Art of Supply, hosted by Kelly Barner, draws inspiration from news headlines and expert interviews to bring you insightful coverage of today’s complex supply chains.
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Buyers Meeting Point is an online knowledge and professional development resource for purchasing and supply chain professionals. BMP Editor Kelly Barner has worked in the field as a practitioner, a consultant at a solution provider, and as a blogger. She has also co-authored two books on procurement 'Supply Market Intelligence for Procurement Professionals: Research, Process, and Resources' and 'Procurement at a Crossroads: Career Impacting Insights into a Rapidly Changing Industry'.
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The Procurement Revolution 2016 was a virtual, global, multi-media movement aimed at getting procurement professionals to stand up, speak out, and drive change and was co-organized by Philip Ideson of Art of Procurement and Kelly Barner of Buyers Meeting Point. Over the course of 5 days in September 2016, 40 Revolutionaries from both within and outside the procurement profession. delivered 5 live Q&A webinars and over 50 unique pieces of audio, video, and written content. What you are about ...
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Real conversations with real people, sharing the unique, yet universal, journeys that mold us. It’s reflecting on adversity and the ways we overcame it in hopes that it will help someone else do the same. It’s celebrating our highs and validating our lows. Above all else, it’s making connections that remind us that we’re not alone in anything we are or do. Join host Darryl Kelly, Founder of Hectic™, every week for conversations that show us that all stories are worth telling if we only ask t ...
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“The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” - Norman Vincent Peale The Art of Supply podcast regularly covers topics that come with a bit of discomfort: allegations of child labor and greenwashing, the role of government regulations in bringing about change, and China, and absolutely anything t…
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Freight Electrification as a Service w/ Ian Rust
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There are a lot of preconceived notions about the barriers preventing electrified road freight from becoming mainstream. It is seen as too difficult, expensive, complicated, inefficient, and more. Most of those perceptions are based on the approaches to electrified trucking that have been tried so far. Perhaps by taking a different approach we can …
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Fishing for Truth in the Seafood Supply Chain
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Companies and consumers regularly rely on product descriptions to decide whether or not to make a purchase and to determine the right price for that product. In the case of seafood, those descriptions and tiers create choices for consumers, but they also provide a built in incentive for fraud at scale. Any time someone is willing to pay a higher ma…
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Orchestrating the Chaos of Retail Fulfillment w/ Mike Robinson
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“Every time I don't have a delivery truck stop in front of your house, 800 grams of CO2 is never created.” - Mike Robinson, Head of Retail Solutions and a Founding Member at The Eighth Notch (T8N) The ecommerce boom of the last few years has led to new business models and consumer experiences, but it has also added to the number of packages being d…
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On June 26th, The Wall Street Journal reported that FedEx plans to spin off their freight division - and the most interesting part is why. FedEx Freight is the less-than-truckload (LTL) division of the company. It is the most profitable division, with a recent operating margin over 20 percent, compared to 11.8 percent for FedEx Ground and 2 percent…
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According to reporting in the New York Times, about 20 million containers travel through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach California annually. Those containers are full of goods that need to travel to warehouses, stores, and consumer homes by truck and rail. Unfortunately, a growing percentage of those goods never arrive, thanks to a sharp u…
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De Minimis: Supply Chain Trifles the Law Should be Concerned With
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Section 321 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930 contains a small provision known as ‘de minimis.’ From a Latin phrase meaning “the law does not concern itself with trifles,” this provision has become a major concern for retailers, shippers, and regulators. De minimis is supposed to simplify shipping so that packages under $800 can be sent to U.S. consum…
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Chasing a Common Supply Chain Objective: Saving Lives w/ Adrian Ristow and David Canarutto
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“You can't just come with ideas. You’ve got to show that you're going to be on the journey with them.” - Adrian Ristow, Executive Director of Project Last Mile “Coca-Cola Project Last Mile is held within the practitioners of my craft to be the flagship model of what good looks like in terms of public-private partnerships.” - David Canarutto, Privat…
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Project Last Mile: A Story Worth Retelling
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About 15 years ago, someone noticed that while you could buy a cold Coca-Cola in the most remote corners of Africa, lifesaving medicines that require cold chain logistics were nowhere to be found. A group approached the company and asked, will you teach us how you manage your supply chain in rural Africa so we can apply those learnings to healthcar…
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Ultimate Endless Real Estate Costs at Red Lobster
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Red Lobster, the largest seafood chain in the United States, declared bankruptcy on May 19, 2024. As of the filing, they had 551 locations operating in 44 states, but underperforming locations have already started to close. What brought about the bankruptcy of the restaurant chain that rapper Flavor Flav describes as “one of America's greatest dini…
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Former Pioneer Oil CEO Scott Sheffield - Colluder or Scapegoat?
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On May 25, the Federal Trade Commission announced their consent for the planned acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources by ExxonMobil. It was the largest shale oil and gas merger ever planned. The consent may not have been a surprise, but one of the conditions was: that former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield was prohibited from takin…
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Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Progress or Setback?
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The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, took effect in June of 2022 to protect an ethnically Turkish, predominantly Muslim minority that lives in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China. The Uyghurs have been the subject of forced labor claims and investigations - truly the stuff of supply chain nightmares. If companies try to import anyt…
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Sending a Powerful Message About America’s Pharmaceutical Independence
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On April 30th, 2024, the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Personnel, held a hearing about the Department Of Defense’s efforts to ensure service members would have access to safe, high-quality pharmaceuticals. One of the panelists invited to testify was Victor Suarez, a retired Colonel from the United States Army. He worked f…
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Symptoms of Disruption in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
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Pharmaceutical supply chains are never far from news headlines. Regular drug shortages affect our families, friends, and neighbors when they can’t access their chemotherapy treatments, ADHD medication, and pain medication - just to name a few. In 2023, Americans spent over $600 Billion on prescription drugs. That’s more than ever before — and more …
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Searching for the Limits of Employee Activism at Google
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Some corporations have chosen to wade into socially sensitive waters over the last few years and others have been pushed in from behind. The adoption of a social mission or set of causes at the company level does not guarantee ‘trickle down’ benefits to individual employees. The right to free speech is one of the most valued privileges granted in t…
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The Surging Problem of AI Energy Consumption
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On April 9th, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings, a British semiconductor and software design company came out and made a statement about data center energy consumption that most people would find shocking. He said, “by the end of the decade, AI data centers could consume as much as 20% to 25% of U.S. power requirements. Today that’s probably 4% or les…
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Replacing Good Intentions with Good Outcomes at Whistl
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“We know what matters to our employees, and we know what matters to our customers, and we know where the leadership view is. That alignment means that you make progress more easily because you’re focused on stuff that matters and that people care about.” - Gareth Hughes is the Business Services and ESG Director for Whistl If the road to hell is pav…
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Examining the Practicality of the EV Truck Mandate
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Heavy-duty trucks include tractor-trailers, ambulances, garbage trucks, and school buses. All of these are now on an official timeline for reduced emissions, in alignment with a new Federal mandate. Manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles must reduce their overall emissions by mandated percentages according to model year, starting with their 2028 mode…
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80 percent of all ship-to-shore (S2S) cranes at ports in the United States - and 75 percent of all S2S cranes in the world - are made by just one company: ZPMC. Short for Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited, ZPMC is a Chinese state-owned manufacturing and engineering firm. It was founded in 1992 and quickly grew to become the largest …
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Net Zero in New York? JBS Accused of Greenwashing
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On February 28, 2024, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS, the largest meat company in the world, for civil fraud. James is accusing the company of ‘greenwashing’ or making statements to sound more environmentally friendly than they truly are. In 2021, JBS made a commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2040. James says this statement…
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“China’s supply chain has gone through significant, transformative changes in the last five years. For executives or engineers, designers or buyers, who have not been here since before COVID, they’re going to see a completely different China.” - Jeffrey Goldstein, Founder & President of Onward Global It is impossible to discuss global supply chains…
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In October of 2021, Hertz announced that they would purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3’s for their rental fleet, followed by 175,000 from GM, and 65,000 from Polestar. The move was supposed to help them overcome shortages of conventional cars, lend the recently ex-bankrupt company a ‘cool factor,’ and lean on the sustainability trend to drive revenue. …
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The global off-price apparel and home fashion market is estimated to be worth $900 Billion. While retailers like Macy’s and Bed Bath & Beyond faltered or fell over the last few years, the chains owned by TJX - notably TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods - have thrived. TJX has seized the opportunity to snatch up excess brand name inventory and sell …
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Three Strikes for the New Baseball Uniform
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In early February, news hit that there was a problem with the new Major League Baseball uniforms. Redesigned by Nike and made by Fanatics, the new uniforms were unveiled with tremendous fanfare. They were designed to be more comfortable, cooler, and better at moisture wicking. Unfortunately, one man’s breathable is another man’s translucent. Pictur…
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…” - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910 The last four years of supply chain challenges have taken a toll. People are exhausted, stressed, and scar…
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“Wisdom is given equally to everybody. The point is whether one can exercise it.” - Taiichi Ohno, The “Ten Precepts” The supply chain profession has recently run the gauntlet of existential challenges. Is it possible that - given enough time - they could return to the old ways? There have recently been a number of news stories about retailers retur…
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Case Dismissed: Byron Allen v. McDonald’s
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On February 2, 2024, news broke on one of the court cases we’ve been following for a while. In May of 2023, two of the companies owned by Byron Allen, a black businessman and producer, sued McDonald’s for $100 Million in California for fraud and false promise. The suit claimed the company lied when it said it was going to spend more money with blac…
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In today’s digital age, jokes are often made at technology’s expense. Computers don’t like switching from one virtual meeting platform to another. Sometimes webinar platforms insist upon seeing someone’s earbuds as a microphone rather than as a speaker. And why does software always need to update when we are already 5 minutes late for a meeting? Di…
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Savings v. Safety in Aircraft Manufacturing
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On January 5th, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 left Portland, Oregon en route to Ontario, California. Just minutes into the flight, the Boeing 737 Max 9 lost a door plug, creating a gaping hole in the side of the aircraft. Fortunately, all 171 passengers and six crew members were safe, largely because the plane had only reached 16,000 feet, minimizing…
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In 2013, then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicted that drone deliveries would be a reality in five years. More than 10 years later, they are still largely in the pilot phase, but a drone final mile is becoming a reality fast for some parts of the company. As the FAA reduces restrictions on drone deliveries in places like the Dallas-Fort Worth metropoli…
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Weight and Value x Distance: Studying Global Supply Chain Use and Cost
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In June 2023, Sharat Ganapati, an Assistant Professor of International Economics at Georgetown University and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Woan Foong Wong, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon, wrote a research paper that was published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Tit…
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On New Year’s Eve, weeks of rising tension in the Red Sea reached a boiling point. Houthi militants tried to board the Maersk Hangzhou just one day after hitting the vessel with a missile. The ship’s crew sent out a distress signal that was picked up by the USS Eisenhower and the USS Gravely, which sent helicopters to support the on-ship-security t…
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Effective today, Dial P for Procurement is the Art of Supply. Rather than being a change in content, this rebrand brings the name and brand identity of the show into alignment with the content we have already been creating. Building on the strength of the category-leading Art of Procurement podcast, Art of Supply will focus on supply chain topics a…
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2023 Dial P for Procurement Year in Review
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Looking all the way back to the beginning of the year has a way of putting everything into perspective. The individual and cumulative impact of all of the events that took place in 2023 can not be understated: from legal action, to labor unions, to geopolitics. In this episode, Kelly Barner reviews the stories and topics covered on Dial P for Procu…
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With all the recent buzz about electric vehicles (EVs), not to mention the push towards sustainability and emissions reduction, it was only going to be a matter of time before electric Class 8 trucks entered the scene. Class 8s are classic semis or tractor trailers, so they are not just part of the supply chain, they have supply chains themselves. …
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The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, is usually associated with organized crime. It was used in 1992 to bring down the Gambino Crime family and sentence John Gotti to life in prison. But there is no supply chain mafia, right? A recently filed legal complaint will ask and hopefully answer that very question… …
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Will the world fiddle while Bangladesh burns?
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The People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Southeast Asia is the second-largest exporter of ready-made garments in the world. The ready-made garment sector employs 4.4 million workers, and 65 percent of them are women. 84 percent of the country’s exports are from this one sector. The garment workers get a pay raise every five years, and the last five h…
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The White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience
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“Did you ever think we'd be talking this much about supply chains?” - President Biden On Monday, November 27, 2023, President Biden announced the creation of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience. The event was big news for the administration and for supply chain professionals. Almost 30 new actions focused on strengthening economicall…
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The stories we cover on Dial P for Procurement are pulled from the headlines, but some have more ‘legs’ than others. Just because a story, person, or company slides down in the feed, we can’t stop following it. In this week’s episode of Dial P for Procurement, Kelly Barner looks back at the people who played large roles in three past episodes to fi…
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Convoy was a digital freight brokerage founded by former Amazon executives to digitally revolutionize a high-transaction, low-profit space. Investors included Bill Gates, former Vice President Al Gore, Bono and The Edge from U2, the investment arm of Google parent Alphabet, and Jeff Bezos. Convoy was launched in 2015, reached a $3.8 Billion valuati…
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Is it the most wonderful time of the supply chain year?
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According to the National Retail Federation, 43 percent of people started doing their holiday shopping in October, leading the NRF to predict a year-over-year holiday spending increase of 3 to 4 percent. 58 percent of shoppers will buy online, and all of those gifts have to be packed and shipped… probably via small parcel channels. And yet, final m…
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“Coke is everywhere. In fact, when I travel to the developing world, Coke feels ubiquitous. [...] If we can understand what makes something like Coca-Cola ubiquitous, we can apply those lessons then for the public good.” -Melinda Gates In Africa, nearly half of people lack access to critical medicines. The continent covers 11.7 million square miles…
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In 2012, LEGO made a commitment to make all of their bricks out of sustainable materials by 2030, just in time for the company’s 100th anniversary. As Tim Guy Brooks, LEGO’s head of environmental responsibility said, “We can’t say we inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow if we’re ruining the planet.” The company has been willing to invest an…
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The last two years have brought us many news stories about labor unions throwing their weight around. First there was the fear that the railway workers unions would stop freight in the lead up to Christmas, then we watched as the Teamsters negotiated with Yellow and UPS, managing to avoid a strike in both cases, the United Auto Workers union is now…
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Smucker’s + Hostess = Supply Chain Synergy
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In early September, J.M. Smucker announced that they had struck a deal to acquire Hostess, the 130 year old maker of treats like Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Ding Dongs, Zingers, and Voortman cookies. Smucker agreed to pay $5.6 Billion including $900 Million in debt for the company. Most people felt the deal was overpriced, and Smucker’s stock fell 7 percent,…
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“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.” ― Benjamin Franklin Banned Book Week was started in 1982 to call attention to censorship and intellectual freedom. In 2023, it runs from October 1-7, culminating with Let Freedom Read day on Saturday the 7th. This …
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The Competitive Expectations Behind the Google Antitrust Trial
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Google is currently being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Not since they went after Microsoft in 1994 has there been such a major antitrust trial with such widespread implications - and never before has U.S. antitrust law been so tested. While it is not illegal to have a monopoly, it is illega…
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Getting a Kiss From a World Class Supply Chain
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After years of pandemic-fueled spikes in demand for chocolate and salty snacks, Hershey’s supply chain hit the wall. During The Hershey Company’s second quarter earnings call on July 28, 2022, CEO Michele Buck warned investors that the company “will not be able to fully meet consumer demand" for Halloween candy. Ingredients were in short supply, an…
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The Cold, Hard Facts About Cold Chain Logistics
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News stories have a way of going from the front page to the scrap heap, and even the spotlight focused on the supply chain over the past few years couldn’t prevent it from happening altogether. One specific element of supply chain - cold chain logistics - recently resurfaced in coverage of the costs and challenges surrounding transport of Ozempic a…
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“You can’t unscramble eggs.” – J.P. Morgan There are few companies in the United States as storied and historic as U.S. Steel. Dating all the way back to the Gilded Age, U.S. Steel was formed in 1901 when J.P. Morgan financed the merger of Andrew Carnegie’s Federal Steel and National Steel, into one behemoth. The resulting company is the now second…
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