Rouge Steel plant to Close, lay off 343

[Honky Tonk]

I like the vintage chairs and dresser that came with the fifties bungalow I bought. The are still solid, still doing what they were supposed to do back in the fifties. Had to put plastic bags and towels on all of it, though, to accomodate the cats.

Am thinking some Play-Doh [[or - maybe the grownup hardware store version) would get the $80 replacement toilet's handle to stay together for a year or more but still keep it easy to disassemble.

The threads are stripped and the outside half could fall off the inside half. Cheap, cheap, cheap. The real estate listing can mention comedy value.

Dumpling, the quick and dirty fix you could try, is buy some plumbers Teflon tape and put a few wraps around the threads, then screw the handle back on. If that fails, I would then try J.B. Weld, which is a 2 part epoxy, but that fix will be a bit more complicated. If the Teflon tape fix fails, I'll PM you instructions for the J.B. Weld fix, if you're interested. It should be under $10 for both.

[Dumpling]

I will try the Teflon tape and go from there, thank you.

[EastsideAl]

If Rouge Steel is to be completely closed, I think it will mean the closure of the last place still operating where my grandparents worked. Highland Park, Willow Run, Chrysler Lynch Road, and Cadillac gone, Hudson Motor Car, Packard, Burroughs, Hudson's downtown, Crowley's, Sanders [[the real one) long gone.

Such is the way of the world, I guess. I think it's quite possible to both want cleaner air, water, and better environmental regulations, and to mourn the passing of our industrial manufacturing and labor heritage. Since it brought most of us here and built a world of middle class families who could actually afford to buy the quality products they were making and selling.

[MikeM]

Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan

Trump’s strategy centered on shielding U.S. steel mills from foreign competition with a 25% tariff imposed in March 2018. He also promised to boost steel demand through major investments in roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

But higher steel prices resulting from the tariffs dented demand from the Michigan-based U.S. auto industry and other steel consumers. And the Trump administration has never followed through on an infrastructure plan.

While the tariffs failed to boost overall steel employment, economists say they created higher costs for major steel consumers - killing jobs at companies including Detroit-based automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. Nationally, steel and aluminum tariffs resulted in at least 75,000 job losses in metal-using industries by the end of last year, according to an analysis by Lydia Cox, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard University, and Kadee Russ, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. In all, they estimated, the trade war had caused a net loss of 175,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs by mid-2019.

In Michigan, steelmakers have served layoff notices to nearly 2,000 workers since the tariff took effect, according to a Reuters analysis of the notices steel companies filed with the state. The state’s primary metals manufacturing industry, which includes iron and steel mills, employed about 7,300 fewer workers in August than in March 2018, when Trump announced metal tariffs, according to data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The steel-industry setbacks account for just a fraction of the job losses in Michigan’s manufacturing sector - which now employs 55,100 fewer workers than it did when Trump took office in January 2017, U.S. Labor Department data shows. The state’s automotive industry accounted for 35% of the manufacturing job losses, according to the St. Louis Fed.

[Richard]

But yet when he tried putting tariffs on imported steel from Canada half of the country including the state of Michigan created a stir about how he was anti trade.

So some got what they wanted at the cost of others losing their jobs.

I buy steel,aluminum and stainless steel all the time,the prices are cheaper then they have been in a long time,scrap steel prices are at the bottom.

What has doubled in price is all the other bits and pieces that I use that is manufactured and imported from other countries and the quality is crap,I do not mind paying more because the driving up of those prices will get it to the point where a factory in the US can produce them using workers at a livable wage.

With the tariffs it does not produce immediate results in a want it now society,it takes time to drive costs up in order to make it feasible for US based companies in order to pick up the demand.

To me anyways it is not the tariffs driving prices,it’s the massive importation of appliances and products already built and fabricated outside of the country,it’s the demand that has dropped.

Michigan is hit worse because of the foreign companies that bought steel plants to supply the automakers in the south and are located there.

States like California have completed massive infrastructure projects that were built by foreign companies and using their products built in their country of origin.

To make it work in the bigger picture you have to have the consumer demand in products using American made products built with American hands.

The consumer is the one that made that decision something as simple as Whirlpool made in Michigan by Michiganders buy they will purchase a LG that is made in some other country and imported.

But yet it is Trumps fault because consumers do not care about steel workers in Michigan if they can save a buck.

Any President can set the groundwork for fair trade and stack the deck for America but if Americans choose not to support their fellow Americans,it is pissing into the wind.

BMWs largest market is in Germany because Germans buy the cars to support their fellow citizens,it does not matter that they are junk after a couple of years.

Until we as consumers decide to actually start supporting our fellow Americans over saving a buck,we are the ones that solely hold the blame.

Sure it drives the cost of goods up,but it also drives the labor market and prevailing wage up so everybody does better,the added cost becomes irrelevant.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

^^ I thought everything was Obama's fault?

[Richard]

^ 39% of the country agreed with his TPP deal,even Hillary did not like it but yet it was passed,until it was renegotiated in 2017.

We are one of the largest consumer markets in the world,it gives leverage,you do not have to throw your neighbors under the bus in order to have fair trade.

Who trades their Cadillac for a Ford pinto and comes out thinking it was a fair trade? Well that is a old look on when Cadillacs were considered exclusive,these days the pinto is probably not a bad option.

[Zacha341]

^^^ LOL! You can probably fit more into the trunk of a Pinto [[or 1989 Toyota Tercel hatchback) than many Cadillac sedans. Certain models: four plastic bag from the grocery store and your done -- all full!

[Danny]

And the steel beams has fallen.