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appreciatorBustoday at 12:33 AM2 repliesview on HN

Cancer is a disease that attacks living organisms, similar to how collectivism attacks living societies.

"Financialization" is a 7 syllable word with no definition.

There is nothing about how Boeing builds & sells planes today that is qualitatively different than how they did it 50 years ago. Yes I am familiar with the concern that engineers hold less sway than previously and I agree this is a concern. I would not be shocked to discover that it's true. But this is not a new thing.

People who sell a thing, be they multinational airline manufactures, or a kid selling lemonade, have been able to profit by lying or skimping on quality since the dawn of time.

If your concern is that Boeing will skimp on quality & safety, then say that, instead of a buzz word like "financialization"

I have no idea where you came across the word, but when I see it used, there's generally a lot of handwaving and some vague implication that it's some new concept/activity that started in the 1970's. The only consistencies I've observed in attempts to define it is that money = financialization or "number go up" = financialization, and the speaker is generally uncomfortable with money as one of the tools we use to organize society.


Replies

estearumtoday at 1:01 AM

I said "cell division," not cancer.

Financialization, in this context, refers to the process by which financial results, especially those legible to capital markets, exert pressure on the upstream industrial/corporate processes and inputs that produce those financial results.

"Excessive" or "obscene" or "pathological" financialization is when that feedback loop or reverse pressure ends up producing negative impacts on industrial/corporate processes, often in pursuit of shorter term positive effects on the financial results.

The exact mechanisms of this have been extremely well-documented in the numerous reports created in the wake of the 737 MAX failures.

Could you try leveling a substantive response now instead of a chain of strawmen and associative "the vibes of the speaker are generally off" type dismissals?

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linzhangruntoday at 7:27 AM

The problem of "financialization" should also be an old topic by now. It mainly means non-technical bureaucrats (for example, people from finance) taking over the top, making the company focus on maximizing short-term profit and lose its real long-term value.

Just look at Intel.