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Interesting read on why and how steel declined


PghUSA

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020715/wypijewski

Although it focuses mostly on Youngstown, Ohio I have always been interested on how something as massive and as powerful as big steel could extinguish itself it just a decade, or why Washington would allow it to happen. True some could always say it's simply market forces and the free market, but if you think back to why we won the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and Korea, the biggest difference besides that intangible ideology, was the corridor between Cleveland and Morgantown W.V. The coal, steel, glass, oil (yes before the 1910's oils main source was the Pittsburgh region, Rockefeller and Standard Oil was founded in the city in 1868 before moving . . . to CLEVELAND in 1870, Houston was still being jeered at as "mudtown" by Texans up until the 1920's), iron, electronic components (with Telsa, Westinghouse, Mesta, etc.), aluminium which was revolutionary when it came on the scene, chemicals (with Blawknox, PPG, Gulf, Koppers) and food products (if you think about how most GIs admit that Hershey bars won the war (wwII) Clark bars, Heinz and their diversified food and logisitics network, Potter McCune Food company (later to be sold into SuperValu which runs Foodland among others), and although Hershey is hours away one could consider that to be part of the region). Synders of Berlin is also a W.P. food company that had a big role in the war efforts (Birds Eye foods etc.). Considering that Steel was the bedrock for most of those other industry's (providing that economic lubricant capital and consumers to them), it is always interesting why Big Steel fell on its sword so fast.

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