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To: Mike M2 who wrote (81961)	3/17/2001 5:08:40 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 436258

mike - CB, I understand the costs but what price do you put on freedom? Would you feel secure if all of our steel came from the far east? This is the wrong question. Steel is just one of an essentially infinite number of products or materials that could be imagined to be a strategic bottleneck under one scenario or another, to one degree or another. The time to production of a new steel plant from scratch is likely shorter than Congressional agreement on where to site it, let alone what weapons to use it for. I suspect that the best assurance of freedom is as wide and deep a web of international trade as possible to make threats non-economic for their maker. A foreign steel producer has more to lose in the US as a customer, than we do from loss of supply. At this point in time, we have already chosen to be an international trader, with standard of living benefits worldwide. The alternative is to be able to dominate the entire globe by military power alone, which is not desirable, practical, or even possible, at this point. Regards, Don

To: Mike M2 who wrote (81961)	3/17/2001 8:30:50 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Mike, there are US steel companies which are profitable. Did you read the material I linked from the Cato Institute? You really should. I read the stuff you link.:^) One statistic cited was that the use of steel by the US military is so low that it is treated as 0.0%. In times of war, I expect that would change. But let me turn your logic around. If US steel makers are inefficient, when is the best time for them to retool and streamline and modernize to become efficient? During war time or peace time?