Tag Archives: War

GOING GREEN – A LONG TIME

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Europeans have been lying to the world – green this, green that, save the planet, prevent heat from CO2, we’re following the Paris Accords, on, on and on, etc, etc. and etc. The Europeans are hardly advanced in preventing the heating of the planet.

The News of 2022 supports this view. The Europeans don’t seem to have done, do-do. Nuclear power supposedly produces clean electricity, no harm except the rosy glow of radiation, and deconstruction costs of very hazardous waste. Natural gas is supposed to save Europe. Burning it produces far fewer emissions than almost every other abundant fossil fuel. People disapprove of natural gas because the means of attaining it, and it still produces too many emissions.

So the energy-hungry Europeans are supposed to use natural gas from Russia, unacceptable supplier, but now might not meet their pollution, CO2/climate goals. The Europeans are slackers while proclaiming their virtues. Their energy sources should be more secure and more available, if the Europeans had followed their-own advice and met their promises: The so-called energy crisis in Europe over the upcoming winter would be less alarming.

California is on a hurried path to a green economy, but the Europeans provide a poor example. California will not build a bullet train soon of any functionally. That train is scheduled to make all the stops the Amtrak currently makes. As time goes on it, seems Americans will rely on petroleum products for most energy until 2050. e.g. there will not be sufficient recharging stations on highways; there will be inadequate electrical storage facilities in remote locations. In California much of the electric grid needs replacing. Current solar panels are not as efficient as advertised. Reinvestments in solar panels bought today will have to be made again in ten or fifteen years. And, unfortunately in the United States and other countries, going green means crime – criminals attack and dissemble green equipment and sell the materials individually.

As the Europeans have proven, expecting the world to be green soon will be delayed. Europeans will use Russian natural gas when it becomes acceptable; apparently the cost of going green prevents people of choosing green. And next the Chinese. They don’t give a hoot about going green. They burn all fossil fuels and have already poisoned their land so thoroughly that China is unable to feed itself.

THE FORGOTTEN DEPRESSION 1920-1921

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James Grant

James Grant is the publisher of the Interest Rate Observer, a highly-regarded Wall Street investment sheet.

Grant’s book adumbrates the Depression of 1920-1921, following the 18 month participation in World War One. From April 1917 to January 1922 is not five years. It was a boom and bust. In all of American history little supports this time as economically and socially significant, except war and peace their after effects and the advent of Prohibition. 

What were the United States like? It is a short book; Grant does not explain. He mentions 12 Regional Banks of the Federal Reserve, and in a few passages notes that interest rates vary among the Regions. Who knew that interest rates might vary that much, a half point or more, especially today when a decision is made centrally and that’s it. 

Grant’s book is written like many history books about economics, incidences which were separated by time and place. Each incident is not dispositive, and collectively it is difficult to know the interconnections, if there were any: Each seems power fading, misfortune and no loss in the departure. 

The only national effect was in the markets, where the stock market fell, commodities markets fell, real estate prices fell – all observable by some sort of national statistic.

The biggest historical fallacy in Grant’s book is his recounting, without correcting, Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury for Warren Harding and Coolidge. Mellon was a big fan of Alexander Hamilton because Mellon mistakingly believed (as does Grant) that Hamilton was a small government and smaller debt person. FALSE! Hamilton was a BIG DEBT, FAT GOVERNMENT MAN. While Secretary of the Treasury and until 1803 Hamilton tried to weaken the Constitution (using, inter alia, the Alien and Sedition Acts); he supported a monarchial government and he proposed war with France. Mellon and Grant should read history, especially Grant who wrote John Adams: Party of One. Apparently Grant does not know that Adams said Hamilton was of the British Faction, which outraged the former Treasury Secretary.

Mentioning Mellon and Hamilton together detracts from anything Mellon did on his own, in response to events and circumstances before him. Mellon was not Hamilton’s clone. He was more akin to Jefferson and Madison’s Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin.  

THE FORGOTTEN DEPRESSION indicates how loose was national sentiment and communication. Something might happen in New York City and only be known in Montana two weeks later. Indeed, communications into the exchanges and markets were weak and inadequate. The experience of there being too many market orders and not enough people to process them was not realized until October 1929. Nothing in the country seemed connected. Entertainment was a nationalizing and unifying force, but little mentioned in the text. Automobiles and roads were just beginning. Dwight Eisenhower’s cross-country trip in the Twenties gave him the experience to propose the Interstate Highway System, begun when he was President. 

It was a disjointed United States. Many points are raised but not well put. Despite the change within America the experience that the people may do something without the government is a message that may be discerned, not fully or well, from this history.