Saugus Ironworks — energy-crisis emigration of British iron

1600-era. British wood shortage forced iron production to North America. Tom's estimate: 2,000–4,000 person-hours per ton of steel at Saugus. Today: 15 person-minutes per ton. Tom's headline productivity-gain figure.

Part of my lecture on some of this stuff is, I estimate that when they had Saugus Ironworks up in Saugus, Massachusetts in 1600 — interesting story on all of that, how the energy crisis in Britain was that they were running out of wood, but they had discovered North America, and we had lots of wood in 1600, so they sent their ironmaking over here because you had to have wood — I estimated it took two thousand or four thousand person-hours to make a ton of steel. Today it takes 15 person-minutes to make a ton of steel. How many industries can you name where you had that kind of productivity gain? Productivity is everything. Well, actually Paul Krugman says productivity isn't everything but it's nearly everything. Exchange rates and other things are there too. Does that answer your question? See, if you ask a question I'll give you an answer — only took 10 minutes.

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