Steel getting better?

Tom Lehman TLehman at lor.net
Tue Aug 15 19:27:45 PDT 2000


Dan---As I mentioned to Doug, there has been 50 years of scientific and technical progress in iron & steelmaking. There really is no comparison between the steels of then and the new steels of today. We have methods and processes today that were only speculated about 50 years ago. We also have much better control of the process today. Although there are a few older processes that have been scrapped because of cost cutting that I think were worth while from a quality standpoint.

I don't know much about stainless steels, but, I do know that good stainless is anti-magnetic. If your magnet won't attract a stainless steel object, then you know you've got good stainless.

British Steel has a really bad anti-labor reputation in the USA and from what I've been told the British steelworkers union is almost non-existant. When did the privatization of British Steel start before or with Lady Thatcher.

Tom Lehman

Daniel Davies wrote:


> Doug quoted Jack Triplett:
>
> "Actually, the first thing
> wrong with that contrast is that quality change in a
> ton of steel has
> been formidable."
>
> And asked
>
> "Is steel really lots better today than it was 50
> years ago? How? "
>
> My semi-educated guess would be that a ton of steel
> running out of a randomly selected mill today would be
> exactly the same as 50 years ago (if the mill had been
> around that long), that a ton steel running out of a
> randomly selected mill today would be slightly worse
> than a ton of the same sort of steel produced fifty
> years ago (because of the increasing proportion of
> mini-mills), but that a notional "average ton" of
> steel today would be of higher "quality" than fifty
> years ago because the proportion of high-value added
> stainless steels is probably greater today. I recall
> the discussion on whether the value of a college
> degree had fallen or risen ....
>
> dd
>
> =====
> "The banker must at all times affect a respectability that is more than human ... for this reason, he is typically the most romantic and least realistic of men"
>
> John Maynard Keynes
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk
> or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list