Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[Rico1304]

That £1m a day was just Port Talbot, not all the plants.

 

From Sky News

 

However, it is unclear if any buyer would take over the business in its entirety, securing all those jobs, considering Port Talbot alone is losing £1m a day

[Stu Monty]

That £1m a day was just Port Talbot, not all the plants.

 

From Sky News

 

However, it is unclear if any buyer would take over the business in its entirety, securing all those jobs, considering Port Talbot alone is losing £1m a day

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting the private sector is going to save these people's jobs, keep their skills or care if the UK can build things it might need in the future.

 

The debate is whether it's in the national interest to have the state step in.

[Bobby Hundreds]

40 thousand people will be taken out of paying tax all together (ignoring VAT) it's another Tory success story.

 

I think long term we have to protect our industry. The solutions are out there but a race to the bottom trying to compete with China isn't one of them. Fucked if I know the answers obviously, but i'd probably tax the shit out of importing Chinese steel and offer deductions  or whatever the fuck on using British steel, just saying it makes me think of a better quality, market that shit like Rolls Royce... HS2 saving the thundercunts 20 minutes on their train journeys seems like a good way to spend 80 billion quid or a garden bridge. I'm all for building infrastructure if it makes sense get people working create jobs improve the country but Tory spending seems to be aimed at the Zombie herds of London. If China, Germany and France end up being the main exporters of steel how long until we are getting anally fisted with increasingly expensive steel. As much as the Political Class Tories hate Communism they must look at the chinese version with complete lust, mmmm the ruling class, exploited peasants, kill opposition.

[Rico1304]

Am I right in thinking that once the furnesses are turned off they can't ever be restarted?

 

They don't seem attractive for the private sector. Seems unlikely we'll see them privatised as we don't have the money to prop up the Industry, especially as the world economy is fucked.

 

There used to be 3 massive steel works near me, all shut in the 80's. My old man started at British Steel.

[Stu Monty]

Just for reference, Sinosteel (Chinese state producer) was rescued, with $16bn of debts recently; and their 100 biggest producers lost $11bn in ten months. The are fucking the whole steel industry up.

 

We always have conversations on here about having to bend the knee to Saudi Arabia because we want oil but do we see no issue with the idea that because China causes the market to say so everyone else has to shut down the production of steel? We see no major strategic problem with this? 

 

If you are paying people to make steel, and then using that steel to build things, keeping people in jobs and keeping skills alive then maybe you need to think of the low price of steel that China is basically giving away as not being the major issue. What it is costing you and the losses are not the same thing.

[Naz17]

I think it's fair comment. The reasoning behind letting the steel industry or car industries fail was that it was the market's will, survival of the fittest etc and new industries will emerge from the ashes and so forth, but no such thing happened with the banks. They didn't change or evolve, the well run ones didn't swallow up the shit ones, they were just propped up and are mostly still doing the same shit.

But the financial crisis escalated into irrational fear amongst investors. The market wasn't rational. It was a liquidity crisis which was forced into a solvency crisis by fear (partly). Plus everything was so interconnected, if the banks failed everyone would have suffered not just the bankers. Most of the help was liquidity to stop the fear, from memory we only nationalised 2 banks?

 

We either agree with state interventionism or we don't, we agree the state and its Orwellian shit has a role in correcting market fuckups or we don't, we can't pick and choose which bits of neo liberal philosophy we embrace.

Why so rigid in view points. State can intervene if the benefits outweigh the costs, it's just rarely the case that it will.

[Naz17]

Our banks are even complicit in that. They have provided funds to facilitate China's expansion with inevitable consequences. Of course China would have received resources from somewhere, but it's all grim. We do need to keep a steel producing capability.

Banks can invest in whatever they want. Not their fault Chinese govt subsidises production.

[Jairzinho]

Why so rigid in view points. State can intervene if the benefits outweigh the costs, it's just rarely the case that it will.

 

The benefits for who?

[Naz17]

The benefits for who?

 

The country.

[Jairzinho]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35933173/steel-v-banks-why-theyre-different-when-it-comes-to-a-government-bail-out

 

The Conservative Party have written an article and had it published on the BBC website.

[Stu Monty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35933173/steel-v-banks-why-theyre-different-when-it-comes-to-a-government-bail-out

 

The Conservative Party have written an article and had it published on the BBC website.

 

I like the idea that if the UK banks went under then all banks would cease to exist in the world. Not that other banks would have swooped in to do the banking now required.

 

Edit - Jay is on Twitter. It took him ages to write that apparently. To be fair, it's Newsbeat so he may just genuinely be simple.

[Jairzinho]

I like the idea that if the UK banks went under then all banks would cease to exist in the world. Not that other banks would have swooped in to do the banking now required.

 

I had to double check to see if the article was satire, or if maybe it was something for cbeebies.

[Stu Monty]

Paul Mason. With the hard truth of it.

 

https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/steel-crisis-they-do-not-give-a-shit-86516750a1e0#.fgtc5j6ta

[stringvest]

Banks can invest in whatever they want. Not their fault Chinese govt subsidises production.

 

 

I know.

[Rico1304]

Paul Mason. With the hard truth of it.

 

https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/steel-crisis-they-do-not-give-a-shit-86516750a1e0#.fgtc5j6ta

Interesting article that. Genuine question, how would China respond to the tariff on steel? It's unlikely they'd take it lying down. Who needs who more?

[stringvest]

Paul Mason. With the hard truth of it.

 

https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/steel-crisis-they-do-not-give-a-shit-86516750a1e0#.fgtc5j6ta

 

if only it was just that.  There will be individuals and organisations cajoling (not that they need much) and hovering like sleazy street sellers waiting to make a killing out of this misery.  

[Stu Monty]

Interesting article that. Genuine question, how would China respond to the tariff on steel? It's unlikely they'd take it lying down. Who needs who more?

 

Well, what have they done in response to the US taking the totally predictable step of protecting their steel production upon seeing them dumping the value of steel? What do we think is the intention of the Chinese in tanking the price of steel? Do we think everyone ditching production and letting them monopolise production even more is a good idea, strategically?

 

You have to ask yourself Rico, are we in a post-conflict, utopian world, as some clearly think we are or would being able to have access to producing your own steel maybe be a strategic necessity for a major country that might want to build things off their own backs?

 

You know, given that huge climate wars over food and resources have been predicted within the next 50 years by such left-wing loonies as...The Pentagon.

[stringvest]

Interesting article that. Genuine question, how would China respond to the tariff on steel? It's unlikely they'd take it lying down. Who needs who more?

 

There are some things that should be sacrosanct.  This nation has to be the least self-sufficient in Europe.  Never mind individuals being 6 weeks from living on the streets.  The country would starve and freeze to death in less time than that if our foreign puppeteers cut the strings.  We really need to stop the wanton destruction of the industrial fabric of this country and rebuild.  But politicians are not going to do that because it requires both vision and a will to improve the lot of the citizens of this country.  The pips should have squeaked a long time ago, but there's still a bit of fat on the middle classes, and they are the easiest to hoodwink.  When they eventually realise they're working longer for less, and their quality of life has disappeared down the shitter and cannot be compensated by consumer durables and aspirational kitchen units; when they realise it's not just the poorest of their fellow countrymen (who they're constantly trying to put more distance between anyway), but them and their families; maybe, just maybe, they might remember what is important in life and flush these cunts down the toilet where they belong.  

[Stu Monty]

I genuinely think Major and Thatcher wanted Great Britain to be great, and were just horribly, terribly wrong about how to do it. 

 

I think Cameron, Osborne and their mates do not give a solitary fuck other than what it does for their reputations. If all hell broke loose they'd be on the first private jet out of here that a wealthy oligarch could give them.

[Rico1304]

Well, what have they done in response to the US taking the totally predictable step of protecting their steel production upon seeing them dumping the value of steel? What do we think is the intention of the Chinese in tanking the price of steel? Do we think everyone ditching production and letting them monopolise production even more is a good idea, strategically?

 

You have to ask yourself Rico, are we in a post-conflict, utopian world, as some clearly think we are or would being able to have access to producing your own steel maybe be a strategic necessity for a major country that might want to build things off their own backs?

 

You know, given that huge climate wars over food and resources have been predicted within the next 50 years by such left-wing loonies as...The Pentagon.

It was a genuine question so I've no fucking idea what the Chinese have done, hence why I asked. Fuck me.

[stringvest]

I genuinely think Major and Thatcher wanted Great Britain to be great, and were just horribly, terribly wrong about how to do it. 

 

I think Cameron, Osborne and their mates do not give a solitary fuck other than what it does for their reputations. If all hell broke loose they'd be on the first private jet out of here that a wealthy oligarch could give them.

 

 

Their personal finances and those of their chums too.  I'm not sure how many directorships these people are lining up, but you can rest assured there will be plenty.  In fact Osborne is running the model that most poorly managed UK businesses have been running for donkeys years.  Squeeze down hard on your workforce and don't dare invest in anything that could improve productivity or the lot of your people.   Sell bits of your business down the river to keep the share price high.  What happens in 10 years?  They absolutely do not give a fuck because they won't be there to live with the consequences.  

[Gnasher]

I will only be reassured over all this when a member of the government reminds me again about some long term economic plan.

[Stu Monty]

It was a genuine question so I've no fucking idea what the Chinese have done, hence why I asked. Fuck me.

 

So was mine Rico. I genuinely don't know what they've done in retaliation, but the US obviously thought it was still worth doing.

[Gnasher]

Cost of trident is the equivalent of writing off British steel loses for 360 years.

[Section_31]

Cost of trident is the equivalent of writing off British steel loses for 360 years.

 

We should replace Trident with paedophiles that can be fired out of submarines. Rolph can be the Manhattan project.