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Steel Crisis

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Original post by L i b
The question then surely arises: why aren't we? Why does it seem that the steel industry cannot operate profitably in many of the plants that are likely to close?
Cost of operations - Tata is, after all, an MNC with manufacturing operations in 26 countries around the world (according to wikipedia). Hardly makes sense to produce high-grade steel in the UK when it can be done for far cheaper and equally well (I think) in places like Australia, China, India, and Singapore.
Original post by L i b
The question then surely arises: why aren't we? Why does it seem that the steel industry cannot operate profitably in many of the plants that are likely to close?


Expensive UK safety standards
Expensive UK environmental standards
Expensive UK living costs for workers

probably we could compete better if we killed and crippled more workers, poisoned our environent and had a population which accepted having to live unheated shacks.
Original post by paul514


Doesn't look like it.
Original post by L i b
The question then surely arises: why aren't we? Why does it seem that the steel industry cannot operate profitably in many of the plants that are likely to close?


I'm not sure if it's all that simple to convert a plant that produces semi-finished products into one which produces higher grade finished products. I'm not sure how efficient the UK steel industry operates; whether it's still deliberately inefficient or whether it is a highly lean enterprise. I'm not sure if we have the current facilities or enough of the right skills.

Commodity prices can rise and fall very rapidly - far more rapidly than industry can respond. Maybe in a decade or two we will have smaller plants producing enough of the grades of steel we need for our own manufacturing industries.
Original post by scrotgrot
Now, this is all well and good, I love productivity. But what I don't get about your sort is you then turn around and say it's bad that we then have a lot of people unemployed and they must be lazy etc.


Opportunities are everywhere. We want business owners and everybody working at least a part time job.
Original post by Rakas21
Opportunities are everywhere. We want business owners and everybody working at least a part time job.


What is there for them to do if all the industries are becoming more productive? There is no joined-up thinking on this from anyone on the right. Always the mythical jobs tree.

Part time jobs are fine as long as people get a full time wage, i.e. the benefits of higher productivity accruing to everyone, not just business owners and management
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Little Toy Gun
Thank you Baroness Thatcher.


repped.
Original post by HucktheForde
repped.


Thank you HucktheForde.
Original post by Rakas21
Opportunities are everywhere. We want business owners and everybody working at least a part time job.


SO is the natural rate of unemployment considered bogus economics now?
Original post by scrotgrot


Part time jobs are fine as long as people get a full time wage, i.e. the benefits of higher productivity accruing to everyone, not just business owners and management




@Mature Student , how's that for invoking The Hawking?:wink:
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
SO is the natural rate of unemployment considered bogus economics now?


In a pure free market of course we'd always have unemployment (and indeed the fact we have low skilled immigration almost guarantees it). Personally however i'm not adverse to taking those unemployed for 12 months and conscripting them (those under 30 of course).
A new recession is on the way. Recessions always start with one industry going for a burton, triggering a chain reaction and then everybody is skint.
Original post by Laomedeia
A new recession is on the way. Recessions always start with one industry going for a burton, triggering a chain reaction and then everybody is skint.


When service sector firms start going bust i'll worry but actually the number of UK firms reached a record high last month. We're fine for now.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly


@Mature Student , how's that for invoking The Hawking?:wink:


not to sound like a marxist due to its taboo but this is pretty much what marx predicted in the communist manifesto and das kapital.

tho we must consider the fact that even if machine produce everything there still will be a demand for human workers to repair, build and maintain the machine.

and rich people cannot become rich if everyone is too poor, they need the middle class to be rich enough to buy their product. so classes are interdependent.
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Original post by Laomedeia
A new recession is on the way. Recessions always start with one industry going for a burton, triggering a chain reaction and then everybody is skint.


...yet most of the time when certain industries are struggling for specific reasons, there's no recession that follows.
It's China's fault.
Original post by United1892
It's China's fault.


guess who's on a visit to the UK..
Original post by Bupdeeboowah
Cost of operations - Tata is, after all, an MNC with manufacturing operations in 26 countries around the world (according to wikipedia). Hardly makes sense to produce high-grade steel in the UK when it can be done for far cheaper and equally well (I think) in places like Australia, China, India, and Singapore.


I still find it hard to believe that shipping material from the other side of the world is still cheaper than making it in the
Market.
Original post by United1892
It's China's fault.


There's a lot of things and people at fault.
Original post by MatureStudent36
I still find it hard to believe that shipping material from the other side of the world is still cheaper than making it in the
Market.


well it is. thats what international trade is about.

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