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FIND POSTS BY CATEGORY CATEGORIES Basic Concepts and Theory Market Behavior and Structure Market Dynamics and Information:  How Markets Work The Industrial Revolution in England American Economic History American History Demographics and Economics Management World War I:  The Beginning of the 20th Century The Roman Republic and America - Differences and Some Possible Parallels Economic and Fiscal Policy Financial Markets and Investment Strategies Foreign Exchange Markets The United States American Foreign Policy and International  Relations Geopolitics and the Global Economy Geopolitics of Oil and Natural Gas Visionaries BASIC CONCEPTS AND THEORY Introduction to Economic Theory Economic Development and Economic Growth Production Functions and Supply Chains Demand  Analysis The following post was contributed by Dennis Schuchman. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Real Intelligence (RI) You, Your Brain and Credit Card s Critique of Basic Economic Theory MAR...

Berkeley 1962 - 30 students against racial discrimination I was mildly political in high school. In 1960, I picketed the Democratic Convention that was in L.A. with a small group of radical Quakers protesting atmospheric testing of atomic weapons. The protest was in front of the Biltmore Hotel, where the candidates were staying. We were outnumbered by federal agents with cameras. After our little protest, I wandered into the Biltmore. While loitering in the main corridor, John Kennedy walked by. He was a few feet away. I didn’t think anything of it until his brother was assassinated eight years later in a different Los Angeles hotel. Looking back, I was amazed at the lack of security. A kid in a protest just walks into the hotel – no security at the door, no identity checks, very little security (if any) around Kennedy. I guess all the government agents were too busy developing the film they took of our protest and writing detailed reports on how Quakers were threatening America’s secu...

Written by Andrea Dragon, Ph.D. Andrea investigates and writes about New Jersey's industrial history. Professor Dragon will be teaching a continuing education course on "New Jersey's Explosives History" at Rutgers - New Brunswick in the fall, 2024. For details, see the fall catalog at  olliru.rutgers.edu . The course is described on page 31.   1914:  World War I Breaks Out   Russia started to modernize its army in 1913, with substantial French financial and weapons support. The beginning of a five-year plan, one of the main goals was to expand artillery to catch up with Germany. But war broke out.    After the first four months of the war, all combatants realized they were in for a long war with deadly modern weapons. Every country’s strategy of a quick victory through offensive warfare failed. Germany did not defeat France and England in the west, and the Russian offensive against Germany in the east ended in disaster. The result was four years of tre...

    INTRODUCTION This is not a military history of the American Civil War. Instead, it tries to answer three related questions: Was the war inevitable in 1861? Could it have been avoided? What were the alternatives to war?  BACKGROUND America has a peculiar political structure. Major decisions such as abortion, gun laws and legalizing drugs are often made by states, not the national government. The Constitution does not say anything about whether slavery should be abolished or remain legal. So slavery would be legal and protected in the major cotton-producing states. Congress could pass a law outlawing slavery but it couldn’t be enforced in the slave states. In 1861, southern cotton production was important to the northern economy. Cotton textile production was the largest industry in the north. New York City handled most of the distribution of the cotton crop and much of the financing of exports to Europe. Cotton was also by far America’s largest export. (For more on the...