"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by bluGill » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 4:49 AM UTC

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…

How does technical innovation serve their core purpose of produting steel? The things you name are a distraction from the real business and should have been bought not done in house. or they should have done a pihiot to tech and got rid of the mills to someone who wanted to run then.

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

#192

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 4:57 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #156

kriro wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, this is a misrepresentation of the Vietnam war. The country was not "bombed back into the stone age". The U.S. merely used extremely despicable tactics like Agent Orange, My Lai etc. I'm also not aware of the existing Vietnamese government falling (depends on which one you consider the existing one but it was not the government the U.S. wanted to fall that fell). The country resisted a superior invader…

If it was simply the case of a country resisting an invader then why did the winning side engage in a bit of ethnic cleansing of their ‘own’ people after the invaders had left?

Opportunity and perception. China didnt need to loseca war to initiate the actions against the Uyghurs.

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

#193

Post by 0xDEADFED5 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 5:25 AM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #93

This analysis does not seem properly include wage/labor costs. "By 1958 some steelmakers in Germany and Japan were able to compete on price with US producers, and by the mid-1970s input costs for Japanese steel (ore, labor, coking coal, etc.) were nearly half those of US costs." So the input costs were half almost certainly all due to labor either directly or indirectly. Viewed in this light the fall of US Steel is n…

page 17 of http://www.sfu.ca/~kawasaki/Elbaum.pdf :

    In Japan between 1956 and 1976 the real cost of steel fell by some 39%. Although wages increased
    more than 10-fold, gains in labor productivity more than compensated, so that real unit labor costs fell
    by 16.3%, accounting for about 5 of the 39% drop in real costs. The rest of the 39% was due to a decline
    in unit materials and energy costs.

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

#194

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 5:35 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #147

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…

It is an interesting narrative but largely untrue. As the article points out, US Steel (and the US steel industry in general) was making enough profit, what they were not doing was re-investing those profits into upgrading their steel making. Instead, the "People in Charge" were giving themselves large bonuses and pay upgrades for being bosses of the "big steel." This was especially true through the 80's and 90's in…

> The poster child was the auto industry "forgetting" how to make quality cars. They didn't forget of course,

They didn't just forget. They rejected approaches that would have helped them improve quality.

Deming tried to convince US industry for quality, but was rejected. He, however, was embraced in Japan.

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

#195

Post by petermcneeley » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 6:50 AM UTC

0xDEADFED5 wrote: post #193

petermcneeley wrote: post #93

This analysis does not seem properly include wage/labor costs. "By 1958 some steelmakers in Germany and Japan were able to compete on price with US producers, and by the mid-1970s input costs for Japanese steel (ore, labor, coking coal, etc.) were nearly half those of US costs." So the input costs were half almost certainly all due to labor either directly or indirectly. Viewed in this light the fall of US Steel is n…

page 17 of http://www.sfu.ca/~kawasaki/Elbaum.pdf : In Japan between 1956 and 1976 the real cost of steel fell by some 39%. Although wages increased more than 10-fold, gains in labor productivity more than compensated, so that real unit labor costs fell by 16.3%, accounting for about 5 of the 39% drop in real costs. The rest of the 39% was due to a decline in unit materials and energy costs.

This does not tell us what the wages were compared to Americans at that time. It is very easy to have a 10 fold increase in wages if people are making $2 a day.

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

#196

Post by 0xDEADFED5 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 7:03 AM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #195

0xDEADFED5 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

page 17 of http://www.sfu.ca/~kawasaki/Elbaum.pdf : In Japan between 1956 and 1976 the real cost of steel fell by some 39%. Although wages increased more than 10-fold, gains in labor productivity more than compensated, so that real unit labor costs fell by 16.3%, accounting for about 5 of the 39% drop in real costs. The rest of the 39% was due to a decline in unit materials and energy costs.

This does not tell us what the wages were compared to Americans at that time. It is very easy to have a 10 fold increase in wages if people are making $2 a day.

it's a pretty interesting paper, it probably answers your questions. paragraph preceding my last quote:

    In the US between 1956 and 1976, while the dollar depreciated by 17.8%, the real domestic cost of
    producing steel grew by 37%. Although steel had historically been a materials-intensive sector, by
    1956 in the US, labor and materials each accounted for about the same share of unit input costs. Each
    also grew in real terms by roughly the same rate from 1956 to 1976: unit labor costs by 35% and unit
    material costs by 38%. Each therefore made like contributions to a loss in US comparative advantage
    in steelmaking. The main reason for the rise in unit material costs was a 48% increase of the real price of
    iron ore and (with our 1976 end date falling in the aftermath of the 1973 oil price shock) a near dou-
    bling of the real price of coke.

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

#197

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 7:11 AM UTC

l33t7332273 wrote: post #181

dmurray wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This might be taught in US schools, but outside the US we have a rather different take on how the Vietnam war ended - the US-backed government fell and the North Vietnamese government took over the rest of the country. And we learned that…

It is not taught in US schools that the IS won Vietnam in the sense that the government we backed won. Why do you think it is? Also, the Korean war was clearly a victory for the US; we intended to defend SK and prevent the spread of Communism, and that’s what happened.

>Also, the Korean war was clearly a victory for the US; we intended to defend SK and prevent the spread of Communism, and that’s what happened.

Nonsense. A clear victory would be if South Korea held its frontline near the Chinese border, instead of being pushed back to the 38th parallel.

The Korean war was a stalemate. It wasn't a loss, but it wasn't a win.

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

#198

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #155

hef19898 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much active fighting troops do NATO countries have in Ukraine, exactly? You need those to be counted a belligerent in a conflict.

It’s utterly bizarre that people keep insisting the US is fighting a war given we have zero troops and zero military hardware committed there.. Ukraine has destroyed hundreds of armored units and multiple $billion naval ships with literal 25-yr old weapons… all the fear of WWIII is premised on the US actually engaging since the Russians would suffer immediate and massive losses and the only way to save face would be…

>and zero military hardware committed there..

Where'd those Bradleys come from, then? Zero troops yes, but the US has absolutely shipped a ton of military hardware to Ukraine.

Ukraine would absolutely fold without the inflow of NATO military hardware, that's the crux of Russia's strategy for winning - hope it can undermine Western support for a Ukraine war, and then crush Ukraine once they're on their own. That's the entire reason why Russia blocked gas exports to Europe - they lost a lot of gas profits forcing the EU to choose between supporting Ukraine or having Russian gas for the winter.

The US itself isn't fighting in the war, but they're undeniably a key participant in it. With military hardware and training and intel support and money.

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

#199

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 7:35 AM UTC

hulitu wrote: post #111

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…

> North American industry was in a slow evolution from the 1900's, but Germany and Japan, had a hot start from the 1950-60's You forgot that US took every German and Japanese engineer as prisoner. As a friend said, US chemical industry worked 40 years after the WWII with German patents.

>You forgot that US took every German and Japanese engineer as prisoner.

Do you mean took them prisoner for a few days to sort out paperwork, or do you mean took them prisoner and kept them?

The latter is provably nonsense as indicated by e.g. Heckler and Koch, a German engineering company (and later gun company) formed by three former Mauser engineers. Mauser, the gun company.

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

#200

Post by lmm » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 7:36 AM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #170

vanderZwan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I have never understood why all my Desi relations were gaga for this movie. All the American born ones roll their eyes without fail.

The idea that it's haram (I can't quite think of the right word; not merely wrong but disgusting) for someone to make themselves up as a different skin tone is a distinctly American cultural quirk.