JOHN PAUL; GETTY III

A boy stood at the roadside trying to stop a lorry in December 1973 near the town of Lagonegro in southern Italy. The lorry driver was too nervous to stop but told the local caribinieri (Italian police). The boy told the police that he is Paul Getty and asked for a cigarette and showed them the cut off his ear.
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The 17 year old was the world most famous kidnap victim and it lasted over 138 days. His grandfather the richest man but was also known for his stinginess. He flatly refused to pay any ransom money because he and the family thought that his Grandson pretended trying to get some money out of his grandfather. He gave in when the kidnappers sliced off his ear and sent it to a newspaper with further threats to cut bit by bit. He handed over £1.2million. He demanded that his son, John Paul Ghetty Jr, father of Paul Getty IIII, would pay it back and with 4 per cent interest.

Afterwards he refused to talk to his grandfather or father. Instead of realizing that John Paul was traumatised his grandfather disinherited him when he married a radical German film-maker six years his senior.

                                                 

JOHN PAUL GETTY III  --  AFTER HE HAD A STROKE 

Like most of high society John Paul Getty III and his father John Paul Getty Jr, went on hard drugs. His hippie-stepmother Talitha died of an overdose. This must have hit him hard and at the age of 25 he had a massive stoke which was also caused by heroin, alcohol and heroin substitute methadone.

He ended up nearly blind and quadriplegic and he spent the rest of his tragic like that life. He died after 30 years in 2011.
The sage began with the orignal patriarch George Franklin Getty. He was a lawyer in Minnesota and made the family's fortune by drilling for oil in California. He lent his son Jean Paul, later renamed John Paul, money to invest in oil wells. Largely excluding him from his will because of his playboy lifestyle at that time. 

The grandfather J Paul Getty was shrewd. By the age 24 he was a dollar millionaire. He believed in "rise early, work hard and strike oil". He proved himself right when he started drilling in South Arabia. He sold out to the large Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco). He became a double dollar billionaire. His father was already involved in oil and accumulated a fortune of $1billion which was a fortune in the end of 19th century beginnig of -the century. 

However, all these monies didn't touch his heart. Grandfather J Paul Getty had five sons (four by his five wives)one committed suicide. He had a terrible relationship with John Paul Jr and didn't approve of him marrying Gail Harrison 1956. He left him $500,000 in his will. They divorced  and he got involved with the Hippies and drugs. There he met Talitha  who died of drug overdose.. 

As well as his marriage not being approved John Paul Jr went completely into drugs. He admitted that he took a gramme of heroin a day. One day he woke up and his wife Talitha was lying dead next to him. After that he became a reclusive and lived in Chelsea. Till his father died in 1976 he was not seen in public.

He had four children with Gail and a son by Talitha called Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramophone  who became a conservationists in Africa..

The eldest was John Paul III was born in 1956. His childhood was spent in Rome where his father ran Getty Oil's Italian business. When his parents divorced he stayed there but was expelled from his internal school in Rome at the age of 14.

When he was over 16 he was attack in the city's historic Piazza Farnese. The kidnappers hit him over the head and put him into the car which they drove 350 miles south. In the five months of capture he was living in caves, derelict mountain huts in very cold conditions. He never saw his kidnappers' faces. He said later on that he didn't expect to live.

The kidnappers demanded at first  more. However, the grandfather pointed out that this would only encourage further kidnapping one of his other grandchildren. He further pointed out that it would lead to lawlessness, terrorism, sky-jacking and killing hostages.

He had a point there but that he demanded his son John Paul Jr not only repay the money but with interest showed his meanness. was a nerve. John Paul Jr did not have access to the family fortune.

One year after his release John Paul III married 24 year old Gisela Zacher and became stepfather to her daughter Anna. Their son, Balthazar, became an actor and acted in the Lord Of The Flies. Recently he acted in the TV series Brothers and Sisters. His other son Mark ownes a famous photographic agency Getty Images. He is also a trustee of the National Gallery.  A major beneficiary due to his father's generosity. The dynasty does not mean meanness any more.

John Paul Jr went into New York' society in full swing and was in Andy Wahol set. He ended up with great health problems because of drugs and alcohol taking.. His father refused to pay his huge medical bill even so he just received a big inheritance from a family trust. After lengthy treatments he was almost cured and lived a normal live. After they found Talitha dead he fought hard not to be charged with neglegence. After that he went to England to escape the continued harrassment of the press.

After Talitha's death he became an reclusive and he went to England lo live in Chelsea.  He was never seen in public. Being still a drug user and savering eventually from bad health. He went for a long spell to a London clinic to get off drugs and to improve his health. He met Victoria Holdworth, a farmers' daughter, who brought him out into the public again, In 1994 John Paul Getty Jr married her  He bought Wormsley a 3,000 acre estate and improved greatly the house and garden  At his death he bequethed it to his wife and several billions of pounds..

During his stay in England he gave away £140million to various causes. Even the Conservatives benefitted from his generosity with £5billion. His father must not only turned in his grave but must have been hopping mad of giving all this money away.

John Paul Jr had a passion for England which made him relinquis his American passport. He became a British citizen and it enabled the government not only to give him a honorary knighthood but a real one. By the time of his death he loved cricket, and was a friend of Sir John Major and Lady Thatcher as well as with Mick Jagger. He died in 2003. He left some of his fortune to Mark, his second son because his first borne son John Paul Getty III had already a stroke and was seriously disabled.  Balthazar, his third son became an actor.

John Paul Jr's daughter Aileen, was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1985. Today she is the world's longest survivors. She said that she feels victimised by her legacy, by her parents and by life. She had been in seven institutions, 12 shock treatments, seven miscarriage, anorexic, self mutilator and had been there and back.

Nobody had ever known such a fortune and misfortune on such a huge scale and at the same time as John Paul Getty III. He died on 6 February 2011 and may he have found the peace he always was longing for.

IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

The Iron Age began at around 1500 BC.  Iron started at a very moderate rate with many products. Slowly the importance was realised and it became a very necessary product. Whole empires and civilization were forged by iron tools. Not to forget iron weapons.

Then in the 20^th century the industrial revolution began which couldn’t have happened if there were no iron and steel which is a product made from iron. Railways, ships and factories would not exist without iron and steel.

However, in the last two decades there was another great revolution but nobody noticed it because everybody was so busy trying to keep up with it. It was the Information Age which means plastics and electronics. The two materials gave great pressure to the iron and steel industries.

 A Global Industry

                   

In spite of these new materials which are cheaper, especially plastics, the demand for iron and steel still continued. Australia and Brazil are producing millions of tonnes of iron ore. It is then shipped to any country around the world. The steel-making plants will then produce the necessary product.  Large steel-making plants emerged all over the world because after the World War 2 the shipping costs were very low. Before the war steel mills were situated near the raw material such as iron ore, coking coal and limestone.

In order to produce steel the plant has to reduce the carbon content in the iron to at specific level. Anything between 0.05 per cent and 1.5 per cent, it depends on the type of steel. The steel is usual produced into bars, slabs, wire, sheets or rods. It will then be shipped by rail, road or sea. Most of the manufacturers have a demand of steel.               

However, the biggest demand comes from shipbuilding, machinery, construction and vehicle manufacturing.

The energy crisis at the beginning of the ‘70s brought the steel industry into great difficulties till such time the demand and profit used to rise steadily. With the crisis the demand fell and so did the profit.  The owners had to face the fact, in order to stay compatible, they have to invest huge amounts of money to modernise the plants. This created a backlash in so far that workers had to be laid off and this again reduced the spending power which reflected in the economy.

During the recession in 1989-92 the steel industries had to re-construct it again. This was done two ways. Either vertical integration which means the steel industries buys out all the distribution companies which market the steel. This would bring the profit of the distributors to the manufacturer.

The second way of re-construction was to specialise of a particular product instead of a wide variety. During this process the British Steel became a world wide name for structural steels used in the building trade.

Mannesmann in Germany specialised in tube making and Sacilor of France produced stainless steel.

These changes resulted into the US and European steel industries to be most competitive.

New Competition

To start off a steel industry the cost are huge amount of money, skilled labour, sophisticated management, good infrastructure and communication. It was difficult for any country to take on such an enormous new undertaking. However, since the World War 2 few countries started and succeeded. There were Japan which is now one of the top steel producers, South Korea rose to the 6^th place and Taiwan was on the 17^th.They also expanded to neighbouring countries like the Philippines and Malaysia.

Turkey, China and India followed in their footsteps and achieved higher productions then South America. Brazil has a great advantage because it produces its own iron ore.

The least competition came from Eastern Europe and the former USSR. After the collapse and with that state support, they used the old open-hearth process instead of the basic oxygen or electric-arc furnaces like the West. Eastern Europe continued to use the traditional casting of raw steel into ingots. The West used a more efficient casting process. 

In 1995 countries like the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary started to improve their production and their profit increased. In Russia and the Ukraine the production is falling but slowly.

A small Revolution

It started when quite a number of mini steel mills were built which altogether had an impact.

A mini mill is an electric-arc furnace mill. They usual make steel from scrap. Mini mill have a turn out of half a million tone a year. Mini mills encouraged the scrap metal dealer to sell to the steel industry.  It is estimated around 10 million tonnes of scrap are collected in Britain every year. France, Germany and The Netherlands are major contributors of scrap metal in Europe. They export a great amount to countries like Spain, Turkey, India and the Far East.

The other type of mill is called an integrated mill. It produces steel by using a basic oxygen process and iron ore, coke and limestone. Integrated mills will produce 10 to 20 tonnes a year.

Another Option

The other alternative to steel is new materials such composites, plastics and glass fibre. They are cheaper and sometimes even better quality.

1990 General Motors’ started to use mainly plastic and fitted thermoplastic body panels to the steel frame. 

The Shell Oil manufactured a North Sea oil rig from plastic.

In order to counteract these new developments the steel industry produced coated steel which prevents rust. The coat is made of zinc and plastic. This new material is used in car manufacturing and architectures.