Re: Tariffs and bikes

On 4/6/2025 3:19 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 4/6/2025 3:00 PM, zen cycle wrote:

On 4/6/2025 10:24 AM, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/6/2025 6:41 AM, zen cycle wrote:

On Sat, 05 Apr 2025 06:57:17 -0400, floriduh dumbass
<Soloman@old.bikers.org> wrote:
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As for the U S steel industry, it was mostly destroyed years ago by
unfair tactics by dishonest foriegn entities. The US government stood
by and watched it happen.

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Magatard pabulum swallowed....hook, line, and sinker.
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Well, that is an extremely complex slow moving disaster.
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But it was not from any lack of iron ore, coking coal, transport, engineering, markets or capital.
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Over to you.
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Again - "it was mostly destroyed years ago by unfair tactics by dishonest foriegn entities"
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Magatard pabulum swallowed....hook, line, and sinker.
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The steel industry declined because foreign steel was cheaper, no other reason. Sure, there were a few minor cases of steel dumping into the US market, but nothing that could have destroyed the industry. It wasn't because of this margatard narrative of unfair trade practices.
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Blame the industries that bought the steel if you wish, no one forced them to turn away from the US steel industry.

 Regarding the crash of American steel, among those posting I'm sure I'm living in the most affected area. This entire region was built on iron, then steel production. The local steel mills were huge, and were massive employers, up till the industry crashed suddenly in the 1970s.
 Why the crash? There are various explanations tossed about. One is "The unions did it!" I'm sure U.S. union wages were higher than Japanese wages, but I very much doubt that was really important. I've heard "Illegal trade practices" but I haven't heard enough specifics to evaluate that claim. I've heard "Environmental regulations killed our steel." But environmental requirements were also rising in Japan, Germany, etc.
  From my knowledge of the mills and the technology, here's what I believe:  Japan and Germany had their manufacturing plants decimated in World War 2. American plants were unscathed. So in the 1950s, our plants were able to keep running as usual, producing steel as it had always been done - the old way.
 Other countries had to rebuild industries, and I think that gave them opportunity to modernize. In addition, I think foreign governments were more likely to help their steel industries with modernization efforts, including efficiency efforts. (I don't know about the legality of that support. Maybe it violated some trade rules?)
 Ultimately, largely because of better technology, it simply took far less manpower per ton and cost far less money per ton to produce steel overseas. Try as they might, American steelworkers using antique processing equipment weren't able to compete.
 I once visited a former student of mine where he worked. His company was doing heavy roll forming and stamping of steel, producing (for example) highway guard rails and guard rail end caps. As he showed me around, proudly pointing out his own design achievements, I saw many coils of steel, maybe 5' diameter, 6' tall standing on end in the warehouse area. I asked "Is that steel from WCI?" (Warren Consolidated Industry steel plant, about 15 miles away.) He said "Let's see: That one's from WCI. That one's from Germany, that one's from Japan..." etc.
 It was astonishing that those countries could manufacture the steel, pay to ship it tens of thousands of miles, and still beat the price of the local mill 15 miles away.
 

I agree it's complex but if your theory is substantially right here, then we should see similar steel production curves for Sweden.
An historic steel exporter, Sweden lost neither plants nor men of military age nor their capital base in the war.  I don't know. Every promising site was paywalled for historic data. Anyone actually know?
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971