Incredible story – or is it?

Imagine an American opening his daily paper and finding an article about Boeing Commercial Airplanes that ran something like this.
“It was announced to-day that Boeing’s VP for Customers was leaving the company even before its CEO and COO are to swap places later this year as called for by the agreement between the State of Washington and the State of Illinois. The place swapping is taking place for purely political reasons since both men have performed in their current positions to the satisfaction of shareholders and employees alike. The departure of VP Customers is especially painful for a company which had to survive the departure of two CEOs within a hundred days in 2006. It was the now departing VeePee who kept the company’s customers from giving up on them…
As if this politically motivated change of guard was not enough, Chrysler, one of the aircraft maker’s biggest shareholders has indicated that they want to get rid of their part in the company. The automaker has the same share in Boeing as the US government. The rest is held by a consortium of banks and the State of New Mexico. But, to add insult to injury, the banks also want to sell and this would leave the US government the biggest shareholder, something that will never be accepted by New Mexico. Not surprisingly, the Democrats and the Republicans are divided over the issue with the Republicans not exactly charmed by the idea of the government owning even part of an aircraft maker.”
Without a doubt, the guy reading this would call his broker and sell his shares in the Boeing Company…
Do you think this nightmare scenario could ever come to pass in the United States? No, I do not think so either.
And in Europe? What did you say? No? Wrong!
Replace Boeing by Airbus, The US Government with the France, Chrysler with Daimler and the political agreement as being between Germany and France… and forget about New Mexico. The rest is true. It is happening as you read this. It is happening because of the peculiar company Airbus still is. Compared to Boeing, Airbus is still very much a political football and their decisions are heavily influenced by the power plays of the big European states.
In the circumstances it is a wonder that they manage to build such great airplanes…