BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

[email protected]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 10:22:33 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 08:37:34 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 19:48:23 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 19:06:02 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:05:53 -0400,
wrote:

It turns out that the US steel industry shot themselves in the foot by
not adopting new technology back in the 1950s while the rest of the
world was doing it - very similar to what happened to the US auto
industry back in the 1970s.

It did not help the advancement of labor saving technology if they
understood they still needed to employ the same number of people.

===

Certainly union agreements didn't help but It was more fundamental
than that:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-05/steel-history-shows-how-america-lost-ground-to-europe

Better, cheaper technology became widely available but US steel
companies didn't invest in it for reasons that are not entirely clear.
The only exception was Nucor that continues to do well, even in the
face of foreign competition.

Cheaper technologies exist for the distribution of mail - like corner, multiple mail boxes. Who's
fighting it? The unions, because more efficient delivery means fewer mailmen. The same would have
been true of the steel industry, I believe.

===

It's probable that unions would have opposed modernization of steel
plants if it meant fewer jobs, but it's still a management failure in
the long run. More likely the decisions were driven by a desire to
keep the old open hearth furnaces going as long as possible in order
to avoid the investment expense. The old plants were cash cows until
competition drove them under.

We do have a long rich history of crusty old businessmen resisting
change. There is a series about the old robber barons I watched in my
cruise through old documentaries and they were talking about how Henry
Ford almost ran his company into the ground because he would not let
go of the Model T.