Final Thoughts

I lost a million-dollar bet to my grandson the other day. Turns out I can’t touch my nose with my big toe like he can. I paid him promptly, per my terms of our wager—one dollar a year for a million years. Plus a cookie as interest. He seemed satisfied. He’s three.

During its earnings call this week, in the latest of a string of environmental announcements from steelmakers, U.S. Steel pledged to decarbonize its operations by 2050. “Net-zero carbon emissions is the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, or BHAG, of this generation. That is why we announced our ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” said CEO David Burritt. “We aspire to be part of this solution. Achieving this goal won’t be easy. It requires us to reimagine the way we work. How we make steel, how we amaze and delight our customers, and how we allocate capital. That means, we have to make hard decisions.”