GST Steel
 

There has been much adoo about this now defunct steel mill in Kansas City.
The Obama camp points to it as a shining example of Mitt Romneys way of "saving a company", which is to say that after Mitt "saved" it......it no longer exists. (But, his ever fatting personal, financial "worth" certainly does.)

The right counters with this BS;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...651845802.html

A coworker recently challenged me with the GST Steel saga.

My response?

"Go to that computer, right there, and find me some recent pictures of that mill that Mitt saved."

Dave

Dave, what your missing is that is what the Right wants to do. I mean to say is to pick to meat off the bones of this country while they still can. The Right just looks to making a quick buck for themselves their friends and benefactors plan and simple.

Why to them it was "Union Jobs lost anyway"!





Barney

"At the time, GST's union blamed the company's bankruptcy on the political class, for failing to hamstring imports. "We can't compete against the steel imports that are being sold under cost," said the president of GST's union in 2001. "Our pleas fell on deaf ears in the political arena." The Bush administration would ultimately slap on giant tariffs."

No mention of the fact that these tarriffs were temporary, only lasting what, a few months, if that? Killed by the free traders? Oh, I know. If this mill hadn't been sacrificed, the entire company would have gone down.

Prove it.

Mitt couldn't strap on his cape and "save" it again?

Please.

Dave

Oh, I'm not missing that at all, Barney. I am painfully aware of just how "tragic" the right in this country really thinks it is when we lose our jobs and communities are ruined. You can tell by the smirks on their faces and the smart assed comments they make. I've been listening to it for decades, believe me.

I could tell you tons about the non-union plant I worked in that went under. The right-wingers were shocked---they had no union to blame. It was ALL managerial shenanigans and incompetence and I can prove it. But, to those guys, THAT NEVER happens.....Ohhhhh, nooooo....

A**holes.

Dave

Like I said "it was Union Jobs lost anyway"! That is why the political classes did nothing until much to late.



Barney

I should not be worried at my age with a retirement and healthcare. If I was a person leaning to the Right then all would be fine because I am doing great! But I want the same for all behind me. It should not be like winning a lottery now a days for the lucky ones. Trust me that is all it is. Hard work does not always pay off you know.

But keep closing the good manufacturing jobs and replacing them with service ones. Then one needs to look and see what is happening right now.



Barney

We try to do our small bit against all this out sourcing. Whenever Florence or I have to call "customer Service" we ask "Where are you located?". If not here then we ask for a telephone number for the USA.

Especially banks and credit card sompanies, I can't think of a better way to have your identity stolen.

All we have to do is slap tariffs on everything? Does Obama know about this?

Yeah. Well he did once. During the last election anyway :p

Pete

Interesting, and IMO a fairly balanced article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nment-44m.html

Sounds about right to me. In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of utterly insane and bizarre things done by managers frustrated with their own failure and incompetence. I was nearly fired once, for FIXING a machine that had run for days and not produced a single useable part.

Why?

"Because we could not afford the downtime."

Ummmmm, how is running directly into a scrap bin for FOUR DAYS wasting thousands of pounds of materials, better than spending three hours to fix it, so it would produce something we could use???????:confused:

Another excellent example was the day a plant manager made us shut the department down and polish all of the diamondplate on the machines.

Why?

He was angry that we were standing around, watching the equipment run and not fixing it..........

Ummmmmmm.....It was running great. There was NOTHING to fix...:confused:

BTW, the following morning, when he went over the previous days efficiency report, he exploded and wanted us all written up.......because we had four hours of downtime across the board.

No shit, Sherlock. That's about how long it took us to make the diamondplate pretty.

Dave

The Peter Principle in action?

Dave, you are smart guy. Why do you torment yourself and work as a factory
mechanic. I mean what do you expect?
I know because I once worked as a maintenance mechanic in a factory and
for a hospital. I was treated like, well one step above a janitor.
I took some courses and improved my standing in the world. Working in the AC
and making more money is not a bad thing and I don't feel guilty about it.

Yes real well done article, thanks!


Carl

I love what I do, Jack. I don't WANT to do anything else. You seem to perceive my rants as "whining" or "bitching"....this is not the case at all; I just like to share the realities of my world, with a populace that seems to have an extremely warped view of how it REALLY goes.

The boss is NOT always right, fair or even good for that matter and the factory worker is NOT always to blame for the industries problems.......this is a ridiculous myth.

Dave

Not everything Pete. Just the mofos who now consider the US a cash cow to milk. Targeted tariffs is how it works. If a business overseas uses slave labor to produce an export,(iPhones come to mind),we should impose duties to push them out of the game. Nuthin' new about it. The repubs are the party of free trade and union busting, how 'bout a poll tax on those stupid enough to register as a repub?:p That's it a tax on greed.....

Yeah, you know, in many instances we are all sorta forced* to buy goods from such horrible people, simply by the fact that they aren't made by anyone else, anymore. The difference is that it bothers some of us that this is the case..........and some of us practically celebrate it and openly desire to see more of it. They even attempt to label it "Freedom". FREEDOM???? Freedom for who? The slave driver?:confused: Their answer to slave labor is to force US to compete with it, thus dragging US down to the level of slave labor or something close to it.

Can anyone see the dividing point between good and evil there? I sure can.

Dave


(*Yes, yes, I know. Nobody "forced" me to buy a cell phone, a car, a toilet seat or a vacuum tube(:p).......just try getting though life these days without any of those things.:rolleyes:)

I read them as interpretive for the ordinary guy.

The GOP is the party of free trade? Since he suckered your votes, er I mean got elected, how many free trade agreements does Obama support?

Pete

Very good article Dave and very well balanced. The problem with Mitt Romney is not that he is rich, nor that he worked for Bain. His problem is intellectual dishonesty (his crowning achievement in Massachusetts victim of his "etch-o-sketch" election amnesia to make the far right like him) and the perception he does not care about others less well off. Roosevelt, Kennedy, LBJ were very wealthy (Johnson owned TV stations in Texas) but they did care about the less fortunate.
If you really think about it we are living in the "job creator" universe right now but why is it not working? That BS about investors and businesses waiting for Obama to leave office before they hire is just that. I know one thing in this life, when there is money to be made private enterprise never stops, no matter what party is in power.