Category: default || By jt3y

Stop the presses! The American Iron and Steel Institute reports:

An economic study released today concludes that the Chinese steel industry has benefited from massive subsidies, and that the industry’s recent explosive expansion, nearly tripling production between 2000 and 2005 from 126 to 349 million metric tons, is the direct result of government policies.

As a consequence, the Chinese steel industry, which produced more steel than the next four largest producing countries combined, has grown far beyond the size it would have reached under market conditions. This government-funded and driven expansion is already having an enormous impact on the world steel market. (PDF file)

I await upcoming reports titled: "Sun Still Rising in East, Setting in West," and "Study: Water 'Makes Things Wet.'"

I'm not mocking the AISI, mind you --- I think they've performed a valuable service by quantifying this information --- but why has it taken this long for someone to do this study? Where were our elected officials?

Why did we have to wait for thousands of good-paying jobs at LTV, Bethlehem, Wheeling-Pittsburgh and other companies to evaporate before someone sounded the alarm? And I'm not talking about in the 1970s and '80s ... I'm talking about over the past five years.

After years of disastrous labor and industry policies brought U.S. steel companies to the brink of ruin 20 years ago, they made tremendous investments in new products and processes. Unionized steelworkers made enormous concessions to preserve their livelihoods. They learned their lessons, and modernized, trimmed deadwood, improved quality, lowered costs.

We repaid the steel industry's effort to reinvent itself by throwing open the doors to unrestricted foreign imports from China.

Take a walk through your neighborhood hardware store and try to find steel products that aren't made in China --- and never mind looking for electronics or clothing at discount stores that isn't made in China.

Look, China is not a free country. It is a socialist dictatorship where the rights of citizens are severely restricted.

Our private industries cannot compete with state-run firms in China who (in some cases) are being motivated by ideology as much as by the desire for profits --- and who are running flat-out with no protections for Chinese workers, no environmental regulations, and no concern for anything but making as much money as possible for those in charge.

And in many, many other ways --- such as its willingness to sell arms to enemies of the United States --- China's leaders have shown they are not our friends.

Indeed, argues The Boston Globe, "the reason to worry about China is that it is capitalist --- in an especially unrestrained, unprincipled way. ... With more than $1 billion in arms exports, China is the sole major arms exporter that has not entered into any multilateral agreements prohibiting arms transfers to regimes likely to use them in severe human rights abuse." (Emphasis added.)

Some people argue that the "marketplace" has decided that Americans would rather have cheaper goods imported from China rather than paying for goods made in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan or some other industrialized, Western democracy.

I would submit to you that there is no evidence that those importing goods from China instead of making them in a free country have lowered the prices.

(Maybe that study's coming next, from the American Wal-Mart and Target Institute.)

And I have yet to hear an "average" person --- not a bureaucrat, a think-tank analyst or a so-called "expert" --- who thinks the flood of Chinese imports to this country is a good thing for our long-term economic health.

Polls consistently indicate that despite supposedly healthy economic indicators, Americans are "concerned" about the economy. I have no evidence, but I suspect many of those who are "concerned" are worried about two things: Gas prices and cheap imports.

We can't do much about the first thing, other than aggressively funding or otherwise encouraging the development and commercialization of alternative fuels and mass transit. But we can do something about the latter.

Instead of prosecuting (some would say persecuting) illegal immigrants from Mexico, I'd like to see those immigrants made legal U.S. taxpaying citizens, contributing to the U.S. economy.

And I'd like to see the avalanche of cheaply-made, government-subsidized Chinese goods flooding ashore in this country --- and slaughtering our manufacturing sector --- stopped.

Protectionism doesn't help anyone: American companies and workers must produce quality goods and services at competitive prices. But allowing other countries to play by their own rules, while failing to protect our own interests, isn't "free trade" --- it's suicide.

It has already destroyed the clothing and electronics industries in the United States.

Right now, the steel industry is being clobbered.

And when cheap, Chinese cars start being imported to this country, perhaps we can kiss the U.S. auto industry goodbye, too. (And yes, many of that industry's problems are self-inflicted --- much like steel's problems were in the 1970s.)

In the 1970s, by the way, steelworkers were urged to retrain themselves for white-collar jobs --- now those are being outsourced to overseas firms as well.

At the rate we're going now, I suspect that in 20 years, the only jobs any of us will have will be selling Chinese-made crap to one another.

. . .

Crossing Update: The River Road railroad crossing in Port Vue is still a problem for motorists, but the Almanac's complaints are being heard in Harrisburg.

The state Public Utility Commission informs me that they have asked CSX Railroad why the crossing has been left unrepaired for more than a month, and they are scheduling a meeting with the railroad at the crossing.

Stay tuned. Maybe we'll see some action soon!