when society has no choice but to start handing out bailouts
"Too big to fail" works if they're making the right people rich but were otherwise being seen to do their job, then suddenly external factors seem to threaten their existence and money can get them back to making the right people rich. The pandemic was a good example of that. However, when they're publicly failing to do their job due to a broken or corrupt internal culture then instead of bailouts they might get broken up or more drastically changed because money can't solve the problem at that point.
You definitely get the idea that the activities of large firms are political and not driven by competition but I don’t think “too big to fail” required the public to think the banks were doing a good job in 2008. There was general agreement that the banks themselves caused the 2008 financial crisis. The bailouts happened because the bankers who would have lost their fortunes were powerful enough to order the elected officials to bail them out anyway.
“too big to fail” required the public to think the banks were doing a good job in 2008
The analogy to the banking crisis doesn't quite work. For years the banks didn't have any major snafus, banking in general was working great for most people and making many (and crucially, all the right people) rich. Also, the previous problems had been papered over pretty effectively and 2008 was a particularly bad crash. Boeing on the other hand has had a string of major crises for a few years in a row. It'd be comparable to the banks if savings and loan, the dot com crash, and 2008 all occurred within 5 years. By that third one very few politicians would have the political capital left to spend on bailouts.
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"Too big to fail" works if they're making the right people rich but were otherwise being seen to do their job, then suddenly external factors seem to threaten their existence and money can get them back to making the right people rich. The pandemic was a good example of that. However, when they're publicly failing to do their job due to a broken or corrupt internal culture then instead of bailouts they might get broken up or more drastically changed because money can't solve the problem at that point.
You definitely get the idea that the activities of large firms are political and not driven by competition but I don’t think “too big to fail” required the public to think the banks were doing a good job in 2008. There was general agreement that the banks themselves caused the 2008 financial crisis. The bailouts happened because the bankers who would have lost their fortunes were powerful enough to order the elected officials to bail them out anyway.
The analogy to the banking crisis doesn't quite work. For years the banks didn't have any major snafus, banking in general was working great for most people and making many (and crucially, all the right people) rich. Also, the previous problems had been papered over pretty effectively and 2008 was a particularly bad crash. Boeing on the other hand has had a string of major crises for a few years in a row. It'd be comparable to the banks if savings and loan, the dot com crash, and 2008 all occurred within 5 years. By that third one very few politicians would have the political capital left to spend on bailouts.