TOPIC: TATA Steel

Given there are other industries being severely hit, where many thousands are having to make life changing decisions And as we have seen other plant closures elsewhere, do you think it is right that the taxpayer should bail out the Steel Industry ?

Was just going to post about this very subject...

Incredible that we as a 'Super Power', member of the UN Security Council, G7 etc, and 5th richest Country in the World, could be in a position where we have no home based steel production facility!

Absolute madness if we lose this industry!

Another nail in the coffin of the once great UK!

Bit of a surprise for the Russians this. Cameron last week agreed a £45 m loan to a Russian steel company owned by Abrahamovitch. The ccompany previously had a policy of dumping excess steel production in Europe to weaken European competition. It also provided the steel for the football stadium Abrahamovitch built for Spartak Moscow from his own funds. I'm sure the Daily Mail will explain why it is another stroke of genius by the bacon botherer

Ultimately the bean counters will decide and that would suggest that at this moment in time we will allow the industry to fall.
I fear that there will come a time when we suffer the consequences of allowing our heavy industries to go though.

In total 9000 jobs to go on Teeside (including suppliers etc) and twice that in South Wales. No planned financial support from the UK Government but the regions will be eligible for EU Iron Steel Grants

The Cabinet are meeting on this later today, but expect Cameron to do very little. He's continuing where Thatcher left off, allowing the UK to be a nation of service industries and shop-workers, and relying on the "trickle-down" principle where he looks after and subsidises the business owners, who he relies upon to create jobs. It's not working.

griff wrote:
What's not working ?

"The UK economy grew 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015, higher than the previous estimate of 0.5%.
As a result, the economy grew by 2.3% for the whole of 2015, rather than 2.2% as previously thought, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figure came as a surprise to analysts, who had forecast that it would remain unchanged"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35931968

In true thesilentone fashion I am going to copy and paste some text from an unknown source and peddle it as truth.

Government powerless to intervene in non-banking industry
20-10-15
steelworks425

THE government has confirmed there is absolutely nothing it can do to save the non-London-based steel industry.

Amid the prospect of thousands of redundancies, the business secretary said he wishes there was something he could do.

Sajid Javid added: “Tragically, the industry has been hit by a perfect storm of being in the provinces, traditionally supporting Labour and not being financial services.

“Add that to us not wanting to do anything that might offend our new Chinese friends, and there’s absolutely nothing we are prepared to do.

“If only these plants manufactured something useful, like insurance derivatives supported by credit default swaps, then we’d gladly go billions into debt for them.

“But steel? What’s that even for?”

Steelworker Roy Hobbs said: “People are over mass-produced steel anyway. I’m moving into artisanal hand-beaten bronze for the hipster market.”

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Cameron assumes steel workers just become male strippers
31-03-16


STEELWORKERS can make a good living if they retrain as male strippers, David Cameron has announced.

The prime minister has cancelled a planned crisis meeting at Downing Street after drawing up his ‘foolproof strategy’ for 40,000 steel industry workers.

He said: “In my efforts to find out what a ‘steel worker’ is I came across an old film about some men from Sheffield who lose their ‘steel working’ jobs and form a male striptease act.

“They became very successful and everyone was happy. Stripping for money is much more dignified than ‘steel working’ which seems to involve high temperatures and grime. Ghastly.”

He added: “If absolutely necessary we could offer low interest loans so the ‘steel workers’ can retrain as male strippers, but it does look pretty straightforward. You just take your clothes off.

“And as far as I understand, the working class parts of Britain are full of drunk, easily pleased women who will pay good money to see your naked buttocks or perhaps even a brief glimpse of your genitals.

“Off you go.”

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Being completely dependent on China for everything ‘fine’
31-03-16


THE business secretary has confirmed that being dependent on China for steel, energy and all other products is a flawless long-term plan.

Sajid Javid is planning to put even more of the UK’s vital infrastructure, including education and the NHS, into Chinese hands along with 92 per cent of imports.

He continued: “In a globalised world it is ridiculous that we are still sourcing most of our meat, vegetables and dairy products from Europe when China can offer them 0.015 per cent cheaper.

“The Chinese have proved themselves trustworthy guardians of the UK housing market, which is running perfectly, so the sensible move is to hand over full control of everything else.

“A future in which everything from steel to wood to canned food to clean water is imported on container ships from China is a bright one for Britain.”

Hedge fund manager Julian Cook agreed: “Making things is for dirty people. We don’t want their kind here.”

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

thesilentone wrote:
For balance, from the same article:

The UK's current account deficit widened to a record high in the final quarter of last year.
The deficit in the three months to December was £32.7bn, the equivalent of 7% of GDP, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
For all of 2015, it came to £96.2bn or 5.2% of GDP. Both figures were the highest since records began in 1948.

Head in the sand, perhaps?

He only believes the parts of articles that he wants to believe.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

We bailed out the bankers, so we should bail out the steel industry. In comparison, bailing out the banks was far more expensive.

griff wrote:
Imports v Exports...and ??? Do you think the taxpayer should bail them out ?

Should the taxpayer also bail out these guys:

'Thousands of dairy farms face closure as debts reach crisis levels'
As many as one in five of the UK's 10,000-plus dairy farms could be forced to close this year, as falling milk prices and rising debt reach crisis levels for farmers across the country, various industry bodies have warned.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) said many dairy farmers are at the end of their tether, operating at a loss and unable to receive any more finance from banks.'

Or:

Npower to cut up to 2,500 jobs in UK and overseas
Asda to cut up to 750 jobs
RBS to cut almost 450 investment banking jobs in UK
Tesco considering cutting store staff by 39,000 over three years
Lloyds Banking Group is cutting a net 1,585 jobs and closing 29 branches across Britain.
Credit Suisse is cutting 4,000 jobs, including “rightsizing the bank’s London presence”.
BP is laying off 7,000 more people.
Shell is also slashing jobs, with 7,500 gone and 2,800 losses still to come.
British Gas owner Centrica is cutting 1,000 jobs this year
Virgin Media plans to cut 900 jobs from its UK workforce by 2017.
Legal & General is pushing ahead with plans to close its Surrey offices by 2018, putting 1,500 jobs at risk, although some will transfer to Hove or Cardiff.

It's funny that it was Labour that bailed out the banks, seeing that it was in the best interests of the country. It looks unlikely that the Conservatives will bail out the steel industry, even though up to 40,000 in steel and associated industries could be out of work, and the taxpayers will then have to support them through welfare payments. There simply aren't enough jobs in call-centres and JD Sports to take them all.

Should the steel industry be nationalised? No
Should beneficial long-term loans be considered to allow the larger part of the industry to be saved, invested in, brought up to date and keep producing steel? Yes, of course.

Laffy does that sort of thing for businesses. The whole industry might be too big for him, and I don't think that heavy industry is his area, but I'd welcome his view on whether the steel industry in this country is saveable.

What chance is their under these market conditions:

"Steel imports into the UK from the rest of the EU cost on average 897 euros a tonne in 2014, while Chinese steel imports were just 583 euros a tonne, says the EU's statistics agency, Eurostat. This has led to accusations that China is selling at unfairly low prices."

There is a very interesting piece in the FT about steel-I know a bit about it from my engineering business I sold last year.

No doubt the market is soft but prices have actually increased substantially in recent months.Tata will of course know this and will believe there are buyers out there for a big lump of the UK business.Whether that includes the blast furnace is open to debate however.

I think Tata believe they will be able to exit-maybe not for cash but certainly by selling the rump to another operator.Charging in a nationalising it is insane-Corbyn should look at the economics and encourage the government to provide interim assistance or long term incentives during a formal sale process but no more in my view.

thesilentone wrote:

Or maybe just vote for a Government that isn't so utterly, utterly, utterly [censored] useless

Laffy wrote:
China and Russia are communist countries and supposedly a threat to our security (Trident anyone?)
Looks like they are flooding the market with steel to force out the competition before raising prices and/or restricting supplies.
Once you lose steel production it is difficult and costly to get back in the market.
No wonder defence chiefs are worried.

How can any business lose a £1M per day and expect to carry on?? Why have they not done soemthing about this. Read that the cost to make British Steel is 20 times that it costs the Chinese.
Those who quote the bankers bailout, however much of a horrible set of tossers they were, they were at least a viable business with cash issues (and vital to the country).
That said, the steel industry needs to be supported to give someone a chance to come in.

I don't believe Tata is losing that kind of money to be honest-this feels like a game of poker between them and Tata-with Tata simply wanting out of a problem largely of their making.The steel market is actually going north again-not south.

The problem with the world today is

-lack of growth which is forcing companies to squeeze margin via consolidation and cuts

-globalisation.A menace for this type of industry.

Ironically the EU has sanctions against Russia. The sanctions don't affect ferrous metals so they can export to the EU as they wish. When the sanctions were introduced the ruble went from 30 to the dollar to over 60 so a side effect of the sanctions was to half labour cost for Russian steel manufacturers.Also ironically is that while EU trade has tailed off sharply (Latvia is looking at losing 25% of GDP) US/Russia trade is increasing 15%pa


Russia isn't communist by the way though they are considered a security threat by the US

I thought Norman had quit! Misleading thread.

The Tories blocked in February this year attempts by the EU to raise tariffs on Chinese steel to combat dumping

'criticism was echoed by Eurofer, the European steel industry trade body. “It’s very odd that he [Javid] signed a letter saying he wants strong action and then he doesn’t want to use the tools that are already available,” said a spokesman.

He pointed to a steep increase in Chinese steel imports to the EU, up from 4.5m tonnes in 2014 to a projected figure of 7m tonnes for last year.

The glut of steel has seen the price of hot rolled coil in northern Europe – an industry benchmark – slump from €600 per tonne last summer to about €350 per tonne.


www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10...lesser-duty-proposal

Why is there a glut of steel and why are China and Russia producing more, if they are not trying to force the competition out of business?
Is it political?

China is not producing more, it is also cutting production. 1.8m redundancies in steel and 1.3m redundancies in coal.. The Chinese Govt has set aside $10bn to assist workers
www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/29...al-and-steel-sectors


Steel prices have collapsed. Steel futures on the London Metal Exchange have gone from $1265 in June 2008 to $90 currently, there has been a 71% fall in prices in the last year.
www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel

China has much lower salary costs than the UK especially pension costs. In addition environmental costs are much lower than in the EU. Import duty in the EU is 9-14% on steel, in the US 236%. The EU wanted to increase import duties to protect jobs but the UK Government blocked it.- that was February. 2016.

50000 unemployed potentially, poor souls

Personally I think renationalising would be insanity.... I would be in favour of some short term support... but longer term it would cost us way too much. Corbyn as usual is going for the popular vote without thinking about the costs and affordability. Comparing the situation to the banks is a bit misleading... the banks were bailed out as if they were allowed to fail it would have had a massive impact on us all and would have devastated our economy... if we lose steel it will be sad, but won't really impact the majority or the economy much. It would be sad if we lose steel production but propping the industry up with public money in the long term is just stupid.... the industry needs to be able to stand on it's own two feet and be economically viable.

If we let it go under therell be no steel for the rails on the London underground. No trains means the RMT wont be able to go on strike for more money and the silentone will have less bollocks to post on here. Its a difficult decision for me.

There's always this...

---

The steel industry has reacted with furious anger after the Prime Minister offered to nationalise it in a classic April fool’s ruse.

David Cameron called a press conference this morning, and opened with the statement “the government is fully behind the British steel industry, and no expense will be spared in securing the job of each and every steel worker.”

“Then he waited for the applause to die down, before grinning and slowly raising a calendar in front of him with today’s date circled,” said steel worker, Simon Williams.

“He got as far as ‘April Foo-‘ before someone threw a girder clean into his forehead.

“It was a lovely shot, but then his aides swiftly carried him to the car before we could rush the cocky fu*ker.”

A spokesperson for Ten Downing Street said “The Prime Minister deeply regrets that you were offended by his little bit of gentle whimsy.

“He, and indeed the government, suggest that if you weren’t all so notoriously humourless and aggressive, you might have done something more useful with your lives such as becoming Prime Minister, rather than making the thing that makes up most other things like buildings and stuff.”

Markovitch wrote:

You miss one important statistic...the UK produces only 2% of the total volume of steel produced in China, they have single Companies bigger than the total UK steel production.

You are absolutely correct Silent, and the Chinese government wrote off 16 bn of debt it was owed by steel companies last year. What is poor Government isthat we have several industries wwhich are in sharp decline, oil & gas is another. The current government has no strategy how to transition people in these industries into new jobs or gain new skills. The old industries are simply allowed to die.


It is worth noting that several Chinese companies are generous donors to the Tory party

The decline in World markets is for very complex reasons, sadly all political. Future energy supply (oil v fracking) is hurting those in the oil industry, however the fracking guys ain't complaining, this coupled to the chaos in the middle east and of course Saudi Arabia.

When the World decides it wants to end the various factions warring, and they can when it suits them,then most World economic problems will disappear along with a boom in demand for everything as whole Countries are re-built.

So, when the right guy pops up to replace Assad that keeps Mr Putin and Mr Obama happy, then we will see some action, till then steel workers et al, are going to lose jobs worldwide.

Markovitch wrote:


What, these ones: www.chineseforlabour.org/chinese_for_lab...ew_year_banquet_2016

thesilentone wrote:
I think the problem is that steel has been overtaken by other products. Severstal who were a client of mine were looking to diversify 10 years ago because they were concerned about the decline of the industry. If we nationalize and defend with tariffs like the US we will be supporting a dead industry. People though need help to change and that is where the Government should step in. Having a staged closure over 10 years wold make sense.Twenty five thousand people earning 30 grand a year are contributing about £300m pa to the economy in taxes alone so it is economically as well as morally sound. Of course that kind of planning is unlikely to happen with the current Government

Dancingbear wrote:

If you want a laugh, listen to this, says it all.......(don't think the RMT rep wanted to admit they just wanted a day off)

www.lbc.co.uk/ferrari-baffled-by-why-pic...-are-striking-127459

Well .... I didn't expect silentone ..to say that
That came right out of the blue??
Mr me me me !!!!

thesilentone wrote:
Maybe Rovers were at home?