Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 314 posts

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

#211

Post by somenameforme »

solumunus wrote: post #203
8note wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The benefit of war is almost never worth the cost. It just tends to scale up from repeated mutual miscalculations. For instance WW1 started from a Bosnian Serb assassinating the Austro-Hungarian heir and the next thing you know Brits are killing Germans over it. Everybody would have certainly turned back the clock there if they could, even moreso given that "The War to End All Wars" directly set the stage for WW2. But that doesn't mean that the Allied Powers didn't win WW1.

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

#212

Post by GJim »

afavour wrote: post #189
8note wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you’re looking at win vs loss you also need to look at what you got in return for what you gave. A ton of casualties and further international isolation aren’t really worth the middling gains Russia could negotiate for peace today. Which is probably one of the reasons they still haven’t, sunk cost fallacy and all that.

> If you’re looking at win vs loss you also need to look at what you got in return for what you gave.

This.

Russia is suffering over 400 casualties for every square km (1036 per square mile!) of territory captured in Donetsk, screwing their own economy and turning themselves into a pariah. Russia certainly isn't winning.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian...

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

#213

Post by tmtvl »

The government is the only entity which can gain money from running a business at a loss. For example: running trains at a loss will reduce car traffic, thus reducing losses from traffic jams and reducing road maintenance costs. With steel the government can recoup losses from producing cheap steel through steel-dependent services like roadworks, the military, public housing,...

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

#214

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

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.

I was told by economists that the invisible hand would solve this!

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

#215

Post by solumunus »

somenameforme wrote: post #211
solumunus wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The benefit of war is almost never worth the cost. It just tends to scale up from repeated mutual miscalculations. For instance WW1 started from a Bosnian Serb assassinating the Austro-Hungarian heir and the next thing you know Brits are killing Germans over it. Everybody would have certainly turned back the clock there if they could, even moreso given that "The War to End All Wars" directly set the stage for WW2. Bu…

It's nowhere near the same thing.

This was supposed to be an imperialist land grab by Russia. This war did not emerge organically. Russia had a goal, to seize Ukraine - easily and quickly. Russia have failed at that goal. Failing is not winning. Not only have they failed to secure their objective, the attempt to do so has cost several orders of magnitude more than intended. The land they do control is of low value.

Again, spectacularly failing to carry out your goals is not "winning", in any sense of the word.

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

#216

Post by philipallstar »

KaiserPro wrote: post #40
philipallstar wrote: post #16

> In March, the National Audit Office released a report noting that the Scunthorpe steelworks was costing the government about £1.3m a day. No, BBC, the government doesn't have money. It costs the net taxpayer that much a day.

When I buy something, it doesn't cost my employer, it costs me. the pedantry here isn't helpful, as its "not other peoples money" is a monetary system that the government lets us use. I understand that frustration about frivolous spending. It would be better if the argument was on how we evolve and change the steel market here in the UK so its self funding. BUT! the whole discourse about "government shouldn't choose…

> When I buy something, it doesn't cost my employer, it costs me.

If someone takes something from you by force and spends it, they're spending your money.

> as its "not other peoples money" is a monetary system that the government lets us use

The government doesn't "let" us use it. If we don't use it (e.g. by swapping services directly) then the government gets annoyed and tries to insert taxable transactions into that direct value swap. It makes us use it.

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

#217

Post by philipallstar »

tempfile wrote: post #19
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.

In the spirit of fairness I have to note the untold deaths caused by non-socialist countries in Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, pretty much every country in South America...

Agree - the world has horrible things happening, although not on the scale of socialism. The thing that comes close is WW2, but that was an actual war, and not just starving millions of people due to central planning.

However, Cambodia:

> Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong;[c] it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US $1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone.[11][12][13] After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

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

#218

Post by philipallstar »

squigz wrote: post #166
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime scene cleaners? The Sanitation Department? Still cheaper than having 10-20 cops sitting around talking to the person.

Well at least we got to the heart of the issue - it's too costly to try to prevent people from killing themselves. Truly perfect example of how capitalism views life. Of course, that most people regret their attempt after being saved by those 10-20 cops is irrelevant, right? I wonder what the benefits to society of that person being alive come out to, vs the costs to save them. Anyway, you've completely missed my poi…

That's not capitalism, it's personal responsibility. Why do you dump all the responsibility on other people to stop someone from killing themselves, and nothing on the person actually doing it?

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

#220

Post by nikau »

defrost wrote: post #200
nikau wrote: post #199

Meanwhile Australia's last remaining manganese plant shut down last night...

It wasn't economically feasible, the owners wanted out, no buyers stepped up. Numbers wise it was ~ 1.6 million tonne per annum in a global market that demands ~ 20 million tonne per annum, as a smaller producer in Tasmania with other factors dragging down it wasn't competitive with South Africa, Gabon, and Ghana. Australia’s only manganese smelter to close, administrators say - https://www.mining.com/web/australias-…

right - but in the context of this thread, manganese is a vital ingredient to smelting iron - so Australia seems it is no longer self sufficient.
Post reply on HN