I worked at that plant during the twilight years of the Douglas Aircraft Company, when the term inefficiency reached its zenith of understatement. (We built a DC-9 for Air Afrique, the fuselage of which was so badly bent because of a mid-fabrication earthquake that the guys on the line called it the "flying banana" - I always imagined the poor pilot somewhere over Gabon trying to figure out how the hell to set the trim on an asymetrical tube porpoising through the African sky... oh well. The only reason the plane was not dismantled and rebuilt after the quake was that Mister Mac - as in McD-D - was going to be touring the plant the following week with his USAF-given checkbook in hand. You know the bumper sticker - Jesus is coming, look busy...)

I frankly suspect the same dynamic was at work when Boeing came shopping for spare airplane plants. Of course the irony is that the chappie who guided MDD into the hereafter is now the CEO of Boeing. We're going to make the 717 a success? Look out, Gabon.