/biz/ - Business & Finance

Why did the Titanic sink? Because of BUSINESS AND FINANCE. It was around the time where coal coke became significantly more expensive, because suddenly it was used for more than just steel production, but also transportation. Shipping lines from British India were buying it at any price, to quickly furnish European tastes for cheap and fresh exotic produce: pineapples, bananas, even mangoes. So, naturally, the price of good Scottish steel used for building hulls (and the accompanying quality control that comes with 300 years of foundry management) went way up, just at the time when cheapo Irish steel foundries came online. “But anon,” you ask, “Ireland doesn’t have significant iron ore mines! Just copper and lead!” Correct, and at the time you know what was the cheapest source of iron ore for Ireland? China. Used as ballast in their trips back (because tea and pepper doesn’t weigh as much as the exports needed for colonial occupation government, cannonballs and wagons and such), Chinese iron ore was dumped onto Belfast in great mountains and was nearly free raw material for shitty Irish foundries. Heavily polluted with tin and manganese, ship hulls were notoriously brittle and inelastic. An iceberg cut through it as if it was made of glass.

WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT BOYS