This is just wrong .......

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by crwilli

Don’t blame Shell.

Blame years of poor US trade policy and uncontrolled, predatory capitalism that allowed China to build incredible production capacity and then dump steel around the world.

There used to be, may still be, enough steel production capacity in China to supply the world’s demand for most grades. A result of a central government pressuring each municipality to ‘make money and grow their tax revenues’.

+1 on this....I grew up the son of a non-union metallurgist in the specialty stainless steel industry south of Buffalo NY. You can also blame aging plants and ridiculous levels of union regulation of wages (1979: $17 per hour for the guy who swept the floors, $25 per hour for the guys who checked light fixtures and changed bulbs, sat on their ass 4 to 5 hours paid per day between assignments but with union protection)...just 2 examples of how unions helped kill the competitive nature of steel production in the US.....all IMHO of course

[crwilli]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

+1 on this....I grew up the son of a non-union metallurgist in the specialty stainless steel industry south of Buffalo NY. You can also blame aging plants and ridiculous levels of union regulation of wages (1979: $17 per hour for the guy who swept the floors, $25 per hour for the guys who checked light fixtures and changed bulbs, sat on their ass 4 to 5 hours paid per day between assignments but with union protection)...just 2 examples of how unions helped kill the competitive nature of steel production in the US.....all IMHO of course

Yes, with hindsight it is all of the above. I visited a few GM plants in the midWest in the late 80’s and let me just say that there were many people doing nothing while others were working their butts off. Absolutely no resource or ‘job sharing’ because of Union rules.

No doubt Unions played a positive role at times in our history but in total their role may have been mixed. Definitely did not help the US auto makers as the Japanese and European manufacturers came to the US.

[GSOphile]

I worked with an automotive business for a number of years. They bought part of GM's business, primarily for their distribution channels, but when they went to the plant and interviewed the workers, they were incredulous to learn that nobody knew how their operation worked. Each worker had his own little carefully defined work niche but absolutely no understanding (or curiousity) about how things fit together. It didn't take long for them to close down the plant and dump the brand.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by crwilli

Yes, with hindsight it is all of the above. I visited a few GM plants in the midWest in the late 80’s and let me just say that there were many people doing nothing while others were working their butts off. Absolutely no resource or ‘job sharing’ because of Union rules.

No doubt Unions played a positive role at times in our history but in total their role may have been mixed. Definitely did not help the US auto makers as the Japanese and European manufacturers came to the US.

Ageed...time was (and for many years) the workers needed the protection and support to be treated fairly, then like anything else in life...

"Power*tends to corrupt, and absolute*power corrupts*absolutely...." Lord Acton

To be fair, there ARE good unions still out there that have stuck to core principles and not given in to abuse of power and strayed.

[For The Love of Music]

Originally Posted by Mille162

The tax credits are based on the # of jobs and impact to the local economy, not on where they buy their construction materials


Not to say I agree or disagree on any opinion here, but it’s my understanding that China is the largest buyer of scrap metal in the world, meaning all that metal we are forced to recycle here in the USA, gets sold to China, then processed and sold back to the US as raw materials. When trade tariffs with China recently changed and China stopped buying scrap materials for recycling, townships in the USA had nowhere to send their collected materials so they just stopped recycling and mixed it all in with the trash at the dump. Townships/recycling centers have been selling these materials to China for years. If we are going to sell our scrap materials and require recycling, we should be encouraging foreign raw materials purchase when made from recycled materials.

Local production of raw materials from the earth is a dirty, destructive process. Most would agree recycling is a more environmentally responsible solution. Lets stop worrying about who produced it and where, and focus on how it was produced, best quality of final product, and overall impact on the world vs the local impact on the local community only.

Goes for cardboard as well, and I’m sure other materials. I used to sell it and make $8-10K a month, now pay close to $3K to dispose of it.