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British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

bbc.com

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Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#141

Post by pjc50 »

linksnapzz wrote: post #120
pjc50 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.centreforcities.org/reader/town-and-gown/univers... "Universities brought in an estimated £24 billion to the UK economy from abroad in 2022. They provide services (education) to international students who bring money to the institutions from abroad through international fees. These students also bring money to the local economy by spending on goods and services while they are studying" (presumably there's…

How many destroyer keels has U. Essex laid down this decade?

None? That's not really its job?

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#142

Post by inigyou »

GJim wrote: post #21
inigyou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The BBC is no longer the shining beacon of objective reporting it once was. Let it die and be replaced by something better.

Presumably you get your news content from Rupert Murdoch, the Daily Mail and UK News?

Here's the BBC wanting you to feel that autistic people are scary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48934982

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#143

Post by inigyou »

n4r9 wrote: post #121
inigyou wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how the BBC reports on the Middle East and tell me you agree with it.

That doesn't address anything unless you stake out and back up your position. Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel advocates both accuse the BBC of bias towards the other side.

Objectively, the BBC downplays what the USA and Israel do over there and doesn't downplay what Hamas and Iran do over there.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#144

Post by pjc50 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #111
Deukhoofd wrote: post #22

It's probably not a bad idea. Steel is one of the things that an industrialized country needs to produce to protect its own sovereignty. Letting it shut down and just hope you'll always be able to import enough steel from other countries is a bad long-term strategy. You'd be left unable to fend for yourself.

Let's imagine a hypothetical symmetrical war between two modern countries. One can disable the other's satellites and maintain their own fleet. The other can't get access to any third parties' satellites. You aren't going to send your steel navy out when one side can see you from space and you can't, almost regardless of the numbers. Your big army of steel tanks is useless against a bunch of drones directed by distri…

Everyone in this discussion seems to be forgetting Trident as well. There's a lot of assumption the next war will be helpfully similar to WW2, and some sort of reverse sweet spot where we are subject to naval interdiction but will not deploy the strategic nuclear deterrent, and at the same time have enough time to build things, but not things that require any of the rest of the supply chain than steel (I have bad news about the number of ASIC fabs in the UK).

Back to "dead men dominate UK politics". In this case, we're trying to refight a war from 70 years ago.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#145

Post by owebmaster »

gruez wrote: post #126
linksnapzz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist is a mouthpiece for the money power, specifically the banking interests of the Rothschild and Cadbury families. The idea of making money by making things (as opposed to arbitrage) is anathema to them.

>The idea of making money by making things (as opposed to arbitrage) is anathema to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial_stance_of_The_Econom... They're pro free trade against government intervention. That's not the same as "making things ... is anathema to them". They're for planning reform in uk, to help build infrastructure and homes, for instance.

> They're for planning reform in uk

As long as the reform is to cut taxes for the rich

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#146

Post by GJim »

inigyou wrote: post #142
GJim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you get your news content from Rupert Murdoch, the Daily Mail and UK News?

Here's the BBC wanting you to feel that autistic people are scary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48934982

Don't spout shite. The BBC report is objectively what the defence stated in court: namely that their defendant was autistic.

If you've a problem with that, take it up with the lawyers.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#147

Post by hn_throw2025 »

rsynnott wrote: post #80

What, again? (British Steel's predecessor was itself a nationalisation effort in the 60s.)

The history is longer and more tangled than that.

1951 - Nationalised by Attlee (Labour)

1953 - Re-privatised by Churchill (Conservative)

1967 - Nationalised again by Wilson (Labour)

1988 - Privatised again by Thatcher (Conservative)

1999 - Allowed to merge with Dutch Hoogovens into Corus by Blair (Labour)

2007 - Allowed to be sold to Tata Steel by Blair (Labour)

2016 - Tata allowed to sell to Greybull Capital by Cameron (Conservative)

2020 - Takeover by Chinese Jingye under Johnson (Conservative)

I worked there for three years in the mid 90s.

Personally, I think it should have been left alone after 1951.

But it is arguable whether ideologically driven militant unions would have destroyed it in the 1970s and 1980s.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#148

Post by pjc50 »

XorNot wrote: post #101
Deukhoofd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food tends to be a lot easier to produce, and many countries do often subsidize their food production, as well as have mercantilistic policies to ensure food production is kept locally. Vaccines is a more interesting one, and would be something that might indeed be of interest to a nation. On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it…

Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis. A wartime effort has to keep supplies moving daily, or the front collapses. Whereas the need for vaccines is heavily deferred - your population is already vaccinated in peacetime, and you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war, nor vaccinate new population during one either: that large vaccinated population providing herd immunity…

> Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis

.. what were you doing in 2020?

> you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war

The lab leak people are probably wrong, but in the present era we're a lot closer to "hook AI up to a CRISPR machine and generate a biological weapon" than we have ever been.

Everyone seems to assume that we might get in a war that we recognize and can fight with the tools of WW2, ships and tanks, rather than a war we don't recognize fought with weapons we don't understand and have no counter for. Or, more likely, simply get bought out at the top. Why fire a missile when you can buy a political party for a mere £5m?

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#149

Post by flir »

nephihaha wrote: post #85
flir wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fishing holds similar role in the UK and France (at least). Tiny components of the overall economy, giant patriotic feels. I still think some manufacturing is simply strategic, and you should maintain a capability even at a (financial) loss though.

That is because fishing has multiple other factors. For one, it is a major component of certain towns and villages, so while it isn't important to big cities, it is on the smaller scale in particular areas. It keeps harbours open and is also a draw for tourists, so I would say it has different implications than, say, shoe manufacturing. The British chocolate industry was a major employer in some places but has been d…

Fishing tourism?

Like... commercial fishing with a net? Not sport fishing?

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#150

Post by ExoticPearTree »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #17
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make here, can you elaborate?

The argument that nothing will be saved is that I am trying to say, taxpayer money will be sunk into a failing business until the politicians will find something else to save by nationalizing it.
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