Re: Interesting Nationwide Article on Granite City from Bloomberg Archived Message
Posted by 3Dee on December 19, 2019, 7:45 am, in reply to "Re: Interesting Nationwide Article on Granite City from Bloomberg"
I know the world will continue to need steel if it will continue to need to build. Tariff or no tariff, I do agree it's like propping up a corpse. I'm actually not against the idea of getting Americans to buy American first, but even so, I think it's just a matter of time before reality hits home and hits hard. I read some of these posts last night after some late night Christmas shopping. I do evening shopping all the time, but I guess I haven't been shopping past 11 in a year or two. I had to hold my nose and go into Big Box Mart, and then stop by a grocery store. BOTH of these places now have robotic floor machines running up and down the aisles. That floor machine doesn't need a sick day, or come in at night dog tired from the other job. Big Box Mart actually had one lane open with a human checker..... and I had to wait behind a large order while several self-checkouts were available. I didn't give a damn....I waited. The grocery store --- not so fortunate...first time in months I had to use a machine that treats me like a thief while I'm doing the work of the company. Even if I resist self-checkout in the hopes that a few other selfish people would do the same -- for the common good, I know where trends are going. People will continue to care only about themselves, and technological unemployment is not going away anytime soon, but will expand. I could promise all the world to truckers and hope for their vote....but before my term is up, over 50% of the long haul truck routes will be driverless. At the warehouse some robot will get the wares to a container and then load them on smaller robotic trucks for local delivery.... or drones. I don't want to call people unskilled or look down upon them. However, even skilled tasks will not need the assistance of humans -- as robots can weld, 3D print buildings, and so much more. What are we propping up? Granite City Steel will close some day or perhaps be occupied by a smaller type of operation --- so automated that they only need temp workers to do a few manual tasks here and there....kind of like the way warehouses have gone. Steelworkers should rightly reply pissed at me telling me I don't know the first thing about steel making. To that they would be right. But I wouldn't be wrong in saying that the way steel is made today won't be the way it's made tomorrow. ARe we ready for that? It's reality... will we be ready for it...or like all other realities that hit Granite City, will it come back to bite?
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