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US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

cnn.com

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Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#91

Post by hef19898 »

pandemicsyn wrote: post #42

This will be interesting. I wonder what will happen to Dr Larrin Thomas ( https://knifesteelnerds.com/about-me/ ) he's been able to bring some new knife steels to market while working for US Steel by day. Wonder if Nippon allows side gigs.

I do have a bar of 40-layered high-carbon steel from Nippon Steel and another one of white-paper-and-low-carbon-steel with a iron (!) core from Hitachi in the basement waiting to be forged into swords. So, going from that, I think the Japanese (!) management should be fine, the local US management might different so.

Thanks for the link, some great resources on that site!

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#92

Post by zbyte64 »

verdverm wrote: post #63
AYBABTME wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time some industries and their major businesses are strategically important enough to warrant government support.

The gov't might support an industry, but it should not pick winners in it. Look at what's happening to GM, called Government Motors when they were bailed out, they seem to be headed down the same path US Steel is. Their thinking is broken

Are you saying GM's thinking is broken or the governments? GM did what was in their own best interests, the other was to declare bankruptcy - what company would have chosen different?

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#93

Post by zbyte64 »

jessriedel wrote: post #87
lokar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: are Japanese industrial workers (steel, auto, etc) significantly worse off (pay, conditions, security, etc) vs Americans? I sort of assume that at this point they are an advanced economy and there would be roughly parity.

Wages are lower in Japan, so I'm pretty sure the Japanese workers are paid less. Working conditions and job security are probably the same or better.

Job security is way better, work conditions are debateable because of a "work till you die" work culture.

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#94

Post by chaostheory »

pauljonas wrote: post #82
ryzvonusef wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on why it failed: > US Steel and other steelmakers eventually followed those foreign competitors to upgrade factories and equipment, but they still largely used the older methods to make steel by melting raw materials such as iron ore in giant blast furnaces. > Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged behind so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use more efficient electric arc furnaces to turn old steel…

It's been a few decades but I worked for USS as a developer, after attaining a computer science degree. I know it's a tired old adage that labor / labor unions was the reason for American steel manufacturing decline and rise of Japanese dominance. But from the inside, that simply wasn't so -- it was more a case that Japanese mills not only more modern but the entire manufacturing process, from casting to finished pro…

But weren’t the unions also against changing the process?

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#95

Post by zbyte64 »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #68
ryzvonusef wrote: post #2

> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…

This btw is why Japanese cars are better than American cars. It's objectively better to work in a unionized environment. Let's you be "lazier" and get away with half-asserey - great from the worker perspective but from the perspective of a prospective buyer, ideally your product is produced by people who work as hard as possible. The Japanese have a work-hard without half-assing attitude. This is why Toyota/Lexus hav…

We always ignore Nordic unions when ever we trash talk unions. If things were as easy as black and white then there wouldn't even be a need to debate, the productive non-union businesses would just slay and everyone would be working for them.

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#96

Post by pjscott »

happytiger wrote: post #78

This is very bad for America. We need to keep some degree of industrial steel capacity capabilities in house. For perspective, the vast majority of global steel capacity is in China, which made over half of global steel output in 2020 (its almost a trillion dollar market), while the United States accounted for approximately 4%. I mean Nippon is a great company, but this is a critical piece of infrastructure at a time…

How in-house does it need to be? The actual physical facilities aren't being shut down; they're just under new ownership and management. And Nippon Steel is located in Japan, which is such a dependable ally of the US that I'm politely trying not to use the phrase "vassal state."

Also in the US, we've got Steel Dynamics (producing 75% as much as US Steel), Cleveland-Cliffs (approximately tied with US Steel), and Nucor (about 157% as much). That's not the whole story, of course -- Nucor primarily recycles scrap steel, for example, as opposed to smelting ore -- but I'm not really seeing a crisis anywhere on the horizon here. (My opinion in this paragraph is less confident than the first, so I'm open to correction from someone who knows more about the steel industry.)

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#98

Post by gunapologist99 »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #2

> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…

> We remained open throughout this process to working with U.S. Steel to keep this iconic American company domestically owned and operated, but instead it chose to push aside the concerns of its dedicated workforce and sell to a foreign-owned company

... for more than twice as much! He kinda left the part out.

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#99

Post by ska »

lokar wrote: post #72
ryzvonusef wrote: post #2

> US Steel has agreed to be bought by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, in a $14.1 billion deal. > Earlier this summer the United Steelworkers union vowed to only support a proposed offer by another unionized American steel company, Cleveland Cliffs, to buy US Steel, in a cash and stock deal then valued at $32.53 a share, or 40% less than Nippon’s all cash offer. The US Steel board rejected that offer and sta…

Honest question: are Japanese industrial workers (steel, auto, etc) significantly worse off (pay, conditions, security, etc) vs Americans? I sort of assume that at this point they are an advanced economy and there would be roughly parity.

> roughly parity.

There is quite a bit of variability in these things among say G7 or G20 countries. Americans on the whole typically have higher net, higher volatility, lower security, for example. It gets complicated when you try and do "whole picture" comparisons (e.g. how to factor in state pensions/health care/etc.) but the dominance of the US economy worldwide and $ function as a reserve pays a very real divided to nearly everyone.

Re: US Steel, once the largest corporation, agrees to sell to Nippon Steel

#100

Post by lokar »

zbyte64 wrote: post #93
jessriedel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages are lower in Japan, so I'm pretty sure the Japanese workers are paid less. Working conditions and job security are probably the same or better.

Job security is way better, work conditions are debateable because of a "work till you die" work culture.

Meaning no retirement?
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