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Don’t cry for Boeing

Boeing is “one of the great American companies,” says Steven Pearlstein in The Washington Post, but it is also “one of the biggest corporate whiners in Washington.” For years it has complained “incessantly” about foreign subsidies while demanding yet “one more contract or tax break.” And now that the Air Force has shown the “temerity” to decide that “taxpayers could get more for their money” if Airbus and Northrop Grumman completed a $40 billion tanker deal, Boeing has resorted to “jingoism, protectionism, and outright hypocrisy.” Northrop-Airbus easily won the contract on its merits, and overturning the contract would “set a terrible precedent” and damage U.S. trade with its allies.

Identity theft grows down

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The newest target for identity theft might be your children, say Liz Moyer and Tatyana Shumsky in Forbes.com. It is still a relatively minor threat—5 percent of known cases involve people under age 18, with half of those targets 6 or younger—but it is “practically the perfect crime” for identity thieves. Kids get Social Security numbers soon after birth, but they don’t use them until they apply for a “driver’s license or a student loan.” By that time, a child’s credit history can be wrecked, and any “crime trail is cold.” It’s a good idea to teach kids to never share personal information over the Web, watch out for credit card offers in their names, and check their credit reports.