Boeing

Is the civic grass greener on the other side of the border? Two urban experts each make the case for the others' home town.

Building bridges to Abu Dhabi and Dubai

Posted Tue, May 5, 6 a.m.

By William Stafford

A Seattle leadership mission studies how two smart citistates in the United Arab Emirates are setting the pace in urban development

A tale of three companies

Posted Wed, Apr 29, 9:50 a.m.

By Ted Van Dyk

Stories of WaMu, Boeing, and Microsoft reflect the character of the people at the top

The Cascadian Dream

Posted Thu, Apr 9, 6 a.m.

Can a Pacific Northwest utopia be shaped on the shared belief that nature is sacred? This latest installment in a series on regional identity looks at the patron saint of the environmental movement, John Muir, and how his thinking informs the desire for a new, greener, and elusive entity some call Cascadia.

777s and HIV, or your body is not an airplane

Posted Tue, Mar 24, 6 a.m.

By Robert Fortner

What the challenges of building a safe plane show us about vaccines

Is Seattle's growth unstoppable?

Posted Mon, Feb 23, 6 a.m.

Walling off migration is not possible. But there are ways to downsize our ambitions to a Lesser Seattle, which might be good for America and the environment.

A peace treaty for the Viaduct wars

Posted Thu, Dec 11, 6 a.m.

By David Brewster

An artful, if fragile grand compromise has emerged, late in an exhaustive process. Here's a look at its components and its politics — and what could blow it apart.

Boeing is going! Boeing is going!!

Posted Thu, Dec 4, 6 a.m.

By T.M. Sell

The frequent alarm that Boeing is heading out of town is false. More worrisome, argues a veteran Boeing-watcher, is the way the company is becoming, like GE, too focused on the short-term.

The Gravy Train to nowhere?

Posted Thu, Dec 4, 6 a.m.

With Obama's new New Deal gaining momentum, let's remain skeptical of big projects that are touted as economic saviors. States like ours may be desperate, but a boondoggle is still a boondoggle.

Seven premonitions you can take to the bank

Posted Sun, Jun 29, 10 p.m.

By Ted Van Dyk

Predictions at mid-year regarding sweet deals for developers, a Sonics boon, the precarious viaduct, a Boeing handout, Sound Transit, Pat Davis, and cleaning up Puget Sound.

A week of weakonomics

Posted Wed, Jun 25, 9 a.m.

By Ted Van Dyk

If you look away from the Sonics trial for a moment, you can see warning signs that the seemingly immune local economy is actually pretty precarious.

Rah, rah for the home team

Posted Thu, Jun 19, noon

By David Brewster

Home-grown sports teams, airplane builders, and banks are reeling from competition and free trade, and the local mood is to beat up on the outsiders. Tempting, but is it smart?

A city of scolds

Posted Thu, May 8, 4 p.m.

Seattle City Hall has cracked down on drinking and clubs, it's on the verge of banning fast food and taxing plastic grocery bags, and now even plastic-bottled water is a civic sin. Switch to tap water! says the mayor. Mossback thinks enough is enough.

Annals of Northwest secession

Posted Tue, May 6, midnight

A primer of regional separatist movements, real and imagined.

What made the Seattle style of business a success

Posted Thu, Apr 24, 2 p.m.

By David Brewster

As civic icons like Safeco drift away from their Puget Sound roots, here's a look at the components of a Seattle way of doing business that built up such brands. The key was motivated employees. The poison was rapid growth.

Shanghai Surprise

Posted Tue, Apr 22, 5 a.m.

A group with Northwest ties is aced out of a pavilion bid for Expo 2010 in China. Instead, the U.S. State Department has given the go-ahead to a team with connections to Warner Brothers and a major D.C. law firm. Now all they have to do is raise $80 million.

Jean Godden on Seattle: My, how you've changed!

Posted Thu, Mar 27, 5 a.m.

By Jean Godden

The longtime columnist for Seattle's dailies casts an affectionate eye over the many sweeping transformations of the city, and wonders if all the newcomers will learn to cherish the uniqueness of the place.

The Lazy B's blue funk descends

Posted Sat, Mar 8, 4 a.m.

By Pete Jackson

In the Jet County, they're expending a lot of energy bemoaning Boeing's failure to win a big Air Force contract. There's not much locals can do about that. But a university, that's another matter.

The Boeing tanker slapdown

Posted Mon, Mar 3, midnight

The state's congressional delegation and others are shocked that we're shipping defense jobs overseas to Airbus. But isn't that the free trade they're always touting?

Other media

All Nippon Airways increases orders for 787 The Japanese airline cites concessions on price and delivery guarantees in boosting its Dreamliner orders from 50 to 55.

FINANCIAL TIMES (LONDON)

Increasing evidence of Boeing plans to build 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina The facility would duplicate the Everett, WA assembly line.

SEATTLE TIMES

Is Boeing planning a 787 Dreamliner assembly line in South Carolina? A crucial piece is Boeing's expected purchase of the 787 manufacturing operations of Vought Aircraft Industries in North Charleston, S.C. Another attraction for Boeing is that state's historic aversion to union labor.

FLIGHTBLOGGER

The Seattle economy: Not by Boeing alone The Economist looks at the way the economy has diversified and how the tax structure favors 'bosses and entrepreneurs.'

THE ECONOMIST

Analyst predicts Boeing's 787 will be delayed until 2011 It's already two years late, and this estimate tacks on another year of delay.

SEATTLEPI.COM

Blog posts

Adding insult to injury

Posted Fri, Jan 30, noon

by Knute Berger

Not only are jobs getting scarcer, but costs are still rising. What is it about recessions that the government doesn't understand?

Detroit's welfare queens

Posted Fri, Dec 5, noon 2008

by Knute Berger

When Alan Mulally was at Boeing, he lectured the unions about the realities of the free market. Now he wants taxpayers to give Ford the security he denied workers.

The Boeing strike is getting more ominous

Posted Thu, Oct 23, 9:52 a.m. 2008

This showdown over outsourcing may turn into big questions about Boeing's staying in Washington state and how well the company is being managed.

Is the local sky falling, or just getting grey?

Posted Sun, Oct 12, 1:20 p.m. 2008

The gloom may be overstated, but that's no reason for the business leadership of this region to keep abdicating from civic leadership.

Boeing rings the fire bell

Posted Wed, Oct 8, 11:38 a.m. 2008

Want to worry about something more than the financial meltdown at WaMu and banks? Try Boeing. The company is locked in a strike with Machinists that some think will last well into 2009, since the stakes are so high, and is likely to start losing orders as the global economy slows down.

Sausage Links, finance-crisis-free edition

Posted Fri, Sep 19, 10:18 a.m. 2008

by Chuck Taylor

Update: GOP challenger Dino Rossi leads Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire in the latest poll, by Strategic Vision, reports Horse's Ass. The numbers: Rossi 48, Gregoire 46, undecided 6, margin of error 3. Rossi now has led in three of four September polls. ...

Fly now, pay dearly later

Posted Mon, Sep 15, 4 a.m. 2008

Short-term, Boeing benefits from airlines' desperate need for more fuel-efficient planes. That's one reason the order book is fat and the International Association of Machinists thinks this is a good time to strike. (And it's why the strike, in the words of Mike Parks of Marple's Pacific Northwest Letter, "could be a very long one.") Looking at this demand, both Boeing and the state economic forecasters see continued, booming growth for the airplane manufacturer, at least through 2011. But there are two big problems.

Miller times

Posted Mon, Sep 1, 12:13 p.m. 2008

by Ted Van Dyk

Between national party conventions, I took an advance look at Joseph Miller's upcoming memoirs, The Wicked Wine of Democracy, to be published next month by University of Washington Press. The book provides an almost too-candid portrayal of politics and lobbying in the Northwest and nationally over 50 years and is an intriguing chronicle of some of the main figures in Northwest political life.

Seattle outpaces Portland in income growth

Posted Wed, Aug 13, 11:05 a.m. 2008

The current issue of Marple's Pacific Northwest Letter ($) tallies up personal income figures for Northwest metro areas. One shocker is how low the figure is for Portland, a booming area that is still shy on high-paying jobs. Or, conversely, how affluent Seattle is.

Seattle and the elixir of growth

Posted Thu, Jul 24, 11 a.m. 2008