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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

#171

Post by caycep »

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.

would it be situational re economies, though?

i.e. if you have a lot of financial resources and can buy 1000 ships cheaply for the cost of propping up your steel industry to build 100 ships, should you buy 1000 ships (or the steel needed to build them quickly) to instead?

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

#173

Post by ben_w »

XorNot wrote: post #170
pjc50 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

> .. what were you doing in 2020? Waiting several years for widespread vaccine availability, and practicing good hygiene and social distancing. Viruses aren't so good at seizing and holding territory.

As I recall, the economic damage of the pandemic was ~ "it's worth spending ten billion dollars to make the vaccinations arrive one day sooner": https://www.newsweek.com/operation-warp-speed-what-deal-opin...

(And that was just the cost to the USA, not the world as a whole).

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

#174

Post by ben_w »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #44
0x3f wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make this same argument about a great number of things. Why is steel any more critical than food or vaccines or the like? Indeed we got caught short of vaccines recently, and had some nontrivial consideration of running a military op against NATO member over it.

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…

> On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it very much sounds like "what are the odds it'll happen again"

Gambler's fallacy will keep striking until we do better, won't it.

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

#175

Post by ben_w »

0x3f wrote: post #58
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…

I don't really care for farm subsidies either, but even ignoring that: it's quite a different level of intervention than compulsory purchase. Same with the vaccines. We didn't respond to that crisis by nationalizing AstraZeneca. My rhetorical point is just that steel gets special treatment probably because it's politically expedient. There are large, politically-relevant parts of the country that are still emotionall…

> There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway?

The more I learn about steel, the more I realise it's not one single thing but a whole collection of different families of things, each with different tradeoffs.

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-strength_low-alloy_steel#...

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

#177

Post by idiotsecant »

caycep wrote: post #171
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.

would it be situational re economies, though? i.e. if you have a lot of financial resources and can buy 1000 ships cheaply for the cost of propping up your steel industry to build 100 ships, should you buy 1000 ships (or the steel needed to build them quickly) to instead?

Drone and satellites don't hold territory.

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

#178

Post by crote »

intheitmines wrote: post #64
msuniverse2026 wrote: post #18

Interesting how they haven't repeated in this article earlier claims that the Chinese purchase of the steelworks was a strategic move to slowly destroy the blast furnaces by letting them cool under pretext of low demand.

See also Chinese companies buying UK private schools and closing them down Original: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/02/chinese-company-... https://archive.is/dRQsB#selection-2155.4-2155.79 Choice quote from the article Mike Parker, the school’s director of marketing, wrote on LinkedIn: “Whatever you read, this isn’t a VAT story. It isn’t a ‘falling rolls, unstoppable decline’ story. The truth is deeper and…

Sounds like classic private equity, no? Buy it, sell off all the valuable parts, close it down, repeat.

Who needs the Chinese to ruin your country when your own people will happily kill successful companies for the tiniest scrap of profit?

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

#179

Post by 8note »

georgeecollins wrote: post #135
wongarsu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a defensive war, a steel navy sitting in spitting distance of your shores and an army of steel tanks will still do a lot to keep the enemy at bay. And you can swap the tank turrets for Gatling guns on some of your newly produced tanks to help against drones You wouldn't be able to win the war in your scenario, but you could still do a lot to make sure the other side isn't winning either.

If machine guns were useful against drones Russia would be winning in Ukraine. Check out Russia's Black Sea fleet to learn the fate of your navy sitting by your shores.

russia is currently holding just about all the land it wants in Ukraine

They might not be taking Kiev for a hundred years, but the fortress belt is well within reach in the next couple of years

If they were to negotiate an end tomorrow, Russia certainly wouldnt be giving up territory in ukraine. i dont see how thats not winning

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

#180

Post by 8note »

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…

you definitely want flu vaccines for your infantry, lest they get captured or killed en mass due to fever

on a similar note, medical supplies and logistics are a huge deal for going to war, to handle casualties

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