On-Topic What is missing from this picture?

[NotHardUp1]

The endless news stories about the steel and alumin(i)um tariffs seem to be missing a key question.

Why is Canada able to be the leading steel manufacturer/supplier to the US if the US isn't able to compete with China, etc.?

None of the reporters seem to be asking this fundamental and critical question. American rust belt promoters continually carp about unfair competition from subsidized Chinese steel, but no one is accusing Canada.

What seems evident is that Canada is able to produce steel and compete whereas the US is not.

More irksome is the pattern of bad journalism, and my network of choice, NPR, is just as guilty as any other about either letting the interviewee get a free pass when making biased assertions, or it endorses a slant by the question chosen.

Does anyone know how Canada is successful in what America claims it cannot do, compete with subsidized steel?

 

[gsdx]

I found this: http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/02/news/economy/steel-industry-statistics-us-china-canada/index.html

Highlights:

- China is the world's top steel producer at 49%. (Canada is listed in the 'Other' category.)
- The US is the world's top steel importer. 17% of imported steel comes from Canada.
- Canada is the top exporter of steel to the US. 88% of steel produced goes to the United States.

Great info and charts in the article.

Sorry. It doesn't say anything about why the US can't compete.

 

[NotHardUp1]

It would seem a very rudimentary question. Both nations share affiliates of the AFL-CIO, so wages shouldn't be too far apart.

There just seems to be something so obvious about asking this question. How can all those journalists not see it?

 

[eastofeden]

The problem is..trump is an idiot (and a traitor) who is 24/7 pandering to an "idea" than has a false narrative to satisfy his base which is fine with false narratives..hence their eagerness to brand anything that doesn't fit as "fake news"...

The steel industry lost jobs because of better production techniques that led them to produce far better and more steel with much less human labor resources.

needs all of 14 employees to make 500,000 tons of steel wire a year. The same mill in the 1960s would have needed as many as 1,000 workers to produce a similar amount albeit of lesser quality.

https://www.aei.org/publication/the...ology-not-imports-and-theyre-not-coming-back/

This isn't about steel...he wants applause from the same people who think Obama is really not an American..and he will get it.

Make the foreigners responsible for something as simple as technological advances that take jobs from pretty much every industry over time. Every business on the planet wants to maximize profits and minimize costs.....

...this guy is a CON ARTIST.....

...and he has successfully led the press to follow his diversions and sensationalism to avoid the real story.

 

[ballcaphair]

I'm a conservative and am ashamed to say I think this is a follow the money situation. Investors have nickle and dimed our consumption out of the country and abandoned our blue collar foundation. We've shopped so hard for a bargain that we've tripped over ourselves. We've lost sight of the big picture for quite some time. (Just thinking out loud and still trying to process all this.)

 

[rareboy]

Our dollar is about 80 cents US.

US steel bought out of Canadian production over the last 20 years. In fact most of our production is foreign owned by US Steel and Arcelor Mittal.

Canadian steel plants relied on cheap hydro and coal power and Pennsylvania coal...but to take the Nanticoke plant as an example....they were built or updated as highly automated plants in the early 70's. So we weren't sitting with plants that were 100 years old.

One factor in cost efficiency is our universal health care. Because Canadian healthcare costs are so much lower, the health benefits part of wage and benefits packages is a smaller bite.

But even we can't compete with Chinese steel.

 

[Telstra]

i find it curious about saying China de-valued its currency ... etc
Why can't the US dropped its currency to $1 US = 1 RMB ????????????? yes why not ?????

 

[rareboy]

^ Sorry Telly....China, like the US exerts great control over its currency. Because the US owes China trillions by this point for the wars of adventure in Iraq....it can't really do much about this.

And currency is only worth against the US dollar what traders decide it is worth. Canada has a discounted currency because we literally can't be as strong as the US. We have a small population spread over a vast, vast area and have inefficiencies baked into our production because of winter...ie...we have no warm belt that reduces costs of production and labour because of lower energy consumption.

But back to topic.

This is an interesting read.

http://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/CIIT/Reports/RP9041990/ciitrp07/ciitrp07-e.pdf

 

[ballcaphair]

^ rb, I'm only half way through this and interesting is an understatement. I feel like a dolt!

 

[NotHardUp1]

I'm a conservative and am ashamed to say I think this is a follow the money situation. Investors have nickle and dimed our consumption out of the country and abandoned our blue collar foundation. We've shopped so hard for a bargain that we've tripped over ourselves. We've lost sight of the big picture for quite some time. (Just thinking out loud and still trying to process all this.)

I have a problem using "we" for what the titans of industry have done. "We" are not Montgomery Burns. "We" don't shop for builders or contractors or cars for the difference of $40 in the price.

It's the grind to get profit for those damned executives, not so much the stockholder and certainly not the workers.

 

[ballcaphair]

I have a problem using "we" for what the titans of industry have done. "We" are not Montgomery Burns. "We" don't shop for builders or contractors or cars for the difference of $40 in the price.

It's the grind to get profit for those damned executives, not so much the stockholder and certainly not the workers.

I apologize for the use "we." America's business have shopped for the cheapest production and financial costs. "They do not reinvest in infrastructure or innovation. Corporate money goes to the top and buybacks for overseas investment. They have outsourced our dream.

 

[rareboy]

By the way. I would point out that Canada actually imports more steel from the US than we export.

In North America's integrated steel industry, different plants produce different products....negating duplication and oversupply in any one region.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I apologize for the use "we." America's business have shopped for the cheapest production and financial costs. "They do not reinvest in infrastructure or innovation. Corporate money goes to the top and buybacks for overseas investment. They have outsourced our dream.

Oh, I didn't mean any apology was needed. I was just reminding all that the 1% is the problem, not the many.

 

[ballcaphair]

^ Amen.

 

[Kulindahr]

Oh, I didn't mean any apology was needed. I was just reminding all that the 1% is the problem, not the many.

It's not even the 1%, it's the 0.25% who buy our elections and then the 0.1% who own the big corporations.

 

[NotHardUp1]

It's as the founding fathers intended, government by the rich people, for the rich people, and of the rich people.

As it turns out, not really so revolutionary after looking across the globe.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's as the founding fathers intended, government by the rich people, for the rich people, and of the rich people.

As it turns out, not really so revolutionary after looking across the globe.

Not really -- they intended government by landowners, however poor. And Jefferson, Madison, and others were vehement that corporations had no business being involved in politics, considering such to be a grave threat to liberty. Much of the campaign money provided by the wealthy comes not from their own pockets but from the corporations they control -- the very thing the Founding Fathers warned about.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I cannot imagine that the landed gentry have not always had a disproportionate amount of influence in the government, including the U.S., from the beginning.

It really doesn't matter what is on the piece of paper when all the levers of power are at the fingertips of the plutocrats.

And, as in all systems, the poor landowners are soon relieved of their burden of meaningful land ownership when the wealthy control the means of distribution and commerce.

Just look at the U.S. We had individual farmers, homesteads, economic opportunity distributed, and a century after the railroads and mechanization, the land is again consolidated for the few, with massive farms and ranches owned/controlled by industrial might, the likes of Tyson, ADM, and others.

 

[Kulindahr]

I cannot imagine that the landed gentry have not always had a disproportionate amount of influence in the government, including the U.S., from the beginning.

It really doesn't matter what is on the piece of paper when all the levers of power are at the fingertips of the plutocrats.

And, as in all systems, the poor landowners are soon relieved of their burden of meaningful land ownership when the wealthy control the means of distribution and commerce.

Just look at the U.S. We had individual farmers, homesteads, economic opportunity distributed, and a century after the railroads and mechanization, the land is again consolidated for the few, with massive farms and ranches owned/controlled by industrial might, the likes of Tyson, ADM, and others.

The farm issue has a simple solution: eliminate subsidies for agribusiness corporations and give them only to family farms where the family lives on and works the land. It's really a no-brainer, since those are the people the subsidies were meant for in the first place.

It would have beneficial environmental effects, too, as it's the agribusiness corporations that are poisoning marginal land by the use of chemical fertilizers and depleting underground aquifers to do so.