To think its a no brainer to renationalise British Steel

[feellikeahugefailure]

We need steel, it's just being killed by cheap dumping. Would be foolish to let it go under and not produce any steel in the country.

Also the mistakes with remploy show that it will probably cost more in benefits if the business close. Not to mention more long term affects on mental health from people that can't ever get back into work.

Would decimate the local area, not just the workers but the knock on affect of the workers not spending their money in the local area. One pound earnt could be spent 10 times.

BTW Cameron and his chums aren't interested in saving the jobs of anyone who is a wage slave. They are only interested in International Capitalists.

This isn't a "market working well" it is a nominally communist producer using dumping to destroy our industry. That isn't the free market.

It's exactly what it is - somebody else can do it more cheaply than we can.

We should play to our strengths (service sector) rather than cling onto relics of a bygone era.

bespoke short term unemployment? Why do you think it would be short term? Have you seen that area?

Human Rights too.

?

What's confusing about that?

We should do all we can to help those who will lose their jobs but nationalisation is madness.

Also those who compare it to banking are not very bright

Setting aside the huge issues for those directly affected, this is an interesting "industrial policy" and "state aid" economic policy issue.

The banks were deemed essential for the economy. So were bailed out.

Think aerospace and automotive are the main two sectors UK government "invests" in.

Incidentally cheap steel is revitalising the construction industry in the UK at the moment.

If we put import tariffs on steel and make it artificially high cost that would probably screw the construction industry, which is certainly more important than the steel industry in terms of numbers employed, and also lead to increased housing costs.

Plus it would also have a knock on effect on the industries using it, including high value high skill manufacturing, which is also much more important than low value junk steel manufacturing. People like Rolls Royce and Boeing would just remove their manufacturing and research arms. That would hit education and Universities too as well as industry. We could well lose our technological advantage of being able to make highly technical innovative products which other countries can't make but are high cost = high wages for employees producing.

No to renationalisation, but could be persuaded (not against the concept on principle). But we simply cannot let these towns go the same way as the mining towns of the 80s. Investment (incentivised by the government or by the government), training, etc is needed.

GIven China's aggressive behavior on the world stage, I am deeply uncomfortable with its apparent attempts to wipe out the steel industries of its military rivals.

Which aggression do you refer to and in what sense is it worse than European and US aggression?

It's exactly what it is - somebody else can do it more cheaply than we can Because their nationalised industries are subsidised.

We should play to our strengths (service sector) rather than cling onto relics of a bygone era.

Bollocks. We still manufacture a lot of stuff here as much as you may hate it - and we use steel. Only in a fucked up version of "the market" does it make sense to ship that steel from the other side of the world.

Because their nationalised industries are subsidised.

Because the cost of living there is much lower so the cost of paying people to work is lower too. You just can't get away from that.

But the Chinese product is significantly cheaper (the reasons for this are irrelevant).

So in this proposed scenario we spend tax payer's money losing a million pounds per day so that we can produce a product which is way more expensive than its competitors and so will only be bought by the UK government (i.e. the tax payer), in the process making UK projects a great deal more expensive. Double whammy.

It makes no business sense to do this unless the cost of paying benefits to those who will lose their jobs is more than the million pounds a day.

It's not Gbp 66 a day unless the only losses are at Port Talbot. Figures I've seen are 4,000 employees in Port Talbot so I suspect the government could just pay them and it would be cheaper (in the short term) than nationalising. That's 250 per Port Talbot employee per day.

Not commenting on long term costs as I dont know the underlying economics but wanted to correct that.

If you want reasons against tariffs etc, look here. Basically the US introduced tariffs on steel in 2002 which provoked a number of negative international responses but also reduced US steel production, increased costs across the board for all consumers and increased unemployment in associated industries.
The UK has little impact on global production, we make less than 1%, so closure will not impact world prices.

The issue is China demand grew rapidly over the past 10-20 years, so producers increased capacity. There is now a little slow-down and the least efficient producer capacity will be closed.

Isnt the worry that putting tariffs on steel will affect other industries? Or that companies just leave britain and set up in countries where they can buy Chinese steel without the tariff?

If we had some sort of carbon taxing we might have mitigated chinese steel dumping. Dumping should have been looked at a long time ago as it would take years to pursue through WTO from what we are told.

There should have been investment/soft loans to improve efficiency etc like Germany.

Its just with the backdrop of the bank bailouts and bonus payments to establishment school chums in the city it seems a very class driven.

Another worry for brexit as can you imagine being able to cut any kind of deal with china which wouldn't end up with swamping our country with even cheaper non regulated crap.

This talk of self reliant steel industry is not correct, we already import the raw materials and have done for over a decade, so the scenario of 'war' is redundant because if we cant import steel we cannot import the raw materials to make it anyway.

We already import high grade steel from within the EU and if there was such a demand for our high grade Port Talbot wouldn't be loosing ~£1m a day(thats ignoring the fact we actually produce a lot of low grade which is why we are specifically effected by the chinese dumping) , while the Chinese are dumping a lot of low grade steel it is not just to try and corner the market from India and USA but because they are on knife edge, they went on an investment binge heavily after 2008, to put it into perspective they used more cement in 2 years than what had been used in the entirety of the 20th century, 80% of Chinese steel factories are state owned and now that demand has dropped they either keep up production or force millions into unemployment.

We should have done something but protectionism isn't the right answer, and against EU, I know we veto'd against higher tarrifs based on carbon emissions, which is a subsidy in all but name, we were pushing for WTO anti-dumping tarriff at a much higher rate.

Still nationalisation isn't the answer, Im not against some form of buy out but it would need mass redevelopment and automation like the germans did, that itself would lead to ~60% unemployment anyway so we are on a catch 22

Also comparing this to the banks is not even comparable, it doesn't matter who is in government at present or who was in government during the collapse.

Ah, the famous 'not giving a shit' attitude, alive and well.

I shall temper what I say then!

I feel about this the same helpless woe I feel about the refugees and the fact that eventually- they just have to stay put as there is nowhere that wants them.

Unfortunately these Port T etc are the victim of globalisation, and economic forces. and yes, it sucks that around 2 generations of people are basically ruined. but its too expensive to manufacture here.

at the same time I only want taxpayers money going into this if there really is a market. I would prefer to use the site for another type of investment and manufacturing- but what?

as for the bank, I think that had to be saved as it would have effected millions not thousands

its shit though, really shit

This talk of self reliant steel industry is not correct, we already import the raw materials and have done for over a decade, so the scenario of 'war' is redundant because if we cant import steel we cannot import the raw materials to make it anyway.

What are the raw materials and where do we import them from?

Reliance on imports is impossible in times of war. We were cutting down park railings during WW2.

Some commentators are saying that if we penalise cheap Chinese imported steel the Chinese will not build us that nice shiny nuclear reactor at Hinckley Point.

What happened to our industrial strategy. How dies this affect our Defence Industrial Strategy.

How did the politicians let it get into such a complex mess?

Justanotherlurker

that's so interesting about China, I didn't know that

feels stupid

How did the politicians let it get into such a complex mess?

I thought the same. How on earth is it that the finest minds in the nation seem incapable of running a whelk stall ?

And then I remembered politicians aren't the finest minds in the land, and regularly ignore the advice of those that are the finest minds in the nation. Sometimes (if not especially) when they have paid for it.

Some things like gas, water, sewage electricity, the postal service, railways, coal and steel should be nationalised IMO.

I havent seen any good answers as to why not. 'Because Free Market Economy Rules and Think of the Taxpayers' just isnt a good answer.

It creates a strong infrastructure.
It creates jobs which is good for the economy.
You only have to have seen the effect the pit closures had on the Midlands to get it.