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"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

construction-physics.com

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Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#31

Post by fudged71 »

aresant wrote: post #11
a1o wrote: post #5

Wasn't US Steel who commissioned the books from a SciFi illustrator to ensure that lots of reference drawing illustrations would have steel in the future and got these books for free available to anyone who called, and they ended up getting famous in the film industry so people ended up always designing futuristic movies with things made of steel like ships and vehicles?

Yes you are thinking of Syd Mead - here’s the series https://sydmead.com/category/gallery/us-steel/

You’re telling me the Stanford torus space colony that has filled my dreams for my entire life was propaganda for US steel?

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#32

Post by feoren »

pjscott wrote: post #6
erehweb wrote: post #2

Reminiscent of the business school joke - What does US Steel make? The answer is not "steel", but "money", that being the point of any company.

Although it's true, that's a hazardous way of thinking. If they had put more of their focus on making steel, keeping up with the technological advances rather than being dragged along grudgingly, perhaps they'd be making more money these days.

As other replies have pointed out, your problem is with the word "they". There is no "they" at a publicly traded corporation. The key decision-makers are only there for 2 to 5 years, however long it takes them to suck out the blood of the company before they scurry off to parasitize a juicier host. Nobody with decision-making power ever gave two shits whether US Steel was going to make lots of money in N decades.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#33

Post by Digory »

davidthewatson wrote: post #3

I'm happy to see the link here as I was curious about the subject given that my career started in US Steel's data center in Pittsburgh. I'm saddened by the fact that this retelling seems mostly negative and ignores a large part of US Steel's evolution into USX. The retelling is subtractive whether you view Marathon Oil's involvement as a positive complementary asset play at the time or a negative given the history of…

I had the same feeling at the end. Of all the ways to spend the 20th century, being tied to US Steel wasn’t exactly a bad ride.

“Arguably, the Harvard system was a disappointment every day since 1636…”

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#34

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel?

Maybe this would also be an effective way of clearing out NIMBYs blocking the routes for high-speed rail lines?

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#35

Post by csours »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #24
aresant wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are thinking of Syd Mead - here’s the series https://sydmead.com/category/gallery/us-steel/

Gotta say, I'd live in that steel modular house in a heartbeat.

There's a reason that house isn't pictured in the snow.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#36

Post by hef19898 »

pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

>> (At the cost of primarily USA financing.)

The Marshall Plan was one of the best foreign policy ideas ever so.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#37

Post by ProjectArcturis »

pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

Similar to many cities having catastrophic fires (New York, Chicago) which allowed them to rebuild their streets on a grid system. Vs Boston, which never had a great fire but which is known today for the phrase "You can't get there from here."

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#38

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

I'm not sure innovation is really the issue, this article never actually goes into the alloys US Steel developed (of which there are many), and alloys are what makes steel steel really. It's always been fascinating to me how the just a tiny percent of another element in a metal can have an absolutely dramatic affect on the strength/resilience of the material.

And they tried more complicated alloys, for instance they developed Corten steel, the biggest example of which is probably the US Steel building in Pittsburgh, [1]. It's a steel where it's 'rust' essentially works as a protective layer.

More than anything this article shows US Steel simply couldn't compete with foreign suppliers. It's interesting to me that they don't even mention the Steel Workers Union, which was/is one of the largest and most powerful unions in the U.S. I'm not saying the cause, but if you need 5% more steel to cover the deficiencies in foreign steel in strength, but it's 20% cheaper, than it's simply cheaper to import more foreign steel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#40

Post by turndown »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #37
pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

Similar to many cities having catastrophic fires (New York, Chicago) which allowed them to rebuild their streets on a grid system. Vs Boston, which never had a great fire but which is known today for the phrase "You can't get there from here."

Chicago had a grid system before the great fire, maybe NY is a good example of this but I do not know. See this[0] 1869 map which shows Chicago was already quite regularized

0: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/1869_Bla...

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