Posted on 03/08/2002 6:02:50 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
You were lost 20 replies ago.
I figure you're hopeless.
I'm crushed! A rapier wit and a world renowned free market economist. I'm in the company of greatness.
So the sky isn't won't fall if Bush tweaks the EU for a couple of years? Life will go on if the socialists have to rid themselves of some excess capacity? There won't be a depression and a world war? A president actually kept his word from when he campaigned?
I'll be damned.
Not at all. Pig iron is $200 per ton last I looked, which was 20 years ago. It's a controlled price. Manufactured steel has variable prices depending on alloy and shape; it's not a controlled price. The steel industry is not mainly producing virgin pig iron, but steel shapes and alloys. Much of the steel has been through the mill before, has come back after the manufactured item has worn out, and is thrown into the furnace along with new iron. Steel girders in Arafat's office building are right now headed for the recycling furnace, for example.
The real room for growth of the steel industry is in the developing world. Right now steel usage worldwide is about 20% of what it could be if all countries were running at Western levels of usage.
Prices skyrocket, commerce nosedives. Ripples throughout our economy, nobody's immune
I can always point to this and tell people you almost had a correct thought.
Orders increased 1.6% to $ 325.8billion, reflecting more demand for autos and computers, after rising 0.7% in December, the Commerce Department said. The last time factory orders rose in consecutive months was February and March 2001, just as the economy was slipping into recession.
Shows how little you know. Find below a list of products manufactured in the USA, with links to the companies that manufactur them. (This is just one of about 15 manufacturing categories)
| Automation, Production and Testing Equipment | HOME | NEW SEARCH |
LOL I just wanted to read this again.
Eventually they turn off their malaysian made computers, turn on their japanese made TVs and watch a good canadian hockey game. Of course they do it with the blinds drawn and the lights down in the living room.
The steel industry itself has been a major importer of semifinished steel products. In 1998 more than 6 million tons of steel slabs, billets, and blooms were imported for use almost exclusively by steel mills.
When combined with wire rod and other semifinished products, imports by the steel industry reach 20 to 25 percent of overall steel imports. In November 1998 the International Trade Commission heard testimony that several of the major steel mills that have petitioned against steel imports were themselves placing orders to import large amounts of the very same products as recently as August 1998.
In the view of the big U.S. steel mills, apparently, these are “good” steel imports, while steel products that compete directly with what they produce are “bad” imports.
If you're interested, later I may pass along what the Commerce Dept. says about another phony argument from the protectionists - defense needs.
He didn't catch the drift that high prices are bad whether they do it to us, or we do it to us.
Maybe I'll get him to admit it next time.
Shucks, thanks for noticing.
So the sky isn't won't fall if Bush tweaks the EU for a couple of years?
Yeah and the steel industry won't be saved either. The Rocky the Squirrel reference is because we tried this tariff thing before and the steel industry still loses tons of money. Why will it be different this time?
If these targeted tariffs are such a good thing tell me why those countries with the highest tariffs have such poor economies?
Argentina sound familiar? They sure are doing a good job of protcting their industrial base.
Kinda of like when you find a man that is drowning, be sure to offer him a drink of water.
From what you're saying, when intermediate users of steel produce auto parts, machinery, or washing machines from it, they have to pay a tariff, but when another intermediate user - steel companies - use imported raw steel to make pipe or structural shapes, they don't have to pay a tariff?
Did you say you had an economic point to make? You certainly failed the first time. Try rereading the last line of the CATO article - some steel imports are good and some are bad. Explain that in economic terms.
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