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

wsj.com

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

#31

Post by adamisom »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #29
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...

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.)

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

#32

Post by baobun »

bozhark wrote: post #20
Loughla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now? I am pretty sure that at one point China was an ally and Japan an enemy. I think.

China has never been a western ally

Sounds very "Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia"

(excerpt: https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/24.htm...)

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

#33

Post by ceejayoz »

bozhark wrote: post #20
Loughla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now? I am pretty sure that at one point China was an ally and Japan an enemy. I think.

China has never been a western ally

It's one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council for a reason.

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

#34

Post by renewiltord »

ITT Software Engineers who think that US Steel is the only US steel manufacturer because of the name. Nucor is bigger and better. You guys always want to prop up failing companies when we have better alternatives right here.

Christ, we'd have an annual bailout for IBM's laptops to keep them from selling to Lenovo. I can just imagine: "All tech companies must buy Thinkpads. The government will give $20b to IBM to continue laptops" to the thunderous sound of HN cheering.

Bunch of closet communists here.

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

#36

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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...

Also this Planet Money episode [1].

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...

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

#37

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

woooooo wrote: post #17
Loughla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now? I am pretty sure that at one point China was an ally and Japan an enemy. I think.

In the 80s and 90s there was a lot of hostility to Japan, because they looked like they might surpass us economically. They were even the villain of some Tom Clancy books. Now, the fear/hate is aimed at China, same reason.

It's next to impossible to strong arm China into another Plaza Accord, unlike Japan.

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

#38

Post by cowpig »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #18

One of the driving forces in steel making is high capital cost which drives the need to keep operating at full capacity, driving prices to margin. There are not many industries like that anymore - steel still is, oil, and some industrial chemicals. But even Pharma has slightly different cost structures. The big remining one is chip making - I wonder if “data centres” counts too?

Oil and gas refining, paper and pulp industry, food processing (e.g. grain milling), textile production, plastic manufacturing, mining, ... basically everything that's a commodity?

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

#39

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

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.)

Why? I'm not trying to troll, but I am wondering what the goal is? To me it seems like encouraging fair competition and letting deserving smaller companies survive is a sort of efficiency. A lot of big companies seem to be big because they're doing something shady - like the US steel example, or Microsoft with browsers (and now AI), or Apple with app stores and payments.

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

#40

Post by MattGaiser »

renewiltord wrote: post #34

ITT Software Engineers who think that US Steel is the only US steel manufacturer because of the name. Nucor is bigger and better. You guys always want to prop up failing companies when we have better alternatives right here. Christ, we'd have an annual bailout for IBM's laptops to keep them from selling to Lenovo. I can just imagine: "All tech companies must buy Thinkpads. The government will give $20b to IBM to cont…

A lot of it is simply that people don’t update their knowledge from when they initially learned it.

I still have relatives claiming that poor countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, and Egypt, and India are having 6+ kids per family.

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