China, China, China - enough. Cuba, again, beat the USA baseball team and will play unbeaten South Korea for the damn gold medal. And although I'm "free", I still am not "allowed" to buy a Cuban Cigar. That's the Cuba 90 miles south of Key West, FL. Whatever. So - moving onto Russia. They invaded Georgia and they're back in the news. But, you may or may not remember a previous post about a trip I made to the port of Baltimore, actually Sparrows Point, Md. The huge steel facility I picked up at, which was 85% automated and had 2/3's less people (vs. a typical US owned plant) working in the coil warehouse facility, had been sold to the giant Russian steel company SeverStal - which in Russian is Северсталь or Northern Steel. Well, that same Russian company just purchased PBS Coals in Pennsylvania for $1.3 billion in cash. According to The New York Times, "The company produced about 2.4 million tons of coal, last year, including 1.5 million tons of coking coal, which is used to make steel." SeverStal is controlled by Alexei Mordashov, who is #18 on the Forbes World's Billionaire list. They report his net worth at $21.2 billion. But this is not about him, it's about yet another piece of the United States being sold - and control of one our most valuable natural resources now belonging to an entity off our shores - in this case Russia.
Friday, August 22, 2008
China, Cuba and Russia, again on the move...
China, China, China - enough. Cuba, again, beat the USA baseball team and will play unbeaten South Korea for the damn gold medal. And although I'm "free", I still am not "allowed" to buy a Cuban Cigar. That's the Cuba 90 miles south of Key West, FL. Whatever. So - moving onto Russia. They invaded Georgia and they're back in the news. But, you may or may not remember a previous post about a trip I made to the port of Baltimore, actually Sparrows Point, Md. The huge steel facility I picked up at, which was 85% automated and had 2/3's less people (vs. a typical US owned plant) working in the coil warehouse facility, had been sold to the giant Russian steel company SeverStal - which in Russian is Северсталь or Northern Steel. Well, that same Russian company just purchased PBS Coals in Pennsylvania for $1.3 billion in cash. According to The New York Times, "The company produced about 2.4 million tons of coal, last year, including 1.5 million tons of coking coal, which is used to make steel." SeverStal is controlled by Alexei Mordashov, who is #18 on the Forbes World's Billionaire list. They report his net worth at $21.2 billion. But this is not about him, it's about yet another piece of the United States being sold - and control of one our most valuable natural resources now belonging to an entity off our shores - in this case Russia.
