10 Comments on “Odds and Ends: WA Gov chases Boeing, IAM; CSeries EIS; Yank”

1. The Wa state should may be consider playing Boeing’s game, alluding possible end of tax break such as the one for the 787. May be that would convince every players to resume (start?) constructive discussions…

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2. Regarding A380 success: a classic case of “time will tell”.

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3. re Gates research – Does that mean they work better than win-doze and the blue screen of death. And its just a rumour that Boeing is developing a high tech version of KY to hold a broom in the posterior of its workers to improve efficiency – they can sweep floors while working ?

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   • Don, you outdid yourself with this one!

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     • Thanks – I must admit it was plagerized from a very old charlie chaplin movie about him being on a huge assembly line with a close up shot of debris on the floor and the motion of his hips and a broom – i’ll try to find a clip ;-PPP

       I think it was called Modern Times ?

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4. WTO ruled B787s tax breaks illegal, Washington should use the excuse to stop all tax breaks on existing programs. If Boeing are going to leave anyway it is just as well to squeeze as much out of them as possible. Maybe even some new taxes? Extra landing fees at Boeing Field, harbour dues, whatever.

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   • In the case of the 787 tax breaks, the agreement with Boeing provides that if those tax breaks were found to be illegal, WA would have to replace them with equivalent breaks.

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     • Meaning Boeing are have better lawyers than Washington State.

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5. Help me understand the argument here: it is OK to destroy another species of fish because… It is just a fish? One more extinction won’t hurt anything (anti-recursive argument)? It is OK this time because jobs (with or without “but next time we’ll be really really careful – promise”)? Anything libruls support I’m against? Because we should blow the tops off the Cascsdes too?

   Which one?

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6. On this day, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, perhaps it’s prudent to take the time to listen to what JFK had to say about health care in the US some 51 yrs ago. It seems to me that JFK’s words are as relevant today as they were back then.

   This argument that the Government should stay out, that it saps our pioneer stock–I used to hear that argument when we were talking about raising the minimum wage to a dollar and a quarter. I remember one day being asked to step out into the hall, and up the corridor came four distinguished-looking men, with straw hats on and canes. They told me that they had just flown in from a State in their private plane, and they wanted me to know that if we passed a bill providing for time and a half for service station attendants, who were then working about 55 to 60 hours of straight time, it would sap their self-reliance.

   The fact of the matter is what saps anyone’s self-reliance is working 60 hours at straight time, or working at 85 or 95 at a dollar an hour. Or depending upon filling out a pauper’s oath and then going and getting it free.

   Nobody in this hall is asking for it for nothing. They are willing to contribute during their working years. That is the important principle which has been lost sight of.

   I understand that there is going to be a program this week against this bill, in which an English physician is going to come and talk about how bad their plans are. It may be, but he ought to talk about it in England, because his plans–because his plans and what they do in England are entirely different. In England the entire cost of medicine for people of all ages, all of it, doctors, choice of doctors, hospitals, from the time you’re born till the time you die, is included in a Government program. But what we’re talking about is entirely different. And I hope that while he’s here, he and Doctor Spock and others who have joined us, will come to see what we are trying to do.

   The fact of the matter is that what we are now talking about doing, most of the countries of Europe did years ago. The British did it 30 years ago. We are behind every country, pretty nearly, in Europe, in this matter of medical care for our citizens.

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   Our housing bill last year for the elderly, that won’t do the job. But it will begin. When we retrain workers, that won’t take care of unemployment chronically in some areas, but it’s a start. We aren’t able overnight to solve all the problems that this country faces, but is that any good reason why we should say, “Let’s not even try”?

   That’s what we are going to do today, we are trying. We are trying. And what we’re talking about here is true in a variety of other ways. All the great revolutionary movements of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the thirties we now take for granted. But I refuse to see us live on the accomplishments of another generation. I refuse to see this country, and all of us, shrink from these struggles which are our responsibility in our time. Because what we are now talking about, in our children’s day will seem to be the ordinary business of government.

   So I come here today as a citizen, asking you to exert the most basic power which is contained in the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, the right of a citizen to petition his Government. And I ask your support in this effort. This effort will be successful, and it will be successful because it is soundly based to meet a great national crisis. And it is based on the effort of responsible citizens. So I want to commend you for being here. I think it is most appropriate that the President of the United States, whose business place is in Washington, should come to this city and participate in these rallies. Because the business of the Government is the business of the people–and the people are right here.

   http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8669

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   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXUJErr_vfo

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