Declining patronage leads US Steel to lay off 636 workers ["Bumps in the road" to Obama]

Microcap Observer ^ | 1/7/15 | Chris Middlebrooks

[thackney]

Buy an asset that cost more to store than it rises in price is wasting money.

Buying an asset in greater quantities than you could reasonable use in an extended emergency situation is wasting money.

[sakic]

Incredible reactions here.

Hopefully the prices of oil and gas can skyrocket once again to satisfy the terminally miserable.

[Smokin' Joe]

False Dichotomy, sorry. I won't play.

I just want people to realize 1: that aside from the government expansion, the sector which has kept the economy alive is the energy sector, specifically oil and gas, unlike the renewable sources of diverted 'green'.

Second, I'd like people to stop and think about just how far that money goes. People I know have saved their homes working in the oil patch, there have been fleets of vehicles purchased, phones, computers, building components (windows, doors), steel buildings, rebar, concrete, clothing (you have to wear NFPA 2112 clothes where I work, by far the most expensive jeans and shirts I have ever owned for daily wear. The list goes on and on of industries which had a positive impact from the oil boom, whether those industries make tires, wires, soap, rope, or pipe dope. That positive impact has been felt far and wide, and the negative impact will be, too.

As for the rest of the economy, name a (domestic) manufacturing sector which has grown that did so independently of oil development.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Do you want the government to establish a floor for oil prices, or not.

[Dusty Road]

“I don’t expect them to come crying for protection, either.”

You won’t.

[Stentor]

Got my US Steel pink slip in 1974.

[Smokin' Joe]

Not part of my discussion, now was it?

If you're looking to argue about something I did not say, go elsewhere and argue with someone who might enjoy it.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Well like I've already said, when oil was $110 a barrel I did not begrudge the industry one single penny of what they were making. I did not bitch about what I was paying at the pump.

Now that the business cycle has turned (as it always has, and will do again) I am not interested in hearing that same industry and its employees crying poor mouth. They can basically suck it up, just as other businesses have had to when demand drops.