I see it on the road Lakshore Drive becomes going from downtown Chicago to Merrillville and Gary.

Hari

He’s got titanium hair!

A man of steel.

An Indian man of steel.

I shall make myself in his image.

And Indian man with balls of steel.

With saffron balls of steel.

Hail Arcelor Mogambo!

Ennis, such snark — how do you know that Indiana hasn’t been secretly infiltrated by subversive sleeper types who hate our freedom? That’d just maintain the element of surprise — sleeper types are very sneakly like that. And besides there’s a real danger here about which you are being very nonchalant — after all, popcorn explodes….

Analyst Michelle Applebaum of Applebaum Research recalled that when Mittal bought Inland Steel Co. of Indiana in 1998, there were similar concerns in the industry about the capabilities of an overseas company that didn’t produce high-end automotive steel. “People were saying, ‘They haven’t ever made this type of steel before, can they do it?’ I was skeptical, too,” she said. “But Mittal doesn’t need to know how to do it. They’ve retained all the top management. When they acquired Inland … they invested well and they optimized.” U.S. steelmaking isn’t expected to be affected dramatically by a merger, since Mittal already is the leading producer in North America and Arcelor’s strengths lie elsewhere. [Link]

They’re the leading steel producer in North America? I didn’t know that either.

Mittal’s Midwest Dominance Mittal Steel Co. NV will exercise near dominance of key Midwest steel markets upon purchase of Ohio-based International Steel Group (ISG), completed on April 15th [2005]. This will include ownership of the ex-Acme Steel plant at Riverdale, and three of the four sprawling mills on Lake Michigan in Indiana — ex-Inland Steel’s East Chicago Works, ex-LTV Corp.’s Indiana Harbor Works and ex-Bethlehem Steel’s Burns Harbor Works. (Gary Works will still be owned by U.S. Steel Corp.) Controlled by an Indian family based in London with corporate headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Mittal Steel now owns the last major mill on Lake Erie at Cleveland and the nation’s only tidewater plant at Baltimore. [Link]