Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 249 posts

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

#81

Post by ren_engineer »

araes wrote: post #28
ganzuul wrote: post #12

Steel remains a technology with huge potential for future development. Some keywords: eutectic solution, bulk metallic glass, and boron steel. It seems crazy to me that any first world nation would let it's steel production fall into foreign hands. As a machinist for 5 years in my country I would have been excempt from military service even in total war. If US steel is unable to innovate and foreign ownership is some…

America has started to have the appearance of griefing their own enlisted. I'm not sure if America actually cares about those types of war and military considerations any longer. Have you looked at ship construction times lately? On the materials side. Totally agree. However the issue there, is that's not what corporations tend to optimize. The story itself really spells it out pretty clearly (it may be biased, never…

>I'm not sure if America actually cares about those types of war and military considerations any longer. Have you looked at ship construction times lately?

it's kind of funny because the US won WWII by the ability to churn out huge volumes of decent quality goods but now our military seems to be adopting the German idea that small numbers of expensive wunderwaffen will turn the tide

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

#82

Post by shrubble »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #38

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…

Is Corten used in shipping containers (I seem to recall that it is)?

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

#83

Post by nostrademons »

sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #61
l33t7332273 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country winning the war against post WW2 USA seems like it would be a bit of a plot hole.

Which war did the US win post WW2? Afaict they all ended in stalemates and eventual retreat (Korea,Iraq,Vietnam,Afghanistan,..)

This all depends on victory conditions. The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell. But WW2 was fought as the U.S. was an ascendant (but not dominant) power among a number of peer rivals, and the U.S. was not the aggressor. It felt like a victory, because we emerged as the dominant power, with the only industrial base that wasn't destroyed, and then enjoyed the economic fruits of rebuilding a country that had been bombed back into the stone age and then capitulated. Additionally, Germany and Japan expected that U.S. occupation would be absolutely terrible, that we would be tyrants in the same way that their militaristic governments of the time were, and so when it turned out we just wanted to make money, that was a huge relief to them.

With all the post-WW2 wars, we've gone in as a dominant power, as the aggressor, to a country that is far smaller and less developed. In terms of casualties, they've been even more lopsided victories than WW2. The second Iraq war killed about half a million Iraqis and displaced about 1.8M, vs. mean to achieve victory here? We go in as a bully and ruin our world reputation. The average American sees zero benefit from killing Iraqis; it just means higher oil prices, larger government debt, more inflation, reduced civil liberties, and a lack of focus on domestic problems (...which may be the point). Defense contractors make out like a bandit, and the executive branch gets to consolidate power (...which, again, may be the point), but there isn't room to grow the way there was after WW2.

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

#84

Post by margalabargala »

SoftTalker wrote: post #42
legitster wrote: post #9

My grandfather worked in a metal shop for 30 years after he served in Korea. I remember him telling me they switched to Chinese made steel in the 70s because of the quality problems they were having with American made steel. Being out West, they were somewhat more free from the political/social/union pressure to use American commodities.

Probably meant Japanese, I don't think China had much of a steel industry in the 1970s and given the politics of the time I don't think it would have been imported in the USA even if available.

China started pushing for a large domestic steel industry in the late 50s.

It did not go well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace

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

#85

Post by Aloha »

yetanotherloss wrote: post #68
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You jest but my friend is a professor in Toyama, Japan, and makes the occasional dark joke about moving the people out for a few days and having the US raze it again from time to time. Sometimes getting rid of ossified organizations is a good thing, but there are probably better ways than high explosives.

Arguably the Occupation of Japan was more important than the carpet bombing for changing Japanese culture.

We brought in many new ideas - both in business and in government - most of which persist in some form today - and the Japanese in many cases have taken those ideas, refined them mightily, infused them with some Japanese culture - and re-exported them to us.

The best example of this that I can think of, is Kaizen - the various scientific management techniques exported to Japan by W. Edwards Deming - which was re-exported to us as Kaizen.

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

#86

Post by sgt101 »

hef19898 wrote: post #23
sgt101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very successful strategy in any corporate. Focus on the books, produce results, take the bonus and then jump. When things go pear shaped do not be found holding the bag. If later questioned: "it was all great when I was there, it's so sad that it went south - it was a great place and there was a lot of value on the table." Strangely the big investors don't seem to ever cotton on to this - the big pension funds…

The oposite is true as well so: don't focus on the books, bottom line and so on and the company goes bust as well. Any successful company has to do both.

you are quite correct - it becomes a plague when one is addressed to the exclusion of the other. As they say "don't run out of cash".

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

#87

Post by CrazyStat »

KMag wrote: post #50
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…

See the movie "The Mouse That Roared". Having seen the results of Germany and Japan being bombed and rebuilt by the US, a small fictional country comes up with the brilliant development plan of intentionally starting and losing a war with the US. Spoiler alert: they end up having to deal with the tragedy of accidentally winning the war. As I recall, part of it was they just assumed their generals would lose, so the g…

They "win" the war by accidentally kidnapping a scientist with a powerful new nuclear weapon. No actual fighting happens.

It's an excellent movie though.

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

#88

Post by sgt101 »

swexbe wrote: post #27
sgt101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very successful strategy in any corporate. Focus on the books, produce results, take the bonus and then jump. When things go pear shaped do not be found holding the bag. If later questioned: "it was all great when I was there, it's so sad that it went south - it was a great place and there was a lot of value on the table." Strangely the big investors don't seem to ever cotton on to this - the big pension funds…

This comment reads like it was written in the 70s. Even with the interest rate hike, this is still the age of VCs with infinite pockets, companies that don’t plan on going profitable for decades, every company in sp500 throwing money in the AI money hole, etc.

Yes, let us exclude tax scams and money laundering and address the real economy where things get made and real people get paid.

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

#89

Post by nostrademons »

Beijinger wrote: post #79
delecti wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly because we keep going into situations with political goals, and military means (when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail). If a small country declared war on us, we could easily bomb them back into the iron age. Though in 20 years, the young adults there would probably provoke us into another dumb situation like the above.

"with political goals, and military means" True "If a small country declared war on us, we could easily bomb them back into the iron age." Putin probably thought the same about Ukraine. Military objectives were achieved in Afghanistan, but not in Korea and Vietnam. And based on Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means" And our politics changed....

Military objectives were achieved in Korea and Vietnam in the sense that we killed lots of people. What we learned (and really, already knew from WW2, where we very intentionally did not invade the Japanese home islands) is that killing lots of people on an enemy's home soil just turns a lot more people against you.

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

#90

Post by beambot »

sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #61
l33t7332273 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country winning the war against post WW2 USA seems like it would be a bit of a plot hole.

Which war did the US win post WW2? Afaict they all ended in stalemates and eventual retreat (Korea,Iraq,Vietnam,Afghanistan,..)

Technically, the US hasn't fought any wars since WWII -- as a declaration of war is a Congressional function. All of the other things people think of or refer to wars were technically "conflicts".
Post reply on HN