Matt Stoller argued that Boeing is the dumpster fire it is now because it's actually McDonnell-Douglass. Actually he's hardly the first to make that argument but he's the one who most cogently argues that Boeing was a commercial aircraft manufacturer that served civil aviation and made products for companies that were buying based on value, while McDD was a bloated defense contractor that basically laundered pork barrel money. The world didn't need the Boeing 2707. But for reasons of national pride, we poured a lot of money into the 2707. And then when we decided that really, we didn't actually need the 2707, Boeing ate shit. And so did Seattle. Other than that, Boeing used to make planes people actually needed and they mostly got sold on their merits. That Chinese wall has come down now, though, and Boeing is flying fuselages through space and time. I think this is a lot more about the military industrial complex than those magnificent men in their flying machines.