.
Same to you, friend.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

points well made and well received. the ‘strategic commodity’ is particularly compelling among several others reasons you bring up. thanks for the dialogue!

Wow!

Really NICE!

BRC has one heck of a nice collection of facts on call!

.
People try to “win” arguments rather than exchange ideas.

When one party uses real evidence and the other party uses feelings, emotions, fears — there is no exchange of ideas.

When there IS an exchange of ideas — what I like to call letting ideas “wrestle” — the result is better ideas, bridging of views, and an intellectual basis to agree/disagree.

The world is best served by some measure of skepticism, but it has to be fact based.

When the results come in, one knows which ideas were better. As an example, I believe that within 24 months, we will experience 4%+ GDP growth. There will not have been a single master stroke, but there will be, instead, the cumulative impact of many small things which were baked into a beautiful cake. No one ingredient made it tasty.

I am of the opinion that no elections are really about policy. They are all about personality. In the most recent election, Donald Trump won, but, perhaps more importantly, HRC lost. She took definitive actions which alienated traditionally reliable Dem voters and they defected.

Now, the Dems face the uphill task of reconnecting with those voters. If Trump is able to deliver nationwide good results, then there is really no reason why the former Dem stalwarts will return.

The biggest problem DJT faces today is a feckless, unprincipled Republican Party. The Republicans cannot handle success.

DJT cannot hold Washington’s or Lincoln’s horse, but one day he may.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

It is discouraging when we switch to all or nothing mode on both sides. We need to have similar conversations across the country not just on “Steel” but also on the topics of networking and communication hardware especially in the context of “network security” and “mobile”. Assuming that is we do make it through without the North Korea, Syria and ISIS crises 🙂

Russian continues to demonstrate a devil may care attitude as it pushes the boundaries of cyber warfare. Ukraine is a fertile test ground [1], [2]. China is moving (unintentionally?) towards a tightly self-contained economic eco-system [3] which clearly poses challenges for them as they try to fit into an interconnected global marketplace. But it also plays strategically well if a country wants to disrupt global economics without being disrupted itself. [4] for instance is almost ludicrous in its audacity. A company like MSFT cannot collaborate with its China office is VPN is prohibited for instance ….

The (digital) complexity of the average daily problem handled by the office of POTUS continues to rise. No surprises there but it does emphasize the need for competency as much as connections when we hire people to address these problems. I am nervous what will happen when POTUS goes into full blown self-preservation mode and yes this is a pox on both houses ……

I take hope from the examples you cited – though I must confess difficulty in envisioning president Trump alongside Washington or Lincoln. But then again I did not get to revisit or critique every one of their decisions in real time.

tl;dr: Your narrative gives me hope and I will keep praying our president stops engaging the trolls. Policy over Personality -> i like that. Yes I am naive and it is personality not policy that won the election but I sure hope it is not what governs the country.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/
[2] https://www.cnet.com/news/unprecedented-cyberattack-hits-businesses-across-europe/
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/business/china-cash-smartphone-payments.html?_r=0
[4] http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/20/china-clamping-down-on-use-of-vpns-to-evade-great-firewall.html

.
@amar I haven’t heard or seen anything from Albert. I don’t expect to.

As it pertains to the “debate,” I have not really heard anything from the left other than Russia and name calling.

What is said is inconsequential.

It is easy to be civil when one debates policy as it is — should be — based on facts and evidence rather than emotion.

There are a great number of things happening which the media is ignoring. As their cumulative impact builds, there will be an element of “overnight” success.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

This “4. Steel is a “strategic commodity” meaning it is essential to the warfighting capabilities of the US.” is a very important point. Not just for “Steel” but as a general principle of economic analysis. All imports are not equal and should not be treated equal — as the man once said – common sense is not so common.

Did Albert respond to your post? FWIW, I can see the merit to both sides of the argument. At this point it is still at the question and 1st response stage 🙂
It would be valuable for this debate to proceed in a civil and intellectually critical fashion (as it seems to be emerging) – thanks for engaging well 🙂

.
Yes, the Big Red Car likes buying $1 bills for $0.50 unless they are counterfeit in which case Big Red Car notes that is illegal and does not do it.

Steel dumping — selling a commodity below its cost to produce — is also illegal.

It is harmful to our economy for several reasons:

1. When a commodity is dumped, jobs which were formerly domiciled in the US are moved to the dumper’s country. US steel jobs move to China, Japan, S Korea.

2. When those jobs are moved, incomes in the US dry up which impacts the social safety net (unemployment is the most obvious impact), property values, the ability of income tax based governments to be able to dun and collect taxes.

3. When #2 above happens the burden on the balance of gainfully employed and property owning citizenry is increased thereby shifting those additional costs to other innocent Americans.

4. Steel is a “strategic commodity” meaning it is essential to the warfighting capabilities of the US.

5. When domestic steel manufacturing capacity is diminished (by the reduction in demand caused by dumping), the steel industry’s financial matrix changes and the reduced production must carry the entire overhead and the physical plant thereby making the COGS for the production of even limited amounts of steel burdened by a substantially higher cost to produce thereby reducing profit margins thereby reducing the willingness of domestic steel companies to maintain, invest in new plant.

6. If US domestic steel capacity were running at a higher capacity, the overhead burden and the reduced COGS/ton of steel would create greater margins resulting in better wages, higher profits driving re-investment, and the opportunity to lower prices because of fatter margins.

Tariffs are an emotional issue. When Pres Trump imposed the Canadian softwood lumber tariff, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth threatening higher lumber prices. In fact, what happened was Canadian companies shifted their lumber production to sawmills they owned in the States (the Canadians knew they were cheating for a long time and have been buying sawmills in the US for decades), US domestic sawmills began to produce more lumber, and FUTURES PRICES WENT DOWN.

As to outcomes, do not believe me. Believe the CFO of US Steel who after the Trump election and inklings that steel dumping would be dealt with said US Steel would be re-hiring laid off workers and investing in plant.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/07/us-steel-wants-to-accelerate-investments-bring-back-jobs-ceo-says.html

With the focused use of quotas and tariffs, domestic production of steel will increase, Americans will be put to work, investment will accelerate, and prices will be driven to the true economic cost of producing this product.

Bear in mind that this discussion really is based on the production of “shapes” (I-beams, flat sheet), reinforcing rods, and pipe. If a domestic US company buys steel and then fabricates it — such as making steel for buildings — the only impact on them is the cost of the raw steel. Nothing else changes.

Much of raw steel produced in foreign countries is “brokered” while domestic steel can be bought directly from companies like US Steel.

There is a complexity to the discussion, but following the law is both mandated and beneficial to the American worker and the American economy.

You may be aware, as an example, that the Chinese held American beef out of their country for the last 14 years based on a decade and a half ago Mad Cow scare. I note this because the Chinese, in particular, are enormous manipulators of their own economy. It is only because of the Trump admin’s threat to take a punitive, retaliatory action that the Chinese relented last month. Oh, that and the fact their internal demand for beef has gone up by a factor of 20.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

The Chinese are not stupid: (1) They drive the US steel companies out of business and then raise their prices. That’s old predatory marketing and illegal in the US but, sure, an opportunity in foreign trade. (2) The Chinese in effect export their unemployment. (3) With no US steel industry the US is vulnerable in too many ways. (4) Let the Chinese or anyone do as much of that as they want, and they can kill off nearly all the jobs in the US.

The above is just obvious stuff, and I’m no expert.