BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek March 30, 202013ILLUSTRATION
BY
HUBBARD:
LUCAS
JACKSON/REUTERS
With stock markets cratering and the world’s
airlines tumbling into their deepest crisis ever
amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Boeing Co.
got right to the point last week: The U.S. aerospace
industry would need a $60 billion bailout. It was
quite a comedown for a plane maker used to
calling the shots as one-half of a lucrative duopoly
with Europe’s Airbus SE. Little more than a year
ago, Boeing was the most valuable U.S. industrial
company, with a market capitalization of about
$249 billion. By March 24 about $175 billion of that
had been wiped out, with Boeing ranking last in
stock returns on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
That stunning loss in value notwithstanding,
not all at Boeing were happy about its appeal to
Washington. On March 16 board member Nikki
Haley resigned in protest over the move. “I cannot
support a move to lean on the federal government
for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our com-
pany over others and relies on taxpayers to guaran-
tee our financial position,” said Haley, the former
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under
President Trump and a potential White House
contender in 2024.
Whether Haley likes it or not, companies from
cruise lines to casinos to movie theaters have been
lining up for federal aid as Congress gets ready to
pump about $2 trillion in stimulus into the collaps-
ing U.S. economy. Hotel companies have asked
for $150 billion for themselves and their suppliers.
Airport operators say they need $10 billion. The
Native American gaming industry is jockeying for
$18 billion. And the list goes on and on.
Even industries that were from the beginning
clearly on track to receive help from congressional
moneymen didn’t just politely take the gravy and
quietly move on. Airlines poised to win $58 bil-
lion in loan guarantees under a plan drawn up by
Senate Republicans, for example, said the assis-
tance wasn’t enough—they said they needed cash.“Unleash the bailout kraken,” aerospace analyst
Rob Stallard says of the $2 trillion package.
One thing airlines have going for them in this
feeding frenzy is that, after years of industry con-
solidation, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines,
and United Airlines are so integral to the nation’s
transportation infrastructure that they’re widely
considered too big to fail. The same goes for
Boeing, which sits at the apex of an industry that,
according to the company, includes 17,000 sup-
pliers and supports 2.5 million jobs. Even allow-
ing for a little exaggeration, the point about the
company’s importance remains. “I’m not sure
that Boeing necessarily needs a bailout as much
as they need help making sure their supply chain
stays intact,” says George Ferguson, an analyst at
Bloomberg Intelligence. “They’ve got a decent war
chest, but they just don’t know how long this is
going to drag on.”
As stimulus plans took shape in Washington,
Boeing positioned itself as the advocate for thou-
sands of smaller aerospace manufacturers—a
move that rankled some would-be beneficiaries,
says analyst Ken Herbert of Canaccord Genuity.
Even so, the company was best positioned to
know where the greatest risks lie among the
swath of companies that account for 20% of all
U.S. manufacturing jobs.
The plane maker wouldn’t say how much of
the $60 billion it would take for itself, pointing out
instead that 70¢ of every dollar it receives flows
through to a base of mostly U.S. suppliers.
While U.S. airlines battle for government grants
to bolster their rapidly dwindling cash, Boeing has
a cushion of $15 billion to get it through the next
few months. Its request was for an “injection of
liquidity and a reopening of the credit markets”
for Boeing and its suppliers, Chief Executive
Officer David Calhoun told CNBC. “The simpler,
the shorter term in nature, the better.” The○ Glenn Hubbard on Small Business Grants
If you shut down an economy
in a pandemic, you need to
replace private business
demand. Think about all
the small and midsize firms
who have to turn off a
switch and just not operate
for eight weeks, 12 weeks,
whatever it is, and lay off all
their employees. That’s a
cataclysmic event. The health
part is unavoidable. What’s
avoidable is the demand doom
loop, and to do that you’d have
to fill in private demand.It doesn’t mean mailing
$1,000 checks to everybody,
though I have nothing against
that. It means doing something
for businesses.
If I were doing it, it’s
replacing a significant fraction
of revenue for small and
midsize firms, the small-
business owner. [His plan is to
replace 80% of a business’s
revenue loss for as long as the
pandemic lasts.] I go to the
bank—not a new government
entity—and get a loan. Itwould be guaranteed by the
government, and that loan
would be forgiven at the end of
the pandemic period provided
I’ve kept my employees in
place. So you’re keeping your
employees, the relationships,
and the business network
in place. And when the
lights come back on and the
pandemic is over, you’re ready.
If we don’t do this, we
will have mass layoffs with
unemployment insurance
consequences and Medicaidconsequences, and thousands,
if not more, failed businesses
around the country. So, is it a
lot of money? [While he gives
no estimate, it’s likely hundreds
of billions of dollars.] Yes. Is it
an important component of an
economic recovery package?
Absolutely. These businesses
are failing through no fault of
their own. We’re shutting down
the economy for good health
reasons, but we need this in
the package. —As told to
Christopher Condon○ Chair of the Council
of Economic Advisers,
2001-