Trump Watch

How many steel mills have reopened in Pittsburgh?

Edited to add - midwest farmers voted for him too, but they are kind of pissed at the impact retaliatory tariffs on grain will do to them.

The mills you're seeing reopen are mostly specialty casting mills which tend to be small in size. Pittsburgh has only a few steel mills anymore. USS closed mills all across the country from the mid seventies on, mostly due to technology improvements in the Iron and Steel making processes.What was once done all over the country is now done in maybe three or so mills now....tariffs hurt production output that's been siting idly by....for big steel, its like running a car at 40 mph.....with already operating mills....just ramp it up.

Which also brings up a question of why did our gov't do this to big steel in the first place? We allowed dumping here and this is why many mills closed.

At Edgar Thomson Works, where I did 12 years hard time, the Open Hearth furnaces, which made around 240 ton of steel in eight hours were replaced by the BOP (basic oxygen process) which placed an oxygen lance down into the steel, produced about 240 ton in only forty five minutes. They poured the molten steel into ingot molds which had to cool, then be reheated and rolled out into slabs in a slabbing mill (where I worked). They eliminated the rolling mill by directly pouring the molten steel into what is called a continuous caster which makes slabs continuously as long as you got molten steel feeding into it, slabs of different sizes and lengths are made to order....poured,cast, cooled and cut to about any size or length you want. Not all steel can be cast, but even at that, you only need maybe a couple mills in the country to do that function.
Even in the blast furnace, which Iron is made, has cut production time drastically using the 'direct reduction' process.

So, for the most part, any mill that's coming back most likely are making specialty alloys and such, on a small time basis, probably in electric arc furnaces.
 
The mills you're seeing reopen are mostly specialty casting mills which tend to be small in size. Pittsburgh has only a few steel mills anymore. USS closed mills all across the country from the mid seventies on, mostly due to technology improvements in the Iron and Steel making processes.What was once done all over the country is now done in maybe three or so mills now....tariffs hurt production output that's been siting idly by....for big steel, its like running a car at 40 mph.....with already operating mills....just ramp it up.

Which also brings up a question of why did our gov't do this to big steel in the first place? We allowed dumping here and this is why many mills closed.

At Edgar Thomson Works, where I did 12 years hard time, the Open Hearth furnaces, which made around 240 ton of steel in eight hours were replaced by the BOP (basic oxygen process) which placed an oxygen lance down into the steel, produced about 240 ton in only forty five minutes. They poured the molten steel into ingot molds which had to cool, then be reheated and rolled out into slabs in a slabbing mill (where I worked). They eliminated the rolling mill by directly pouring the molten steel into what is called a continuous caster which makes slabs continuously as long as you got molten steel feeding into it, slabs of different sizes and lengths are made to order....poured,cast, cooled and cut to about any size or length you want. Not all steel can be cast, but even at that, you only need maybe a couple mills in the country to do that function.
Even in the blast furnace, which Iron is made, has cut production time drastically using the 'direct reduction' process.

So, for the most part, any mill that's coming back most likely are making specialty alloys and such, on a small time basis, probably in electric arc furnaces.

Most righties blame the unions for the demise of the US Steel industry. Nobody seems to recognize that a lot of it is automation and technology gains.

Gosh...it sure LOOKS good to slap a tariff on something while telling entire parts of the country that this will bring "Jobs, jobs jobs". Even though THEY know that there really aren't that many jobs to be created. Ramping up production would not involve bringing the steel workforce to what it was in the 1960's.

But...."what did Obama do". If he did the same damn thing, people would say "it didn't create any jobs, and it made other things I buy more expensive". It doesn't matter that Obama took over an economy that was on the verge of collapse and turn it around. He didn't turn it around fast enough...it was 'the slowest recovery in American history". But he left it in a helluva lot better shape than he found it.

Point being - if Obama had done anything with tariffs, the same MAGA supporters would have been criticizing him for it.
 
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Most righties blame the unions for the demise of the US Steel industry. Nobody seems to recognize that a lot of it is automation and technology gains.

Gosh...it sure LOOKS good to slap a tariff on something while telling entire parts of the country that this will bring "Jobs, jobs jobs". Even though THEY know that there really aren't that many jobs to be created. Ramping up production would not involve bringing the steel workforce to what it was in the 1960's.

But...."what did Obama do". If he did the same damn thing, people would say "it didn't create any jobs, and it made other things I buy more expensive". It doesn't matter that Obama took over an economy that was on the verge of collapse and turn it around. He didn't turn it around fast enough...it was 'the slowest recovery in American history". But he left it in a helluva lot better shape than he found it.

Point being - if Obama had done anything with tariffs, the same MAGA supporters would have been criticizing him for it.
Says the one who has no clue how important steel is to the USA.
Let me explain, you boy Hussein was trying to weaken our country by buying inferior steel from China and any other America hating nation(I'm sure you can relate:p). The inferior metal compromised our military might.
That is the jist but you're a privileged WHITE boy who talks like he can relate to the ghetto crowd that you faking-ly try to relate to. Yet you've proven that like most liberals with the KKK gene, you're a racist(do your really want me to go look for that thread AGAIN???)
But continue to spew your stupidity because I get a good laugh and in the coming months you're in for a rude awakening.
 
But...."what did Obama do". .... But he left it in a helluva lot better shape than he found it.
.

The American economy was hardly "on the verge of collapse" and Obama amassed more national debt than had EVER been collectively done in ALL time since 1776. If that doesn't qualify as a direct act of intentional sabotage I don't what would..but he "left it in a helluva better shape than he found it"...Seriously? Are you simply insane or what? Honestly; just what exactly is it that you liberals smoke?
 
The mills you're seeing reopen are mostly specialty casting mills which tend to be small in size. Pittsburgh has only a few steel mills anymore. USS closed mills all across the country from the mid seventies on, mostly due to technology improvements in the Iron and Steel making processes.What was once done all over the country is now done in maybe three or so mills now....tariffs hurt production output that's been siting idly by....for big steel, its like running a car at 40 mph.....with already operating mills....just ramp it up.

Which also brings up a question of why did our gov't do this to big steel in the first place? We allowed dumping here and this is why many mills closed.

At Edgar Thomson Works, where I did 12 years hard time, the Open Hearth furnaces, which made around 240 ton of steel in eight hours were replaced by the BOP (basic oxygen process) which placed an oxygen lance down into the steel, produced about 240 ton in only forty five minutes. They poured the molten steel into ingot molds which had to cool, then be reheated and rolled out into slabs in a slabbing mill (where I worked). They eliminated the rolling mill by directly pouring the molten steel into what is called a continuous caster which makes slabs continuously as long as you got molten steel feeding into it, slabs of different sizes and lengths are made to order....poured,cast, cooled and cut to about any size or length you want. Not all steel can be cast, but even at that, you only need maybe a couple mills in the country to do that function.
Even in the blast furnace, which Iron is made, has cut production time drastically using the 'direct reduction' process.

So, for the most part, any mill that's coming back most likely are making specialty alloys and such, on a small time basis, probably in electric arc furnaces.

Thanks for the education on that. I'll confess previously wholesale ignorance per "the Open Hearth furnaces, which made around 240 ton of steel in eight hours were replaced by the BOP (basic oxygen process) which placed an oxygen lance down into the steel, produced about 240 ton in only forty five minutes" alone, which serves to explain some of the current circumstances.

For "Which also brings up a question of why did our gov't do this to big steel in the first place? We allowed dumping here and this is why many mills closed." Well, that's both sadly but easily explained: Senator Suckabuck and Congressman CanIhavesomemore got their pockets filled. It's hardly as if the vast majority of the utterly disgusting scum that float themselves up into the House give even a tinker's damn about America or the people they only laughably even pretend to "represent" anymore. I will forever hold the Founding Fathers in awe. Where else in all of human history was such a magnificent "social experiment" ever even attempted, much less one that's taken the sadly standard-issue vermin/serpents/termites/leeches over two full centuries to finally undermine?

What America was in even still lving memory for some: https://www.google.com/search?q=pic...sAQIJg&biw=1920&bih=1086#imgrc=6ySTDVSHXwZyqM:

What we've needlessly (and suicidally) allowed things to degenerate down to: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/v..._to_use_a_fcking_democracy_so_we_have_to.html
 
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Says the one who has no clue how important steel is to the USA.
Let me explain, you boy Hussein was trying to weaken our country by buying inferior steel from China and any other America hating nation(I'm sure you can relate:p). The inferior metal compromised our military might.
That is the jist but you're a privileged WHITE boy who talks like he can relate to the ghetto crowd that you faking-ly try to relate to. Yet you've proven that like most liberals with the KKK gene, you're a racist(do your really want me to go look for that thread AGAIN???)
But continue to spew your stupidity because I get a good laugh and in the coming months you're in for a rude awakening.

I most likely know the thread you are talking about. It's a thread where I said what 99% of the conservative "I am not a racist" posters don't have the cojones to say....but boy do they think it.

As for steel jobs....will they come back up to the levels they were in the 60's? Will the US steel companies abandon the automation that was the reason so many jobs were lost?

Speaking of jobs How many coal jobs did he bring back? 1,000?

I still maintain that if Obama had imposed a steel tariff in 2015, Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News and YOU would be screaming from the mountaintops that this was only going to raise prices on you.
 
Most righties blame the unions for the demise of the US Steel industry. Nobody seems to recognize that a lot of it is automation and technology gains.

That's not even close to the truth.

Fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_strike_of_1959

Impact
In the long run, the strike devastated the American steel industry. More than 85 percent of U.S. steel production had been shut down for almost four months. Hungry for steel, American industries began importing steel from foreign sources. Steel imports had been negligible prior to 1959. But during the strike, basic U.S. industries found Japanese and Korean steel to be less costly than American steel even after accounting for importation costs. The sudden shift toward imported steel set in motion a series of events, which led to the gradual decline of the American steel industry.
 
That's not even close to the truth.

Fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_strike_of_1959

Impact
In the long run, the strike devastated the American steel industry. More than 85 percent of U.S. steel production had been shut down for almost four months. Hungry for steel, American industries began importing steel from foreign sources. Steel imports had been negligible prior to 1959. But during the strike, basic U.S. industries found Japanese and Korean steel to be less costly than American steel even after accounting for importation costs. The sudden shift toward imported steel set in motion a series of events, which led to the gradual decline of the American steel industry.

I was only responding to a right leaning guy who lives in Pittsburgh. He was the one who mentioned automation. FWIW, a lot of things have changed since 1959... I peed my pants in 1959. I don't anymore.
 
I was only responding to a right leaning guy who lives in Pittsburgh. He was the one who mentioned automation. FWIW, a lot of things have changed since 1959... I peed my pants in 1959. I don't anymore.

And you mentioned it being something that “righties blame on the unions.”

The fact is the prolonged strike had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector. They sought out a solution, and that was to import steel and reduced costs, and never looked back.

The union took a hard stance and the US steel industry never recovered. Cause and efffect.
 
And you mentioned it being something that “righties blame on the unions.”

The fact is the prolonged strike had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector. They sought out a solution, and that was to import steel and reduced costs, and never looked back.

The union took a hard stance and the US steel industry never recovered. Cause and efffect.

You do realize that you cited a strike from almost 60 years ago. A lot has changed. TECHNOLOGY has changed. Even if every union worker sat down and accepted every single thing that management wanted or didn't want, the TECHNOLOGY would have eliminated a lot of jobs by itself. Or can you cite for me any industry where companies would forgo technological advances because they had a compliant workforce? And the dear leader's tariffs are not going to reinvigorate the steel industry.
 
You do realize that you cited a strike from almost 60 years ago. A lot has changed. TECHNOLOGY has changed. Even if every union worker sat down and accepted every single thing that management wanted or didn't want, the TECHNOLOGY would have eliminated a lot of jobs by itself. Or can you cite for me any industry where companies would forgo technological advances because they had a compliant workforce? And the dear leader's tariffs are not going to reinvigorate the steel industry.

Facts don’t lie. After that event, manufacturing sector never returned to purchasing domestic steel to levels before. It permanently damaged the industry.
 
And you mentioned it being something that “righties blame on the unions.”

The fact is the prolonged strike had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector. They sought out a solution, and that was to import steel and reduced costs, and never looked back.

The union took a hard stance and the US steel industry never recovered. Cause and efffect.

Not quite that simple.

We made half the worlds steel shortly after WW2 and then about 40% into the 50's. We built new mills across Europe and Asia that were utilizing much newer technology than our own here in the US. They became global competitors quicker than we could respond, mostly due to US industry's reluctance to change with newer technology.....plus both unions and management were resistant to the basic oxygen process......management dropped the ball until much later in the 70's when they had to change with technology, which at the same time required much less labor jobs and facilities. China shows up with an industrial revolution which produced about a third of the output of US mills around '81 then some 12 years later matched total output of US mills and has increased those numbers some 800% since then..
Since the 'good old days' global steel production has lowered the cost of steel in the global market. All these trade agreements that the people you and I elected over the years promoting global marketing and a failure here to be competitive in that market is what has hurt the industry here.....even with fewer mills utilizing the latest greatest.

There's plenty blame to go around on both sides.

1982.....down the hall, standing with my local union prez, he said "I never thought I'd be running a food bank".
 

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