Results tagged “boeing”

Seattle Bubble sees a flatline, more or less, for housing prices since this March, with a loss of 22 percent off the price peak. So the question you have to ask yourself is, is this the moment when the hero pulls himself up over the edge of the cliff and dusts himself off...or is this the moment when the branch that stopped his fall pulls loose? Barring more economic shocks, we lean towards a slow recovery. But economic shocks aren't really barred, so long as Boeing is still thrashing around, trying to get its new plane to fly.

August 23 is Friends and Family Day at Boeing's Everett plant. Visitors with connections get to tour the bigger-than-Disneyland campus, and they might want to take advantage of that this year as opposed to next, because 275 Boeing employees in the Puget Sound area are getting 60-day layoff notices. Those are going to be a busy 60 days if Boeing means to hold to its 787-flies-at-year-end promise to Quantas.

Amazon buys Zappos, the online shoe store. Amazon already runs high-end shoes and accessories site Endless.com. Zymogenetics stock is up with promising new lupus treatment.

One hundred lucky locals who work at Boeing are getting an extra special prezzie today: a pink slip! They're part of 668 workers world-wide the company's axing today. Good luck.

Amazon is getting sued for broken Kindles and promises to replace them at no charge. JP Morgan says there will be no new layoffs in Seattle, where it purged WaMu's operations after taking it over several months ago. More UW scientists are cashing in on their lab work and raising venture capital to go into the biofuel business.

The is reporting that due to Pentagon cuts, Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems, which employs 7,000 in the state, will be shedding at least 1,000 jobs.

Jon Talton has a great (i.e., it supports our position) piece in the Seattle Times about Boeing "overplaying its hand" with a new South Carolina love-nest. (That Vought plant is a union shop, and SC during a recession isn't in a position to write a lot of incentive checks.) Says Talton: "It's healthy to run a little scared in today's economy as long as you don't run over the edge of a cliff or throw others off. That's the risk with the most strident comments about the bad-business climate here. It's mostly a myth. And, in addition to being divisive because much of it translates into blaming workers or programs that benefit them, it obscures the real competitive issues that face us." Boom! He also presents facts and figures, if you're into that sort of thing.

Yesterday we thought only a huge idiot would really believe Boeing was going to leave its Northwest workforce behind and move to South Carolina. But then Matt the Engineer commented: "Bad news, or perhaps part of the bluff: I just received an e-mail from Boeing letting me know that an engineering job I had applied for has been cancelled. I went back to their site to see if other jobs are available (there used to be a handful), and found absolutely no engineering jobs posted for Washington."

So Boeing is "in talks" to buy the a South Carolina factory that currently makes sections of the 787 (huh, that's funny, the autotext is "long-delayed 787") fuselage, which has sparked rumors that the plane-maker is thinking about, in the words of Billy Joel, "movin' out." Anti-union business interests blame...the devil union. Jon Talton focuses on a huge Southern sucking sound. And Rick Anderson points out that the state gets advice from Deloitte Consulting on how to keep Boeing, while Deloitte & Touche does Boeing's books--this is okay because they are "separate but affiliated" entities. We are not Boeing experts by any means, but this is what we see: a) low labor costs alone don't build a plane that flies, b) Boeing's future requires a more highly trained and skilled work force than ever before, and c) we haven't noticed Boeing crowing lately about any profits generated by moving its corporate HQ to Chicago.

"Boeing stock takes a beating" as engineers work out how to reinforce the spot where the carbon-fiber composite wings meet the fuselage. Not only are people saying it'll delay a first 787 flight by months, but Boeing engineers are hanging their heads low...or privately trash-talking management that ignored the problem for on-time promises: "Although the issue popped up during tests last month, Boeing initially didn't think it would affect the first flight," reports the Everett Herald's Michelle Dunlop.

A Frenchman runs Amazon's worldwide customer service; a French-made engine powers Boeing's 737s. In all, some 600,000 Americans owe their jobs to French investment in the U.S., while American investment in France employs 600,000 Frenchies. Despite the economic crunch felt by both countries, there's still a billion dollars of bilateral trade between the U.S. and France every day, says Pierre Vimont, the French ambassador to the U.S.

While Nike and Starbucks get applause for their leadership in sustainability--especially Nike, which joined Johnson & Johnson in publicly scolding the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its opposition to global warming legislation--Sightline wonders why Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing aren't putting their lobbying efforts where their corporate climate policies are. "Google has," says Sightline's Fahey, twisting the green knife (our italics), and linking to a video of Google's Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, testifying to Congress. Her point is, "Standing on the sidelines of the debate in the state legislatures and in Congress can be as damaging as standing in the way."

Seoul-bound Asiana Airlines Flight 271 that took off from SeaTac at 2:35 p.m. has safely re-landed at SeaTac airport, after reporting flames shooting out of one of its engines. With 179 people reportedly on board, the Boeing 777 dumped its fuel over Puget Sound and landed without any troubles around 3:30 p.m.

• Goats do roam in Lynnwood, but for how much longer? Goats are so much cooler than domestic pets.
• One tequila, two tequila, three tequila--floor. Need a little tequila salvation? Capitol Hill's The Saint (think bright blue building) is celebrating its uno birthday, with a week-long all-night happy hour, starting tonight and running through next Thursday. The code word: El Toro.
• It's a beautiful day at Boeing, who just won an order to deliver more 787s, the Everett Herald reports.

When former governor Gary Locke accepted Obama's Commerce Secretary appointment, he had to leave a cushy job at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and move to DC. Now, he's expected to divest all of his Microsoft stock as he continues to adapt to the heavy demands of his new national role. Boeing and Microsoft both contributed the maximum amount allowed to his re-election campaign, and now watchdog groups have their eye on Locke to make sure he's not unduly fond of Washington businesses. Here's hoping his heart never hardens entirely towards Washington; we want him back someday!

We knew it was coming, but it still stings: Boeing has announced it will lay off 900 employees today of the 10,000 expected over the course of 2009. 700 of those employees will be from our area. Ouch....On the first day of spring, too. At least it's not sunny or anything, because that would really be unfair.

First, check your smoke detector. The Bellevue woman who died in last night's fire had her smoke detector battery in backwards. Next, check with your supervisor: Boeing workers get their pink slips today. That's another 1,100 people who won't be working or shopping much, exacerbating Washington State's projected $8 billion budget shortfall. Check your credit limit, too. Do you really think it' a good idea to be buy all that new Ken Griffey merch?

Amanda Knox is teary-eyed after her first day of testimony, and here in Seattle, we're a little worse for wear as well. Richard Branson blasted Boeing and threatened to take his bidness elsewhere. MyBallard is readying for the memorial for Kevin Black, the cyclist killed in an accident Wednesday. PhinneyWood has the deets on the senior center shakedown in which thieves stole three Gs accrued through spaghetti feeds and karaoke bingo.

Fourth quarter wasn't good to Boeing, with a $56 million loss reported today by executives. The company expects to lay off 10,000 employees this year, 4,500 of which will be in their commercial airplanes division--and more than half of which will be local jobs down the hatch. We'd like to note for the record that we're getting tired of reporting all the layoff news from the biggest employers in our region, and once again extend our best wishes and send good financial vibes in the direction of those Seattleites who will be affected by the upcoming round of job cuts. Perhaps all the bad news signals the beginning of an era of unprecedented creativity and community building; that's what we're holding out for, anyway. In other job news, U.S. Customs is hiring.

Four years ago, President Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration; we would, he said, aim to return to the moon by 2020, develop an "extend[ed] human presence across the solar system," and build new vehicles to take us where we want to go in space. Part of that plan was a request to NASA to complete the International Space Station, retire the current, aging space shuttles (to be replaced by a new Crew Exploration Vehicle) and to close the space shuttle program facilities across the country by 2010. The time is drawing steadily near for Congress to reaffirm that course of action. King5 tells us that Seattle's Museum of Flight, on East Marginal Way, could be home to one of those shuttles in a year or two, and that, of course, would be downright really frickin' cool.

This morning we were down at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce breakfast and regional economic forecast discussion, which opened with chair Tayloe Washburn being emotionally overcome while talking about how strapped food banks are for donations. (At which point we sorely regretted suggesting the chamber was "populated largely by jaw-dangling idiots," and wished we'd stuck to the rule of vilifying awful ideas rather than the people whose heads they're stinking up.)

The Dow Jones dropped 7.7 percent today, to 8,149, after a gradual run-up last week. Local heroes Microsoft and Boeing dropped to $18.61 (-1.61 percent) and $39.88 (-2.75 percent) respectively. We're officially in a recession--surprise! it's been a year already!--and are turning to survivalists for advice: "All true survivalists like yard sales."

As of yesterday, Boeing machinists have been on strike for 30 days with no end in sight. Workers who have waited out previous strikes are predicting this strike will last longer than the previous record-breaking 69-day strike of 1995. This go around, Boeing machinists are striking for better pensions, benefits and a larger wage increase. Also at the heart of the strike is job security, which decreases every day the strike continues: Boeing has begun to hire temporary workers to fill empty positions.

Oh, old Seattle, we can't help but love you and your straight-forward, "won't you please please like me" style. When we were a kid, Seattle was some place stuck in a far-off corner that wasn't mentioned on the national news unless Boeing had a round of lay-offs. Back then, we had to advertise and encourage people to come and move to the Emerald City with catchy slogans. Slogans like the following from 1976:

Psst...We're trying something new here with a daily a.m. news round-up and links to neighborhood stories and blogs. Let us know what you think!

Our bike route to work from Magnolia to Capitol Hill takes us down a short hill on 20th Ave W to the Pier 91 bike trail. That little street runs right along a ton of train tracks leading into the train yards. (It's on the back side of the Interbay Golf Center.) Generally it's filled with locomotives connected to empty cars or lines of containers waiting to be shipped one place or another. Noting terribly exciting, though if you're lucky, a train whistle will blow as you go by and scare the beejesus out of you.