U.S. Steel agrees to buy Serbia's largest steel mill (The Globalist Agenda)

sfgate.com ^ | Tuesday, April 1, 2003 | AP

[Destro]

United States Steel Corp. said Tuesday it had agreed to buy Serbia's largest steel mill from state-owned Sartid Co. for $23 million.

John Goodish, a representative for the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, said his company hoped to complete the deal for the bankrupt Sartid steel mill, based in Smederevo about 30 miles southeast of Belgrade, and six subsidiaries by the end of September.

[Destro]

Sartid declared bankruptcy last year, following economic reforms introduced by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated last month.

Now that is what I call reform!!

The sale is considered a significant step in Serbia's economic recovery from more than 13 years of former President Slobodan Milosevic's ruinous rule, costly war efforts and international isolation.

So selling industries at fire-sale prices to outsiders is considered steps to recovery by Globalists? And when I mean "fire-sale" I mean NATO bombing missions targeted Sartid.

At least no one bombed us to sign on to NAFTA.

[Destro]

bump

[gettheUSoutoftheUN]

Defense Ministry to pay quarter of Phalcon compensation to China

The $319 million in compensation will add to the burden of the cut in the Ministry of Defense’s budget.

Dror Marom 1 Apr 03 16:47

Sources inform “Globes” that the Ministry of Defense will pay a quarter of the compensation Israel is paying China for the cancellation of the Phalcon AWACS plane deal.
A senior Ministry of Defense source revealed that the compensation will total $319 million, considerably more than the $240 million deal for the first Phalcon. The Phalcon cancellation included both the first plane, as well as China’s option to buy three more planes, for a total of $1 billion.

The compensation to China is a further burden on the defense budget, already groaning under the anticipated NIS 2.8 billion cut in its 2003 budget in real terms, compared with its 2002 budget. The Ministry of Finance, which bears most of the cost of the compensation to Beijing, is allowing the Ministry of Defense to pay its share in installments.

The Ministry of Defense stated in response, “We do not comment on defense export deals.”

Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on April 1, 2003

[gcruse]

Looks like US Steel is buying a state-owned company to take it private. I gather globalization is worse to you than state owned industries.

[JohnnyZ]

Looks like US Steel is buying a state-owned company to take it private. I gather globalization is worse to you than state owned industries.

I know, right?

Looks like a good deal all around to me. Serbia gets a company that will provide stable employment instead of a bankrupt piece of government-run ****, US Steel adds a good asset, and the global marketplace is that much more productive!

"Free Trade Is Evil, Like the War In Iraq" -- Pat Buchanan ok, not really

[sinkspur]

You'd rather they'd stayed bankrupt?

Oh, for the days of Milosevic, right?

[gcruse]

I hear you. I am suspicious of anyone who hates free trade and globalization as a knee-jerk thing. But then, I'm a member of that other Samuelson fan club, the Paul Samuelson one. :)

[Torie]

Saddam is a very efficient manager. Perhaps he could run it. He certainly has capital in Swiss banks to draw on. Oh yes, he's probably dead, and unavailable. I guess the PC white knight search goes on.

[Willie Green]

I gather globalization is worse to you than state owned industries.

I gather foreign industry is more important to you than our own National Security.
Have you invested in any "pharmaceutical" plants in Libya yet?

[gcruse]

I gather foreign industry is more important to you than our own National Security.

         Capitalism is how we afford National Security.  If US Steel thinks they
         can run that plant at a profit, I can't imagine what your objection is to
          their buying it.

Have you invested in any "pharmaceutical" plants in Libya yet?

             What on earth does that have to do with anything?  Or
             do you think Serbia is some kind of dictatorship?   Actually,
             Willie, I don't care what you think.  Union goons and
             anticapitalists bore me.

[JohnnyZ]

But then, I'm a member of that other Samuelson fan club, the Paul Samuelson one. :)

Paul Samuelson . . . hmmm . . . is he as famous as Ruth? She's a Mecklenburg County Commissioner.

[Jhoffa_]

Bargain hunters are everywhere you know..

[gcruse]

Way to go, Ruth.
Paul is maybe the premier writer of Economics books in the US, if he's still around, anyway. My college eco textbooks were later editions of his original work.

[Willie Green]

Capitalism is how we afford National Security.

You mean by running-up record budget deficits and ballooning the National Debt???

"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country."

-- President Andrew Jackson - (1824)

Or do you think Serbia is some kind of dictatorship?

Oh, that's right! Your butt-buddy Klinton "liberated" them, didn't he???
I'm sure he installed a new regime that's very sympathetic to our national interest! </sarcasm>

[Frances_Marion]

"INDUSTRY AND TRADE: The NATO aggressor's assaults targeted factories and industrial facilities which directly cater for the needs of the population, among which the following are more prominent: Belgrade: 1 "Galenika" drug factory (12.4.1999.); 2. "Frikom" company (15.5.1999); 3. Industrial complex "Dvadeset Prvi Maj" in Rakovica (24.3.-3.5.1999); 4. Factory "Jugostroj" in Rakovica (24.4.-3.5.1999); 5. "Beogradska pekarska industrija" (bakery) corporation (24.3.-3.5.1999); 6. "Rekord" corporation (24.3.-3.5.1999); 7. "DMB" company (24.3.-3.5.1999); 8. "Minel" company (24.3.-3.5.1999); 9. Machine building plant "Industrija Motora Rakovica" in Rakovica (24.4.-3.5.1999); 10. Factory "Frigostroj" in Rakovica (24.4.-3.5.1999); 11. Construction company "Rakovica" (24.3.-3.5.1999); 12. "Udarnik promet" 24.3.-3.5.1999); 13. Holding company "Agropromet" - Krusevac, branch in Belgrade (27.4.1999); 14. Juice factory "Dunav grad" (29.4.1999); 15. "Jugoimport SDPR" (27.5.1999); Pancevo: 16. "Lola Utva" agricultural aircraft factory (24-29.5.1999); Smederevo: 17. Transport company Beograd, branch in Smederevo (29.4.1999) 18. "Sartid 1913" steel concern (15.5.1999); 19. Main office building "Zmaj" company (22.5.1999);

So all you "backward" countries remember this the next time you try to defend yourself from the international jihad movement.

[Destro]

I am sorry if some of you guys did not get the thrust of my humor and my point.

Here is a Serbian Steel Plant worth hundreds of millions of $ not $23 million!! But thanks to sanctions and NATO bombing of the very same company it can be purchased for a song by a company from a nation that did the bombing! - minus its debt that the Serbian people will assume-- Here in the US of A the Steel companies also have billions in debt to their pension plans etc but congress (mostly the Republican branch) has refused to let them off the hook on this and assume the debts so that the American people can pay them off.

I gather that Djindjic's "reforms" were just a way to sell state assets at next to nothing to the "foreign investors" that backed him and wanted Slobo out of the way so as to carve up Serbia.

[Destro]

Humanitarian warriors bump

[Willie Green]

Here is a Serbian Steel Plant worth hundreds of millions of $ not $23 million!!

Hogwash. It's an antiquated, east-european communist pile of junk that belches pollution throughout the entire region. U.S. Steel has shut down more modern and sophisticated facilities here in the United States and acquired this Serbian scrap-heap simply because it's cheaper to produce steel there without having to be compliant with stringent environmental regulations.

[Destro]

Yea, just like Serbia's mines are antiquated, east-european communist piles of junk that belch pollution throughout the entire region and needed to be taken over at cost and run by Western concerns.

Even remember troops wearing surgical masks moving in and kicking the Serb workers out of those mines--masks useless for the pollutants claimed--but it made for good pictures.

[mabelkitty]

Nice to see American industry BUYING things for a change, rather then sell it.

It also will help to stop the illegal dumping that is falsely driving down the prices of steel.