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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 13:41:18 :
In Reply to: Re: Another one bites the dust...... posted by Jason [75.37.62.166] on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 12:08:45 :
There are still a number of "mini-mills" in America, re-melting scrap into structural steel and cast iron, but I don't believe there are any more primary steel producers. I know there aren't any smelters left in this country because our mines ship their concentrates to Trail, BC, and occasionally to Belgium and Australia. The EPA has been trying to close the Teck/Cominco smelter in Trail for years, on the grounds that it pollutes the US. If they ever succeed, it will probably mean the end of domestic production of all sulfide ores (lead, silver, copper, and zinc).
As for the Unions, that's a touchy subject, but yeah I think they got too greedy. I remember all the big strikes that the Steelworkers, the Autoworkers, the Teamsters, and the Longshoremen used to have. Any one of them could shut down the country and they were proud of it. The problem is when the union guys who are making and hauling the stuff are getting paid several times as much as the non-union guys who have to buy the stuff, and they can't be fired no matter how lazy or stoned they are, something has to give eventually.
The Democratic party used to be the party of the working man and the farmer, but over the years they've worked hard to lose both of those groups. On the one hand, they're as cozy with big business as the Republicans, especially big agribusiness, and on the other they're the darlings of all those northeastern and Californian environmental organizations that want everything outside the city limits to be a garden of Eden preserved from them to enjoy when they take a vacation to it for one week a year, and to hell with the people who inconveniently are already living there and messing it up.
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