Word: airbuses
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...instance of a successful champion which has benefited from government subsidies, he happily cites Airbus Industries. That choice would be hilarious, if it were not quite so bizarre: most Europeans are hardly bursting with pride over the alleged success of Airbus. It is the classic case of the "infant industry" that refuses to grow up, constantly sucking in subsidies which have promoted gross inefficiency and stifled innovation...
More importantly, Airbus is not unique. Just ask any of the harassed managers at Credit Lyonnais or Air France. Pundits, eager to promote government intervention, would do well to remember that one of the most important economic lessons from the post-War era is that, except in textbooks, government failure is more wide-ranging and much more damaging in economic terms than market failure...
While such a policy would do little to endear us to our trading partners, these nations already use such practices against American companies. For example, heavy European subsidies of Airbus have allowed that company to gain a hefty market share in an imperfectly competitive industry once totally dominated by American firms. A U.S. retaliation in the form of subsidies for Boeing would counteract such gains and even drive the nations that subsidize Airbus to the bargaining table, where an agreement eliminating subsidies could be worked out. This would benefit both sides in comparison to a policy where both sides subsidize...
...quite a quid pro quo, it can be considered a partial payback for our role in keeping Saddam Hussein out of Saudi Arabia's backyard during the Persian Gulf War," says defense correspondent Mark Thompson. "The Saudis would look pretty bad if they turned to Europe's Airbus to build the planes after what the U.S. did for them in the war." Saudia, the national airline of Saudi Arabia, will purchase 23 777-200 twin jets and five 747-400 jumbo jets from Boeing, and 29 MD-90s and four MD-11s from McDonnell Douglas...
...Whenever religion is involved, terrorists kill more people,'' says Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Scotland's University of St. Andrews. Last December a group of Algerian Islamists hijacked an Air France Airbus A300, which they planned to blow up over the center of Paris solely to kill as many people as possible. They would almost certainly have done so if they had not been killed on the ground in Marseilles...