US Steel to shut steelmaking operations at Granite City mill; 1,000 jobs at risk (NYSE:X)

Another textbook example of blatant mismanagement of an iconic American corporation going back to at least the ‘70’s. Rather than investing in their own industry and in new steel making processes, mgmt chose acquiring Marathon Oil among other non-steel forays. I may be a bit vague on the specifics, but was the Alaska pipeline built with Japanese steel ? Politics, creative tariffs and price supports aside, how were Japanese mills able to import all the raw materials, make the Steel and ship it to the US at a competitive price? And please don’t blame labor unions and steel maker wages for the failure of management to rise to a competitive challenge as well as the economic difficulties of the age.Certainly executive compensation and perquisites have never suffered to the same degree as the steel industry which has nearly vanished from the US. Take a stroll around the steel mill wastelands of Pennsylvania, northwest Indiana and the southeast side of Chicago to get a feel for the apocalypse that has befallen this behemoth of an industry.