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

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

#121

Post by robertlagrant »

AdamH12113 wrote: post #104
nostrademons wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

The government of North Korea did not fall or surrender. You can argue that it was a political win if the goal was defending South Korea, but militarily, it was a stalemate. North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam after we withdrew. It was in no way a victory for the United States. Afghanistan was arguably pretty similar, although we did install a new government while we were there. Germany and Japan, on the other hand…

The US picks extremely difficult battles to fight in a way its citizens deem acceptable, and they aren't wars of conquest. Those factors are going to make it very hard to point at a simple winner.

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

#122

Post by sbierwagen »

ren_engineer wrote: post #81
araes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, what will a future war look like?

We're never going to fight WW2 again, because all the great powers have nuclear weapons now. The US army will never take the field in a straight up slugfest against Russia or China.

So that leaves non-nuclear regional powers. But you simply don't need a whole-of-society mobilization to fight Iran. The phase of active combat against Iran will not take years-- it won't take months.

If we really needed to, we could be building millions of Jeeps again. But we don't need to, and won't need to.

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

#123

Post by jmclnx »

>The American steel industry responded to the rise of foreign producers not by trying to improve their operations, but by demanding government protection from “unfair” foreign trade practices

I remember this happening in school. Plus the teacher of a class (70s) I was in blamed the Steel Problems on the Marshall Plan. Until I saw this article I believed that.

Now I know it seems to point to the usual US trend of profits before anything else.

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

#124

Post by fodkodrasz »

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....

> "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.

I doubt, as Ukraine is far from being a small country. It is the second largest European country (counting Russia as an European country, as is common in geography). (he most likely had other miscalculations leading to the current situation)

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

#126

Post by vanderZwan »

CrazyStat wrote: post #87
KMag wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A satirical movie involving nuclear weapons and Peter Sellers plays three roles? Where have I heard that one before?

(actually, it looks like it is five years older than Dr. Strangelove? This looks like it could be turned into a very mean pubquiz trivia question, hahaha)

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

#127

Post by nerdponx »

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.

This concept is related to the idea of "creative destruction": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

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

#128

Post by vanderZwan »

robertlagrant wrote: post #120
morkalork wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Sellers playing 3 different roles. Poor guy really did get type cast in the weirdest way.

"Comedies involving diamonds and/or nuclear weapons"

Also one movie with him in brownface that oddly enough is actually extremely popular in India and Pakistan (to the point where I was introduced to it on a New Year's Eve party hosted by a friend from Pakistan).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Party_(1968_film)#Racial_c...

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

#129

Post by dhdudbd »

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…

white man's burden

never change hn

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

#130

Post by lisper »

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…

Reminds me of "The Producers."
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