Brandt's Notes

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...

A special interest of mine in graduate school was an attempt to merge my concern for humanity in general with my concern for the economy.  Or, in other words, to think of economic needs as one of many important human needs; that human needs in general are greater than and inclusive of our material needs. Maslow A simple example can be drawn from Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  A psychiatrist, Abraham Maslow created a model to show universal needs at the bottom and more 'acquired' emotions toward the top.  Although Maslow never organized these needs into a pyramid, they are now popularly arranged to look something like this - Looking at the arrangement of needs, the question is, which of these layers are provided within the economy?  Well, it depends.  The methods of production, distribution, buying, selling, and use of goods and services varies substantially between countries and time periods.   Let's consider me, today, now.   Looking at the b...

 In an effort to track the latest news about the oil/energy sector and the future of Houston, I've reviewed articles from the past week.  In short, it looks as though local oil and gas companies are having extraordinary profitable years due to the impact of the Ukraine war on supplies and their reluctance to invest further.  Also competing views on future energy regulations continue to be a significant political point of contention. 1. The Dallas Fed held an event on energy and the economy.  Of note, are comments that: the oil and gas sector is producing at 60% of pre-pandemic levels oil and gas leaders blame -  labor shortages,  pipeline capacity,  lack of new oil and gas investment (primarily due to environmental pushback), oil company tentativeness to expand given recent busts, ESG benchmarks decoupling "prices and products" 2. Several states have set targets to switch homes to 100% electric heating systems, to reduce reliance on natural gas.  ...

Here we continue our series which asks:  "what will happen to Houston, the energy capital of the world, if the response to climate change requires us to move away from oil and gas".  In previous posts, we took seriously the claim that Houston could end up like Cleveland, a once booming industrial city whose population has been on a downward spiral for several decades.  One question was why would major companies leave a metro area taking jobs with them, like with Cleveland ?  Here we explore this question in detail.  -- Let’s assume oil and gas declines as a proportion of energy consumption globally over time.  What will happen to the major companies that extracted, refined, and distributed it for so long?  As of 2022, Houston is home to about 25 “Fortune 500” companies.  About half of those are in the oil and gas business.  In total about 5,000 energy firms are in Houston and about 31% of all US jobs in oil and gas are there as well.  Th...

Speak to any Houstonian about the threat of climate change to the city and you'll get a similar response: Houston's economy isn't based on oil like it once was.  It's diversified.  We have the medical center, we have many Fortune 500 companies, NASA, the shipchannel, as well as manufacturing and retail.  The city survived the oil price slump of the 1980s and came out better for it. But was it enough? Maybe not,  according to the Dallas Fed .  Looking at employment change percentages, author Jesse Thompson points to the areas of most significant decline during the pandemic: oil/gas, construction, manufacturing, and information services fared the worst.  That oil and gas (and support industries) still make up 1/3rd of employment in the Houston metro area, and that it alone accounts for nearly that percent in wages is evidence to it's continued importance. Further, the charts he presents show how many of these lost jobs in the pandemic (1/5th of all those in o...

  " The city of Cleveland has had a colorful history. The Cuyahoga River, which runs through the city, famously caught fire in 1969 thanks to rampant pollution, and it wasn't the first time. In 1978 it became the first U.S. city to default on its debts since the Great Depression. Cleveland sports fans have had to endure more anguish than those in any other city. The city has been dubbed with a less than endearing nickname: the Mistake by the Lake.  This year Cleveland takes the top spot in our third annual ranking of America's Most Miserable Cities. " -Forbes Magazine, 2010 This post is part of a series on the future of Houston, Texas (the "energy capital of the world") as it faces climate change and a changing world economy. In the last post I started analyzing a claim that Houston may end up like Cleveland, a city that once was among America's largest but has now shed more than half of its population in the last 50 years. The two major trends worth con...