Brandt's Notes

I recently read Linda Jaivin's 2021 book, " The Shortest History of China ".  Why?  Because I'm late to the game.  So many economists (and economics pundits) speak confidently about a wide range of topics.  A new one every week!  Not only do they jump around economics topics, but also seemingly unrelated topics... and impressively any country around the globe that happens to be in the headlines.  It's all a bit deflating.  Supposedly in intellectual life, there are 'foxes' and 'hedgehogs'.  Foxes are those who know some things about everything, and hedgehogs are those that know everything about something.  As I've grown up, I've realized I'm not really good at being either.  So here arrives this book! I've mostly come to terms with having very little awareness of other cultures.  This is a symptom of having gone to The New School.  The New School is the #1 US school in terms of students from outside the US.  And it's not e...

When talking about sources of energy, it feels like coal doesn't get the attention it deserves.  It's dirty, underground, and rife with danger and labor disputes in remote areas of Appalachia.  Coal can feel old fashioned the same way a wood burning stove feels quaint.  When was the last time you used coal?  In the past year you may have pumped a car with gasoline, used a natural gas stove, and maybe seen neighbors installing solar panels or even started a camp fire.  But coal?  There's a slight chance that you've grilled with charcoal, but that's about it.  It feels removed from American life as clean air and climate change concerns have swelled.  But coal hasn't just been left underground.  Upon reading Barbara Freese's "Coal: A Human History," it made me aware of the fact that coal could be playing a bigger role in our lives than ever before. Background: across the pond Freese's book, though brief, does a great job painting visuals of diff...

When the lockdowns from Covid faded away and the CDC ended mask mandates, we entered a new era.  We entered a post-Covid world.  The economy, too, began to look like something new and unfamiliar.  The primary feature so far appears to be very high inflation.  The inflation rate in the US hit over 8% by the beginning of 2022.  This was the highest it had been since inflation skyrocketed in the early 1980s. A bit of history... As an economist interested in finance, energy, and history, this set off alarm bells.  Those last two major spikes in the table above were associated with periods of high oil prices.  This period is otherwise known as the 1970s energy crisis.  And for good reason.  In 1973, the countries supplying oil banded together to create OPEC and started an oil embargo in response to the Yom Kippur War.  Later, in 1979, the Iranian revolution did the same, reducing the supply of oil and dramatically raising prices worldwide....

I recently finished the workplace memoir "Roughnecks, Drillers, and Tool Pushers: Thirty-three Years in the Oil Fields" by Gerald Lynch.  This book is many things, but it's mostly a firsthand historical account of one man's career working in the oil fields from the mid-1920s until the late-1950s.  This book had personal significance to me, as my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and many uncles and cousins have worked in the oil industry.  I was raised listening to stories of oil drilling misadventures, never truly knowing what terms used meant (B.O.P., crown block, rat hole, casing, tool pusher, etc.).  This book forced me to do my research as I read, googling each term, lest I was not able to appreciate the litany of colorful stories in this charming book.  The book itself follows Gerald Lynch who, as a young man, gets an opportunity through family to work at the lowest levels on an oil derrick in northeast Texas.  Over the years he grows from a wil...

I recently finished the sweeping history of oil by Matthew Auzanneau, "Oil, Power, and War."  Originally published in 2015, this work was translated into English (from French) in 2018.  This book's existence stands apart from the prevailing available literature on the history of oil for a variety of reasons.  For one, it creates a counter-narrative to the preeminent work on the history of oil, "The Prize", by Daniel Yergin.  Secondly, while Yergin's book won the Pulitzer, "Oil, Power, and War" hardly has a handful of reviews in English available online.  Lastly, the book attempts to upend a number of debate topics around oil.  As a few examples, when most are worried about climate change, it focuses on peak oil; when economics focuses on internal sources for financial crises, it suggests oil is at the source of 20th century economic growth and its panics; and while others count the days to oil's peak, it claims we've passed it. The book its...

As part of my new series on Humanist economics, which we can broadly define as the study of the economic impact of threats/opportunities to human needs, a good place to start is a broad review of what has been written to date. Wikipedia defines 'Humanistic economics' as a 'persons-first' set of adjustments to economic theory and practice, prioritizing people over profits.  It is also specifically concerned with how the economic discipline defines people, which they see as more complex.   E.F. Schumacher Beyond definitions, there appears to be a few suggestions regarding the history of these ideas.  One suggestion is Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher (1973) as an appropriate starting point.  The available summary of this book appears highly practical, with less focus on theoretical arguments and more emphasis on his perceived threats to humanity and suggestions on what various societies should prioritize.   Schumacher the person is an interesting t...