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

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

#161

Post by Der_Einzige »

hef19898 wrote: post #86
Der_Einzige wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The only thing correct in your statement is the spelling of Toyota and Lexus, and even that you only nailed one out of three times (brand names start with capitals, even in English).

Maybe you could stop being lazy and explain specifically why what I claimed was wrong.

But you can't, because you're wrong and you know it.

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

#163

Post by Der_Einzige »

zbyte64 wrote: post #95
Der_Einzige wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not even trash talking unions. I love unions because I love the idea of workers being lazy (unironically!)

But, from the buyers perspective, I don't want union hands touching my car. I also will NEVER buy a volvo because they're bad cars from every standpoint except safety. This is the brand that though a turbo, supercharged hybrid drive-train would be a good idea in an SUV. The SUV isn't even that fast despite it!

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

#164

Post by FredPret »

4ggr0 wrote: post #157
FredPret wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More intensive resource use is also the answer to climate change. The problem is CO2 & friends, not growth itself. A knee-jerk response against growth is hardly going to fix the situation. We can drastically reduce our footprint while growing the economy even faster by building more nuclear + solar power, and digging deeper, improving our water treatment ability, etc.

what about lowering our usage? or more efficiently use what we have, even if it means less growth for the economy.

I don't think it's practical to lower or keep it at the same level.

- what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now?

- even if we did say that, perish the thought, nobody's going to accept that. Africa, India, China, the rest of Asia, and South America have tons of poor people who want their turn. Why shouldn't they also get to be as rich as us? That implies a huge and growing demand for more and more energy and resources, regardless of what the US and Europe think of growth/degrowth/the environment.

Therefore I think it's much better to instead accelerate, and do it using clean technologies. By building clean tech in rich countries, we can make it better and cheaper until it's the default option for rapidly growing poor nations.

By demonstrating a commitment to growth, we also show them that our way is something to emulate, because growth is what they want and need. Degrowth is going to win you exactly zero friends in the poor world.

Nations like Russia and China can easily go to Africa and make the West look like self-centered rich fools who should be ignored. If that happens, there goes your environmental ambitions.

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

#165

Post by vasco »

xp84 wrote: post #138
vasco wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country that will acquire is also important in this equation. Russians were blocked from buying Oregon steel for example. Japan is more like a protectorate of the US than a fully independent country post WW2, with specific articles of the constitution that block army sizes, specific military equipment, agreements for maintenance of permanent US bases and troops in the country etc. Even when recently they decided…

True that there is no more loyal ally than Japan aside from perhaps Canada. Kind of miraculous that that happened, honestly, considering that the phase of our relationship immediately before this was "fighting to the death" followed by "atomic bomb dropping" -- but I'm grateful that somehow it has come to be an enduring friendship both politically and really culturally as well.

I mean, the US did a huge occupation and education campaign which depending on how you categorize "force someone to keep your army within their borders" could even be seen as them not actually being sovereign. People are fast to forget that part the same way they forget Poland was only liberated truly in 1989, it's not such a good story when you include those parts.

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

#166

Post by claytongulick »

abtinf wrote: post #23
eunos wrote: post #5

After being coddled up by the govt for so many years (NatSec tariffs, tax breaks, bailouts, import restrictions, etc), ultimately it still failed.

I have no comment on this specific case, but in general: all of those things—all government interventions that ostensibly protect an industry or company—make it more brittle, less efficient, and more likely to fail. That is precisely the point. You can’t build a successful business by ignoring reality.

> You can’t build a successful business by ignoring reality.

True, at least in the long term.

However some of those government interventions are an attempt to balance out other government interventions.

Sometimes tariffs are a response to a foreign government subsidizing a company in order to undercut a market and destroy dominant players.

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

#167

Post by hbarka »

AlbertCory wrote: post #159
hbarka wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This building (really a massive factory area in Fremont) is now Tesla. NUMMI produced some really good cars under the Saturn brand. GM messed up in this collaboration. GM quitting Saturn is a story in itself.

No, Saturns were produced in TN. See my other post.

I stand corrected. Yes, Saturns were in TN, not Fremont plant. The whole GM, NUMMI, Saturn story was playing out in a collective moment circa 2010. Here is an audio interview in This American Life series a week before NUMMI was to close.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/transcript

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

#168

Post by 4ggr0 »

FredPret wrote: post #164
4ggr0 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about lowering our usage? or more efficiently use what we have, even if it means less growth for the economy.

I don't think it's practical to lower or keep it at the same level. - what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now? - even if we did say that, perish the thought, nobody's going to accept that. Africa, India, China, the rest of Asia, and South America have tons of poor people who want their turn. Why shouldn't they also get to be as rich as us? That implies a huge and growin…

> what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now?

we talk to rich people and tell them, "Sorry, but we've f*cked poor people long enough now, time to adjust downwards and meet in the middle."

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

#169

Post by FredPret »

4ggr0 wrote: post #168
FredPret wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's practical to lower or keep it at the same level. - what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now? - even if we did say that, perish the thought, nobody's going to accept that. Africa, India, China, the rest of Asia, and South America have tons of poor people who want their turn. Why shouldn't they also get to be as rich as us? That implies a huge and growin…

> what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now? we talk to rich people and tell them, "Sorry, but we've f*cked poor people long enough now, time to adjust downwards and meet in the middle."

Nah mate, you’ve got to be realistic. No human will ever accept a downward adjustment.

Plus, meeting in the middle is even less sustainable than the current situation.

The options are:

- Dramatically less (like prehistoric levels)

- Dramatically more (star trek)

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

#170

Post by Spooky23 »

graphe wrote: post #126
hristov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there isn't much union solidarity across countries and companies have completely different labor relations in different countries. As an example, all Japanese automakers that start factories in the US start them in anti-union states and take a very hostile anti-union stance. This is in contrast with the very pro union stance these companies take in Japan. But Japanese workers do not strike in soli…

Toyota started in California at a union plant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI saw it on asianometry.

That was a joint venture, many years ago.

They also chose to open their RAV-4 production facility in Alabama vs. Ontario, despite the fact that the literacy levels of Alabamians was lower to the extent that production documentation had to be converted to pictures, adding delays.

Paying illiterates $17/hr is cheaper than paying union workers $28.

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