$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hina's steel producers wield an arsenal of unfair advantages, Nucor complains, from an artificially undervalued currency to near-limitless state credit and free land for new factories, resulting in surplus product landing on global markets at otherwise impossibly cheap prices--sometimes less than the cost of the raw materials.
The worst part of this, fumes Nucor's chief executive Dan DiMicco, is how little Washington does to defend American interests by forcing China to play by the rules of the global trading system.
"As long as we continue to be namby-pamby, weak-kneed negotiators, the Chinese will continue to cheat," DiMicco declared during a recent interview. "History has shown us again and again that if you appease bad behavior, you get more of it, not less of it, and it can lead to something catastrophic. Our very existence gets threatened."
Nucor is merely one voice (albeit a particularly strident one) in a swelling chorus of complaints from American business interests claiming grievous injury at the hands of unfair Chinese competitors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/american-steel-blames-china_n_806112.html
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China driving American steel out of business
China driving American steel out of business
by Sixstrings » Mon 10 Jan 2011, 14:10:04
China is impossible to compete with.. their factories have unlimited government credit, they get free land, and have an undervalued currency. According to the article Chinese steel is sometimes less than the raw material cost. So say goodbye to American steel.. it's toast.
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Re: China driving American steel out of business
by dolanbaker » Mon 10 Jan 2011, 19:12:01
Reminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
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Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.
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Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.
Hungrymoggy "I am now predicting that Europe will NUKE ITSELF sometime in the first week of January"
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Re: China driving American steel out of business
by vtsnowedin » Mon 10 Jan 2011, 19:19:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'R')eminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.
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Re: China driving American steel out of business
by SeaGypsy » Mon 10 Jan 2011, 20:58:45
I learned this game the Chinese play over 10 years ago.
In the late 90's my father owned Australia's biggest Venetian glass studio, which he had run at around the $500k mark for most of the last 15 years prior to 2000. It was a very successfull small business.
In 1998/ 1999 we started getting strange visits from Chinese people wearing 1970's style suits.
They would show up in a group of three and space themselves along the public viewing area.
Then they would simultaneously take a series of photographs, begginning with a sweep of the ground view, then the middle, then upper views of everything we were doing. They would be gone in about 2 minutes.
During this same period China was offering $50k jobs for 6 months work to Australian glass art graduates.
Lots of whom took said jobs.
Of course they were setting up Venetian glass studios.
By 2005 there was no money in blown glass unless you were famous already. Emerging artist's careers froze. Chinese glass was now approaching the quality of the better glass workers in the world. They were retailing the product cheaper than I could manufacture the raw glass. Effectively they made it utterly impossible to compete.
The same year, Chen Yonglin defected from the Chinese diplomatic service and announced the presence of over 1000 spies in Australia. That story died as quickly as it was born. The spies were't the usual, targeting military or infrastructure; they were (are) industrial spies. Their job is to look at anything other countries do which makes money and document it to assist setting up competition in manufacturing. Shortly after, another defector confirmed Chen's story but the media sat on whatever crap they were told by our security agencies and nothing was really said.
Our government seems so scared of offending China that it is effectively sanctioning this industrial espionage. Not one spy has been caught or thrown out. I guess our governments have decided that since China is going to be our biggest customer, we have to allow them to become our hardest competition.
The above story is why I have believed that there is complicity in western governments to force manufacturing costs down towards the lowest common denominator; China.
In the last 10 years in Australia the following manufacturing sectors have virtually shut down in favour of Chinese production:
Fashion (all but the most high end and even that is only designed on shore.)
Furniture.
White goods, kitchen appliances.
Interior design/ light fittings, tiles, faucets etc.
Toys.
Blown glass.
There would be more and I guess the same is happening everywhere including (perhaps especially) in the USA. Currently Sun Tzu is the philosopher of China, not Confucious.
In the late 90's my father owned Australia's biggest Venetian glass studio, which he had run at around the $500k mark for most of the last 15 years prior to 2000. It was a very successfull small business.
In 1998/ 1999 we started getting strange visits from Chinese people wearing 1970's style suits.
They would show up in a group of three and space themselves along the public viewing area.
Then they would simultaneously take a series of photographs, begginning with a sweep of the ground view, then the middle, then upper views of everything we were doing. They would be gone in about 2 minutes.
During this same period China was offering $50k jobs for 6 months work to Australian glass art graduates.
Lots of whom took said jobs.
Of course they were setting up Venetian glass studios.
By 2005 there was no money in blown glass unless you were famous already. Emerging artist's careers froze. Chinese glass was now approaching the quality of the better glass workers in the world. They were retailing the product cheaper than I could manufacture the raw glass. Effectively they made it utterly impossible to compete.
The same year, Chen Yonglin defected from the Chinese diplomatic service and announced the presence of over 1000 spies in Australia. That story died as quickly as it was born. The spies were't the usual, targeting military or infrastructure; they were (are) industrial spies. Their job is to look at anything other countries do which makes money and document it to assist setting up competition in manufacturing. Shortly after, another defector confirmed Chen's story but the media sat on whatever crap they were told by our security agencies and nothing was really said.
Our government seems so scared of offending China that it is effectively sanctioning this industrial espionage. Not one spy has been caught or thrown out. I guess our governments have decided that since China is going to be our biggest customer, we have to allow them to become our hardest competition.
The above story is why I have believed that there is complicity in western governments to force manufacturing costs down towards the lowest common denominator; China.
In the last 10 years in Australia the following manufacturing sectors have virtually shut down in favour of Chinese production:
Fashion (all but the most high end and even that is only designed on shore.)
Furniture.
White goods, kitchen appliances.
Interior design/ light fittings, tiles, faucets etc.
Toys.
Blown glass.
There would be more and I guess the same is happening everywhere including (perhaps especially) in the USA. Currently Sun Tzu is the philosopher of China, not Confucious.
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Re: China driving American steel out of business
by Pretorian » Mon 10 Jan 2011, 21:17:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'R')eminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!
The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.
At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.
Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.
There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blocade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didnt declare war on Japan before PH.
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