I spent the last 10 yrs of my corporate work in nonwovens trying to keep my business from going to China. It was difficult and sad to watch as many customers chose China over US manufacturing for pennies on the lb. I personally refused to buy anything made in China and held fast to that rule for many years. Alas, then came Amazon...you know the rest of the story.
Made in America is more sustainable and I always look for labels to walk the talk. 🇺🇸
Meanwhile, US banks could get slammed with another $160 billion in losses as commercial real estate faces its biggest crash since 2008 and ….
US Steel, the 122-year old company that was once America’s biggest, is set to be sold to #Japan’s #Nippon Steel. 🇯🇵
Dec 18 (Reuters) - Japan's Nippon Steel (5401.T) clinched a deal on Monday to buy U.S. Steel (X.N) for $14.9 billion in cash, prevailing in an auction for the 122-year-old iconic steelmaker over rivals including Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF.N), ArcelorMittal (MT.LU) and Nucor (NUE.N).
(Sarcasm warning) But the US steel industry needed to be protected in the interest of “national security” so for the last 5 years, there has been a 25% tariff on imported steel, allowing US producers to raise their prices accordingly and realize record profits. Maybe it wasn’t about “national security” after all. And those tariffs were also passed down the supply chain to US consumers. Thanks, DFG!
U.S. Steel sale may deserve serious scrutiny, White House says
“Nippon Steel Corp. announced Monday it would buy US Steel for $14.1 billion to create the world’s second-largest steel company. But the proposed acquisition has drawn concern or outright opposition from prominent Democrats and union leaders with longtime ties to Biden,” Bloomberg News’s Josh Wingrove reports.
They need to convert the commercial RE to residential RE. Apparently this is harder to do than it sounds because of bathrooms, but are we going to let a few toilets get in our way? Yes, apparently.
Thank you, Greg. Getting ready to listen to your podcast. And your topic dovetails nicely with Robert Reich who addresses capitalism from his perspective.
You beat me to saying this. Bob has been writing about this subject as well and currently has a good Substack series going. We’ve got the answers but the willingness is lackluster at best.
Looking forward to the episode. I’m a Trade professional working in Detroit for a multinational manufacturer, very familiar with the drive to please shareholders. Until the definition of corporate “success” is measured in something other than profits/dividends, the drive to push costs lower, primarily labor, will continue. And China didn’t pay the tariffs, US importers did and passed them down the supply chain to all of you, the final consumers. Voting matters!
Sooner or later, the short-term thinking is going to catch up to these companies. One effect of being a slave to stock price is that you have to avoid a down quarter. How can you do strategic planning when you put so many dumb restrictions on your company?
Dec 22, 2023·edited Dec 22, 2023Liked by Greg Olear
I don’t know if true, but I read somewhere that corporations originally needed government approval to operate (since liability was limited?)
Anyway, corporations (supposedly) used to have to do more than just make money for their shareholders, they had to be good “citizens” or risk losing their license to operate.
Also
One of my big pet peeves (do people still use that term?) is dividends. People used to own stocks as a way to own a piece of a money making concern. They were technically the OWNERS of the business. Nowadays corporations rarely pay dividends, so shareholders don’t earn any income. The stock market has become a lottery. The ones making the big bucks are the managers. These people sit on each others boards and vote on increased pay packages for CEO’s. It’s become a scam.
And
By continually looking for ways to make products cheaper but still charge more these corporations spend huge sums lobbying for preferential laws to manufacture overseas and lower tariffs.
I imagine you’ll be covering at least some of that in your podcast?
I remember learning about dividends in high school and not understanding what they were. I've owned stocks now, and I still don't know! It's like something from a fantasy novel.
I originally read the subtitle as, "Why is America making it so hard?" But that's another discussion.
Rockefeller striving for, "the highest quality of product; optimal operational efficiency; a talented, well-cared-for workforce; and the betterment of the communities in which he lived and worked" is what's missing today, especially the last two. Corporations ("corporations are people, my friend!") no longer care at all about their workers or the communities they live and work in. Not even a little. And from even the anecdotal evidence of my own working history, that's been true for many years. Actual PEOPLE have become commodities, and if they don't work out, or if they become too expensive due to their longevity, they are discarded for a shiny new model, who was raised in this financial climate and for less money, are eager to become a part of the machine. I sound like a crazy radical, "get off my lawn!" old man looking back with anger. I'm not. It's what I see from watching the Republicans (mostly) create this world since 1980, when I was 22.
Rachel's book sounds like a winner to me and will go on the "stack" of my Kindle -- yet another device not actually made in America that I use daily! The circle, it is vicious.
This is not to say that Rockefeller and those guys were perfect, or were above squeezing here and there to boost profits. Not at all. For me, it's the sense of PLACE that is the casualty. Companies used to invest in where they were, because they planned to stay a long time, and wanted to live in a nice place. Mega-rich people now don't think that way. Russian oligarchs don't care about Russia. American oligarchs don't care about the U.S. It's vile and dumb.
You can tie into that the @#$%%$@#@!! MBA degree. It used to be that the people who made cars, or airplanes, were "car guys" or "airplane guys" - or whatever. They were actually interested in the specific business they were in. A guy like Kelly Johnson - the Chief Engineer at Lockheed, who created everything from the P-38 to the SR-71 - would never have let something like the F-35 (known to those around it as "The Flying Swiss Army Knife") out the front door with so many problems. It would have offended his sense of how things should be. But to some otherwise-unemployable with a law degree and an MBA, who thinks he (they're almost always "he") is a Master of the Universe, contracts to fix what was supposed to be done to begin with are programmed in as a "revenue stream." The guys who created Boeing would never have let the 737-Max out the door - hell, they wouldn't have "cheaped out" doing the things to the design that resulted in it becoming positively dangerous to fly in, in the name of saving a penny on the dollar of investment.
If we want to make America really great again, abolish the MBA degree and close most of the "bid'nezz skoolz."
When I was a senior at Georgetown, lots of big companies, investment banks and consulting firms and the like, came to campus to recruit. They were there to hire the business majors. Wouldn't give us liberal arts guys the time of day. I wonder if this has changed...
Sidenote: do you know anything about the army guys working with chemicals in the Pacific in WW2? I think he was in something called the Tigers. I didn't even know that grandfather very well, so god only knows now, but if you don't know about it, no one will.
When I was just a wee airplane nut, a kid could write an airplane company and ask for pictures of their airplanes (I did). What came back was a big box of nice 8x10 B&W photos, and brochures about the airplanes, their history, what they did, everything. The companies did that because those "airplane guys" knew that "airplanes" are a virus, and you have to get "infected." I am sure they ended up with lots of employees who decided to get serious about airplanes as a result of that.
Let me do some research on your grandfather. The information's out there, I just need to knock on the right door.
For the average American, just struggling to send their kids to college, or even to put food on the table, the trends in corporate management away from responsibility for the community may not hit home as affecting them. The declining quality of products is felt, but it’s easy to get complacent and get used to the idea that nowadays we just have to replace the microwave every few years. Thanks for waking America up to the fact that it doesn’t have to be that way! My first reaction is, what can little old me do about it? I guess most significant change starts at the ballot box.
They really don't make stuff like they used to. A new vacuum every two years if I'm lucky. The old Electroluxes lasted forever. I have a rotary phone in the garage that is indestructible. Phones now, you can't even slam them down in a satisfying way.
lolol... it has been that way for eons, Greg. You're just not old enough to have experienced more than a cycle or two to see the patterns and their repetition (the old saw that history never repeats itself, but it does rhyme). One of my favorite writers on economics is the late Hazel Henderson. She posited that economics/finance was an ecological phenomena where enterprises were born, grew, peaked, declined and, finally, passed, releasing their constituent elements back into the pool for the next birth.
Glory, what an important message. Did Teddy set things in motion that resulted in the breakup? The greed is good BS I lay at Reagan’s feet. Could the impact of Friedman’s “permission” been marginal If not for Reagan, and especially his import of Rupert. The actions of todays CEO’s are obscene.
Adding Rachel Slade's book to my Christmas wish list. Thank You, Greg, I think. I worked in the National Health Service Corps in West Virginia when John D. Rockefeller IV was governor. He originally came to the state as a Vista worker, and was highly respected by the Appalchian folks I knew.
I spent the last 10 yrs of my corporate work in nonwovens trying to keep my business from going to China. It was difficult and sad to watch as many customers chose China over US manufacturing for pennies on the lb. I personally refused to buy anything made in China and held fast to that rule for many years. Alas, then came Amazon...you know the rest of the story.
Thanks for sharing that. It's so hard to fight against the systems in place, but we have to try.
Made in America is more sustainable and I always look for labels to walk the talk. 🇺🇸
Meanwhile, US banks could get slammed with another $160 billion in losses as commercial real estate faces its biggest crash since 2008 and ….
US Steel, the 122-year old company that was once America’s biggest, is set to be sold to #Japan’s #Nippon Steel. 🇯🇵
Dec 18 (Reuters) - Japan's Nippon Steel (5401.T) clinched a deal on Monday to buy U.S. Steel (X.N) for $14.9 billion in cash, prevailing in an auction for the 122-year-old iconic steelmaker over rivals including Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF.N), ArcelorMittal (MT.LU) and Nucor (NUE.N).
(Sarcasm warning) But the US steel industry needed to be protected in the interest of “national security” so for the last 5 years, there has been a 25% tariff on imported steel, allowing US producers to raise their prices accordingly and realize record profits. Maybe it wasn’t about “national security” after all. And those tariffs were also passed down the supply chain to US consumers. Thanks, DFG!
War and pandemic profiteers mushroomed those years 🤑
Profiteering is disgraceful. Screw all of them.
U.S. Steel sale may deserve serious scrutiny, White House says
“Nippon Steel Corp. announced Monday it would buy US Steel for $14.1 billion to create the world’s second-largest steel company. But the proposed acquisition has drawn concern or outright opposition from prominent Democrats and union leaders with longtime ties to Biden,” Bloomberg News’s Josh Wingrove reports.
That low rumble you hear is Andrew Carnegie rolling in his grave.
Scottish born 🏴
They need to convert the commercial RE to residential RE. Apparently this is harder to do than it sounds because of bathrooms, but are we going to let a few toilets get in our way? Yes, apparently.
Some builders manage to get it done.
"very wealthy people have an affinity for the letter X." I laughed out loud! Lol. Excellent piece Greg and thank you Rachel 🥰
LOL, thanks. They do, though, right? So weird.
Thank you, Greg. Getting ready to listen to your podcast. And your topic dovetails nicely with Robert Reich who addresses capitalism from his perspective.
You beat me to saying this. Bob has been writing about this subject as well and currently has a good Substack series going. We’ve got the answers but the willingness is lackluster at best.
Thank you!
https://www.nps.gov/viis/learn/kidsyouth/introvinp.htm I’m currently enjoying another legacy linked to the Rockefeller philanthropy in St John USVI. Amazing place!
Looking forward to the episode. I’m a Trade professional working in Detroit for a multinational manufacturer, very familiar with the drive to please shareholders. Until the definition of corporate “success” is measured in something other than profits/dividends, the drive to push costs lower, primarily labor, will continue. And China didn’t pay the tariffs, US importers did and passed them down the supply chain to all of you, the final consumers. Voting matters!
Sooner or later, the short-term thinking is going to catch up to these companies. One effect of being a slave to stock price is that you have to avoid a down quarter. How can you do strategic planning when you put so many dumb restrictions on your company?
I don’t know if true, but I read somewhere that corporations originally needed government approval to operate (since liability was limited?)
Anyway, corporations (supposedly) used to have to do more than just make money for their shareholders, they had to be good “citizens” or risk losing their license to operate.
Also
One of my big pet peeves (do people still use that term?) is dividends. People used to own stocks as a way to own a piece of a money making concern. They were technically the OWNERS of the business. Nowadays corporations rarely pay dividends, so shareholders don’t earn any income. The stock market has become a lottery. The ones making the big bucks are the managers. These people sit on each others boards and vote on increased pay packages for CEO’s. It’s become a scam.
And
By continually looking for ways to make products cheaper but still charge more these corporations spend huge sums lobbying for preferential laws to manufacture overseas and lower tariffs.
I imagine you’ll be covering at least some of that in your podcast?
I’m looking forward to listening
Thanks for the comment.
I remember learning about dividends in high school and not understanding what they were. I've owned stocks now, and I still don't know! It's like something from a fantasy novel.
Dividends are cash disbursements of profits to owners.
If you own a company, you keep all the profits (or plow them back into the company as “retained earnings”)
If you’re just a shareholder you have to hope the mangers give you a piece of the profits.
Or that the stock price continues to climb, but you only get cash if you sell the stock
I originally read the subtitle as, "Why is America making it so hard?" But that's another discussion.
Rockefeller striving for, "the highest quality of product; optimal operational efficiency; a talented, well-cared-for workforce; and the betterment of the communities in which he lived and worked" is what's missing today, especially the last two. Corporations ("corporations are people, my friend!") no longer care at all about their workers or the communities they live and work in. Not even a little. And from even the anecdotal evidence of my own working history, that's been true for many years. Actual PEOPLE have become commodities, and if they don't work out, or if they become too expensive due to their longevity, they are discarded for a shiny new model, who was raised in this financial climate and for less money, are eager to become a part of the machine. I sound like a crazy radical, "get off my lawn!" old man looking back with anger. I'm not. It's what I see from watching the Republicans (mostly) create this world since 1980, when I was 22.
Rachel's book sounds like a winner to me and will go on the "stack" of my Kindle -- yet another device not actually made in America that I use daily! The circle, it is vicious.
LOL, Steve.
This is not to say that Rockefeller and those guys were perfect, or were above squeezing here and there to boost profits. Not at all. For me, it's the sense of PLACE that is the casualty. Companies used to invest in where they were, because they planned to stay a long time, and wanted to live in a nice place. Mega-rich people now don't think that way. Russian oligarchs don't care about Russia. American oligarchs don't care about the U.S. It's vile and dumb.
You can tie into that the @#$%%$@#@!! MBA degree. It used to be that the people who made cars, or airplanes, were "car guys" or "airplane guys" - or whatever. They were actually interested in the specific business they were in. A guy like Kelly Johnson - the Chief Engineer at Lockheed, who created everything from the P-38 to the SR-71 - would never have let something like the F-35 (known to those around it as "The Flying Swiss Army Knife") out the front door with so many problems. It would have offended his sense of how things should be. But to some otherwise-unemployable with a law degree and an MBA, who thinks he (they're almost always "he") is a Master of the Universe, contracts to fix what was supposed to be done to begin with are programmed in as a "revenue stream." The guys who created Boeing would never have let the 737-Max out the door - hell, they wouldn't have "cheaped out" doing the things to the design that resulted in it becoming positively dangerous to fly in, in the name of saving a penny on the dollar of investment.
If we want to make America really great again, abolish the MBA degree and close most of the "bid'nezz skoolz."
And maybe start hiring actual brains instead of paper?
An excellent idea! How radical! :-)
But how would we learn about widgets?!?!
When I was a senior at Georgetown, lots of big companies, investment banks and consulting firms and the like, came to campus to recruit. They were there to hire the business majors. Wouldn't give us liberal arts guys the time of day. I wonder if this has changed...
Sidenote: do you know anything about the army guys working with chemicals in the Pacific in WW2? I think he was in something called the Tigers. I didn't even know that grandfather very well, so god only knows now, but if you don't know about it, no one will.
When I was just a wee airplane nut, a kid could write an airplane company and ask for pictures of their airplanes (I did). What came back was a big box of nice 8x10 B&W photos, and brochures about the airplanes, their history, what they did, everything. The companies did that because those "airplane guys" knew that "airplanes" are a virus, and you have to get "infected." I am sure they ended up with lots of employees who decided to get serious about airplanes as a result of that.
Let me do some research on your grandfather. The information's out there, I just need to knock on the right door.
For the average American, just struggling to send their kids to college, or even to put food on the table, the trends in corporate management away from responsibility for the community may not hit home as affecting them. The declining quality of products is felt, but it’s easy to get complacent and get used to the idea that nowadays we just have to replace the microwave every few years. Thanks for waking America up to the fact that it doesn’t have to be that way! My first reaction is, what can little old me do about it? I guess most significant change starts at the ballot box.
They really don't make stuff like they used to. A new vacuum every two years if I'm lucky. The old Electroluxes lasted forever. I have a rotary phone in the garage that is indestructible. Phones now, you can't even slam them down in a satisfying way.
Enjoying this so much (not 🍸)! Thank you, Greg!
Thanks!
Thank you, Greg. Greed capitalism has never liked competition of any kind, even from tiny startups.
Thanks, William. The tiny startups now all dream of being bought out by the Borg. It's gross.
The most complete and intensive brainwashing in history, rivalling the Roman lust for violence. Astounding, sad.
lolol... it has been that way for eons, Greg. You're just not old enough to have experienced more than a cycle or two to see the patterns and their repetition (the old saw that history never repeats itself, but it does rhyme). One of my favorite writers on economics is the late Hazel Henderson. She posited that economics/finance was an ecological phenomena where enterprises were born, grew, peaked, declined and, finally, passed, releasing their constituent elements back into the pool for the next birth.
Glory, what an important message. Did Teddy set things in motion that resulted in the breakup? The greed is good BS I lay at Reagan’s feet. Could the impact of Friedman’s “permission” been marginal If not for Reagan, and especially his import of Rupert. The actions of todays CEO’s are obscene.
Totally agree with you, Jeri!
I'm always down with blaming Reagan for anything.
You know where the bodies are buried, why I love your Prevail.
A big high-five, Greg, to your guest, Rachel Slade. I think what she has to say is very important for us to hear. Many thanks!
Thanks, Lynell!
Adding Rachel Slade's book to my Christmas wish list. Thank You, Greg, I think. I worked in the National Health Service Corps in West Virginia when John D. Rockefeller IV was governor. He originally came to the state as a Vista worker, and was highly respected by the Appalchian folks I knew.
Excellent interview. I've pre-ordered the audio book!