The unionization from the 1940s onward had the perverse effect of increasing wages and prices for American steel products themselves at a time when (1) many of those union jobs were technologically obsolete because of (2) relentless automation of the (rebuilt) mills in S Korea and Japan, our biggest competitors. But even then, (3) the reduction of the consumption of steel itself, in favor of plastics, aluminum, and composites, has depressed the steel industry the world over.
US Steel is an economic carcass; in comparison, the small, new, efficient mills in North Carolina and TN are in weak but not dire shape.
I would like to know: when will GM finally go out of business? Even their recent campaign of
giving their cars away has not attracted new buyers.
Contrast that with Toyota or Honda. They sell their cars and trucks at full freight, with nary a discount to be seen (the ones that we do see are from the dealers themselves), yet they don't seem to share in GM's misery.
