What happend to the American Steel Industry?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Kind of like what happend to our steel industry; an interesting mix of gross mismanagement at the highest level, increased foreign competition, changing supply and demand patterns (steel production outside coastal areas has suffered especially badly for some fairly obvious reasons), technological changes... and the tendency for people to panic as soon as things start going wrong.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It makes me sad to see great American industrial icons like Bethlehem Steel, Republic Steel, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube fade into oblivion while the Chinese, Japanese, and European steel industries hum along. 

The steel industries in most European countries are far from humming along; over the past few decades there have been big cutbacks and mergers in most countries. One reason why it's still in a better shape than in the U.S is due to various E.U and Government grants/structural funds to some regions.
Over here there was a vicious spate of closures in the early '80's, largely motivated by political concerns rather than economic ones. Some places (like Consett in Co. Durham) have never really recovered and there was some big cutbacks across South Wales a few years ago; the end of what was left of the steel industry in Ebbw Vale was very sad.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was thinking of Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe.

Did you? That's interesting; I tend to associate the word "Europe" when used in that sort of sense as meaning (basically) the countries in the E.U before the enlargement (o/c Germany is one of those but...)
But, yeah, a lot of steel gets made out in eastern Europe (not sure whether there's been job losses and stuff or not out there. Hmm...). IIRC what's left of Bethlehem Steel is owned by Mittal these days; I guess that counts as ironic.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sorry, I should have been more clear.

That's o.k; it's given me a chance to rant about f***ing CORUS closing down plants in South Wales at a time when the prospects for the steel industry actually looked good...

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Strange world

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You know, if you replace "American" with "British" and "DaimlerChrysler" with "Austin Rover" then that's very close to my viewpoint...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How did you guys feel when BMW and Volkswagen took over Rolls-Royce and Bentley?  How about Ford buying up Jaguar and Land Rover?

I don't think many people cared that much when the companies that made posh cars were taken over (although some did) but things were very different with Rover... mistrust of BWM over that wasn't helped by the fact that they eventually took the profitable parts of the company (ie; Mini) and let the rest to rot. The sheer amount of anti-German feeling in the West Midlands when BWM pulled the plug a few years ago was actually quite scary.
Right now, most people aren't sure what to think of Nanjing Automotive buying up the scattered remains of MG Rover (if they are genuine it'll just be a few MG's that'll get made anyway. Hopefully they'll use Longbridge, but I'm sceptical about that) but weren't exactly happy with the stuff the Phoenix Consortium and Shanghai Automotive were doing just before the company went belly up.
The company should never had been privatised in the first place IMO... the doom-mongers that said it couldn't survive outside of the public sector were spot on.