Airbus

You Don’t Want to Run an Airline

Feb 20, 2025 · 9:50

Airlines including American, Delta, United, Southwest and Spirit have been terrible investments for five decades because investors have put tens of billions more into them than the industry has earned in profit, argues Maxinomics. The episode explains that airlines all compete on price with nearly identical planes from just Boeing and Airbus, whose combined order backlog of 15,000 planes means buyers wait at least 8 years for delivery. Idle planes lose $400–$800 per hour, and catastrophes like 9/11 and COVID grounded fleets while fixed costs like pensions and terminal fees continued. Southwest's one-plane Boeing 737 strategy and 10-minute turnarounds explain its outperformance. United's stock fell below its fleet's value, prompting buybacks and Elliott Management's Southwest campaign, while suppliers TransDime and FTAI profit on Spirit's $1.08 million-per-plane yearly maintenance. The whole industry's profit is just $22 billion—less than Google makes in a quarter.

The REAL Reason the US Is Betting on Tariffs

Jan 8, 2025 · 11:10

Host Phil Andrews argues the US has been in a trade war with China since the 2000s and that tariffs—not the WTO—are America's remaining defense against dumping, forced technology transfer, and IP theft. After China joined the WTO in 2001, the US could no longer unilaterally set tariffs, and years-long WTO disputes let Chinese solar firms bankrupt the US solar industry. The Trump administration blocked WTO judges until the court fell to two members by 2019, and the Biden administration extended most Trump tariffs. The episode covers China's hacks of Westinghouse blueprints and the F-35 plans, and the 1964 chicken tax that pushed Toyota, Honda, and Nissan into US truck plants. Andrews argues tariffs don't cause inflation and that 5 million manufacturing jobs left the US between 2000 and 2010.