Liberal, Briton, FBPE. Co-mod of m/neoliberal

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Businesses buy out other businesses across borders all the time. This is normal behaviour.

    As for whether it’s a good idea: in short, competitive markets tend to be a lot more efficient than protected markets - which ultimately leads to lower prices for consumers. Nippon Steel thinks it can operate US Steel more efficiently than the current owners and managers of US Steel, hence Nippon Steel thinking it is profitable for them to buy it at a price that is higher than what the current owners value it at (as reflected in US Steel’s share price).

    The fact that more efficient companies can buy out less efficient companies is an important part of what keeps market-based economies successful and dynamic. If you want to know what it looks like when economies don’t allow this, take a look at the economic malaise in somewhere like Britain in the 1970s after several decades of protectionism and state support for failing industries (or if you take protectionism to a logical extreme, North Korea…)

    There’s potentially a line of argument about monopoly risk (monopolies are economically inefficient) but that seems limited here - US Steel is only the 24th largest steel producer and the combination of Nippon and US Steel will still be smaller than the biggest players in the steel market like Baowu and ArcelorMittal.






  • Mate, even if it was the mayor of Upton Snodsbury in Worcestershire who had made this comment, I would be glad to see the Auschwitz Museum had responded to them. The fact it was a mayor in the country in question makes it even more relevant.

    Never again means never again. It means challenging genocide and ethnic cleansing every time, at every step along the road that leads to these outcomes - not just waiting until the trains are already on their way to the death camps before your raise your voice.