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

U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 114 posts

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#101

Post by jjk166 »

brg wrote: post #59
benced wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what nefarious things Japan - one of the US’s closest allies by the way - could do by owning 12% of the USA’s steel output in the form of physical factories that are on US soil?

Report to other governments the allocation and distribution of government steel purchasing, and thereby provide estimates for the production and maintenance of warships, subs, tanks, and other vehicles.

The number of ships the US builds and other general quantities of war materiel is public knowledge. Beyond government accountability, US policy is designed around deterrence, where you want your potential adversaries to see just how big a stick you're carrying so as to prevent them attacking you in the first place. With modern satellites, it would be impossible to hide any large scale production even if we tried to keep it secret. The US certainly does have some classified military procurement, but these items are too small to have any critical details revealed by a crude analysis of steel consumption.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#102

Post by mrguyorama »

brg wrote: post #59
benced wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what nefarious things Japan - one of the US’s closest allies by the way - could do by owning 12% of the USA’s steel output in the form of physical factories that are on US soil?

Report to other governments the allocation and distribution of government steel purchasing, and thereby provide estimates for the production and maintenance of warships, subs, tanks, and other vehicles.

You realize we freely publish a lot of that right? The US has a gigantic military, and showing that off is an important form of deterrence.

Like, most of those tanks are just sitting out in the desert, in full view of global satellites.

YOU can collect that information for like a thousand bucks, by buying satellite imagery. People are doing that right now.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#103

Post by blackhawkC17 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #97
hx8 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the yen is the third most traded currency globally and Japan has the 4th largest economy in the world. It's true that their military strategic position is heavily dependent on the alliance with the US, but they performed exceptionally well with their 'fig leaf' of 'self determination.'

And that was done with an unparalleled level of american investment to build such a trade partner. Billions of dollars spent by the american government alone in aid that largely came in the form of grants, not loans. Billions more in investment by american banks and funds through the years. Majority shareholder in toyota today is a private bank out of Plano, TX.

> Majority shareholder in toyota today is a private bank out of Plano, TX.

Correction - Fisher Investment is the largest individual shareholder, with just a 0.05% stake. Stating "majority" would mean they own >50%.

https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/tm/ownership#:~....

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#104

Post by reducesuffering »

woooooo wrote: post #81
reducesuffering wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi Arabia is an unfortunate alliance as a pawn in the larger game against the more severe problems that China, Russia, and Iran pose, along with ensuring energy stability until we have better options. In a better world, we would never be friends with a dictatorship like that and their ideals. It's the less bad option, unfortunately. Snubbing all countries with problematic governments like Turkey, Saudi, Ethiopia,…

So what's the specific difference between Saudi/Turkey and Russia/China then? Sounds like all the moralizing is just chaff and it's pure power politics.

Saudi/Turkey are not invading a neighboring democracy to annex. Russia is and China is very much preparing to. There are 150k - 400k people dead because of what Russia did.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#105

Post by fragmede »

bsder wrote: post #52
fragmede wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Require Department of Homeland Security agents be given access to systems at TikTok to monitor and modify the algorithm to their liking instead of just shutting the whole thing down.

First, you would have a very determined adversary versus the very best of Homeland Security aka completely incompetent fools (in reality it would be outsourced to the very best lowest bidder). Second, what are you gonna do when you find a violation, fine them? If you can even prove it, we know how well that works. Third, no matter how you bend the algorithm, I can make it bend further to do what I want. Finally, Chin…

that's utterly defeatist. if I pointed out that you're not going to live forever, so why not get it over with now, I'd be a total asshole.

I see you're in the "government is always incompetent" camp. If, instead, we treat it as fallible; imperfect but not always incompetent, there's a reasonable job that can be done. (yes, even by the government.)

ideally there would be more creative penalties than mere fines, and in this fantasy world of mine, there would be proper, non-monetary incentives for compliance.

ultimately, full divestment of CCP influence on TikTok is the goal. If Mark Zuckerberg owned TikTok we'd be back to regular hating on social media, instead of this extra geopolitical version.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#106

Post by octokatt »

adamisom wrote: post #31
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. This is a disturbing read in some ways: > To maintain prices in the face of fluctuating demand, Gary would gather the industry’s leadership together in regular “Gary Dinners,” where price levels would be agreed upon and Gary would “exhort the chairmen, presidents, or other major owners of steel companies to maintain rank.” Those who refused to cooperate would be “disciplined” by the others. Many f…

>Maybe we just need higher taxes for the biggest corporations. Seems to me that'd exacerbate the problem. We need more efficient business, not less. (An evergreen need, while !utopia.)

We need both efficient businesses, with their large economies of scale, as well as efficient markets, which reward innovative efficient businesses by allowing them to get larger.

The trick in any attempt to create economic policy like taxes is to balance these two needs of capitalism, and right now the balance is sorely in favor of the former against the latter.

Small efficient businesses are being bought by larger ones (and are often taken apart), reducing their impact on the market by reducing their ability to threaten larger businesses. Since capitalism helps people by reducing prices through competition, the ability for oligopolies to use market control to reduce threats to themselves ultimately creates market inefficiency that translates into larger consumer expenses and less common good.

Because we're experiencing oligopoly control in most market places, breaking them apart and reducing them with taxes are the two largest levers to create more market competition. I hope this makes sense.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#107

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

macintux wrote: post #22
jessriedel wrote: post #12

Strongly recommended blog post: ‘“No inventions; no innovations," a History of US Steel’ by Brian Potter https://www.construction-physics.com/p/no-inventions-no-inno...

> Today, it makes just 12% of American steel...and employs around the same number of people as online pet retailer Chewy. That's...surprising.

Automation makes a difference!

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#108

Post by woooooo »

reducesuffering wrote: post #104
woooooo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the specific difference between Saudi/Turkey and Russia/China then? Sounds like all the moralizing is just chaff and it's pure power politics.

Saudi/Turkey are not invading a neighboring democracy to annex. Russia is and China is very much preparing to. There are 150k - 400k people dead because of what Russia did.

I want to clarify that I'm not "pro russia" here. I'm "anti bullshit". Every nation has propaganda, don't get high on your own supply.

That said, if you think for 5 seconds there are some blatant recent and ongoing examples of USA and allies invading and killing a lot.

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#109

Post by reducesuffering »

woooooo wrote: post #108
reducesuffering wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi/Turkey are not invading a neighboring democracy to annex. Russia is and China is very much preparing to. There are 150k - 400k people dead because of what Russia did.

I want to clarify that I'm not "pro russia" here. I'm "anti bullshit". Every nation has propaganda, don't get high on your own supply. That said, if you think for 5 seconds there are some blatant recent and ongoing examples of USA and allies invading and killing a lot.

Of course, ostensibly. However, for starters, US hasn't been about real annexation since Hawaii 125 years ago, which is not the case for Russia/China that this thread has been about. Iraq was a very major fuckup, even though Saddam was an awful dictator and House Democrats voted against it. Afghanistan was a massive waste, but after the initial Bin Laden operation, was for the naive cause of actually making a functional democracy for the people there, without which women are currently uneducated property. Israel has the double sided problem of their far right wing wanting to annex West Bank while violence escalated 100x by the Oct. 7th assault. Not exactly a peaceful neighbor gets invaded to upend a stable status quo for decades...

Re: U.S. Steel Shareholders Approve Sale to Japan's Nippon Steel

#110

Post by woooooo »

reducesuffering wrote: post #109
woooooo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to clarify that I'm not "pro russia" here. I'm "anti bullshit". Every nation has propaganda, don't get high on your own supply. That said, if you think for 5 seconds there are some blatant recent and ongoing examples of USA and allies invading and killing a lot.

Of course, ostensibly. However, for starters, US hasn't been about real annexation since Hawaii 125 years ago, which is not the case for Russia/China that this thread has been about. Iraq was a very major fuckup, even though Saddam was an awful dictator and House Democrats voted against it. Afghanistan was a massive waste, but after the initial Bin Laden operation, was for the naive cause of actually making a functio…

You're aware that other nations also have narratives where their mistakes had good intentions, yet their opponents are dastardly?

Russia has a story of the west systematically stripping their influence from Eastern Europe, overtly and covertly. Despite being warned we were pushing it too far.

Clausewitz is the only one who's objectively right in the end.

Post reply on HN