Electrolux halts $250 million Tennessee project after steel and aluminum tariff announcement

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dylanmitchell

dylanmitchell

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Joined
Jan 7, 2018
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124
Location
Southern California
Electrolux is one of many companies reacting to the tariffs, 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. Combined with tariffs on washing machines we're going to see some pretty expensive appliances. What's going to happen is US steel and aluminum manufacturers will raise prices and the cost will be passed on the consumers. Price increases may be moderate but the problem is Trump undermining an entire system of global trade, which the United States helped build.

 
Well, can you fix stupid

if you put the cart before the horse? We have not enough steel mills here, and not even one I beam foundry. Hence why imported ones were used in the new Freedom tower, etc., and the last two of T's hotel/residential high rises.
Ontario and Canada is this states largest trading partner. The last recession already nearly did us in.
 
Another dillema,

is the cost of labor in other countries vs. here. Our cost of living is higher, and steel making is dangerous and dirty work. How much would one be willing to do it for, and how much would they be willing t pay workers?
In the late 70's and early 80's, Japanese steel was way cheaper, the reason our mills closed.
More expensive durable goods may really hurt the economy. Wages have not increased that much for most.
However, Whirlpool may use the tariff to leverage out Electrolux if they can keep prices where they are. I don't know if Whirlpool uses American steel or Mexican.
With Electrolux also in Canada, they likely buy steel from Hamilton Ontario for the plant there, or for South Carolina.
Toyota buys steel for Kentucky from US Steel in Detroit and Gary. I expect they are running at maximum capacity, and they have not modernized machinery and electrics. Toyota switched to AK steel last decade, but were having problems with
it's quality, so switched back to US. My brother used to work there. He's a skilled electrician. He was happy to be able to leave two years ago. Years of wage and benefit concessions.
Careless and or unethical actions or practice in business, govt. and industry leadership is counter productive against all tennets, both socially and spiritually.
If it is not possible today to earn a fortune ethically, without causing severe economic hardship to the masses, then we need to ask why not? What policies, greed, or ethics cause it? To me, this is unconsionable.
Everyone can not be rich. I'm not, but I've done well for a kid from a working class suburb. I have it a bit better than I grew up. Many gen x-r's do not.
What we do in policy, govt., and economics affects the next generation, and they are the future.
 
You can't cure stupid...

But you can sedate it!

 

My daddy worked for Reynolds Aluminum in Sheffield, Alabama for 30 years.  When the plant was being sold to Alcoa, they offered the older hands early retirement packages.  He took his and ran....at 55 years old with full benefits.  He was so happy to retire from there.  I remember several times he got cut at work and had to have stitches, once he got burned on h is arm from a hot coil of aluminum.  When I was little, a man fell into one of the furnaces....he crawled out and was airlifted to Birmingham only to die there.  It used to scare me knowing daddy worked in a place like that!  That plant later became Wise metals and now is part of Constellium of the Netherlands. 
 
Many Eugine,

and not only in that industry. Personally, I don't even think our leader is that dumb not to know. I think he's covering up for something.
This morning he tweeted he's going after foreign car makers next.
He has to know all BMW Z4's, and Mercedes M Class's are built stateside and exported abroad.
I even wonder who is really president. The more I learn and read, the less I trust anyone. It seems money rules over all else. I wasn't raised that way. I was taught to respect money, as a tool for livliehood. To save, and we all know how difficult that is today. It seems the ones on top are hurt the least by any policy making. While they may have more to lose, they make more on the rebound also.
True you can't take it with you, but many die in debt today. Look at our role models. Bankrupt more than once, deficit spending for 5 decades.
At some point, it's all going to spin way off track. I hope I don't see it, but we worry about the young ones. I helped to do right by my step kids to see they have good values, and got a good education. They have good jobs for now, and are parents them selves.
 
Well, the conservatives here

Are getting what they deserve. The rest of us, not so much.

You'd think good capitalists would have read that genius of the Mercantile Economy Disaster, Adam Smith.

Guess only us thar' far left Marxist-Socialist-godless-fascist-commie-pinko-Democrats read his books.
 
Panthera, you're a plethera of knowledge!

I'll have to read that.
Lee Iacoca wrote in his book "Talking Straight" that we'd soon be leaving the kids not the estate, but the debt.
As for the USA ever having a lifelong president- from the Mira Lago roast last night, do we already, in China's president who named him self theirs?
Didn't our govt., and the Federal Reserve put in place protections so another 1929 would not occur?
 
Ah, mercantilism, "The wealth of nation's", etc.

Adam Smith is credited with laying the groundwork for the free market economy.
Mercantilsim provided for steep tariff's, and a trade surplus by blocking imports.
Well, it isn't 1770, but some will argue that Wilbur Ross made a good point about outdated trade policy since post WW 2 when we were helping Europe, Japan, and Korea recover via the Marshall plan, etc. we've allowed them to prosper at our expense.
Alan Greenspan spoke about Smith's policies before the last recession.
Did we run out of other peoples money?
The industrial revolution succeeded the height of mercantilism, and since our own
industrial down turn, there is a return to expansion of well, mercahantism, if you will. During the baby boom era, many merchants expanded by leaps and bounds founding super markets, dept. stores, etc., as Sears ad Roebuck had, much earlier. however, they sold mostly domestic made items. In the 1960's only did we see clothing imports from Japan, etc.
With "new merchantism" brick and mortar as well as online merchants depend on imports which they can mark up for profit.
It's a very different commercial climate today. In ways better, and in some not. I don't know the answers to equal fair trade. Maybe no one does.
Maybe it's as good as it gets.
 

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