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Trump reigning in Boeing AF1 bill


OverSword

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Boeing, way over budget on their Air Force 1 contract is being reigned in by the president elect.

 

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President-elect Donald Trump unexpectedly started negotiating with Boeing (BA) over the price of a new Air Force One on Tuesday morning.

First over Twitter (TWTR), Trump threatened to cancel the order for a new Air Force One, which would be used for future presidents. He said the cost of the new 747 was more than $4 billion.

Then in the Trump Tower lobby, the president-elect amplified his message.

"Well the plane is totally out of control, it's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program," he said. "I think it's ridiculous, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."

In January, Boeing won a contract to start preliminary work on a new Air Force One program. The Air Force awarded Boeing an initial contract worth nearly $26 million to reduce risk and lower cost, Reuters reported. The Air Force has previously said that it planned $1.65 billion for two replacement jets, Reuters reported.

Noting that the current Air Force One is 25 years old, a source familiar with the Boeing Air Force One contract told CNBC that if the program does not move forward, it could be years before the president ever flies on a new one.


 

Source

If he keeps doing this kind of thing he may actually create a more competitive environment in military contractors and getting our military more bang for their buck (pun intended)  I was (am) against Trump as president but admit that I like some of the things he's doing so far.  The Canadian PM ready to renegotiate NAFTA, speaking to the President of Taiwan instead of pretending that the USA really believes they are a rogue part of China that needs to be reigned in, etc..

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what is wrong with the planes they have now?? the way they're maintained, they can fly another 30 years easy. 

imo if they do build new ones they should use a380, not 747 

 

actually now that i think of it, no, a380 may have issues in some airports due to required runway length,

Edited by aztek
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So i should think. Whyever would he want to replace his current 757? 

Image result for trump plane

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well, af1 is more than  plane, it is flying white house, with all bells and whistles. communication, defense, in flight refiling, ....etc,  his 757 has none of that. 

Edited by aztek
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25 minutes ago, aztek said:

well, af1 is more than  plane, it is flying white house, with all bells and whistles. communication, defense, in flight refiling, ....etc,  his 757 has none of that. 

I wouldn't be too sure ;)  But you're correct, AF1 IS a lot more than a regular aircraft.  4 BILLION more?  nah....

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Nice - glad to see they stopped writing blank cheques to our favorite companies. There's a new Sheriff in town...

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We have had a bunch of presidents up until now that would pay whatever they are asking.  After all they weren't spending their own money.  Kudos to Trump for saying something. 

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2 hours ago, Grand Moff Tarkin said:

So i should think. Whyever would he want to replace his current 757? 

Image result for trump plane

Beautiful jet.

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This is one main reason I voted for him. Everyone freaked out when he said he was going to strengthen the military, thinking we'd spend more then the ridiculous money we spend now. What I heard him say in not so many words is, he is gonna have a better military for much less then we spend. Good to see a president actually doing what he said he was going to do.

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Funny how this tweet occurred exactly 22 minutes after an article is published on the internet quoting the Boeing CEO talking about how important free trade is for America.  I also see a couple of comments talking about "competition" for the government contract.  Can someone name another American company that builds passenger jets?

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There is no free trade. Get that outta your head, cause it doesn't exist. When everyone is playing by the same rules and standards, then free trade will exist. But no your right, we should let Boeing charge whatever ridiculous price they want to charge, and let companies leave here in mass for lower taxes and slave labor and do nothing about it. That sounds like a plan. 

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11 minutes ago, preacherman76 said:

There is no free trade. Get that outta your head, cause it doesn't exist. When everyone is playing by the same rules and standards, then free trade will exist. But no your right, we should let Boeing charge whatever ridiculous price they want to charge, and let companies leave here in mass for lower taxes and slave labor and do nothing about it. That sounds like a plan. 

Umm, was it me that was quoted in the article?  I don't think it was.  I am merely pointing out that this was a grade school reaction to an article that was posted.  I personally don't care one bit if Trump decides to fly in the old plane with a million miles on it.  Have at it, buddy.  Boeing doesn't pay my bills, so I couldn't care less if the contract gets dissolved.  May cost 1,000 American jobs though...

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9 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

Umm, was it me that was quoted in the article?  I don't think it was.  I am merely pointing out that this was a grade school reaction to an article that was posted.  I personally don't care one bit if Trump decides to fly in the old plane with a million miles on it.  Have at it, buddy.  Boeing doesn't pay my bills, so I couldn't care less if the contract gets dissolved.  May cost 1,000 American jobs though...

Sorry AO. I'm just at my tipping point with for weeks, watching people trash a guy as a failure, who hasn't even started his first day. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time lol, my bad

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6 minutes ago, preacherman76 said:

Sorry AO. I'm just at my tipping point with for weeks, watching people trash a guy as a failure, who hasn't even started his first day. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time lol, my bad

No worries, we've certainly all been there!

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prbly wont cost 1000 jobs, B. still builds planes for pretty much every country in the world, so their workers jobs are relatively safe, they just wont build those 2 planes  for now,  

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9 hours ago, Agent0range said:

Funny how this tweet occurred exactly 22 minutes after an article is published on the internet quoting the Boeing CEO talking about how important free trade is for America.  I also see a couple of comments talking about "competition" for the government contract.  Can someone name another American company that builds passenger jets?

The argument isn't about whether Boeing make decent aircraft (although the 747-8 never really took off as much as they might have hoped), it's more about Pentagon procurement and the way that they have no conception whatsoever of what a sensible cost for anything is. 

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9 hours ago, preacherman76 said:

There is no free trade. Get that outta your head, cause it doesn't exist. When everyone is playing by the same rules and standards, then free trade will exist. But no your right, we should let Boeing charge whatever ridiculous price they want to charge, and let companies leave here in mass for lower taxes and slave labor and do nothing about it. That sounds like a plan. 

Don't destroy free trade by denying the existence of free trade bro.  You know better than that.  

I have freedom.  That doesn't mean everyone plays by the same rules and standards I do because of course they don't.  It's asking for the impossible before you can have freedom.  How did you ever arrive at this thinking?  Preacherman?  I hardly knew ye!

Challenging the cost of Air Force One is a legitimate thing for Trump to do because it's a government contract.   Carrier air conditioners, not so much.   If he bought two air conditioners with taxpayer money, he can by all means challenge the cost of two air conditioners.

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51 minutes ago, Yamato said:

Don't destroy free trade by denying the existence of free trade bro.  You know better than that.  

I have freedom.  That doesn't mean everyone plays by the same rules and standards I do because of course they don't.  It's asking for the impossible before you can have freedom.  How did you ever arrive at this thinking?  Preacherman?  I hardly knew ye!

Challenging the cost of Air Force One is a legitimate thing for Trump to do because it's a government contract.   Carrier air conditioners, not so much.   If he bought two air conditioners with taxpayer money, he can by all means challenge the cost of two air conditioners.

I actually arrived at this conclusion earlier in the same day I made that post. That was after taking a good hard look at reality. The course we are headed down, with several more companies standing in line to walk out of this country is without question, combined with massive debt, going to destroy our economy, soon. Besides I don't think what we are seeing on our end, the course we have been taking, is free trade either. How could it be? We tax and regulate the living hell outta our companies to the point were they cant compete. What the heck is fair about that? We let other countries tax the hell out of incoming American goods, while letting them send in goods taxed at a way lesser rate. What's fair about that?

Free trade can only work, if others are actually interested in free trade. It CAN NOT be a one sided deal.

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25 minutes ago, preacherman76 said:

I actually arrived at this conclusion earlier in the same day I made that post. That was after taking a good hard look at reality. The course we are headed down, with several more companies standing in line to walk out of this country is without question, combined with massive debt, going to destroy our economy, soon. Besides I don't think what we are seeing on our end, the course we have been taking, is free trade either. How could it be? We tax and regulate the living hell outta our companies to the point were they cant compete. What the heck is fair about that? We let other countries tax the hell out of incoming American goods, while letting them send in goods taxed at a way lesser rate. What's fair about that?

Free trade can only work, if others are actually interested in free trade. It CAN NOT be a one sided deal.

Freedom isn't often fair.  It's free.  To be fair in this case and many other infamous matters of fairness, we need govt.  But govt isn't free, govt is force.  Something that's both free and fair could exist in theory but it won't be paid for by mandatory taxation and putting you in a cage if you don't pay up.

Technically Trump isn't on the taxpayer dole yet so there might be a small excuse there.  Removing taxes and regulations would make trade freer, not fairer with China if they're imposing tariffs and we're not.  But even so, I'm not interested in fair trade with every country by micromanaging trade with it from the White House.  Our economy is done if that's what it's become.  "It's not fair!" stopped working for me in like the 2nd or 3rd grade when one of my teachers taught me that the world isn't fair.  She was dead right, my world has never been fair since, but I'm not going to start running to the White House to fix the problem now.  I'll try to live as free as possible which requires running in the opposite direction.

 

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10 minutes ago, Yamato said:

Freedom isn't often fair.  It's free.  To be fair in this case and many other infamous matters of fairness, we need govt.  But govt isn't free, govt is force.  Something that's both free and fair could exist in theory but it won't be paid for by mandatory taxation and putting you in a cage if you don't pay up.

Technically Trump isn't on the taxpayer dole yet so there might be a small excuse there.  Removing taxes and regulations would make trade freer, not fairer with China if they're imposing tariffs and we're not.  But even so, I'm not interested in fair trade with every country by micromanaging trade with it from the White House.  Our economy is done if that's what it's become.  "It's not fair!" stopped working for me in like the 2nd or 3rd grade when one of my teachers taught me that the world isn't fair.  She was dead right, my world has never been fair since, but I'm not going to start running to the White House to fix the problem now.  I'll try to live as free as possible which requires running in the opposite direction.

 

Thing is Yam, without a nearly full libertarian government, who see's taxes and many regulation for what they are, free trade ideology is a pipe dream. To do nothing right now, is going to produce the same results. Nothing. That nothing is basically driving full throttle off a economic cliff. We can't have every producing company leave these shores, and think we can come anywhere near close to the same standard of living we enjoy.

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5 minutes ago, preacherman76 said:

Thing is Yam, without a nearly full libertarian government, who see's taxes and many regulation for what they are, free trade ideology is a pipe dream. To do nothing right now, is going to produce the same results. Nothing. That nothing is basically driving full throttle off a economic cliff. We can't have every producing company leave these shores, and think we can come anywhere near close to the same standard of living we enjoy.

Every country leaving our shores isn't going to happen, but lowering taxes will solve other problems that could happen including limiting companies from leaving.   But they should be free to go. 

I find this new economic thinking that champions the worker over all else to smell like a protectionist trade union in a communist state.  One guy who should agree with Trump doing this stuff is Bernie Sanders.   Govt has no business and no right making our deals for us on behalf of any group.  I don't care how attractive the leader is politically.   You can elect Ron Paul President and I'd still have no interest, and so would Ron Paul.

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Another example is Trump has no business telling Ford what to do.  GM would already be in Mexico if they didn't become Government Motors.  Ford didn't take the bailouts GM did.    If we're into fairness, give Ford a huge liquid injection and tell them both not to leave.  But fair trade is more elusive than free trade.  There are no economic guidelines for truly fair trade with everyone we can rely on through time.   Politicians will talk about it and fail miserably time and time again like they always do. 

A free trade is when a buyer and a seller agree to make a trade at a mutually agreeable price.  It might be fairer to the buyer than the seller, but we don't need govt acting as the sellers agent to smooth over the deal.  Fair trade will always require an arbitrary subjective opinion of some political body, but govt doesn't have perfect knowledge.  Not even President Donald Trump.

Trump is right about Air Force One though if $4B is to be believed.  I couldn't believe it at first unless that's the whole AF1 program plus lifetime costs of operation/maintenance.

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Well Im not going to defend company bail outs, nor do I think Trump would.

No one is forcing Ford to stay.

 

Also over 80% of producing companies have already left, to think the rest will not follow, as we clearly see them doing right now, is wishful thinking at best.

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23 hours ago, aztek said:

what is wrong with the planes they have now?? the way they're maintained, they can fly another 30 years easy. 

imo if they do build new ones they should use a380, not 747 

 

actually now that i think of it, no, a380 may have issues in some airports due to required runway length,

The present AF-1 aircraft are a 1971 design although they were launched in 1987 with a design life of 30 years.   They are now that old but will be nearly 40 when the follow-on aircraft arrive and one of the big problems the USAF is having is finding replacement parts for the aircraft, a problem which will only get worse as time goes on.   This means that parts must be salvaged from retired aircraft or custom made which means repairs are time consuming and outrageously expensive.    Also the engines aren't nearly as efficient as the modern engines the 747 uses today. 

The USAF was sounding the alarm about the need for a replacement way back in 2009 but the US chose to do some upgrades to keep the craft flying but it can't do that again so they need a new jet no matter what Trump says about it.  The only alternative is an A380 and I can't see the US president Flying around in an Airbus and cancelling the present contract means the program has to start at ground zero which will set everything back years by which time the present platforms may no longer be usable.  

Trump knows all this, I am sure but I am guessing he is p***ed at Boeing because they heavily influenced the disastrous Iran treaty and were big backers of Hillary through her corrupt Foundation.  IMHO this is more a harassment scheme and a slap to the back of their corporate head which will probably end in some initial cost savings for the program.  I say initial cost savings because complex programs like building an AF-1 always run into problems. 

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