Goodbye US Steel

[g5000]

US Steel is no more. They have given up the ghost. Somewhere, JP Morgan is weeping.

As of today, US Steel no longer trades on the New York Stock Exchange. They have been absorbed by Nippon Steel.

During the Gilded Age, brilliant titans like Cornelius Vanderbilt (steamships/railroads), John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil), and JP Morgan (US Steel) worked their asses off to build their respective empires and literally changed the landscape of America.

Their empire building resulted in virtual monopolies, or trusts, which choked out what remaining competition they hadn't acquired, and they were able to set whatever prices they wished for their products and hold every business hostage to their desires.

For example, Vanderbilt had side deals with certain businesses which gave those businesses cheaper rates than he advertised and made their competitors pay.

Because the titans abused their positions in such ways, a new genre of reporting was born, known as the muckrakers. This also led to some politicians attempting to be 'trust busters", with Teddy Roosevelt leading the movement.

Several decades later, AT&T was subjected to the same trust-busting, and we are all much better off for it.

US Steel was able to make a lot of their profit off the backs of Jim Crow black labor in the Deep South.


Some people will blame other countries and their subsidies for the collapse of our domestic steel industry, but that is the union labor narrative and not the whole story.

Ronald Reagan gave US Steel tax subsidies, and instead of modernizing and improving their factories, US Steel diverted their windfall into acquiring Marathon Oil, which provided them with an additional windfall of half a billion dollars.

Anyway...

I have read some interesting books about the Gilded Age.

Here are a couple well worth reading:

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt​

​

The History of the Standard Oil Company: All Volumes​

​

The second book is a compilation of reporting by Ida Tarbel, the most famous muckraker of all. She really pissed off Rockefeller.


Both books together are a great way to read both sides of the era.

U.S. Steel ceases trading on the NYSE as Japan’s Nippon finalizes takeover​

​

.

 

[mudwhistle]

US Steel is no more. They have given up the ghost. Somewhere, JP Morgan is weeping.

As of today, US Steel no longer trades on the New York Stock Exchange. They have been absorbed by Nippon Steel.

During the Gilded Age, brilliant titans like Cornelius Vanderbilt (steamships/railroads), John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil), and JP Morgan (US Steel) worked their asses off to build their respective empires and literally changed the landscape of America.

Their empire building resulted in virtual monopolies, or trusts, which choked out what remaining competition they hadn't acquired, and they were able to set whatever prices they wished for their products and hold every business hostage to their desires.

For example, Vanderbilt had side deals with certain businesses which gave those businesses cheaper rates than he advertised and made their competitors pay.

Because the titans abused their positions in such ways, a new genre of reporting was born, known as the muckrakers. This also led to some politicians attempting to be 'trust busters", with Teddy Roosevelt leading the movement.

Several decades later, AT&T was subjected to the same trust-busting, and we are all much better off for it.

US Steel was able to make a lot of their profit off the backs of Jim Crow black labor in the Deep South.


Some people will blame other countries and their subsidies for the collapse of our domestic steel industry, but that is the union labor narrative and not the whole story.

Ronald Reagan gave US Steel tax subsidies, and instead of modernizing and improving their factories, US Steel diverted their windfall into acquiring Marathon Oil, which provided them with an additional windfall of half a billion dollars.

Anyway...

I have read some interesting books about the Gilded Age.

Here are a couple well worth reading:

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt​

​

The History of the Standard Oil Company: All Volumes​

​

The second book is a compilation of reporting by Ida Tarbel, the most famous muckraker of all. She really pissed off Rockefeller.


Both books together are a great way to read both sides of the era.

U.S. Steel ceases trading on the NYSE as Japan’s Nippon finalizes takeover​

​

.

No thanks to president Auto-Pen

 

[justoffal]

No thanks to president Auto-Pen

Otto Pehnn....46th POTUS!

 

[kyzr]

The company name changed but the jobs stayed. State subsidized steel dumping almost killed those jobs.

 

[theHawk]

Thanks 50+ years of globalism and “free trade”.

Yet the OP still wants to defend these people

 

[mudwhistle]

The company name changed but the jobs stayed. State subsidized steel dumping almost killed those jobs.

Oh....the horror.

 

[Marener]

The company name changed but the jobs stayed. State subsidized steel dumping almost killed those jobs.

No. Failure to adopt to changing market and technology did.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

US Steel is no more. They have given up the ghost. Somewhere, JP Morgan is weeping.

As of today, US Steel no longer trades on the New York Stock Exchange. They have been absorbed by Nippon Steel.

From what I've read, this merger was necessary to save the company in the long run and the operations are staying in Pittsburgh.

 

[kyzr]

No. Failure to adopt to changing market and technology did.

wrong.

U.S. Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Won’t Solve the Chinese Dumping Problem

The Trump administration plans to reimpose global tariffs on steel and aluminum—but will they fix China’s market-distorting policies? This commentary from the Economics Program and Scholl Chair argues that only a multilateral approach can provide a lasting solution.

www.csis.org

The economic argument for tariffs on steel and aluminum can most charitably be viewed as a response to an enduring challenge: China’s state-driven overproduction of metals. In recent years, this has been termed “overcapacity,” referring to government-backed overinvestment that ignores actual market demand. While there is no formal definition of overcapacity, the numbers speak for themselves—China produced 53.9 percent of the world’s crude steel in 2023, with a manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 73.8 percent (compared to the OECD, or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, average of around 80 percent). Additionally, OECD estimates suggest that China’s steel subsidies are more than five times higher than other non-OECD economies and more than 10 times higher than OECD countries. These subsidies allow low-productivity producers to operate at a loss, many of whom would collapse without government support. The global ramifications of these policies have only intensified because of China’s economic slowdown. As domestic demand for steel drops, China is flooding global markets with cheap, heavily subsidized exports—undercutting producers in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

 

[Marener]

wrong.

U.S. Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Won’t Solve the Chinese Dumping Problem

The Trump administration plans to reimpose global tariffs on steel and aluminum—but will they fix China’s market-distorting policies? This commentary from the Economics Program and Scholl Chair argues that only a multilateral approach can provide a lasting solution.

www.csis.org

The economic argument for tariffs on steel and aluminum can most charitably be viewed as a response to an enduring challenge: China’s state-driven overproduction of metals. In recent years, this has been termed “overcapacity,” referring to government-backed overinvestment that ignores actual market demand. While there is no formal definition of overcapacity, the numbers speak for themselves—China produced 53.9 percent of the world’s crude steel in 2023, with a manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 73.8 percent (compared to the OECD, or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, average of around 80 percent). Additionally, OECD estimates suggest that China’s steel subsidies are more than five times higher than other non-OECD economies and more than 10 times higher than OECD countries. These subsidies allow low-productivity producers to operate at a loss, many of whom would collapse without government support. The global ramifications of these policies have only intensified because of China’s economic slowdown. As domestic demand for steel drops, China is flooding global markets with cheap, heavily subsidized exports—undercutting producers in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

US steel production and employment peaked decades before China became a player.

 

[TimFitz]

Thanks 50+ years of globalism and “free trade”.

Yet the OP still wants to defend these people

50 years of complacancy and underinvestment.

 

[TimFitz]

Thanks 50+ years of globalism and “free trade”.

Yet the OP still wants to defend these people

I don't know what the issue is.

Sure, I would have liked to see a subsidiary called US Steel, for symbolic purposes.

The unions support the deal because the Japanese are going to invest heavily in the company.

Years of underinvestment had crippled most of the American industry.

Complacancy born in the 1950's and continued for at least two decades.d