For Immediate Release: May 1, 2020

Press Contact: Robyn Shapiro, rshapiro@economicliberties.us

On the Federal Reserve’s Bailout of Boeing: “Boeing is now a state-backed entity.”

Washington, D.C. – The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to Boeing’s announcement that the company had issued $25 billion in investment-grade bonds, which Moody’s reported are backed by the Federal Reserve:

“Despite Boeing’s indication that the company is not taking Federal money, Boeing’s $25 billion bond sale is a federal bailout plain and simple,” said Economic Liberties’ Fellow Maureen Tkacik. “With assistance from the Federal Reserve’s multi-trillion-dollar bond buying facilities, Boeing CEO David Calhoun will double down on the strategy of denial, blame deflection and debt that begat the 737 Max and devastated the company’s once-legendary ability to make safe planes, weapons systems, and spacecraft.”

“It is now incumbent upon the Federal Reserve to provide oversight of Boeing, since it has put its ample financial firepower behind the enterprise,” she added. “We expect that the Fed will pretend that it did not bail out Boeing. Therefore, we look to Congress to take control of Boeing, as Boeing is now a state-backed entity.”

“The Federal Reserve bailout of Boeing is a lose-lose for both shareholders and taxpayers. Boeing’s fundamental issue is not the pandemic. Boeing’s central challenge is that none of the major products it has introduced over the past five to ten years seem to work—safely enough to pass their tests, if indeed they work at all.”

Read “Rescue Mission: Bailing Out Boeing and Rebuilding It to Thrive,” Economic Liberties paper on Boeing and its decades of mismanagement here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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Economic Liberties works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. AELP believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.