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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

#201

Post by greyw »

jmyeet wrote: post #98
traceroute66 wrote: post #32

This reminded me of an article in The Economist published last year, April 2025: "Zombie politics: how Dead Man dominates British politics"[1] Two prescient paragraphs related to today's news: If British politicians worship voters who are no longer among the living, it is natural that they do the same to a version of the British economy that has long departed. “There are people in this country who love to talk down o…

The Economist is a neoliberal dish rag. There is a completely made up number that is an increasingly large portion of GDP in OECD nations and that number is imputed rent [1]. This is a fictional number that owner-occupiers "pay" themselves to live in their own houses. So as housing prices go up, so does imputed rent. House prices have increasingly become the best vehicle for investment funds because the returns are e…

In Switzerland this fictional imputed rent is actually extremly real. We have to pay taxes as if it was earned income.

So you live in your fully owned flat, pretend to rent it to yourself and then pay income taxes on that amount. The point is your government can make this "fake" value very real.

Luckily we recently voted to abolish this tax so it will be gone in some years. This tax was introduced as an emergency measure in ww1.

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

#202

Post by ExoticPearTree »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #47
philipallstar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never sounded cool and fun. It was government acknowledging its own limitations. Governments don't perform better if we all cheer them on. Right now a government (Russia's) is waging war on a country. Last century governments caused untold death in socialist countries (Venezuela, China, USSR) because they were trying to organise centrally.

As a counter example, a government (Ukraine) is defending against the Russian invasion and is looking more and more like it might win that fight. Would they be better off without a government?

The governement of Unraine is sending its people to die on the frontlines while the elites party in Kyiev and their president is an entitled choosing beggar. How are they helping the prople again?

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

#203

Post by solumunus »

8note wrote: post #179
georgeecollins wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is that land worth the costs Russia has endured? Very obviously not, that’s why it’s not “winning”. If they could turn back the clocks they would.

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

#204

Post by lpribis »

rsynnott wrote: post #80

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

The UK loves to take various infrastructure and industries private and public depending on which government is in power at the moment. See also trains, water, etc

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

#205

Post by modo_mario »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
nialv7 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a bizarre article, completely disconnected from reality. in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain. why does The Economist have so much disdain of manufacturing and people who work in it? look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it. then look at the UK, who is struggling to build…

The point is that manufacturing is a relatively small part of both the economy and the job market; AND the popular view of manufacturing (large plant staffed by a large number of men being the dominant employer of a nearby town or city) doesn't look anything like the reality of modern manufacturing (small run boutique high value stuff like satellites and turbines, highly automated and professionalized, relatively sma…

>The point is that manufacturing is a relatively small part of both the economy and the job market

Yes because the UK is overfinancialised to a ridiculous degree. It has deindustralised in doing so.

>This leads to stupid decisions like gutting the university sector, which is a major export industry.

I'd call it more of a major import industry. At the same time your doctors and such are leaving the country.

Besides, if these are so profitable why are they making the cuts you think? Is it that those degrees aren't exactly paying off in an economy that can't consist of HR departments and other PMC's?

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

#206

Post by ifwinterco »

nialv7 wrote: post #77
traceroute66 wrote: post #32

This reminded me of an article in The Economist published last year, April 2025: "Zombie politics: how Dead Man dominates British politics"[1] Two prescient paragraphs related to today's news: If British politicians worship voters who are no longer among the living, it is natural that they do the same to a version of the British economy that has long departed. “There are people in this country who love to talk down o…

what a bizarre article, completely disconnected from reality. in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain. why does The Economist have so much disdain of manufacturing and people who work in it? look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it. then look at the UK, who is struggling to build…

The economist is pravda for the global globalist class.

It's not at all surprising that they're hostile to the idea of a nation doing anything to take its fate into its own hands when it comes to supply chains etc.

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

#207

Post by toast0 »

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.

> Viruses aren't so good at seizing and holding territory.

Neither is infantry that's sick with the flu, which may have been a factor in the ending of of WWI.

Tis hard to practice good hygiene and social distancing in the trenches.

If one side had better access to vaccines or access to better vaccines in a conflict during a pandemic, it would be significant, regardless of how the pandemic came about.

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

#208

Post by benj111 »

pjc50 wrote: post #144
georgeecollins wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 new…

Well if trident gets used then what comes next is irrelevant.

It's like planning for your house burning down V dying. If you're dead you don't really need to worry about the after.

So yes the military plans for everyone but global thermo nuclear war, because there's no point planning for that anyway.

I wouldn't say were planning for the next ww2. Look at the number of tanks we have. If anything were over optimised for helping the US fight insurgencies in the middle east at the expense of being able to fight a high intensity war.

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

#209

Post by benj111 »

8note wrote: post #179
georgeecollins wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Based on? The fact it tried to take Kyiv in the first week? That it's still trying to advance?

If Russia were to collapse tomorrow, they would lose everything, I don't see how that's winning.

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

#210

Post by benj111 »

AngryData wrote: post #187
0x3f wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming subsidies are one of the most criticized parts of the EU. My comment isn't in support of it. But even so, subsidy is quite different from compulsory purchase. The question is: why is steel special. Not in a no-action-vs-some-action way, but why so aggressive? Ironically I think it's the same for both steel and farmers: they provide votes.

Farming subsidies are the only way to prevent famine, the granary system sort of works, but regularly resulted in shortages and famines throughout every empire in history. Even not accounting for longer term climate trends, yield due to weather can vary up to 30% in a year, so it only makes sense to pay for a bit of over production so in the event of a couple bad years your food output is merely break even, and not 7…

Isn't the point of rationing to prevent the loaf going to $20.
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