[HN Gopher] US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to s...
___________________________________________________________________
US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect
planes
Author : ryanisnan
Score : 511 points
Date : 2024-01-12 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (on.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (on.ft.com)
| rramadass wrote:
| https://archive.is/Dx8gP
| voakbasda wrote:
| Dear regulators,
|
| Do it.
|
| Do it now.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| Everyone
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Easier said then done. Inspecting planes is job that requires a
| lot of skill and knowledge. Most of those people aren't cheap
| and they tend to work for airplane companies that need their
| skills and can pay their salaries. Which in the US means Boeing
| basically employs all the best people for this.
|
| IMHO, the system actually works just fine. Accidents are
| extremely rare and companies tend to learn from them.
|
| A better fix would maybe be to just make it really expensive
| for Boeing to cut corners here and put mechanisms in place to
| verify that they aren't. And you could argue that is the case
| already. Their reputation suffered and it probably shows in
| their order books. So, I'm guessing they are very eager and
| well incentivized to move on from that.
|
| And looking at the Airbus and Boeing stock price suggests that
| Boeing stock has never recovered from that. Both stocks went
| down a lot at the beginning of Covid. But the Airbus stock has
| basically recovered from that and Boeing hasn't.
|
| Even the mere threat of regulators getting more strict is
| probably making investors really nervous. That could end up
| being more effective than any actual inspections.
| protastus wrote:
| Inspecting planes does require a lot of skill and knowledge.
| But one doesn't need deep expertise to detect loose bolts.
|
| My experience is that when quality breaks down, the effects
| are visible at multiple scales and multiple places. Who knows
| what else is non-compliant in the 737 MAX assembly line
| (surely this is why the FAA announced an audit).
|
| Loose bolts happen because multiple layers of protection were
| bypassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
| chx wrote:
| > But one doesn't need deep expertise to detect loose
| bolts.
|
| Oh yeah you do.
|
| Because some bolts should be lose and some shouldn't be.
| They would be studded or welded together if you never
| wanted to loosen it, after all.
| richwater wrote:
| Not to mention specific torque ratings
| Dalewyn wrote:
| For all the criticism the American aerospace industry gets,
| Boeing is the only one clearly suffering the problems they
| have. If stricter regulations mean Boeing can't do business,
| tough luck.
|
| Boeing's entire business is to make good aircraft, and they
| are grossly failing to do so; their problems extend far
| beyond just the 737 MAX. A business that can't sell good
| products shouldn't be in business one way or another.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| >Boeing's entire business is to make good aircraft,
|
| it looks like from the outside that Boeing c-suite of
| people think... "Boeing's entire business is to make good
| profit"
|
| without understanding the consequences of cutting corners
| in the process
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Good profit stems from good products, in this case
| aircraft.
|
| Boeing's entire business is to make good aircraft.
| mathverse wrote:
| Poach people from Airbus. Just pay them well and bring them
| over.
| gmerc wrote:
| What's there to consider even - political connections?
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Does the faa have enough qualified staff and budget to review
| boeings planes? Does anyone other than Boeing have them, since
| noone else does it? Legitimate question. Would you poach a
| bunch of engineers from the airlines/military?
| bombcar wrote:
| You build it up over time by hiring direct from colleges (or
| even trade schools).
|
| It has to be a complete plan, not just a slap-dash "we can
| hire some people and the problem is solved".
|
| To do it best you do NOT hire from the industry, and if
| necessary you hire from unrelated industries (perhaps, for
| example, oil rig/pipeline inspectors).
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| As a practical matter, the FAA might designate someone
| outside of Boeing to do the inspections (like maybe people
| from Lockheed or Grumman, who are not directly competing in
| the commercial airliner space).
|
| When you take a checkride at the end of training to earn your
| pilot certificate, it's not an FAA employee riding with
| you... it's a "DPE" or Designated Pilot Examiner, who is a
| private individual _designated_ by the FAA to conduct check
| rides (and who often charges you a fee to administer the
| test).
|
| Occasionally an FAA employee will ride along with the student
| pilot and DPE to evaluate how the DPE is evaluating
| prospective pilots.
| jgeada wrote:
| Isn't this the whole point of the "defund the government"
| approach?
|
| Deliberately sabotage the regulatory authorities, then use
| the fact that they no longer have the expertise and staff as
| a justification to outsource the regulation function over to
| the companies that were supposed to be inspected.
|
| And when it goes wrong, which it always does, make shocked
| pikachu face and claim that nothing can be done because we no
| longer have the capacity to regulate industry.
|
| This would be less infuriating if this was the first time,
| but it keeps happening again and again and people keep
| falling for it. It is immensely profitable for the few
| though, that might be why it keeps happening.
|
| The fix is easy, just requires time and budget: rebuild that
| expertise and refuse to certify anything until you have the
| necessary capabilities.
| tuetuopay wrote:
| hire airbus to inspect boeing, and hire boeing to inspect
| airbus?
| nottorp wrote:
| That would be fun... or end with both manufacturers being
| completely grounded by the other and we back to canoes and
| horse carriages :)
| tappdarden wrote:
| I would love for trains to get more attention in the US.
| ...
| nottorp wrote:
| If you read the analysis published after the MCAS disaster,
| self certification is something recent so the FAA at least
| _used_ to have people.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. The
| people with the expertise all work for aircraft manufacturers.
| And odds are the FAA will never pay anyone enough to leave the
| manufacturers to do the job.
| ajcp wrote:
| There are other ways to solution for the same outcome, or get
| closer to it.
|
| Pass regulation that requires audit and certification by a
| rated and licensed authority that isn't necessarily the
| government itself. As a publicly traded company Boeing
| already has to do this with its books; why not with its
| product too?
|
| I'm sure that E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, or PwC would love a crack
| at a new market and they've certainly got the money to hire
| away from manufacturers.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise.
|
| Do you know a basis for that? My understanding, though
| limited, is that they have incredible expertise - and we can
| see their outstanding results. Also, IME, this claim is used
| by many industries to assert that they shouldn't be subject
| to regulation, and (IME) it's always false.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Also, IME, this claim [...] it 's always false._
|
| Of course it is false. Even if the regulation ultimately
| can't be enforced due to lack of the right people, the
| players can still be subject to the regulation. The two are
| not logically associated.
|
| Nobody is making that claim, though. What is the
| significance of this fun anecdote you pulled randomly from
| a hat?
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Well, there are over 400K parts in a 737 and they're building
| more than one a day. How many of those need more inspection?
| How many inspectors do you want to apply to this problem? How
| much growth of the FAA? How many/long to do a ground up review
| of every Boeing inspection process? How much more do you want
| to pay for every flight? What will be the impact on Boeing
| pricing vs Airbus worldwide?
|
| HN is pretty strange these days. One day gov't is the problem,
| the next it is the only solution. We need "streamlining" of
| regulation for more nukes, but more regulation of Boeing
| because a door blew off over 100's of millions of flights. We
| need to get rid of the FAA and ATC and automate everything with
| software controls to prevent runway incursions. But we need to
| ban autonomous cars.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Finally, after a couple of plane crashes, fantastic investigative
| journalism, and a door blowing off mid flight (thankfully that
| was caught on video and shared).
|
| Too little, too late.
|
| We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Do you think Boeing would have (or could have) swept that under
| the rug if there was no video of the incident?
|
| I don't think it makes sense for any manufacturer to be solely
| responsible for their own safety inspections. Too much
| incentive to cheat. Must be verified or at least randomly spot-
| checked independently.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > Do you think Boeing would have (or could have) swept that
| under the rug if there was no video of the incident?
|
| Yes. It is way more powerful to actually see what happen than
| to just hear a report about it. I think it was more powerful
| than even a plane crash that is not caught on film, even
| though many people would die.
|
| Do not underestimate the power of photo and video evidence.
| danaris wrote:
| I dunno; I think that in a case where you can see photos of
| a guy holding up a blown-off plane door that fell on (or
| next to? I don't recall the exact details) his house, video
| of the incident as it happened is just the icing on the
| cake.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them
| either.
|
| We should have oversight, and we do, but it's hard to pick a
| worse example of bad regulation (or a better example of good
| regulation) than the FAA. Air travel safety is extraordinary.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > Air travel safety _was_ extraordinary.
|
| FTFY
|
| The regulators and regulations are being stress-tested by
| Boeing's 737-max problems, and we are seeing the regulatory
| holes in the process.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Even with the two crashes air travel was still the safest
| form of travel those years (as it is every year, it has
| quite the buffer actually).
|
| This kind of fear mongering doesn't help anything. If
| airplanes were invented today people like you would have
| had them outlawed after the first accident.
| peyton wrote:
| The FAA requested $19.8 billion this year. For just under
| $20bn the doors should not be falling off planes.
| mc32 wrote:
| Better late than not at all. I welcome a stringed regime of
| regulation for aircraft manufacturers and operators.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| The plane crashes had nothing to do with inspection. You
| could've inspected a 737max down to every single bolt back in
| 2017 and not have prevented the crashes that happened after
| that.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's clearly a systemic problem regardless.
| dogman144 wrote:
| 737 crash was software and training quality. I think if you
| included those i. a mission critical systems inspection,
| under which software on planes is about as important as the
| bolts and metal, then you'd find preventions.
|
| Or, just talk on ex-BA SWE and learn about it from them.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I don't disagree that the 737 crashes involved tons of
| systemic issues at boeing. I just don't think that federal
| inspections would've helped. There's almost no way a
| federal inspection system would be more effective than even
| the lacking software inspection Boeing had.
|
| You could get the systems to comply perfectly well with
| standards and certifications, like the 737max did, but
| still have issues. I don't think the 737max didn't meet
| federal standards or requirements (which a hypothetical
| federal inspector would have to apply and check for). the
| issue was more so that they weren't enough in those
| specific situations.
| ActionHank wrote:
| Calm down, they are just considering it.
| brink wrote:
| What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely
| ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and
| jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first
| place.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Finance.
|
| As proven by the 2008-2010 Great Financial Crisis, self
| regulation does not work well.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| ...in all cases. You've got a great counterexample, but it
| doesn't invalidate the successful use of self-regulation in
| other areas.
| moomin wrote:
| Famously, in the UK, Railtrack outsourced basically its whole
| operation. Including inspections, often to the same firms doing
| the work. This culminated in the Potters Bar crash. I worked
| with someone who survived it. He was, by his own estimation
| "not quite right" afterwards.
|
| People don't often make the connection, but at that point the
| government of the day started pressuring Railtrack to fix the
| rails. Railtrack's countergambit was to demand money from the
| government, saying they couldn't afford to do it. This did not
| have the effect they had hoped for and ended up with Tony
| Blair, a man who had made a name for himself by changing the
| Labour party constitution so they no longer were about
| nationalising industries, having to nationalise a section of
| the railway industry. And to this date, no-one, even a
| conservative government in power for the last 14 years, has
| suggested privatising it again.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Alternative explanation is that there is no money to be made
| by privatization, not because anybody cares if there would be
| another accident and a lot of people would die
| ponty_rick wrote:
| TV channels have self-regulation as well - admittedly it
| doesn't directly kill people. There's also police departments,
| I suppose.
| bombcar wrote:
| The vast majority of industries are _practically_ self-
| inspected, even when inspectors exist.
|
| For example, take construction engineering; the government
| doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may
| spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled
| out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record.
|
| Same with building inspections, they're no where near detailed
| and long enough to catch everything, it's mainly a spot check
| to verify that it's not horribly incorrect.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| > For example, take construction engineering; the government
| doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they
| may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is
| filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of
| record.
|
| This doesn't always end well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1
| 031_Canal#Partial_collapse_du...
| bombcar wrote:
| Nothing always ends up well every time, it's about making
| the balances and allocating resources where they best
| serve. This is the perpetual policy problem around things
| like OSHA and other regulatory bodies.
|
| One question might be if the _airlines_ should be able to
| inspect their own equipment, or be required to pay the
| government to do the inspections, instead.
|
| _Way more_ planes have fallen out of the sky due to bad
| airline maintenance /inspections than have crashed because
| of Boeing stupidity.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| It would be virtually impossible to fully review every
| construction drawing for accuracy, there are just too many
| of them. Nothing would ever get built.
|
| Most jurisdictions will do plan review, but it's not a
| thorough check of the engineering.
|
| I would assume structural drawing sets are checked a bit
| more closely than say, the interior architectural drawing
| set, but mistakes still happen.
|
| Plus, whoever was the PE of record on the structural
| drawings for the hard rock parking ramp will never sign
| another set, they're done as an engineer, possibly they'll
| see prison if they were negligent. That won't bring any
| peace to the victims families, but it's something.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| A lot of industries self-inspect with regulatory oversight. For
| example, the SpaceX Starship mishap investigation that required
| 63 corrective actions from SpaceX before they were allowed to
| fly Starship again was done by SpaceX with FAA oversight. It
| seems that the oversight was effective; I highly doubt that
| SpaceX would have imposed 63 corrective actions on itself
| without effective oversight.
|
| It's hard to see how it could be any different. SpaceX
| engineers are the only ones with enough knowledge of Starship
| to do an effective investigation.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > I highly doubt that SpaceX would have imposed 63 corrective
| actions on itself without effective oversight.
|
| Eh, I don't know if I agree with that. Most of the actions
| were very straightforward "stuff we need to fix to make the
| rocket do what we want it to do and not do what we don't want
| it to do".
|
| Like, one of the actions was "make the launch pad not explode
| when the engines turn on". That was the root cause of the
| engine failures that led to the flight termination. Was
| SpaceX _really_ not going to do that anyway?
|
| Besides formalizing the process and writing down a list of 63
| bullet points and using the legalese of "corrective actions"
| for them, I think the result would have been basically the
| same without the FAA looking over their shoulder.
|
| But the main reason for my belief is that the Falcon 9 launch
| success streak is currently better than any other rocket in
| history (by a large margin), at 241 launches and counting
| (and 180 launches since the last landing failure). To put
| this in context, other launchers with a similar or greater
| number of launches go 30-50 launches between failures. Unless
| SpaceX is just _incredibly_ unbelievably lucky, they seem to
| understand how to do RCA to build reliable rockets.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Rocket launches have to be close to the ideal candidate for
| COE-driven improvement. Any actual problems are going to be
| problems that need solving in the short term, and if they
| aren't solved, there will probably be short term pain. The
| costs of each launch are high enough that they have to take
| low-probability/high-severity risks seriously.
|
| Other industries have incentives to defer problems into
| future years, to externalize the costs, or to just plain
| hide or ignore them based on things like "accepted industry
| practice" or "within prescribed safety limits". Somebody
| needs to balance out the short-term incentives by decision
| makers to get promoted on the back of a press release about
| a splashy success, because that success may have a metric
| ton of failure disguised inside.
| dmurray wrote:
| Stockbroking, cinema, accountancy, law, life insurance,
| financial planning, nuclear power, real estate, medicine,
| advertising, media...[0][1]
|
| Self-regulation (especially at the industry level rather than
| delegating to individual companies) doesn't seem completely
| broken. Actually it can work quite well. You keep some
| oversight, and reserve the right for the state regulator to
| step in if the SRO goes bad. The people who run the SRO have an
| interest in perpetuating their organization, so they if
| anything have an incentive to be stricter than the government
| would. If things do go wrong, the government demands direct
| oversight. That's what's happening here.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-regulatory_organization
|
| [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sro.asp
| rkangel wrote:
| An _industry_ regulating itself is different from an
| _organisation_ regulating itself.
|
| Self regulation of the industry is common as you say. It
| tends to involve one central body enforcing the standards on
| the members, and acting as a central point for agreement of
| the standards.
|
| This is not the case with the Aviation regulation. The FAA is
| the regulator, and has delegated the testing to the people it
| is meant to be regulating.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Self regulation would mean that the org should face much
| stiffer penalties for failing in its regulation related
| duties. The increased agency needs to also come with
| increased responsibility.
|
| Something like notaries, guilds or unions that can speak
| the truth without retribution ...
|
| No, we need independent regulation. We don't have the
| societal norms to pull off self regulation.
| mulmen wrote:
| > Self regulation would mean that the org should face
| much stiffer penalties for failing in its regulation
| related duties.
|
| Why? How does this incentivize effective self-regulation?
|
| > No, we need independent regulation. We don't have the
| societal norms to pull off self regulation.
|
| We do though. This thread even points them out.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| That's largely fine though because the stick to enforce
| good diligence is the threat that the ability to self
| regulate is removed. As is being seen.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| After (luckily) just a few hundreds of deaths
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, generally speaking, self regulation involves a third
| party, like an impartial industry wide organization or a
| competitor.
|
| Inspecting the self is a bit bonkers.
| beambot wrote:
| Prominent examples of "Self Regulating Organizations": The
| New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), The Financial Planning
| Association (FPA), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), American
| Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), Financial Industry
| Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), Fixed Income Clearing
| Corporation (FICC), Options Clearing Corporation (OCC),
| American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA)
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sro.asp
| mattmaroon wrote:
| By organization he clearly meant single for-profit
| corporation. While the language was imprecise, he surely
| wasn't referring to these types of entities.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| NYSE and CBOT are single for profit corporations.
| fakedang wrote:
| NYSE is a for profit entity owned by Intercontinental
| Exchange. They also own Euronext. And they're regulated
| by the Sec, but carry out their own regulation efforts
| too. The parallel isn't that far off.
| fakedang wrote:
| NYSE is a for profit entity owned by Intercontinental
| Exchange. They also own Euronext. And they're regulated
| by the SEC, but carry out their own regulation efforts
| too. The parallel isn't that far off.
| shutupnerd0000 wrote:
| All very upstanding and incorrupt organizations
| vkou wrote:
| Would you like to tell us how the NYSE is corrupt?
|
| Or do they just get tarred with 'Well, they work in
| finance, of course they are all crooks' brush?
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Just google what they do when they don't like some trades
| mulmen wrote:
| The standard for corruption is higher than "I don't like
| your decision."
| vkou wrote:
| The internet's full of garbage. All that'll find me is a
| mountain of people who don't understand what they are
| talking about shouting very loudly.
|
| I'm not going to waste my time sifting through it to find
| evidence for a claim _you 're making_.
|
| Make a _specific_ claim of corruption, and _provide
| evidence for it_.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| These examples are arguably qualitatively different from
| what's happening with Boeing's self-inspection.
|
| I used to work at an organization that was governed by
| multiple of the SROs you list there. Here's how it
| worked: _They_ set rules, _we_ followed them, _they_
| monitored and audited _us_. There were also governmental
| organizations monitoring both them and us.
|
| I think that the key distinction here is not actually
| public vs. private. It's more of a "sunlight is the best
| disinfectant" situation. The simple knowledge that you
| have some external agency that doesn't have moral hazard
| concerns to compromise its interests that is keeping an
| eye on you, and that you _know_ is keeping an eye on you,
| does a lot to incentivize better behavior. Is it perfect?
| No, far from it. But, at least in the specific case of
| the financial industry, it 's not clear to me that a 100%
| governmental regulatory system would actually fare any
| better. I think that the unstated major premise of such
| an idea is that the people in charge of the governmental
| regulators - elected officials - are uncompromisable
| ethical paragons. And if you believe that, I've got some
| hot penny stocks that I'd like to tell you about.
| cycomanic wrote:
| That's sort of the same with the SEC and (parts of)
| financial industry?
|
| One can even argue the tax office is sort of like it.
| f1shy wrote:
| That wasnot the OP question
| sircastor wrote:
| And it's important to say that generally you want and
| industry to regulate itself. This prevents the regulation
| becoming a burden on the people, and maintains the threat
| that if the industry doesn't regulate itself then the
| government (the people) _will_ regulate it. No industry
| wants oversight, so they do their best to stay in the
| lines.
| keenmaster wrote:
| Self-regulatory bodies are usually centralized and separate
| from any individual corporation. They also tend to answer
| directly to a government agency and cannot be disciplined by
| a corporation. While there can still be issues such as a
| strong revolving door and potential indirect pressure to be
| nice to the regulated entities, it's not as terrible as what
| Boeing and other airplane manufacturers get to do (inspect
| themselves in lieu of regulatory inspections). That's
| strange, because lives are literally on the line, more so
| than some other industries with more independent
| examinations.
| emarsden wrote:
| Historically, the fact that lives of the public are clearly
| on the line was part of the argument for allowing partial
| delegation of safety oversight. The idea has been that any
| engineer/manager making these decisions will be regularly
| flying themselves/loved ones, so is going to be suitably
| cautious. This differed from the situation in coal mines
| for example, where the miners exposed to the risk were
| socially/culturally disjoint from engineers/managers.
| pleasantpeasant wrote:
| SRO sounds like a middle-man in this process. And like all
| middle-man industries, they suck out money from both sides
| that they deal with.
|
| We can easily publicly fund over-sight committees to oversee
| these industries instead of relying on SROs who take tax-
| payer money and are in the perfect financial and power
| position to do some really corrupt and immoral things.
|
| Look at the National Association of Realtors, another SRO--
| On October 31, 2023, a federal civil jury found that the NAR
| had conspired to inflate commissions paid to home-buyers'
| real estate agents, and determined that NAR and its
| codefendants owed damages of almost US$1,800,000,000.
|
| Zillow and NAR have anti-trust lawsuits coming their way too.
| Relying on SROs is just asking for corruption, imo.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _We can easily publicly fund over-sight committees to
| oversee these industries instead of relying on SROs who
| take tax-payer money and are in the perfect financial and
| power position to do some really corrupt and immoral
| things._
|
| Easily, really? Why is the default position that industry
| players are corrupt and immoral, but the government
| overseers will act independently and altruistically and
| have no financial stake in the outcome? That doesn't jibe
| with my experience. People in government seem to do some of
| the most immoral acts out there.
| SilasX wrote:
| This. It's not a problem as long as the self-regulator is
| kept in line with periodic checks from a higher regulator.
|
| It's similar to how income taxes work. You self-report all
| the figures, and then they are sampled and spot-checked and
| occasionally audited. The _possibility_ of being caught by an
| audit, then prods people to generally submit truthful
| reports, because of the risk of penalties.
|
| And then, if that incentive ceases to work, the self-
| report/self-regulate status gets revoked.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Self-regulation (especially at the industry level rather
| than delegating to individual companies) doesn't seem
| completely broken.
|
| Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that I don't have much faith
| when companies "regulate" themselves. There's just too much
| conflict of interest there. A third party doing it is, on its
| face, more trustworthy.
| asdff wrote:
| Those 10 sorts of industries you cited aren't exactly models
| of self regulation. Well, they are, in the sense of how to
| abuse regulatory capture to maximize returns, but not in the
| sort of sense most people think of regulation which is
| limiting harm to consumers.
| logifail wrote:
| > The people who run the SRO have an interest in perpetuating
| their organization, so they if anything have an incentive to
| be stricter than the government would
|
| Except if the "people who run the SRO" are in fact _employees
| of the very company they 're supposed to be regulating_... ?
|
| Then they surely have an even greater incentive to keep quiet
| in order to keep their jobs?
| newsclues wrote:
| Congress
| class3shock wrote:
| This is pretty common in aerospace, defense and, I imagine,
| alot of other government facing industries. For something like
| this the inspection procedure is likely approved by the
| government and verification it's being performed properly is
| done with lots of submitted and retained paperwork. So maybe
| less judge and jury and more private vs public attorney filing
| the same motion. Yes, they could have biases but they both are
| performing the same task, based on the same laws.
|
| Of course that doesn't always stop mistakes/negligence (see
| this incident) or bad actors (see below):
| https://news.usni.org/2020/06/19/navy-has-mitigated-risk-of-...
|
| I will also add that just because something is inspected by the
| government does not insure quality. Usually failures in
| inspection are due to inexperienced and/or overworked
| inspectors, higher ups pushing to "get things through" or to
| reduce costs, or other banal reasons just as possible to occur
| whether it's Uncle Sam or Boeing writing the inspectors checks.
| wnevets wrote:
| > What other industry is allowed to inspect itself?
|
| Movies. The ratings you see before a movie starts is assigned
| by the industry after inspecting the movie [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Not a great example. The 1st Amendment prohibits literally
| anything more strict.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Not true.
|
| The government could rate movies; what they cannot do is to
| prevent a movie from being exhibited if it is otherwise
| legal.
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| The FAA is bad, but I would say the FDA is worse.
|
| Any industry in which you have companies actually writing the
| text of the regulations used to oversee them is a recipe for
| disaster.
|
| Sadly it usually takes a tragedy to highlight these egregious
| systems that exist in our country. We also need to get
| lobbyists out of Washington so that the real impactful work can
| begin to separate the government agencies from the companies
| they're meant to regulate.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> We also need to get lobbyists out of Washington_
|
| You can't have (representative) democracy without lobbying.
| It is not that you need to get the lobbyists out, you need to
| convince more lobbyists in. It is likely that the average Joe
| has not talked to their representatives even just once, let
| alone on the ongoing basis necessary to fulfill the demands
| of democracy.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Correct - but you CAN get corporate lobbyists and industry
| lobbyists out of Washington.
|
| Simply mandate that lobbying must be done on behalf of
| natural citizens and ONLY natural citizens, and limit the
| lobbying to be done on behalf of citizens with only a $ net
| worth or under.
|
| If a billionaire complains about not being able to buy a
| couple senators, well, too fucking bad. I'd _GLADLY_ give
| up my ability to corrupt government officials if you gave
| me a billion dollars.
| istjohn wrote:
| We need to get money out of politics.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| How so? The systems I develop are subject to IEC-62304
| (https://www.iso.org/standard/38421.html). What about that is
| written by companies? Which companies?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Clinical diagnostics, for example. Any time you take a blood
| test and send it off somewhere (Quest, LabCorp, etc.) to get
| assayed, chances are it goes to a self-regulated and self-
| inspected lab. These labs hire FDA certified "lab managers" as
| consultants or employees who are then responsible for all QA/QC
| procedures and certifying that the lab is capable of doing what
| they claim. They can be held criminally liable and have quite a
| bit of authority (a bit like professional engineers) but it's
| still a cozy employer-employee relationship.
|
| The FDA steps in when something goes really bad but I've never
| seen them do official spot checks without cause.
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| Well, the theory is that what is being regulated by federal
| government is the inspection process of the company, rather
| than the inspections themselves.
|
| Mostly the government doesn't want to get involved in checking
| if bolts are tightened, they want to make sure that the company
| has a process to check that the bolts are tightened and is
| following it. It would be extraordinarily expensive and
| inefficient for government inspectors to do all this work
| themselves.
| AceyMan wrote:
| The FAA / Aircraft Manufacturer relationship has been oft
| criticized in the past several decades as being a canonical
| example of 'regulatory capture.'1 This incident is just more
| grist for the mill.
|
| 1-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture?wprov=sfla1
| thsksbd wrote:
| Pharmaceutical.
| halJordan wrote:
| You got a laundry list of responses, the take away is that even
| with modern technology and abilities it is completely
| impractical to do the sort of inspecting that people seem to
| think is common place. Even for just one industry, but people
| seem to think every industry has regulators inspecting every
| factory. There just aren't enough people or money and if you
| did somehow do that the bureaucracy would collapse down onto
| itself in the same way imperial China repeatedly imploded.
|
| Edit: the promise of the blockchain and self executing
| contracts was to overcome this bureaucracy problem.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| As others have noted, this is fairly common, and I would argue
| the correct way to do it. The US government sucks at compliance
| regulation. I'm sure some countries are better at it, but
| Americans don't follow rules very well, so trying to police
| them is a losing affair.
|
| What US regulators ARE good at is investigating and
| prosecuting. The current issue is that they are not doing what
| they are good at. In the NCAA if a staffer (say Connor
| Stallions) commits a major rule violation, the head of the
| program (Jim Harbaugh) serves a punishment for "failure to
| supervise". We need the Boeing CEO to spend sometime in a
| concrete cell for "failure to supervise". Maybe threaten to
| break them up a bit with the Antitrust division. The next CEO
| will do a better job of self-regulating.
| bonton89 wrote:
| After Mattel shipped in a bunch of lead painted toys from China
| a law was passed requiring inspections for everyone except
| Mattel who were deemed large enough to inspect themselves, even
| though their negligence was the cause of the law.
| mrfox321 wrote:
| the police in America
| asylteltine wrote:
| The ones that pay off the government which is... everyone!
| Except you, the private citizen.
| emarsden wrote:
| There are several good reasons for allowing it. One is that
| it's difficult for a public inspectorate/regulator to maintain
| the necessary levels of expertise to assess such complex
| systems (and increasingly so with technological progress).
| Furthermore, people working inside the industry have much
| better access to information about the risks than an outside
| inspector has.
|
| A second reason is simply costs to the public. In 2019, the
| interim FAA director Dan Elwell testified to the US Senate
| after the 737 Max disasters that bringing all delegated
| oversight back into the FAA would require 10000 extra staff and
| USD 1.8B in costs. There are fairness/democratic arguments to
| having the costs borne by the industry (and thus indirectly by
| the privileged portion of the taxpayers who consume air
| traffic) rather than by all taxpayers.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Every industry self inspects. The city inspects its utilities.
| The construction companies inspect their own work. The only
| time an outside inspector is used is when the company is doing
| the work for a client, so the client uses an inspector..
|
| If you screw up inspection repeatedly, then you get replaced.
| This article is about a weird govt flex.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > It completely ruins the point of an inspection.
|
| What is the point of an inspection?
| nielsbot wrote:
| Pretty sure the meat industry is
| psychlops wrote:
| I guess they could always use inspectors from Airbus since I
| doubt the US regulators are qualified.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Have we concluded that the bolts/nuts/door was assembled
| incorrectly and not faulty metallurgy or faulty assembly
| instructions?
|
| Still unsure if the recent door issue was a matter of sloppy
| assembly (which inspection should find) or sloppy
| specifications/equipment (which inspection would reinforce,
| possibly making things worse).
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's not clear to me _which aspects_ of Boeing 's authority are
| in question even after reading the FT article.
|
| Boeing has both have Designated Engineering Representatives
| (DERs) who are involved in design certification questions for
| airframe type certificates and quality inspectors who are
| involved in certifying individual already-built airframes for
| airworthiness (conformance to type certification and in condition
| for safe operation).
|
| The former are usually not called inspectors, but many of the
| comments here are covering topics that are the domain of DERs
| rather than inspectors/A&P w/IA.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if
| someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was
| likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party
| could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing
| nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge
| engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the
| plug in - got a phone call, or shift change, put your diversion
| here - and forgot to put in the bolts. The inspection - if it
| occurred - failed to notice. I suspect the documentation on the
| plane will help identify how and by whom. It could just as easily
| been some other 3rd party mechanics doing routine maintenance.
| treesknees wrote:
| I was with you until midway. You're making quite an assumption
| while the NTSB's investigation is still ongoing. We don't know
| the root cause - Those bolts may have very well been in place
| and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and
| fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane
| when the plug failed.)
|
| United reported loose bolts, not missing bolts. This indicates
| a more systemic issue and not just a miss by an Alaska Airlines
| maintenance worker taking a phone call. If the systems involved
| in the failure are all "Boeing", it doesn't seem unreasonable
| to consider changes, such as requiring a 3rd party with no
| self-interest in rubber-stamping the go-ahead, to inspect the
| work.
| graton wrote:
| > Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an
| inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out
| (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the
| plug failed.)
|
| The bolts the NTSB can't find are not the ones that have been
| found to be loose. The bolts they can't find are the ones
| with the castellated nuts and cotter pin. Very hard to
| imagine those vibrating loose. And for the door to transit in
| an upward direction it would really require all four of those
| to fail or for them to not exist.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o at around the
| 7:26 mark has a great explanation of how the door is secured
| and it seems like as long as there is at least one of the
| four bolts installed the door can't move.
| 51Cards wrote:
| Agreed, those are not going to rattle loose. Even if the
| cotter pins were all missing, 4 nuts would have had to back
| off fully and 4 bolts would have had to wiggle out, not to
| mention they would likely be under pressure from the guide
| pin during flight. Again, the final report will tell all
| but it really seems to me that they were just not there.
| strangattractor wrote:
| I do not think using words such as "likely" and "I suspect"
| constitute asserting anything. Those doors and plugs are
| designed to wedge themselves against the seal when they are
| in place. Just looking at them from the outside will not give
| any indication as to whether they are bolted. A few rapid
| vertical jolts (which might occur in flight) could jar them
| loose without the bolts. There is no damage to the structure
| of the plane. Bolts on planes are either carter pinned,
| safety wired or have a nylon ring to prevent loosening. They
| generally don't just fall off - not to mention having several
| fall off simultaneously.
| janice1999 wrote:
| The company responsible for the door installation is Spirit
| AeroSystems. They've been sued for "widespread quality
| failures" before [0]. The workers raised issues and were
| ignored [1] and allegedly told to falsify records.
|
| [0] https://news.yahoo.com/maker-boeing-door-plugs-
| sued-00335449...
|
| [1] https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-
| mal...
| sschueller wrote:
| Let's not pretend that Spirit AeroSystems isn't just
| basically a sub devision of Boeing.
| lamontcg wrote:
| They were spun off from Boeing though and I think focusing on
| them as an entity separate from Boeing for finding fault is
| the kind of reason why Boeing spun them off. We shouldn't
| take that bait and should be considering them a division of
| Boeing (yeah, even though they also sell parts to Airbus).
|
| And Spirit seems entirely financially screwed as a company,
| they haven't had a positive gross margin since before Covid
| and on top of that they're now spending half their revenue on
| interest on their debt. Having Spirit eat those losses is
| probably great for Boeing's financials and stock price. They
| should likely be forced by the government to take Spirit over
| again.
| feedforward wrote:
| I agree 100%! As a proud, patriotic American I don't want _BIG
| GOVERNMENT_ interfering with the free market either - even if
| the windows of airplanes are being blown off mid-flight.
|
| However, do not take this to mean I want the end of the
| billions of dollars the government gives to Boeing every year,
| for the R&D to build planes for the military.
| janice1999 wrote:
| > It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost
| cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering
| mistake affecting all the aircraft.
|
| Is this sarcasm? If not you really need to read the notes from
| the MAX 7 crash investigation, starting here [0]. That is
| exactly what Boeing did. MCAS was a hack to fix a plane badly
| designed to save costs. They rushed to release, ignored
| incomplete testing, hide information from the FAA, buried MCAS
| inside another features notes and forced engineers to say that
| only computer based training was needed for pilots for the new
| MAX planes despite big differences, all to save themselves and
| airlines costs.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_certification
| asdff wrote:
| This entire narrative about Boeing in the media to me just
| screams of insider trading. The stock went up 68% in a month,
| then held flat for two weeks, only breaking down the day the
| screw story breaks. People definitely knew this was coming in
| December and were selling off what they could without
| triggering a panic sell off. Perhaps even that November pump
| and favorable headlines about order sheets at the time was also
| orchestrated. Interesting to speculate.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| The same problem has been found on several plans. Far too many
| and too high a percent to not be a systemic issue. A phone call
| or shift change might explain one or two errors, not the same
| error in many planes across multiple airlines.
|
| They don't build 100 of those things a day. They don't even
| average one a day. Whatever the issue, it went on over quite a
| period of time.
|
| Given the other issues with the 737 Max line, it is reasonable
| to believe there would be a good chance of improvement if
| regulators were more heavily involved.
| 51Cards wrote:
| Just a note that the bolts problem on other planes is not the
| same as this one. This plane it seems that the locking bolts
| were missing entirely, not just loose. Their design requires
| a cotter pin and castelated nut to disappear and then for
| them to be completely removed, all 4, before the door can
| move. They act like a pin locking the door in place so all 4
| have to no longer exist vs. just being loose. Of course the
| final report will tell but it looks like they were just not
| there. The other loose bolts found do however indicate a lack
| of attention and inspection in this area on a whole which may
| have contributed to this slipping through.
| roody15 wrote:
| Hmm they have already found 7 other planes with loose bolts in
| the same section. On other airlines besides Alaska. Don't think
| distracted 3rd party is the issue... seems more like a
| production problem considering the Alaska airlines 737 was only
| 2 months old
| EasyMark wrote:
| That seems doubtful since it's not happening on airplugs in
| other planes. Sure a third party could have failed as well, but
| Boeing's current lax inspection standards are far more likely
| to fail (with the incentive to cut costs as much as possible)
| than a 3rd party whose sole reason for survival/earnings is to
| get paid for doing inspections. I trust greed more than I trust
| a "gentlemen's agreement" to do the right thing.
| Animats wrote:
| That should have been done years ago, with the first 737-MAX
| problems.
| houseofzeus wrote:
| Alternate title: US regulator considers returning to doing its
| job
| Guzba wrote:
| Seems like an empty threat. The obviously best position for gov
| is to always have the "you all messed up don't make us come
| regulate" line available to them. It sounds good. The moment they
| start regulating, all the mess-ups are mud on their face. Who
| wants that?
| ryanisnan wrote:
| I posted this because I was curious to learn that indeed,
| aviation companies were doing this.
|
| This type of self-evaluation is pretty common in software, though
| audits of compliance are also common.
|
| I wonder what sort of scenario might unfold if a company had a
| team of developers who's sole job it was to test other teams'
| software in a red-team fashion. I am all too familiar with QA
| organizations, and the problems in that environment, and am all
| for developers conducting their own testing as a fundamental part
| of development, but what if we took it a step further?
| htrp wrote:
| >I wonder what sort of scenario might unfold if a company had a
| team of developers who's sole job it was to test other teams'
| software in a red-team fashion. I am all too familiar with QA
| organizations, and the problems in that environment, and am all
| for developers conducting their own testing as a fundamental
| part of development, but what if we took it a step further?
|
| You get a lot of infighting between the development and
| validation teams. Big US banks have this for (statistical)
| models already.
| ryanisnan wrote:
| Is the infighting you speak of politically motivated? Is this
| a QA vs. Dev mentality?
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| Development slows to a crawl and nothing gets done. We have
| audit teams up our ass at my job and you can't do anything
| due to the 100 layers created by previous audits. There has
| to be someone that says "work needs to get done" we don't
| really have that.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| As an aside, For all those who talk about corruption and getting
| money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison.
| Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any
| government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only
| way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and
| balances and putting multiple factions with different interests
| against one another.
| gottorf wrote:
| > Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.
| The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong
| checks and balances and putting multiple factions with
| different interests against one another.
|
| Absolutely! Any form of government that depends on an unbroken
| line of "good people" in power will fail, and fail much sooner
| than anybody thinks. Modern China has already reached the end
| of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong.
|
| "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition". And government
| should only have as much power as you think the worst possible
| people in charge should have. Otherwise, people suffer.
| tw04 wrote:
| > And government should only have as much power as you think
| the worst possible people in charge should have.
|
| This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should
| literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as
| much power as you think the worst possible person should
| have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single
| decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I
| could think of. What you're describing is anarchy.
|
| You build checks and balances, but you cannot have a
| functioning government without the assumption that the people
| you put in charge will act in good faith, but also have a
| reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad
| faith.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I think that's the right take, with particular attention to
| overall transparency, since otherwise you have nothing--
| how do you hold someone accountable if you don't have the
| right to see what they're up to?
| gottorf wrote:
| > but also have a reliable means to remove them from power
| if they act in bad faith.
|
| That answers your concern -- that's a reduction in the
| power of government. The worst possible person being in
| charge is OK if that person cannot unilaterally make things
| worse for everyone. I don't think it necessarily describes
| anarchy, though I do take your point.
|
| As for people acting in good faith, well, POSIWID[0] is a
| thing; ideally the system should be designed such that it
| shouldn't matter whether any individual within the system
| is acting in good faith or not, because the incentive
| structures set up therein will lead to positive outcomes.
| Besides, for any politically divisive topic, someone will
| always think you're acting in bad faith, anyway.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_
| is_wha...
| brightball wrote:
| > there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off
| to the worst person I could think of
|
| This is actually the point though.
|
| You shouldn't have to give power to an individual. If
| you're going to, you should give that power to a group of
| individuals who have to agree for the thing to move
| forward.
|
| And then have checks on that group as well.
|
| I live in South Carolina and one of the things I like about
| how this state works is that the governor is virtually
| powerless, so you never really have to worry about who is
| elected. There's certainly some degree of power outside of
| the veto, but for the most part the real power is with the
| state senate.
|
| There are pluses and minuses to it. On the plus side, it
| means that things are slower to change. On the minus side,
| it means that things are slower to change.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The discussion was about giving power to an entire
| government, not an individual.
| verve_rat wrote:
| Sounds like South Carolina follows a Westminster style
| government. Look at the UK, NZ, AU governments (and I
| assume Canada, don't know for sure): A King, or Governor-
| General, with the theoretical power to override
| parliament. A Head of State which can issue decrees and
| makes important decisions "on the advice of the Prime
| Minster".
|
| Basically a figure head and a bunch of legal fictions
| wrapped up in the concept of "The Crown". But the real
| power lies with the PM and their Cabinet. But the party
| in charge can change the PM whenever they want, and if it
| ever got bad enough Parliament can change the party in
| charge without waiting for an election.
|
| The PM is responsible to the Cabinet and to their party
| and to the rest of Parliament. It is all one big mess of
| ambitious people pointing guns at each other, constantly
| evaluating their position ahead of the next election.
| not2b wrote:
| "people in charge" doesn't just include elected officials,
| it also includes heads of corporations. Checks and balances
| has to apply to them as well, meaning that regulation is
| necessary.
| DANmode wrote:
| What they're describing is _infrastructure_ , which is what
| government should be.
|
| Not a ruling class.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > we should literally have no government or society to
| speak of
|
| I don't think society is dependent on government.
|
| > would mean literally no power
|
| Literally no power ensconced in the hands of a _single
| individual_, I think was the point.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I don't think society is dependent on government.
|
| Is that a hypothetical or are there large and successful
| societies around today that don't have one (or a group by
| some other name fulfilling the same function)?
| akira2501 wrote:
| You'd have to more thoroughly define "successful." You'd
| also have to explain why you think the lack of one would
| prove any point.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's not that the lack of one proves it's impossible, but
| if one existed it'd sure be evidence that government
| isn't a requirement. As for "successful" I suppose that
| is very much subjective. Is there one _you 'd_ consider
| to be successful?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should
| literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only
| as much power as you think the worst possible person should
| have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single
| decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I
| could think of. What you're describing is anarchy.
|
| Not at all.
|
| Suppose the worst possible person is in the prosecutor's
| office. They get to decide who to prosecute. But they can't
| just file false charges against someone and throw away the
| key, they have to prove it in court with evidence and
| convince a jury of the defendant's peers. Moreover, we
| could prohibit prosecutorial misconduct and set up an
| independent agency for investigating and punishing it. And
| we could require vague laws to be construed in the
| defendant's favor and strike down excessively broad ones as
| unconstitutional.
|
| It's possible for these checks and balances to fail --
| there is some evidence that they have -- but in principle
| we could have stricter ones that work better. And if they
| work as intended, it doesn't matter how bad the prosecutor
| is, they don't have the power to cause harm, and they
| themselves are punished if they try to exceed the limits of
| their power.
|
| But if they just do their job, i.e. investigate crimes and
| prosecute the offenders, they _do_ have the power to do
| _that_.
|
| And so it is with any other office in the government.
| mulmen wrote:
| There is another failure mode. The prosecutor can refuse
| to prosecute a guilty party. This can happen for several
| reasons. 1) corruption, don't prosecute your friends. 2)
| ideology, the law or punishment are "unfair" or the
| defendant is "misunderstood" or "disadvantaged" according
| to the prosecutor. 3) politics, to advance their
| political careers prosecutors want an unblemished record
| of successful convictions.
|
| It is good that our system biases toward avoiding
| wrongful conviction but there's no check that forces a
| party to "do their job."
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| You can have multiple prosecutors. E.g., if one does not
| want to prosecute (and so not get paid) then another
| will.
|
| While you can't ensure an individual does their job,
| market forces and competition can ensure the job gets
| done (by someone).
| nomel wrote:
| Many good answers, but to put it simply, ideally you create
| a system that assumes abuse, which will then make abuse
| _difficult_ or obvious. If you make any positive
| assumptions about someone in power, then they will,
| eventually, be used against you.
| gretch wrote:
| In addition to all of the theoretical responses provided, I
| would also say that the US has withstood the test (so far).
|
| Trump is probably one of the "worst"* people and held the
| highest office. And yet despite the fact that it happened,
| the US is still chugging along. Bad things happened but the
| quality of life is similar to pre-trump presidency (as long
| as you are willing to discount for covid's impact on the
| world).
|
| *Some say there are worse ppl than djt, but I argue very
| few has his combination of badness + boldness + tenacity. A
| bad+meek person thrust into presidency would probably just
| go with the flow.
| TylerE wrote:
| > And government should only have as much power as you think
| the worst possible people in charge should have
|
| The problem is the worst people NOT IN GOVERNMENT already
| have more power than that, and can thus easily crush such a
| government and turn it into a de facto oligarchy.
| cracrecry wrote:
| More power than the Government has?
|
| Which company or individual has nuclear weapons? Could send
| you to war like Russia in Ukraine to die? Could print as
| much money as they want. Can raise arbitrary taxes and
| people have to pay or you just incarcerate them. Can send
| you to prison. Spy everything you do by force.
|
| Governments can kill you, rob you, kidnap you, spy you,
| without consequences.
|
| I don't know any individual or company with as much power
| as Governments have.
| TylerE wrote:
| If you think the worst people cannot have nuclear
| weapons, then by your own logic governments should not
| have nuclear weapons, because a bad person could get
| elected and then have nuclear weapons.
| baryphonic wrote:
| Just for reference, the "ambition must be made to counteract
| ambition" line comes from Federalist 51, also by Madison.
| janalsncm wrote:
| What they failed to recognize is that factions (i.e.
| political parties) will inevitably form so they should be
| regulated. There is nothing in the Constitution about
| political parties. They found the time to mention the Post
| office but not political parties.
|
| > Ambition must be made to counteract ambition
|
| Sounds nice but it's fundamental a recipe for getting nothing
| done. And just because the government doesn't do it doesn't
| mean it won't be done. Private entities, with far fewer
| restraints (any ambitions to restrain them are of course
| _counteracted_ ) will naturally fill in the gaps. It's why
| the US has private companies selling expensive tax software
| rather than a simple system which would benefit everyone.
| huytersd wrote:
| China hasn't reached it yet but once Xi is out they have to
| hope they can find another benevolent king or the entire
| system is going to come crashing down.
| graemep wrote:
| > Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a
| scant 50 years after Mao Zedong.
|
| I do not think you have picked a good example. Mao was a
| pretty nasty piece of work. The relatively prosperity of
| modern China is the result of abandoning his ideology - and a
| large chunk is the result of reversing the damage he and his
| followers did.
|
| There has been no line of good people in communist and post
| communist China. It failed from the start.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| Strangely the UK, which has a no formal constitution and an
| unimaginable number "gentleman's agreement" parliamentary
| traditions - with absolutely no recourse for political
| malfeasance - has faired remarkably well for hundreds of
| years. The entire system is built on the notion that "the
| next leader will probably not undermine the entire system".
| It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic
| threats throughout its history and was (until the last
| decade) considered a bastion of political stability.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Over many discussions with American friends I have been
| persuaded that a governmental system that is fundamentally
| untrusting of the various components is one of the main
| features of American democracy.
| blibble wrote:
| > Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy.
|
| > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have
| strong checks and balances
|
| this is a very US centric view
|
| constitutional monarchies seem to work as well, if not better
| by the various democracy/stability indicies
|
| > Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.
|
| the near term survival of the current US system certainly looks
| far from certain at present
| hangonhn wrote:
| Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer
| over a republican democracy anyways? The monarch wields no
| real power -- even if on paper they may still retain a great
| deal.
|
| The US system is notoriously bad to get working and really
| seems to only work for the US. Anywhere else we have tried it
| has ended with some kind of failure. However, it's reasonable
| to call the parliamentary systems like the UK republican
| democracies and those have been emulated else where with a
| higher degree of success.
| blibble wrote:
| > Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a
| veneer over a republican democracy anyways?
|
| it's the other way round, by the time of the rebellion
| absolute monarchy was long gone, the things the colonists
| didn't like were being passed by parliament
|
| the US then gave its presidency more power than George III
| would have dreamed of
|
| (in practice the presidency also seems to be prone to
| dynasties)
| InTheArena wrote:
| Absolute monarchy was still a thread at this time. They
| just called it enlightened despotism. The colonists were
| objecting to taxation (and really any form of government)
| without representation, which both the monarch and the
| parliament were at fault for. Enlightened Despotism died
| when George III didn't apply reason (as the colonists saw
| it) to rectify the problem.
|
| In terms of power then George III would have dreamed of -
| yes, we live in a era when the power of government is
| still orders of magnitude greater then what anyone could
| have imagined at the time.
| blibble wrote:
| > Absolute monarchy was still a thread at this time.
|
| The Civil War (1642-1651) was the last attempt at
| absolute monarchy in England
|
| then Bill of Rights (1688) put it well and truly to bed
| when Parliament decided they didn't like the current king
| and picked someone else, simultaneously stripping them of
| their powers
|
| it was well and truly dead by the time of the rebellion
| InTheArena wrote:
| Absolute monarchy never really existed in England. There
| is more to the world then England, and monarchy as
| government is still a thing. After all, a short hop-skip-
| jump across the channel, there is a French king soon to
| lose his head.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The important difference isn't between monarchy or
| republic, but how the executive is chosen. Parliamentary
| democracies elect the prime minister. Presidential
| democracies have separate executive. For example, Ireland
| is parliamentary republic; the president is only head of
| state, the prime minister has all the power.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| That's not true. It varies by country, in some most power
| is hold by president, in some by premier, yet in some
| it's a mixture. But I don't know any country with a
| premier who is elected by the people. He is either
| selected by president or is the leader of the winning
| party. The executive can be chosen in various ways in a
| monarchy, too, because there are constitutional
| monarchies, too, where power of a monarch is limited
| (famously the UK is still a constitutional monarchy, but
| their monarch holds almost no power, but it wasn't so
| historically). You obviously only had the worst kind of
| monarchy in mind, the absolute monarchy
| DennisP wrote:
| It turned out the US system depended more on human
| virtuousness than many of us realized. Personally I've been
| kinda shocked to find out how much was just based on norms
| and traditions with no enforcement at all.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree. But on the other hand, it has survived a pretty
| steady onslaught so far, with a significant plurality of
| the elected representatives trying to subvert it. There's
| hope yet.
| foldr wrote:
| If the goal is just sustaining government then there are lots
| of countries without those features that have a longer history
| of sustained government than the US.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| There are three governments that have existed longer than the
| US. Sweden, UK, Denmark.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fo.
| ..
|
| Microstates don't count.
| TylerE wrote:
| While the Federalist Papers are great works, I don't agree with
| taking them as enlightened guidance from on high. They were
| theorizing. No one of them really knew how a modern
| democracy/republic would actually work in practice.
|
| Remember, the authors of the constitution (large overlap)
| stated on the record that they expected they got a lot of it
| wrong, and expected large swathes of it to be amended and
| replaced once actual experience was obtained.
|
| Yes, for those on one side of the spectrum the ruling orthodoxy
| is textual originalism. The founders themselves would have told
| the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers.
| adamisom wrote:
| you could even say that the USA founders' vision is the worst
| ever tried--except for all those others.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are plenty of other countries that have similar or
| even better (depending on the viewpoint of the observer)
| systems of governance, this sort of American exceptionalism
| isn't rooted in an objective evaluation but simply a nice
| soundbite and a riff on the 'democracy' one, which has a
| lot more substance to it.
| gottorf wrote:
| > The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme
| Court that it's bonkers.
|
| > expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced
|
| Would they have? There exists a mechanism to amend the
| Constitution, and it seems reasonable to me that the Supreme
| Court would insist on textual originalism until the text is
| amended through that legal process.
| TylerE wrote:
| Here's Thomas Jefferson writing to James Madison in the
| early 1790s:
|
| "The question Whether one generation of men has a right to
| bind another, seems never to have been started either on
| this or our side of the water... (But) between society and
| society, or generation and generation there is no municipal
| obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to
| have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation
| is to another as one independant nation to another...
|
| On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make
| a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The
| earth belongs always to the living generation...
|
| Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires
| at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an
| act of force and not of right."
|
| That's one founding father to another. Funny how the
| "originalists" never bring this quote up. It's one founding
| father, later our 3rd president, writing to another founder
| who would later be our 4th.
|
| Edit: Here's the full letter, and it's actually from late
| 1789: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12
| -02-024...
| InTheArena wrote:
| The Supreme Court itself wasn't really defined by the
| constitution - they conveyed a need for it - but not how to
| structure it, given the lack of historical data. They also
| foresaw the problems with parties but didn't take enough
| steps to retire them.
|
| This is why things like Roe V. Wade are (/were) so
| controversial. Does the Supreme Court have the right to
| imagine new rights to abortion with no textual basis in the
| Constitution? Even RBG didn't think so. OTOH, given the
| recent election results, Abortion is finally starting to
| become settled law - something the USSC could not do.
| Democracy works again.
|
| That said - they got far more right then wrong, and ditching
| the lessons they learned first are a big reason we are in the
| state we are in now.
|
| Once upon a time, leaders actually had to learn history to be
| leaders. Now-adays, not so much.
| hash872 wrote:
| >The only way to have a sustainable government is to have
| strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with
| different interests against one another
|
| Completely American myopic POV. Stable, healthy democracies
| that are unicameral parliamentary systems include Norway, New
| Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania,
| Portugal, and Sweden. (Most of those countries don't have
| strong judicial review either. Or federalism). That's without
| even getting into bicameral countries where the upper house is
| actually a lot weaker/just for show.
|
| You don't have to separate the executive & the head of state,
| and you don't need to have checks & balances- that's propaganda
| for presidential systems. In fact I'd say the opposite is true-
| it's the countries with the checks & balances (by having a
| separately elected legislature and president) that are much
| more unstable and prone to autocracy. See Juan Linz on the
| Perils of Presidentialism
| iteria wrote:
| Look at all those nations you listed that are very
| homogeneous. I want a nation with significant culture
| tradition differences listed that is like that. American
| exceptionalist is mostly BS but we do have some ways that we
| are very unique as a nation and that is how many different
| kinds of major cultures we have hanging out in US. People
| handwave the US as all the same but that is very much not the
| case. Even for as good as American indoctrination is, nothing
| is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living
| in Florida. What rural urban even means in both states is so
| different. And we've been this heterogeneous.
|
| I'm willing to accept your premise, but I want an example
| where there isn't one overwhelmingly dominant culture. I'll
| accept 2 equally dominant cultures.
| nneonneo wrote:
| Canada is bicameral but with a dysfunctional senate,
| meaning that it's effectively a unicameral system - and
| it's a highly diverse country.
| hash872 wrote:
| >nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing
| like living in Florida
|
| The problem with this argument is that Montana and Florida
| vote for the same political party, and then their
| representatives generally vote the same way once in
| Congress
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| It's not just homogeneity, they are also tiny. I didn't
| check all of them but I would guess Portugal is probably
| the biggest of those, with about 10 million people or 1/30
| of the population of the US.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Look at all those nations you listed that are very
| homogeneous.
|
| New Zealand isn't.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Comparing tiny countries at the edge of Europe and the edge
| of the world with the the US as super-power is a weakness.
|
| Every country has adopted American Republicanism with a
| clearly defined and written constitution that has some form
| of separation of powers. None of these, for example, allow
| the PM to act as an absolute dictator without some form of
| emergency. The difference is simply in whether the president
| has an independent mandate from the parliament or not.
| blibble wrote:
| > Every country has adopted American Republicanism with a
| clearly defined and written constitution that has some form
| of separation of powers.
|
| the UK has none of this and its current system of
| government predates the US
| InTheArena wrote:
| The modern UK state has superficial resemblances -
| primarily in a shiny ceremonies with colonial era
| Britain,
| notJim wrote:
| > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have
| strong checks and balances
|
| I don't think this viewpoint can be supported empirically. The
| US government has much stronger checks and balances than most
| parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by
| the parliament. This means that there's no split possible
| between the executive and legislative branch. I think the
| result of this in the US is that the government tends to
| deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads
| to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts heighten without
| compromise or resolution for decades until they reach a
| breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the need to build a
| governing coalition can result in greater incentives to
| compromise.
|
| Similarly, judicial review seems to be much much weaker in most
| countries. In the US, the supreme court can strike down a law
| with immediate effect of nullifying that law. It's been hard
| for me to find comparisons, but it seems like in other
| countries, there's some combination of judicial review being
| only advisory, or not having immediate effect. So in some
| countries, the judicial branch says a law is un-constitutional,
| and the legislative branch can ignore it, or has some period of
| time to defend or revise the law, rather than the law being
| immediately struck. This is fundamentally undemocratic. That's
| a good thing some times, but not good other times.
|
| In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control
| the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass
| their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. This does
| not seem like the hallmark of an effective democracy to me.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| > In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to
| control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to
| pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances.
|
| I agree that the the Supreme Court is more important because
| of the inability of Congress to pass regular legislation.
|
| However I don't think the root cause is "checks and
| balances". I think the root cause is the (unconstitutional)
| Senate filibuster. This prevents parties who control both
| Houses of Congress and the Presidency from passing laws. It
| is often the case that this happens (2016-18 for Republicans;
| 2020-22 for Democrats) and in those periods it should be
| possible to pass many laws and thus diminish the role of the
| Supreme Court. But the filibuster prevents this.
| baryphonic wrote:
| How is the filibuster unconstitutional? The Constitution
| explicitly gives each House the power to select its own
| rules, and the Senate is never "dissolved" like the House
| of Representatives is, so its rules carry on.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Legal scholars as in [1] can make the point better than
| me:
|
| > When considering the filibuster as a supermajority
| requirement for regular legislation, it is clearly
| unconstitutional. As a textual matter, the Constitution
| appoints the Vice President as the tie-breaking vote in
| the Senate, providing that they "shall have no Vote
| unless [the Senators] be equally divided." This provision
| implies that the Senate must pass regular legislation by
| a majority vote.
|
| In general, the Senate's ability to set its own rules
| surely cannot be unrestricted. For example, when the
| Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate would it have been
| constitutional for them to create a new rule that all tax
| decreases require unanimous consent of the Senate? Or for
| Republicans in the same situation to create a rule that
| all tax increases require unanimous consent? Both of
| these changes would seem to be within the rule-making
| authority of the Senate. However both rules would be
| profoundly undemocratic because they would generally
| prevent a majority (or supermajority) of US voters from
| changing US tax law in the future.
|
| [1] https://legaljournal.princeton.edu/tyranny-of-the-
| minority-t...
| mason55 wrote:
| > _The US government has much stronger checks and balances
| than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is
| elected by the parliament. This means that there 's no split
| possible between the executive and legislative branch. I
| think the result of this in the US is that the government
| tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising,
| which leads to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts
| heighten without compromise or resolution for decades until
| they reach a breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the
| need to build a governing coalition can result in greater
| incentives to compromise._
|
| Yeah, if I understand, the original idea of the checks &
| balances in the US was that each branch of government would
| be fighting to become the most powerful and so they all had
| ways to stop each other. But it wasn't really designed to
| deal with the idea that political parties would grow in power
| enough to supersede the branches of government as the top-
| level entities fighting for power.
|
| This idea that you'd be able to form a large enough coalition
| across Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency that
| you could get all three branches to work together wasn't
| really considered back then. With more localized politics
| that was basically impossible and so the individual branches
| were fighting for power.
|
| Our form of government should be updated to reflect the
| reality of more powerful political parties.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Precisely. There's effectively no forcing mechanism which
| guarantees any factions work with each other. So I see
| Washington's farewell address warning against factions less
| as a drop of quaint wisdom but more of a last ditch attempt
| to rectify a gaping hole in the constitution they had just
| written.
|
| And keep in mind that the current constitution took effect
| in 1789, only 8 years after the Articles of Confederation
| went into effect. So there was far less of a feeling that
| the fundamentals of the Constitution we have now would last
| forever.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I'd argue that the US biparty system tends to have fewer
| checks and balances than a parliamentary system.
|
| In many ways, it's winner take all. President + 50%+1 in the
| lower legislature + 50%+1 in the upper legislature = a huge
| amount of power.
|
| Historically, I think it's been exceedingly rare to have as
| finely balanced government as recent times have featured.
|
| And to me, the Supreme Court is less about the people
| currently sitting on it, and more about the fact that they
| have all dedicated their lives to the _legal profession_.
|
| They may rule one way or another on hot issues, for personal
| reasons. But you're checking with people who all hold the
| rule of law (as a concept) much higher than the legislature
| or executive. Which is a valuable check to have.
|
| In that way, they're more like the UK's Speaker of the House
| of Commons.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| In recent times the Supreme Court has also been staffed by
| graduates of only a handful of law schools. I think that,
| more than a dedication to the rule of law, is what sets
| them apart from the rest of the country. Given the
| complexities of harmonizing a large body of law that's
| centuries old, I'm not sure there's a better way. But I
| think we should always remember that the Supreme Court is
| by far the least representative and least democratic branch
| of government.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You need 60% in the senate to get anything passed. There
| have been many cases where one party controlled all three
| but couldnt accomplish much due to the filibuster. Famously
| Obama's first couple years.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The US government has much stronger checks and balances
| than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is
| elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split
| possible between the executive and legislative branch. I
| think the result of this in the US is that the government
| tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising,
| which leads to dissatisfaction and instability.
|
| The problem in the US is actually the opposite -- the checks
| and balances were intended to be stronger but have been
| substantially weakened, in a way that creates instability.
|
| In the original constitutional framework the federal
| government was meant to be _extremely_ limited. Senators were
| appointed by state legislators so that they would limit
| expansion of federal power at the expense of state power, but
| that was changed and deprived the states of their primary
| representation in the federal government. Which not
| coincidentally was immediately followed by a massive
| expansion of federal control.
|
| Which was itself meant to be much more limited. The original
| intention of the interstate commerce clause was for the
| federal government to handle things like mail fraud, where
| you have a perpetrator and a victim in different states and
| the victims have no representation in the perpetrator's
| jurisdiction. It has since been interpreted to allow the
| federal government to regulate essentially anything,
| infamously including non-commerce that occurs solely within a
| single state.
|
| In the intended frameworks the deadlocks were fully
| intentional. If you couldn't reach _widespread consensus_
| then you couldn 't do something at the federal level, doing
| things at the federal level was disfavored in general, and
| that was fine because anything outside the scope of federal
| power or without widespread consensus could be handled by the
| states. Laboratories of democracy.
|
| But then we made it too _easy_ to do things at the federal
| level, and of course power-hungry sociopaths are attracted to
| centralized power. So instead of the federal government being
| weak and uninteresting because strong checks and balances
| limited it from being abused, it became the battleground for
| winner-take-all popularity contests.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Other democracies do generally have their own checks and
| balances. They might not be the same set of checks and
| balances as the US, but it's difficult to say as a whole that
| they are weaker. It's true that often the division of the
| executive and legislative branches is rather weak. But on the
| other hand there is often a stronger division between the
| judicial and other branches as judges are appointed
| independently. There are plenty of countries out there with
| very strong constitutional courts as well.
|
| I'm also not sure I agree that the US system is necessarily
| less sustainable than those other systems. A lot of European
| democracies are younger than the US, and some of them are
| more frequently deadlocked. I think effectiveness and
| sustainability are orthogonal concepts here (some would say
| they are diametrically opposed...)
| Adverblessly wrote:
| > In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing
| coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise.
|
| Alternatively, you get brinkmanship where you have a
| coalition of 53.33% where every party in the coalition that
| has >=4% of the votes (a.k.a. all of them) will threaten to
| bring down the entire coalition unless they get their most
| extreme demand. Incidentally, they are still trying to bring
| down the supreme court.
|
| Personally, I'd gladly welcome some political deadlock over
| here.
| parineum wrote:
| This seems like a very presentism viewpoint. I don't think
| your points hold historically nor do they acknowledge that
| "strong checks and balances" and the adversarialness of
| congress is the same thing and considered a feature, not a
| bug.
| baryphonic wrote:
| Madison elaborates also on this theme in Federalist 51, but
| with separation of powers rather than federalism & factions.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| The form of government is irrelevant compared to the culture
| that is being governed.
|
| Japanese cities are incredible because the Japanese culture
| demands safety, cleanliness and beauty. You could make just
| about any change to the form of government you want and the
| result will be the same.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _For all those who talk about corruption and getting money
| out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its
| a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any
| government that depends on human virtuousness will fail._
|
| And yet in Federalist 55 virtue is needed to sustain self-
| government:
|
| > _Republican government presupposes the existence of these
| qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the
| pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of
| some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the
| inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among
| men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains
| of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring
| one another._
|
| * https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp
|
| > _The only way to have a sustainable government is to have
| strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with
| different interests against one another._
|
| A particular faction can gain control over the Legislative,
| Executive, and Judicial in the US, and then they can collude
| unless individuals choose to follow the Constitution.
|
| > _Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to
| certify Democrat Joe Biden 's victory in the state following
| the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a
| pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the
| Detroit News reported._
|
| > _In a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, the then-president told two
| fellow Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not
| to sign the state election 's certification, saying they would
| look "terrible" and must "fight for our country," according to
| recordings of the call reviewed by the Michigan news outlet._
|
| * https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-
| of...
|
| There are no "institutions" (to protect things), only people.
| blibble wrote:
| > Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to
| certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following
| the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a
| pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the
| Detroit News reported.
|
| it is utter madness that politicians are involved in anyway
| in certifying the results of elections
| janalsncm wrote:
| > Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.
|
| All governments fail, it's only a question of when. The
| stability of the US is in no small part due to its geography
| and natural wealth. Having two oceans on each side and more
| arable land than you know what to do with is far more of an
| asset anything written on paper. It seriously reduces the
| threat of external and internal conflict, and the US got this
| for a song.
|
| Further, there's a strong argument to be made that the US did
| not last this entire time. The centralization that happened
| after the Civil War created a fundamentally different
| government than was created in 1789. Through the process of
| incorporation, constitutional amendments were enforced on
| states which created a far more uniform country.
| happytiger wrote:
| This is precisely why the Department of Homeland Security was
| such a bad idea.
|
| For anyone interested, the only thing I can add of use to this
| thoughtful comment is a link to the paper:
|
| https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp
| ed_balls wrote:
| > government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.
|
| that was the crucial difference between communism and
| capitalism. Communism used virtuousness only, when capitalism
| used virtuousness and greed. Communism failed.
| cromka wrote:
| Can someone explain why the focus is on FAA, while there's also
| EASA and others? Do they also allow Boeing to self-inspect and
| self-evaluate themselves like FAA does?
|
| Can FAA and Boeing be really the only ones to blame here? If
| Boeing was in bed with FAA that much and they were dropping the
| ball on safety, shouldn't EASA's own process take note of that
| and extra-scrutinize Boeing planes during certification for
| European sky compliance? Especially that it would play in Airbus'
| advantage, and I am sure some allegiance between the two is
| definitely in place to some extent at least.
|
| How did, for example, EASA allow the MCAS on 737 Max? I mean we
| know Boeing abused the FAA trust in their process, but why did
| EASA not raise concern over the same?
|
| Something is missing here and I don't appreciate that somehow
| everyone seems to forget that those planes are absolutely not
| certified by the FAA for use by the rest of the world. At the
| very least, EASA is as shitty at certifying those planes as FAA
| is. Or, actually, is even worse, considering that in theory the
| reason FAA allowed it is because Boeing took advantage of them,
| meanwhile EASA should have done the full re-certification?
| yyyfb wrote:
| I don't know if that's at play, but the specific door
| configuration that Alaska 1282 had is apparently not that
| common in Europe. I'm sure EASA will take note though.
| cromka wrote:
| > I'm sure EASA will take note though.
|
| There are no 737s operated in that configuration in Europe,
| so while EASA accepted FAA's grounding notice, it didn't
| really affect the EU.
|
| But that's beyond the point. The point is those flawed
| quality controls that Boeing does on behalf of FAA could in
| theory affect other areas, not just the plug door. And so I
| wonder if EASA also allows Boeing to self-certify, or do they
| perform the checks themselves?
| emarsden wrote:
| There are indeed several other examples of this partial
| delegation of authority for decisions concerning safety, either
| to industry players or to third parties, though the FAA "ODA"
| mechanism is probably the most prominent. EASA's mechanism is
| similar in many respects, but more focused on properties of the
| oversight entity within the designer-manufacturer firms than on
| properties of the individuals doing the work. I wrote a
| discussion paper on precisely these issues a few weeks ago,
| which discusses some of the questions related to independence
| from commercial pressure, access to expertise, and so on:
|
| https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ALZ0IuyZGHImolY&id=D37...
| cromka wrote:
| Woah, amazing!
| xenadu02 wrote:
| I don't recall if it is just by handshake agreement or in an
| actual treaty but the country where the manufacturer of a plane
| operates is the one designated authority over that
| manufacturer.
|
| FAA issues Airworthiness directives and sets rules Boeing has
| to follow. EASA largely defers to the FAA (not always but in
| almost everything).
|
| Similarly the FAA follows EASA when it comes to issues with
| Airbus.
|
| Both FAA and EASA requirements are roughly alined anyway so it
| doesn't make that much difference.
|
| Boeing has been coasting on their engineer-led culture from the
| past. They're only allowed to self-certify on things that are
| not "safety critical" so having the FAA review that designation
| seems more useful.
|
| FWIW when Boeing merged with McDonnel-Douglas the GE protege
| crew took over. The decision to move headquarters was done
| deliberately so the machinists and engineers couldn't go
| complain to the bean counters in person.
|
| Also think about Boeing setting up a factor in South Carolina
| and fighting so hard to prevent that factory from unionizing.
| They're focused on giving labor a smaller share of the pie...
| on some of the most expensive (and formerly profitable) things
| humans build, with a decade-long order book where every single
| unit they make is pre-sold years in advance. (Recent screwups
| have hurt them badly though).
|
| Do you want an airplane built by an accountant-run company that
| cares about finding the cheapest most disposable workers to
| build the airplane? Whether it matters or whether the union
| sucks is irrelevant. The fact that Boeing management was so
| determined to screw the workers who assemble these planes says
| a lot and none of it is good.
| cromka wrote:
| > FAA issues Airworthiness directives and sets rules Boeing
| has to follow. EASA largely defers to the FAA (not always but
| in almost everything).
|
| > Similarly the FAA follows EASA when it comes to issues with
| Airbus.
|
| > Both FAA and EASA requirements are roughly alined anyway so
| it doesn't make that much difference.
|
| Thanks. That then explains it. Although I have a feeling this
| mutual trust has its expiration date and I would be surprised
| if EASA didn't actually start raising concerns over the FAA's
| credibility.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| EASA generally respects FAA activities unless something's
| _extraordinarily_ fuggity fuggity boop. The _reverse_ is also
| true, so you can get EASA auditors in a US plant. . but woo
| boy, there is no way to express the sheer _panic_ we would all
| feel when we learned our pet FAA DER was going to be replaced
| by some steely-eyed Aryan bastard from EASA with his
| micrometers and tiny little notebooks. Those guys did _not_
| screw around. Speaking anecdotally, of course.
|
| I suspect that the EASA/EUROCAE guys were often "accidentally"
| brought in when FAA was getting sick of us trying to slip stuff
| by them. Sort of like, "Try that Consumables trick with me
| again, and I'm sending Hans"
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Should have never been given.
| Dowwie wrote:
| [January 2021] Boeing Charged with 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy and
| Agrees to Pay over $2.5 Billion:
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| FWIW, it did NASA wonders when they created the IV&V program to
| strip individual facilities the right to self-inspect missions.
| nashashmi wrote:
| It is sad to see the number of commments here and no one mentions
| that a manufacturer not inspecting their own work is like an
| employee who does not check his own work, or an engineering team
| that does not check its work.
|
| Boeing is great! It does great work. But yes, it lost several
| moments of pride, and that does not work great for Boeing.
|
| In order for a company to do better, you need to take an honest
| multi-year review of their processes and cite multiple issues,
| and see through multiple corrections. Then we will have a well
| corrected company. And that is what Boeing needs, along with a
| bifurcation for increased competition.
| mattcantstop wrote:
| 40,000 deaths each year in the United States resulting from cars,
| and nobody lifts a finger. The side of a plane pops off a few
| miles up in the air and everybody loses their minds.
| ironmagma wrote:
| You're making your (our) cause look bad. There are a lot of
| issues with cars but this isn't one of them. Cars essentially
| work as intended, and when they don't there are recalls,
| lawsuits, and NHTSA investigations.
| error9348 wrote:
| There are all kinds of externalities, including safety, which
| are ignored. US tax policy which allows write offs _only_ for
| large vehicles which are more likely to cause deaths. Tire
| emissions. Congestion pricing -- common in Europe -- needs
| years or reviews and lawsuits. NHTSA doesn 't require bicycle
| test devices.
| nickvec wrote:
| And almost all of these deaths are the result of user (driver)
| error, whereas passengers on a flight have no say in Boeing's
| design of their planes and/or whether the door gets ripped off
| mid-flight. You're comparing apples and oranges here.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Because passengers are incapable of choosing not to fly?
| jsight wrote:
| I wouldn't say that nobody lifts a finger. There's a lot of
| analysis going on each year to try to improve the situation.
| And vehicle automation is seemingly starting to make progress
| on reducing various collision types, especially with
| pedestrians.
|
| But the fixes are much more complex and will necessarily take a
| lot more time.
|
| If your point is that we don't think enough about vehicular
| deaths, except for the ones that are in some way newsworthy,
| then I think you are completely right. Even worse, we don't
| account for lives saved and this skews perception in odd and
| potentially detrimental ways.
| will5421 wrote:
| Who said show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome?
| nielsbot wrote:
| Please f*cking do it
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Nemo judex in causa sua" - "No one should be judge in their own
| cause"
|
| Technology has changed a lot since the Roman Empire, but human
| nature is still the same. We shouldn't ignore such old principles
| just because it is 2024.
| nickvec wrote:
| It's absurd that Boeing even has the right to self-inspect their
| planes. Logically, it makes zero sense, but money talks I guess.
| baskint wrote:
| you got to be kidding me!!! is this for real? wtf!
| InTheArena wrote:
| While you at it, do what the Biden Administration threatened to
| do to Musk - remove Boeing's CEO's ability to be CEO of a large
| public company.
| feedsmgmt wrote:
| At this point why allow anyone to self inspect or self report
| anything? What's the upside to allowing the risk?
| EasyMark wrote:
| The upside is obviously that it's cheaper for the government.
| However, given Boeing's failures, that is no longer a
| reasonable bet to hedge on. We need to stop it before air
| travel becomes even more dangerous than car travel. Self-
| regulation with occasional friendly audits did work for a few
| decades, though, but Boeing got lazy and cocky and the FAA got
| too friendly and incestuous.
| EasyMark wrote:
| That would be a very logical step to take given their recent
| history, they don't seem to be able to police themselves since
| the bean counters are in charge rather than engineering/long-term
| centered executives.
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