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From: scw@cepu.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Unions, onions, and things... The Saga Continues
Message-ID: <231@cepu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Apr-84 16:56:45 EST
Article-I.D.: cepu.231
Posted: Sat Apr 21 16:56:45 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Apr-84 01:00:42 EST
References: <3113@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: VA Wadsworth Med. Center, LA CA
Lines: 41


   >Richard Brower					Fortune Systems
   >{ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower
   >
   >Now just a cotton picking minute here.  When there was basically no
   >competition for (for example) the steel plants in the United States,
   >there was no reason to modernize because one could charge what one
   [...]
   >a living wage for their workers.  Also, in looking at the situation,
   >they found that they could turn a faster buck (increase those quarterly
   >dividends) by investing in areas other than modernizing their plants.
   >
Damm straight, Thanks to JFK AND HIS PRICE CONTROLS ON STEEL AND STEEL
PRODUCTS.
   >Therefore, we are now at the level that it is far cheaper to import
   >steel from Japan (and pay the shipping charges) than to manufacture
   >it here in the states.  And the unions are so easy to blame!
   >
Note that it's shipped in Japanese bottoms, 'cause Americian shipping unions
are so powerfull that noone can afford to use Americian registry shipping
(except for Uncle).
   >


That's very interesting.  Just when do you think that we built all of our
steel plants anyway? 1860???.  Most of our current crop of steel plants
were built during the closing stages of WWI or during the 1920's or while
tooling up for WWII.  There was and still was , and still was compitition
too our steel production, and plants were modernized (slowly), a lot of
the equiptment in the 1916-1927 plants actually dates from the 1950's.
The problem is that Japan's and Germany's Steel industry is in all new
factoys (built since WWII) and carried on all new shipping (Japan had
almost no ships of > 5000 GRT left at the end of WWII), and produced by
a workforce that has a real interest in producing a product, not in
feather-bedding.



-- 
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
uucp:	{ {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb, sdcsvax!bmcg}!cepu!scw
ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-locus       location: N 34 06'37" W 118 25'43"