Word: steeles
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Unfortunately, this scenario seems to be playing out already. Last Thursday, the Commerce Department announced the trade deficit had hit its highest monthly level in history. Just the day before, the House has voted to approve a strict quota on steel imports, capping them at pre-1997 levels. Although the bill is expected to fail in the Senate, the 289 to 141 House vote for a blatantly protectionist measure shows how sentiment has changed in the few years since NAFTA was approved and how easy it is for matters to take a drastic turn for the worse...
When the global slowdown hit Russia, Korea and Japan, these countries responded in part by boosting their exports of steel to the U.S. The Clinton Administration initially played along with the demands of the steel industry and its unions. In his State of the Union address, Clinton warned of great harm to the steel industry from abroad and threatened tariffs against Japan. But how much harm has really occurred? The U.S. imported almost a third of its steel in 1998, up from about 25 percent the year before--a change, but hardly one which spells the death of the domestic...
...House Ways and Means Committee pointed out, the threats to steel producers from low-priced steel imports are outweighed by the benefits to industrial steel consumers, such as General Motors. Such companies employ about 40 times as many workers as the entire steel industry. Each dollar that workers in the industry gain from protected prices will represent one dollar taken from the pockets of workers employed at steel consumers...
...evade these issues, some in Congress have chosen to attach a mystical significance to the steel industry, exalting it above all others. However, the historical prominence of an industry should have little bearing on current policy. Rep. Dennis Kucinivich (D-Ohio) compared the quota to administration efforts to open Europe's markets to bananas, but his arguments at times verged on the absurd: "Bananas did not build America. Steel did...We cannot build a tank with a banana, we cannot build a plane with a banana, we cannot build ships with a banana. We did not build cars with bananas...
SWEET DREAMS The new Dual Support System on Sealy's posh Posturepedic Crown Jewel bed sounds dreamy: longer mattress coils, with 40% more steel, cradle the body and provide firm support. And the compact, 4-in.-tall box spring (7.5 in. is standard) is made of reinforced fiberglass for better shock absorption. But the $1,000 to $3,000 price for a queen set could easily ruin your reverie...