Felony convictions aren’t what they used to be — or at least that’s what Boeing seems to be counting on.

Amid an ongoing safety and trust crisis spurred by a series of near-disasters earlier this year, Boeing has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the federal government in a case tied to two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, dodging a potentially embarrassing trial in the process. Still, not everyone is so sure the felony label will bring accountability or consequences — not with the US government so deeply reliant on the beleaguered company. 

Fool Us Once…

Back in 2021, the aerospace giant avoided prosecution of a fraud charge linked to the fatal crashes by entering a settlement with the Department of Justice. As part of that deal, the company agreed to establish new safety and compliance programs. But in May, the DOJ accused Boeing of failing to fulfill such promises — and misleading and defrauding federal regulators in the process (Boeing has placed the blame on two low-level employees). Under the guilty plea deal, announced in a court filing late Sunday night, the DOJ will appoint a third-party monitor to track Boeing’s safety compliance. It will also require the firm to invest $455 million into safety and compliance, and pay a $243 million fine. That’s identical to the fine Boeing paid in the 2021 settlement it violated. Fine Boeing once, shame on Boeing…

More serious for Boeing, then, are the potential business consequences. There are some statutes of law in place that bar defense contractors with felony convictions from winning future contracts — meaning the charge could jeopardize Boeing’s status as a key government contractor. It’d be a crushing blow: Last year, government contracts accounted for nearly 40% of Boeing’s revenue.

Then again, Boeing’s relationship with the Pentagon and other federal agencies may be symbiotic enough to keep it in the government’s good graces. At least, plenty of experts seem to think so:

• “For high-profile companies like Boeing, where there are few alternatives and a significant need for their products, the government is unlikely to impose an outright ban,” Jason Brown, former special agent and legal advisor for the FBI and current senior litigator at prominent whistleblower law firm Brown LLC, told The Daily Upside.
• Calling for accountability in the form of lost contracts is a “hopeless dead end,” Columbia University law professor John Coffee recently told The Seattle Times, adding that “the government does not have an alternative to Boeing.”

Trade publication DefenseNews recently ranked Boeing as the world’s fifth-largest defense contractor. The Department of Defense, meanwhile, paid Boeing nearly $15 billion in contracts in 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Judgement Day: The plea deal still must receive the approval of a federal judge to take effect, and families of the victims are expected to ask the judge to reject the deal and push the case to trial. Sunday’s plea deal does not provide immunity to any Boeing employees and executives, or include protections for any charges that may come from the near-disasters earlier this year.

America’s “left behind” counties — the heartland and manufacturing locales that fell behind the rest of the country beginning in the early 2000s — aren’t so far behind anymore. 

According to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), nearly 1,000 counties previously marked by economic stagnation — representing 18% of the US population — are adding businesses and jobs at the fastest rate in a quarter-century.

Mend the Gap

“Left behind” is shorthand for US communities defined by economic stagnation or decline. EIG defined the group by identifying counties that saw less than half the national growth rates in population and median household income between 2000 and 2016. The result: 966 counties, home to 59 million people. Some are rural, some suburban, some urban. 

They appear everywhere from New York to Florida to Illinois to Michigan to Colorado to California to Alaska. Apart from a widening economic gap compared to the rest of the country, they don’t necessarily have anything in common. Well, except for glimmers of macroeconomic hope:

• The “left behind” counties lost 1.9 million jobs in the Great Recession and, by the time the pandemic rolled around in 2020, less than a third had recovered their lost positions. But between 2020 and 2023, the countries regained almost all of the 1.7 million jobs they collectively lost during the pandemic. As of last year, 41% had employment above pre-pandemic levels, while the number of business establishments is 9% above 2019 levels and the highest in 20 years.
• There are other positive signs: In 2016, 94% of the counties lagged the US population growth rate, but that fell to 80% last year; the number of counties that trailed the national income growth rate fell from 70% in 2016 to 48% in 2022.

Job Not Done: The counties still trail the rest of the US in employment levels and income, and there’s no indication they will catch up any time soon — there’s a lingering deficit of 1.8 million jobs from 2000. But they’re feeling a lot less forlorn. 

Stars, in your multitudes, scarce to be counted… 

Today, all being well, a new kind of European rocket plans to take off from the European Space Agency’s launch pad in French Guiana. The rocket’s payload is a few satellites and science experiments, plus Europe’s dreams of realizing its space ambitions without having to depend on a private American company.

Touching the Face of Commercialization 

The rocket launching today is called the Ariane 6, and was developed by a French company called ArianeSpace. ArianeSpace has been around since 1980 and used to be a big player in the commercial space industry, launching satellites. In the intervening decades, however, it has fallen behind — now, the king of commercial space launches is unquestionably SpaceX.

Over the next few years, the Earth’s orbit is bound to become an increasingly commercial space, with the International Space Station due to be dismantled by, who else, SpaceX. If you wanted a clearer metaphor for the commercial space industry dismantling the public one, then sorry, but we’re fresh out. But over-depending on a single US contractor, especially in a sector that has some pretty significant military applications, has the EU on edge:

• In a press release ahead of the launch, the ESA said Europe “must have autonomous access to space to realize its ambitions on the world stage.”
• Although there is an overarching drive toward privatization in the space industry, the Ariane 6 launch has been funded by a handful of EU member states, with France kicking in the biggest contribution at 55%.

Pad Scraps: While SpaceX may be the biggest player in the commercial space race, it’s not the only game in town. Rival space companies United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin filed paperwork with the Federal Aviation Authority last month asking the government to put a cap on the number of launches SpaceX conducts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The companies argue SpaceX’s enormous Starship rocket would be too disruptive to the local environment, community, and, incidentally, their own operations.