Steel prices - Yikes!

[cdb2]

This advocates the robbing peter to pay paul theory. Should American jobs and industry be put to pasture so Building companies here can pay less and exploit the exact thing the Chinese want?. A boon for one sector is a dead weight on another, is that really what we should be cheering on here?

On the contrary, cheaper materials mean more jobs in manufacturing and better quality of life for consumers through lower prices. The capital invested in steel production can be profitably put to use in other industries, as can the labor. But when you artificially increase the cost to produce goods, everyone gets poorer as a result. And it's worst of all for US manufacturers who will no longer be able to compete against global manufacturers who don't have artificially high production costs. That's robbing the US manufacturing and the average American consumer in order to pay the steel industry.

If tariffs and trade protection were really a panacea, why have previous tariffs failed to sustainably increase domestic steel production? Why have they instead led to manufacturing job loss and higher prices? When the same sort of tariff was tried in 2002, we did we lose more jobs in US manufacturing alone due to increased steel prices than the total number of people employed in the US steel industry?

 

[Snobdds]

On the contrary, cheaper materials mean more jobs in manufacturing and better quality of life for consumers through lower prices.

Since you emphasised this...

You are looking at only one side of this complex coin. Again, cheaper foreign materials make a boom for one sector while crushing another sector. Cheap steel helps price shopping builders, but they crush domestic production. How is that a "Net" positive for Americans and their quality of life? Seems to me that is a only a positive for the price shopper only. I don't think that makes the overall population of americans have a better quality of life.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I know this is about STEEL, but I heard on the Patriot Channel that the US is getting the worlds largest Alluminum Plant in Kentucky. If true, things are certainly looking up.

 

[cdb2]

You are looking at only one side of this complex coin.

I'm looking at the outcomes. And history tells us that that steel tariff's are more harmful to manufacturers and consumers than they are helpful to steel producers. More Americans are harmed to a greater degree by a steel tariff than are helped by it. It's simple, and that's what matters to me.

Cheap steel helps price shopping builders, but they crush domestic production. How is that a "Net" positive for Americans and their quality of life?

I think you should ask the 200,000 Americans who lost their manufacturing jobs due to increased steel prices after the 2002 steel tariff was created whether they have a better quality of life because of it.

You can argue that it's not fair for American companies to have to compete with foreign companies who have lower costs and I'm sympathetic to that, but at the end of day you gotta realize that the world just ain't a fair place. You have to do the best you can with what you've got, and what we've got right now is the ability to make lots more jobs and cheaper goods using materials that aren't produced here.

Now if you are really interested in leveling the playing field for US industry, then reducing regulation and it's associated costs are the single best way to help businesses in our country compete with the rest of the world. NOT tariffs that pretend to help but in fact do tremendous harm to American industry and the public. I'd guess that the cost of doing business the government imposes through regulation and taxes is at least as much as the 25% tariff being slapped on foreign steel. You get rid of that cost, and then suddenly US producers may be able to compete on a fair level with foreign producers, and without ANY of the negative side-effects on US manufacturing. In fact, that would benefit everyone because more production at lower cost necessarily means lower prices and more manufacturing. So why is no-one hollering to make it cheaper for US business to operate and compete with the rest of the world?

Seems to me that is a only a positive for the price shopper only. I don't think that makes the overall population of americans have a better quality of life.

This is way off on a tangent, but realize that we are ALL price shoppers, all the time. It's basic economics; what you consume is limited by what you can afford, that's everything from the quality of the food you eat to the energy you heat your house with to the quality and amount of health care your insurances payments buy you. And of course the size of tractor you can buy.

Higher prices mean less of the things that define our quality of life, and that includes shorter lifespans due to more expensive health care.

Now off to work, but looking forward to continuing the debate later.

 

[Snobdds]

I'm looking at the outcomes. And history tells us that that steel tariff's are more harmful to manufacturers and consumers than they are helpful to steel producers. More Americans are harmed to a greater degree by a steel tariff than are helped by it. It's simple, and that's what matters to me.



I think you should ask the 200,000 Americans who lost their manufacturing jobs due to increased steel prices after the 2002 steel tariff was created whether they have a better quality of life because of it.

You can argue that it's not fair for American companies to have to compete with foreign companies who have lower costs and I'm sympathetic to that, but at the end of day you gotta realize that the world just ain't a fair place. You have to do the best you can with what you've got, and what we've got right now is the ability to make lots more jobs and cheaper goods using materials that aren't produced here.

Now if you are really interested in leveling the playing field for US industry, then reducing regulation and it's associated costs are the single best way to help businesses in our country compete with the rest of the world. NOT tariffs that pretend to help but in fact do tremendous harm to American industry and the public. I'd guess that the cost of doing business the government imposes through regulation and taxes is at least as much as the 25% tariff being slapped on foreign steel. You get rid of that cost, and then suddenly US producers may be able to compete on a fair level with foreign producers, and without ANY of the negative side-effects on US manufacturing. In fact, that would benefit everyone because more production at lower cost necessarily means lower prices and more manufacturing. So why is no-one hollering to make it cheaper for US business to operate and compete with the rest of the world?



This is way off on a tangent, but realize that we are ALL price shoppers, all the time. It's basic economics; what you consume is limited by what you can afford, that's everything from the quality of the food you eat to the energy you heat your house with to the quality and amount of health care your insurances payments buy you. And of course the size of tractor you can buy.

Higher prices mean less of the things that define our quality of life, and that includes shorter lifespans due to more expensive health care.

Now off to work, but looking forward to continuing the debate later.

If bringing in all goods because they can be made cheaper someplace else and quality of life increase exponentially, why has this not been done yet?

 

[Industrial Toys]

It's something I have always wondered about.

When you have a town of 100-250 Thousand people and they loose all manufacturing jobs, and there are only Dollar stores, Walmart, Chain restaurants, various service industry and a large publicly funded Hospital. Is that a sustainable economical model? When business simply mark up products, is that the same as a value added manufacturing business?

 

[Ritothebull]

It's something I have always wondered about.

When you have a town of 100-250 Thousand people and they loose all manufacturing jobs, and there are only Dollar stores, Walmart, Chain restaurants, various service industry and a large publicly funded Hospital. Is that a sustainable economical model? When business simply mark up products, is that the same as a value added manufacturing business?

Most of the people that I know that think cheap imports are a good thing have never been to a town like you are describing, they are living comfortably somewhere far away from that town and don't really care about the folks that live there, kinda like a lot the guys up in Washington.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I own more tools, power and otherwise, and plenty of other stuff because it's so darn cheap. My Father owned one Red Robertson screwdriver (with a wooden handle) that we got him for Christmas. It might have been his only gift actually. Now a guy may own a dozen. Do we really need all this cheap stuff?

Government is so mired in debt, it's probably almost impossible to know what actually works anymore. The Hospital has plenty of very well paid, underworked employees that pump money into the local economy, but from where? Just more Debt which means it's a system just living on borrowed time?

 

[ArlyA]

I was in my grandparents attic looking at magazines from the 20's and 30's. Seems it was a Popular Mechanics... GE had a large ad in it showing there 7.25" skill saws they offered for just 79.99!! direct from them and they also offered a nice trade-in if you sent them the current 7.25 saw you used.. I was shocked by the amount these GE made saws cost back then! What would these cost us today?

Point is, manufacturers of tools have got better and better and reduced the prices, we all pay today. This also goes for steel and trade tariffs are famous for stopping any industry of increasing there efficiency. Go figure.

Arly* most of my in-laws family worked for the steel industry A

*industrial history is a thing I do love.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I doubt GE made Skil Saws. lol

A friend was just telling me how he has an Original Sawzall, mint, all cast body.

I love watching documentaries of Fords River Rouge Plant. Raw materials in one end and Model Ts out the other!