It seems there are a lot of complaints and challenges at the World Trade Organization or WTO to get a leg up on the competition. Airbus claims that, even though it is subsidized by the French Government that the Boeing Company is getting a free ride too. They claim that Boeing is subsidized by the United States military and therefore, they should not be allowed to sell Boeing airliners to EU nations. Their complaint goes something like this;

Since the United States military is buying Boeing products, such as active denial system’s for electronic border control, missile systems, military satellite systems, electronic simulator systems, military jet aircraft, and a multitude of other things, thus, the Boeing company could not afford to build airliners and keep the price low if that were not occurring. Even though the reality is that the Boeing Company’s airline manufacturing division is a separate entity, and it either produces a profit or loss on its own.

Interestingly enough, the latest Airbus complaint is that the new Boeing 787 is the first airliner built from carbon composites, and all those technologies came from Boeing’s work with the US military, and it was allowed to be used as transfer technology. Therefore, the research and development costs, were paid for by the US government, and therefore those enormous costs have not evenly divided throughout the number of Boeing 787’s the company will produce and sell in the future.

The reality is that the Boeing 787 will be one of the most efficient aircraft that any airline could ever buy, and even though these first carbon composite airliners will cost much more than the airliners made by other companies, or the other airliners made by Boeing themselves, Boeing is currently and will well into the future make a tremendous amount of profit from this cozy relationship with the military. Or at least that’s what Boeing’s critics say.

The reality is that Airbus is subsidized by a socialist government, and is in the pocket of the unions in France, and it will be subsidized probably forever, in order for it to continue to provide those high-paying jobs to the French. The reality is, these tit-for-tat trade disputes are nothing more than one company trying to get a leg up on another. Still, one has to ask if “transfer technologies” from a government to a company constitutes an unfair demand and if it does;

What about stolen technology?

For instance, what happens if Chinese industrial espionage agents of military spies steal advanced technologies from the United States military or a US corporation, and then use those in manufacturing? They didn’t have to pay for the research and development costs, and yet, could (actually do often enough) reap all the rewards?

It’s interesting how we use these rules and regulations to attack each other’s businesses, but we don’t come clean or address the real issues. It is completely laughable, hysterical, and utterly ridiculous to participate in this hypocrisy at the WTO. Please consider all this.