Saturday, May 16, 2009
Boeing 737-900ER (artist's impression)
Last month, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) announced that it will loan Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest private carrier airline, $238 million to purchase thirty new Boeing 737-900ER planes, and an additional $841 million, upon the Indonesian airline’s request. Lion Air’s appalling air safety record has earned Indonesian airlines international pariah status, and has made companies within Indonesia’s air travel sector unlikely candidates for foreign financing.
The United States Export-Import Bank is a federal agency whose assistance is designed to support and maintain domestic jobs by financing the sale of American exports abroad. The bank has been known to provide direct-lending programs to finance sales to foreign buyers of a wide array of American equipment.
The bank has received criticism for spending tax dollars on assisting the sales of wealthy corporations that are eliminating hundreds of thousands of American jobs, such as General Motors, Motorola, and Boeing—the leading Ex-Im recipient. In 2002, Time Magazine reported that the top five beneficiaries of Ex-Im subsidies over the previous ten years had downsized their workforce by 38%, at a loss of more than a third of a million jobs.
Carol Sexton, the Southeast Asia managing director of Boeing’s financing unit, defended the Lion Air financing, stating that it would support American workers at Boeing’s plant in Washington state and at engine-maker CFM International in Cincinnati, Ohio.
-Melanie Young, David Wallechinsky
The Cape Town Treaty (Federal Aviation Administration)
Comments