Feature

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES FROM 1998: Robber Barons

“Industrial Statesmen”, Robber Barons, & billionaires: wealth, power, & the politics of fortune from railroads to Silicon Valley—how the rules of…

Feb 15 •

Time to Revisit: How Does This Assessment Look Fourteen Months Later?

I need to update my assessment I made 14 months ago about "Team Transitory" vis-à-vis "Team Persistent" on US early-2020s inflation. I need to update it…

Feb 10 •

REVIEW: Small People Dealing with Looming Fascism Novel Watch

I do love Jo Walton's "Small Change" trilogy. & I do find it, once again, a very suitable read for our times. Save for the not-unhappy ending part...

Feb 8 •

NOTE TO SELF: TrumpChaos in a BREXIT Mirror

Is the best analogy to the chaos-monkey international trade politics Trump has embarked upon the example of BREXIT? And, if so, what does that tell…

Feb 6 •

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Reviewing Alan Furst's Novel "Dark Star"

From 2001, of a book published in 1991. Alan Furst (1991), Dark Star (New York: Houghton Mifflin: 0006511317). Still the best book about Europe in the…

Feb 4 •

In Data Science for Non-STEM Majors, Is Learning-by-Watching Live Calculating Possible? Likely? Reasonable to Expect?

We commit as much intellectual malpractice when we let our students graduate from the university these days without command of the basic data science…

Jan 28 •

& We Are Live Over at the "Milken Review", with: Chickens Coming Home to Roost?: The Perils of Deglobalization

Remember the damage the idiot Tories did to Britain via BREXIT? Yeah, that. A coördinated deglobalization effort will do that to the world. And, whether…

Jan 23 •

American Economic History: Introduction

No Grand Narrative allowed: An episodic approach to American economic history, vaguely grouped around the center point of "American Exceptionalism"...

Jan 22 •

DRAFT NOTES on "Grab 'Em by the Pussy" for January 20, 2025

A little advice I think necessary to give to the confused right-wing young men of America in the age of Trump II. My bottom line? Listen to the wise…

Jan 20 •

HOISTED FROM A YEAR AGO: Why Is There No Gentry-Massacring Peasant Jacquerie in "Pride & Prejudice"?

2024-01-08: One would think that the situation of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Darcy, & Lizzie Bennet in Pride & Prejudice would end with them like their French…

Jan 16 •

NOTES: Reckoning with Post-Columbus Empires

Conquest & cosmopolitanism: The point of empire is domination & exploitation. The legacies of empire-building can include peace, technology transfer…

Jan 15 •

Notes on the Macro-Finance Sitch for 2025-01-13 Mo

Four points, as my ability to accurately & precisely visualize the macro-finance Cosmic All continues to deteriorate...

Jan 13 •

Thinking About Teaching Economic History to the First-Year Economic History Graduate Students This Forthcoming Semester

We economists know preferences, market structures, supply, demand, equilibrium, and surplus. Half at least of economic history is using what we…

Jan 2 •

Kayfabe, Cruelty, Sanewashing, Hierarchy, Musk, Bannon, & Trump

Plus the "New York Times" demonstrates once again that money spent on it is wasted. It is going to be a long, sad, and damaging four years, isn't it?

Dec 29, 2024 •

PROJECT SYNDICATE: American Idiots

We got a preview of life in the chaos-monkey cage that will be the Second Trump Administration last week: we saw Elon Musk & Donald Trump’s blow-up a…

Dec 23, 2024 •

What Had I Hoped to Teach This Just-Past Semester?

What Kinds of Questions Did I Hope That People Would Be Able to Answer After Taking Econ 135: The History of Economic Growth?...

Dec 16, 2024 •

What the East African Plains Ape Anthology Intelligence Has Managed to Do, with Respect to the Economy

If anybody really wants a 500MB 608-slide deck on the history of economic growth; the review deck is only 12MB and only 29 slides: societies of…

Dec 7, 2024 •

DRAFT: It Is Our Business Here in America Not to Repeat Old World Society-of-Domination Mistakes

Musings on Noah Smith's allergic reactions to "land acknowledgements"...

Dec 2, 2024 •

ONE IMAGE: By My Authority & My Ego: The Long-Run Shape of Human Economic History, from -73000 to 2180

Paraphrasing the words of Dean Wormer in "Animal House": somebody has to put his foot in it by being willing to set out their guesses, and that foot is…

Nov 28, 2024 •

TWELVE SLIDES: The History of Economic Growth :: (Roughly) Seven Summary Bullet Points per Lecture

Econ 135 :: Fall 2024 :: What I think I tried to teach people this semester now concluding—a summary slide deck…

Nov 27, 2024 •

ONE SLIDE: NVIDIA Market Capitalization, & What I See as Its Likely Implications

My guess? NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE: When NVIDIA's fundamental equity value goes up by $1.00, the fundamental equity value of the tech sector as a whole…

Nov 26, 2024 •

NOTE TO SELF: "Coin Money, & Regulate the Value Thereof..."

TIME FOR A RANT: Today's Republicans is very weird; in this case, deeply weird about the Federal Reserve, & deeply, deeply confused about money …

Nov 25, 2024 •

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: John F. Cogan, Glenn Hubbard, John B. Taylor, & Kevin Warsh Are Not Professional Analysts, But Rather Republican…

As Kevin Warsh's name rises to the fore as a potential Washington DC powerholder-influencer, we should remind ourselves what whatever technocratic…

Nov 22, 2024 •

LECTURE NOTES: 5.4. Post-2010 "Polycrisis": Culture, Communications, Politics, & War

Rough but edited (and significantly expanded) lecture transcript. Part of Econ 135: The History of Economic Growth Course Unit 5. After Neoliberalism…

Nov 21, 2024 •

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts