The First thing to Know:  U. S. Steel

The first thing to know about U.S. Steel is that the United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) was once the largest company in the world. Formed from a series of mergers orchestrated by J.P. Morgan to consolidate the steel manufacturing holdings of the “Robber Barons of the Gilded Age,” U.S. Steel was simultaneously both the world’s largest steel producer and the world’s largest corporation. Incorporated in 1901, U.S. Steel is back in the news.

U.S. Steel is in the news today because a Japanese company made an offer to acquire the corporation that our government is questioning because steel is a national security concern. I’m going to make a case in favor of the merger for the very same reason: You have to have steel to make bullets!
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The first thing to know:  America’s Institutions

The first thing to know about America’s institutions is that, whether you are aware of it or not, they’re the reason you breathe clean air and have almost unlimited safe, potable drinking water on tap. You can expect the Fire Department to show up if your house is on fire and expect the Police if you are robbed. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) keeps Chinese lead out of our baby food. The list is actually much longer.

We Americans already have a long list of essential services our government provides that form the cornerstones of our society, and tearing down these institutions, as Misters Steve Bannon and Donald Trump advocate, is a fundamentally bad idea; the notion that government is necessarily always bad not only Kleig-lights a near-total lack of intellectual perspicacity, it also highlights a stark, remarkably stupid line of thought:  Eliminating the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) …?. 

You can test my theory for yourself:

The next time you smell fire and see smoke billowing out of your kitchen, call Steve Bannon.