many areas will become a thing of the past as the commercial tourism market will determine if a neighborhood lives or dies at the hands of this intrusive business model.
It's theorized that as our kids are no longer raised in actual residential neighborhoods full of friends and families they will inevitably see everyone as a stranger and potential risk and that loss of community will inevitable erode humanity's ability to be supportive and care about others as everyone is a stranger and we become more and more wary and isolated.
It's not far wrong. Rather than walking out their door into a neighborhood they know, families have to mentally arm themselves for the unknown each time they venture out as their neighborhood is no longer a source of security, support and comfort.
Neighborhoods are incubators for the next generation. What will we become when that incubator is gone?
Meanwhile, Vacation Rental REITs (real estate investment trusts) are outbidding families for residential homes as states like Florida are enticed by greed into flinging the doors wide open anywhere in the state to reap the spoils of what may very well become the destruction our society.
Who wants to raise a family next door to a constant rotation of vacationing tourists? Many communities like Myrtle Beach and Hatteras and numerous others have already converted to purely tourism with little to no actual residents. Schools funded by tax dollars sit all but empty.
It feels like yet another thoughtless step as we stumble along to quite a dystopian future.
And this is from someone who has run a legal vacation rental business for decades and someone who would never want to raise a family next-door to one or in a neighborhood full of them. The industry had a short window chance to become totally legal and appropriately placed, but VCs had their way instead and we will all pay the price.
Yeah. Having watched the spread of vacation rentals from the beginning of the industry, it's disconcerting to consider the end results of the seemingly inevitable path of commercializing our residential neighborhoods with traveling strangers.
Most Venture Cap missions come with a price for others. I think it's written into the bylaws. Do Harm.
With commercializing residential neighborhoods, the price is not so much parking, noise or garbage as it is an alteration of the human condition and what sort of people such a change will create.
You don't miss your water til the well runs dry.
Without the nurturance of supportive neighborhoods, we'll be different. Warier. Less able to trust. Harder to work with others, hence less productive. Lonelier.
We are a community species, and then the community is shifted. Not gone, but very different. Initially we're out of balance because the natural order has shifted. Our amygdala gets more engaged, which is pretty much never a good sign.
The best path there is to remove any chance of learning to trust, which starts in the cradle of a neighborhood that nurtures that trust. Without that, we're fucked. imo
To make matters even worse than the investors making sure they get their money back is the fact that the FAA has long 'deferred' to Boeing on the final inspections (or any inspections) on the planes they make.
Which means that if Boeing says, "Yup, it's good" then the FAA accepts that as the final word and all those missing bolts, unfastened doors, misaligned grommets will be acceptable to being in a plane, and all's set for flight.
Hell, the FAA even allows Boeing and other plane manufacturers to do the first flight tests, and you know Boeing is never going to fail that.
Because of money. I wouldn't call the FAA corrupt but they sure as hell are looking the other way when it comes to planes, flight safety and ATC safety issues. Or didn't one read about the "near hits" in the NY Times article last year that makes it pretty obvious our flying system is Jerry-rigged and badly over-burdened with exhausted ATC's who don't get paid enough, get enough time off, or enough mental health evaluations done (and that includes pilots, too.)?
It's scary-you think flying is safe until you read about another plane missing lots of part and then you don't want to fly any more.
I sure don't. But yeah, the investors are sure hyped on those profits, right?
Though Milton Friedman did not invent the idea, the Friedman Doctrine holds that decisions concerning social responsibility rest on the shoulders of the shareholders, not the executives of a company. He argues that an entity is not obligated to any social responsibilities unless the shareholders decide to such an effect. Also called shareholder value theory, the idea is that the sole purpose of publicly-held corporations is to return profit to shareholders.
Legal lies that "corporations are people" notwithstanding, they are not people. Corporations have no conscience, no mortality, no children, and no concern for the "greater good" of society (that's government's job). Yes, corporations are run by people - managers whose job it is to maximize ROI for the stockholders, and who will be quickly replaced if they forget that.
As the infamous saying goes, "mistakes were made", as the corporate executives hide behind the corporate shield that protects them from personal responsibility for the deaths their mistakes cause. All you can do to a corporate "person" is fine it. Ah, well... "the Onex Group has received aggregate proceeds of approximately $3.2 billion, resulting in a multiple of capital invested of approximately 8.5 times and a return on investment of 201% per annum.” The to-be-determined fines will get written off as a cost of doing business.
The tortured definition of corporations as people ranks as one of the most putrid obscenities ever pushed down our throats. One of many vile recastings done by conservatives in thrall to our true original sin, and the one that will bring us down in the end: greed.
Private equity destroys every thing that it gets its greedy hands on. They have destroyed the newspaper business, countless small family owned businesses, and are well on the way to destroying Boeing. I lived in WA for my first 50 years when Boeing was run by engineers and built a quality product. Everyone there knew when the headquarters moved to Chicago and the bean counters took over the company that it was the beginning of the end.
It's too bad we don't have politicians that would regulate private equity out of business. Unfortunately most of them are firmly in the pockets of these companies and don't want to stop their gravy train.
Lucian, I’m a retired scientist from NIST—the National Institute of Standards and Technology—with 26 years of experience in metrology; i.e., the “Science of measurement.” Central to that is the calibration of gauges, instruments, and the traceability that is part of that process. Traceability is the contiguous line of measurements and documentation to prove that a given process or instrument is “within spec,” meaning that it will measure a certain quantity within specified limits.
Torque wrenches, for example, would be one of the most basic, obvious examples of that traceability process. It’s straightforward and doesn’t require any significant amount of science or technology to back it up. But, what it does require is the quality-control systems to ensure the instruments are always within specification. And if they’re not…well, door plug failures might be a good example of what can happen.
This is a perfect example of why “unfettered capitalism” and Trumpian cries to “Deconstruct the Administrative State!” are so threatening. Who else is going to do this stuff than boring government entities with no allegiance to any particular company? That is precisely NIST’s charter; the government organization 99% of the public has never heard of, in spite of the fact that NIST has at least five Nobel laureates on staff or emeritus. Celebrity culture never caught up with NIST, unfortunately.
Think about that the next time you board a flight. Who do you want responsible for the tools and measurement systems used to verify the integrity of the aircraft you’re on; a private-equity-funded corporation? Or objective, neutral government experts in measurement science and instrument calibration?
Thank you David Walker for this crisp lucid presentation about NIST--new to me, but it is essential to any rational responsible business structure---which does not include the current breed of venture capitalists. The only way to make more money is to hire fewer people, do things more quickly, and make things more cheaply or out of cheaper material...... and siphon off all the money you can, by hook or crook.....
To be clear, Boeing’s problems are more in the realm of robust (or not) quality-control (QC) systems than the measurement science that NIST specializes in, but central to any QC involving instruments and specifications is an unbroken chain back to NIST as the lead government agency for any uncertainty statement (that is, a measured quantity is X +/- Y). Another way to think of this concept is that a number (X) is meaningless without an uncertainty estimate (Y). Even a lowly torque wrench might give nominally the correct value…plus or minus what? 1%? 10% 100%? Who checks it? How often? Is it documented?
Also, NIST is *not* a regulatory agency; that would be the FAA, primarily, in this case. Some people are pointing the finger at the FAA saying it’s their fault. While they’re involved, for sure, isn’t it up to Congress to give the FAA the tools, including funding, to do their jobs? And don’t even start with me about the years-long “problem” of too few air-traffic controllers, which started with Reagan’s firing them all in 1981. If Congress wanted to solve these problems they most certainly could, but half of them are more interested in tax cuts than funding public safety.
There is no excuse for lax test and measurement standards. I have spent most of my life designing and building "stuff". From crude to ultra precision. A + 7 .5" Deltronic plug gage is
0.5007. with no variation in a set over decades, forever. Inspection of measuring instruments is a routine part of the manufacturing process. Private equity is the bane of our existence. Boeing will ultimately loose out to Airbus because they shave time and accuracy insread of $$$ to win contracts. Will Alaskan, Southwest and United stick with Boeing and keep their fingers crossed, or will they chose safety that will protect their bottom line better?
I have always had the utmost respect for you guys. When I was with USGS long ago, it was "Science in the Public Interest". We took that seriously.
Deconstruction of the Administrative State...that was a key mantra of one Steve Bannon, who, along with a few other cohorts, ran the Trump administration while he golfed or changed his Depends.
A Trump victory will allow these fiends back in the White House!
Sad memories of the Challenger space shuttle disaster and faulty engineering of the O rings Boeing used to be a premier engineering company until the short term profit people took over. Look how thy have ruined healthcare
Do you remember where you were when the news came in that the Challenger had exploded? I sure do, right down to the room, the lighting, the people around me, the stunned silence. It still haunts me. And, just like Boeing today, it wasn’t so much faulty engineering as it was a failure of safety protocols that should’ve scrubbed the launch in sub-freezing temperatures that day. In other words, same old, same old: Bad executive management with a culture of ignoring the technical experts.
I remember it well. My late engineer father would have said we told you and you wouldn’t listen his experience working for bean counters.
I believe it's private equity firms that are sucking up newspapers, firing journalists and other staff, making their quick profits, and then leaving the shell of the paper to rot. The "masters of the universe" need those profits so they can buy up more companies, strip them of their value, and take those profits to buy more companies and continue this cycle of greed. It'd be a pathetic pissing contest if it weren't for the death and destruction these people cause and leave in their wake.
This article needs to be read widely. Thank you for your investigative work and putting together these facts..and putting it into a larger story, one that most of us would have never known.
Engineers used to run Boeing, not anymore. Now it's plug and chug engineering, basic level models and no one is expected to understand the load path through components. Sad stuff.
Private equity is a scourge, as are all the big ego heads of investment firms (private or not). One of the economics mags (Bloomberg???) had an opinion piece on the constant firing of employees to downsize company size---noting that such things used to be very rare; the fact of downsizing was taken to mean management was failing. Companies had stable workforces which means people had stable lives. ALL I can see in the financial world/corporate world today is GREED---at the expense of safety, health, communal stability, etc etc----basically the result of the fact that capitalism has been REGULATED to some degree since the New Deal. Now as the regulators are banished by SCOTUS we can expect more than loose bolts, falling, door plugs--- ALAS. Vote like your life depends on it---your life and the lives of your children and grandchildren do.
It souns like most of us are howling into the same wind.
I have no understanding of money lust, but it seems to be human nature. The people with less want more, and the people with a *lot* want more. As for private equity ... those guys get around. They are wrecking the newspaper business because it is something they neither care about nor understand. They see it as a money making vehicle, cut corners, eliminate bureaus, people quit, and then they close down or try to sell a diminished product. Tom Wicker told me, in an interview, that people would always want to hold a newspaper on their hands (relative to the Internet). The question now becomes:
will newspaper stick around, and how many will there be?
Print media brought it on themselves, the likes of the NYT leading the way and sadly taking down the entire industry. Craving access to politicians they ignored their mandate to stand up to corruption and graft. I mean have you once heard any mainstream newspaper call what Thomas and Alito does is bribery (which it so painfully and obviously is) and called for their arrest and prosecution, as well as for the people that bribed them? If they have I haven't noticed. Hopefully independent media can still make a comeback.
No, it started far before that:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780826210647
The Chain Gang: One Newspaper Versus the Gannett Empire
Richard McCord. University of Missouri Press, $15.95 (290pp) ISBN 978-0-8262-1064-7
McCord has battled the Gannett newspaper giant twice and lived to tell about it in this fascinating book. Frustrated with big-city life, McCord and his then-wife light out for the territory--Santa Fe, N.M., to be precise--and start their own weekly. But when the Gannett media empire buys the town's daily paper, McCord has cause for worry. Some of the freewheeling business practices he ascribes to Gannett, such as lying to advertisers and setting prices off the newspaper rate card, are ethically dubious, while others border on antitrust. But Gannett's influence on the rest of the newspaper world makes it difficult to get the word out as McCord fights first for the survival of his own weekly, and then for that of a daily owned by a friend in Green Bay, Wisc. McCord tells it all from the viewpoint of a small-town underdog, and as he travels from Salem, Ore., to Little Rock, Ark., and Green Bay, discovering how Gannett subverts the good journalism it claims to champion, readers won't be able to help but cheer him on. Be warned, however: McCord is a quirky character. When he digresses from his battles to talk about his inner feelings, the narrative turns slightly mawkish and underwhelming (the reader feels every mile of a road trip described in Chapter 15). Overall, however, this book is nearly impossible to put down, for the media curious or those who just like a good scrap. (July)
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-chain-gang-richard-mccord/1114109709
Overview {FROM 2005}
One of the biggest under-told stories of the past twenty years is the swallowing up of small independent newspapers by large corporations. This is the dramatic account of two battles waged by Richard McCord with his independent newspapers against the Gannett Company, one of the country's largest newspaper chains.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, McCord owned one of two small local papers. When Gannett purchased his competing paper, McCord set out to investigate the tactics Gannett had used in the past to obliterate independent competition. His research yielded such ominous reports that McCord decided to publish them in a preemptive strike against the competition. Now it was war-and McCord would soon learn first-hand what he was up against in keeping his paper alive.
JFC! What happened to QC? That’s quality control, for you young’uns, where the work of one is checked over by maybe two or three others. The same thing is happening with healthcare. Hospitals are looking at the numbers, not necessarily the quality of care. In fact, isn’t it all about quantity? How many planes can we produce in a year? The bottom line, of course, is the almighty dollar. Efficiency is lacking and those of us who fly once in awhile, want to be safe and protected. Feeling anxiety before and after takeoff is bad enough but just knowing that the plane could literally come apart at the seams, midair, is terrifying! We should be their number one concern. Thanks, Lucian. All fired up now.
Back in probably 1966 I got a job at Lockheed building C-141’s. I spent 2 weeks learning how to drill very very precise holes at exactly 180 degree’s, (I’m still a wizard with a drill), and then how to rivet pieces together. One person wields the rivet gun which is a form of hammer and another holds the bucking bar which makes the mushroom shape on the back side of the rivet making it impossible to pull out, it seems simple but there is a lot that can go wrong, if you hammer it too much the mushroom on the back side will be too thin and not have structural integrity, if the rivet gun is not held at precisely 180 degrees to the rivet it will deform the rivet and possibly dimple the aluminum which might be the skin of the aircraft, requiring the removal of the entire panel, which might have hundreds of perfect rivets in it. There are 3 or 4 hundred thousand rivets in a C-141 every one of which had to be inspected by 2 or 3 inspectors. I lasted on the production line for 2 weeks before I decided that it wasn’t a job for me. I used to enjoy flying especially when I flew first class which my contract required, not anymore, now I fly in the back. Take a look around the next time you land and are waiting to get off, people often look like they are shell shocked by their experience, crammed together with total strangers, where you can hardly move, for hours is not pleasant for anyone, all to cram more seats into a limited space, to make more money. The bastards have even investigated seating where you stand the whole time packed in like sardines. It was bad enough when the company whose name was on the plane was responsible for it, but now that they are farming out production of major components, the question should be why. Do you really want to fly in a plane with your family, built by the lowest bidder and made as cheaply as possible, I’d rather drive if at all possible.
@Dick Montagne—Before NIST, I worked at McDonnell-Douglas in St. Louis, in the F-15 Static Test Division. I know from whence you speak, and feel pretty much the same as you about the whole Quality Control vs. Shareholder Value (translation: Profit over People) corporate philosophy.
Dick, thanks for that “riveting” (sorry, couldn’t help myself😇) explanation! I remember the days of flying with Eastern Airlines and receiving a real plate with delicious food along with a real silverware. Most of all, the seats were comfy. We have all been reduced to a number. That’s what we represent to these corporations. We are not real to them.
Brilliant reporting. And this is why my favorite plane is any plane I don't take.
I feel the same way about flying, even though the facts prove constantly that it's significantly more hazardous to be driving around on big city streets, depending on the circumstances.
But we of course, thankfully, rarely see a pile-up car and truck collision that takes as many lives as a downed passenger jet, though the rate of automotive and truck deaths is much higher.
Yeah, but there’s an intangible human factor to consider. We’ve all heard the tiresome stats about how “statistically “ planes are safer than cars. In a car or truck, you’re at least on terra firma. You have a feeling of some control over events (if you’re the driver) and a fighting chance to survive an accident. When you step into a plane you are 100% committed—to the safety and integrity of that tube in the sky that whizzes you from A to B in a hostile environment where humans are not meant to be, and you can’t get out until it lands. Anything bad or wrong happens to that tube in the air, you’re done. You have zero point zero control over your fate. It’s the totality of aircraft accidents, I think, that spooks many of us. It fails, you die. Not always true in a vehicle.
Oh yeah I am 100 % with you on all of these considerations, AEN! In fact if it wouldn't spook passengers even more, and run afoul of all kinds of regs in place for very good reasons, it would be interesting to see if an airline could issue an announcement that already vetted passengers with parachute training would be issued those!
Just kidding, let me find the link I was too busy to find earlier for this column:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR5auN1QSp0
Bob Newhart got there first, you have to let it load and then can skip the ad at the beginning.
The Grace L. Ferguson Airline (And Storm Door Co.) (Live at the Hungry I / F)
I think I can still do most of that routine. I learned it in high school and repeated it innumerable times. Completely hilarious and prescient.
What A Hoot!
Great investigative reporting. So many factors seem to be involved, but primarily corporate greed and lack of quality control. A simple check off list initialed by n both workman and an inspector would catch any mistakes, even new buildings and remodeling jobs in homes have to pass inspection. The torque wrenches seemed a very big problem but again, periodic testing would take care of that. All this coupled with no pride in workmanship these days, especially when the bosses are putting pressure on the worker to work faster. A resentful worker is not going to give his or her best under any circumstances. Lastly firing the person who complains borders on criminality. He should be given a bonus for possibly saving the company from an expensive lawsuit, not to mention a loss of confic dence in potential customers.
Great reporting Lucian, this is where the Vulture Capitalists lead us. It always makes me think about JD Vance and Mitt Romney, proud VCs both with no concerns about the companies they eviscerated in the name of profit. If the Magas and S.Ct have their way its only going to get worse. Yay freedom!
I'm from Massachusetts, and Mitt Romney immediately comes to mind when VC 's are mentioned
Nursing Homes.
Adding: private equity is wrecking housing -- Nashville is a good example, but it is happening all over the place. And the AirBandB vulture, er venture capitalists are a major part of the problem.....
Adding thanks to lucian for shining his bright spotlight on another trashy, sickening, corrupt mess.....
You hit a cord with me. Airbnb and VRBO are black market VC built outfits that took control of the vacation rental industry at its inception. They actively promoted the black market Fromm their inception by not require licensing in order to list with them, although they have recently conceded to at least suggest it. They use enormous tax dollar carrots to get state and county legislatures to create laws blocking the restriction of the commercial short term rental industry anywhere at all and especially in our residential neighborhoods which they are filling with traveling strangers, not neighbors.
Neighborhoods and residential communities in many areas will become a thing of the past as the commercial tourism market will determine if a neighborhood lives or dies at the hands of this intrusive business model.
It's theorized that as our kids are no longer raised in actual residential neighborhoods full of friends and families they will inevitably see everyone as a stranger and potential risk and that loss of community will inevitable erode humanity's ability to be supportive and care about others as everyone is a stranger and we become more and more wary and isolated.
It's not far wrong. Rather than walking out their door into a neighborhood they know, families have to mentally arm themselves for the unknown each time they venture out as their neighborhood is no longer a source of security, support and comfort.
Neighborhoods are incubators for the next generation. What will we become when that incubator is gone?
Meanwhile, Vacation Rental REITs (real estate investment trusts) are outbidding families for residential homes as states like Florida are enticed by greed into flinging the doors wide open anywhere in the state to reap the spoils of what may very well become the destruction our society.
Who wants to raise a family next door to a constant rotation of vacationing tourists? Many communities like Myrtle Beach and Hatteras and numerous others have already converted to purely tourism with little to no actual residents. Schools funded by tax dollars sit all but empty.
It feels like yet another thoughtless step as we stumble along to quite a dystopian future.
And this is from someone who has run a legal vacation rental business for decades and someone who would never want to raise a family next-door to one or in a neighborhood full of them. The industry had a short window chance to become totally legal and appropriately placed, but VCs had their way instead and we will all pay the price.
So true.
Yeah. Having watched the spread of vacation rentals from the beginning of the industry, it's disconcerting to consider the end results of the seemingly inevitable path of commercializing our residential neighborhoods with traveling strangers.
Most Venture Cap missions come with a price for others. I think it's written into the bylaws. Do Harm.
With commercializing residential neighborhoods, the price is not so much parking, noise or garbage as it is an alteration of the human condition and what sort of people such a change will create.
You don't miss your water til the well runs dry.
Without the nurturance of supportive neighborhoods, we'll be different. Warier. Less able to trust. Harder to work with others, hence less productive. Lonelier.
We are a community species, and then the community is shifted. Not gone, but very different. Initially we're out of balance because the natural order has shifted. Our amygdala gets more engaged, which is pretty much never a good sign.
The best path there is to remove any chance of learning to trust, which starts in the cradle of a neighborhood that nurtures that trust. Without that, we're fucked. imo
Sobering stuff.
And somehow utterly unsurprising.
Thanks for the detailed analysis.
Corks are a bad solution.
To make matters even worse than the investors making sure they get their money back is the fact that the FAA has long 'deferred' to Boeing on the final inspections (or any inspections) on the planes they make.
Which means that if Boeing says, "Yup, it's good" then the FAA accepts that as the final word and all those missing bolts, unfastened doors, misaligned grommets will be acceptable to being in a plane, and all's set for flight.
Hell, the FAA even allows Boeing and other plane manufacturers to do the first flight tests, and you know Boeing is never going to fail that.
Because of money. I wouldn't call the FAA corrupt but they sure as hell are looking the other way when it comes to planes, flight safety and ATC safety issues. Or didn't one read about the "near hits" in the NY Times article last year that makes it pretty obvious our flying system is Jerry-rigged and badly over-burdened with exhausted ATC's who don't get paid enough, get enough time off, or enough mental health evaluations done (and that includes pilots, too.)?
It's scary-you think flying is safe until you read about another plane missing lots of part and then you don't want to fly any more.
I sure don't. But yeah, the investors are sure hyped on those profits, right?
Though Milton Friedman did not invent the idea, the Friedman Doctrine holds that decisions concerning social responsibility rest on the shoulders of the shareholders, not the executives of a company. He argues that an entity is not obligated to any social responsibilities unless the shareholders decide to such an effect. Also called shareholder value theory, the idea is that the sole purpose of publicly-held corporations is to return profit to shareholders.
Legal lies that "corporations are people" notwithstanding, they are not people. Corporations have no conscience, no mortality, no children, and no concern for the "greater good" of society (that's government's job). Yes, corporations are run by people - managers whose job it is to maximize ROI for the stockholders, and who will be quickly replaced if they forget that.
As the infamous saying goes, "mistakes were made", as the corporate executives hide behind the corporate shield that protects them from personal responsibility for the deaths their mistakes cause. All you can do to a corporate "person" is fine it. Ah, well... "the Onex Group has received aggregate proceeds of approximately $3.2 billion, resulting in a multiple of capital invested of approximately 8.5 times and a return on investment of 201% per annum.” The to-be-determined fines will get written off as a cost of doing business.
The tortured definition of corporations as people ranks as one of the most putrid obscenities ever pushed down our throats. One of many vile recastings done by conservatives in thrall to our true original sin, and the one that will bring us down in the end: greed.
Private equity destroys every thing that it gets its greedy hands on. They have destroyed the newspaper business, countless small family owned businesses, and are well on the way to destroying Boeing. I lived in WA for my first 50 years when Boeing was run by engineers and built a quality product. Everyone there knew when the headquarters moved to Chicago and the bean counters took over the company that it was the beginning of the end.
It's too bad we don't have politicians that would regulate private equity out of business. Unfortunately most of them are firmly in the pockets of these companies and don't want to stop their gravy train.