From: David Cole (DavidCole@tk7.net)
Date: Sat May 15 2004 - 18:25:57 PDT
China is buying our steel scrap up like crazy. Scrap prices have gone
through the roof. Recently a local large scrap buyer was buying scrap cars
for $100/ton. A few years back it was less than $20 per ton.
Most mini mills - IE, Nucor, Steel Dynamics, etc use scrap as their primary
feed material. They can't make steel from Iron ore.
To make matters worse, China has been also buying up Coke (a necessary fuel
for blast furnaces to make steel from Iron Ore) and restricting it's export
which has driven up the cost to make steel from iron ore with the few
remaining blast furnace facilities we have in the US.
Coke article:
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=81618&Sn=BUSI
Consequently steel prices have just about doubled in the last year in the
US. In Singapore, steel prices have tripled due to their proximity to
China. China's demand is that great.
Steel Price article:
http://www.industryweek.com/CurrentArticles/asp/articles.asp?ArticleId=1571
China has been threatening to take over Taiwan for years. If they do, who
will dominate the PC market just about instantly. China.
20 years ago China couldn't make decent products - similar to Japan years
ago. That has all changed. China has made tremendous strides in quality
improvement. There are few industrial industries in the US that are not
competing head to head with China now.
If China is smart - and they seem to be very well directed IMO, then they
will be delighted to see the US concentrate on fighting terrorism, drugs,
finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli situation, and let us try and
solve just about any form of social injustice situation in the world.
Bush's "this is an opportunity to change the world attitude" is exactly
what China needs to stay on course. In the mean time, the best paying,
manufacturing related jobs in the US that are not medical related are going
overseas. We will end up being a service economy which in my opinion is
not economically viable. Our payscale will continue to drop (all that has
to happen is that the dollar keeps dropping in value - as it is) until it
nears China and by that time - it will be too late. We will be on par with
Canada and Mexico and our superpower status will be history. Not a shot
needs to be fired and aircraft carriers and Humvees will be irrelevant.
Talk to anyone involved in manufacturing. There is one big threat looming
on the horizon and it is China. Right now the name of the game in
manufacturing is to be flexible and quick, because the market is changing
so fast that it is easy to mistep and perish. This is now a global
economy and we are just one of the player. We aren't running the game.
Finally, if anyone is in doubt about Dick Cheney and the Bush families
involvement in oil, just go to Google and type in a search on "Cheney Oil"
and start reading. Anyway you look at them, the Bushes are eye deep in
crude. You might want to set aside several days for this....
Bush, Cheney, Oil links:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CAV111A.html
Finally, please, would someone tell me why Dick Cheney would stop working a
job paying 36 million plus per year, so he could become a behind the scenes
Vice President for a measly $202,000 per year or 1/2% (yes, .005 of
36,000,000 dollars is 202,000) of what he was making before?
Article about Cheney and this new salary:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/050602.html
Would you?
Dave
On Sat, 15 May 2004 13:00:58 -0400, Steve & Jeannie Keith
<cckw@comcast.net> wrote:
> Combined with this that you only need a carrier force for certain
> things...
> They can challenge us in many other ways and they can use proxy's
>
> This IS the Chinese century and wo to anyone who gets in their way!
> An interesting book: "The Coming War With China" is quite a read.
>
> The one thing in our favor is that maybe we will be such a big trading
> partner that they cannot afford to hurt us too badly. Of course by then
> we will all be either money manupliators or burger flippers!
>
> If you read some of the trade journals, things are crazy in China with
> the builduing that is going on for roads, infrastructure and factorys.
> Banks are lending money with very few controls (possible crash?) but
> they don't seem to care. Things are booming!
>
> Steve AKA Dr Deuce
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: <DDoyle9570@aol.com>
> To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 11:06 AM
> Subject: Re: [MV] Fuel price and China
>
>
>> Their lack of a carrier
>> force really hinders their ability to challenge
>> us. You don't build a functional carrier force in
>> a few years. It takes a decade or more.
>>
>> I dunno a bit over the sixty years ago the US went from about six
>> carriers
> to dozens in less than 5 years....and they were terribly effective and
> functional. All it takes is unbridled determination and money. The US
> today is so accustomed to the entangled budgetary debates, political
> posturing and enviromental concerns that we have forgotten how much can
> be
> accomplished in a short period of time without those encumberances.
>>
>> It is not unusual today for it to take 10-20 years for the United States
> to field a new military vehicle. During WWII many designs went from
> designing board to battlefield between 1942 and 1945-because it had to be
> done and the nation wanted to do it. Some parts of the world still have
> this
> shear determination-which coupled with an indifference to political
> fallout-presents a formidable force.
>>
>> My .02,
>> David Doyle
>>
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>
>
>
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>
-- Dave
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