history – Llamafodder

This book is about Oak Ridge, a government city created from bare Tennessee clay, where much of the Uranium for the atomic bombs was enriched. The book shoots for an everyday worker’s point of view, which is tricky given how secret the project was–most people had no idea what their job was doing, much less what the process overall was supposed to accomplish.

It’s a good story, well told. The chapters alternate between “the girls”–a set of six or so women in various roles and their efforts, and a “big picture” chapter where some aspect of the overall Manhattan Project is laid out in more detail.

It doesn’t have the narrative hooks of a story, particularly since it’s a three year slice of their lives and the only “endings” were marriages for some of the workers. In the end, it’s a good book, well written, about the back end of a crazy complex and sprawling project.

An interesting look at the evolution of several approaches to the market, economics equations, and schools of thought designed to address economics mysteries. The careful tracing of specific professors and their students makes for quite a complex geneology of ideas– but it’s fascinating to see the players of today, the schools and clumps of association that led to development of theories.

The easy takeaways are that markets may not be rational– but in the ways that are bad for an individual investor, you might as well assume they are. People don’t leave money on the table if they can help it– so if you spy an opportunity, it’s always best to try to figure out what you’re overlooking. The increasing influence of behavioral economics seems “fringy” to the mainstream– really, they mostly seem to be providing formulas and quantification that match the pre-1940s economist’s caveats, just expressed in math instead of disclaimers.

I like the idea of behavioral economics research– testing where the limits of human rationality and patience are and figuring out which systematic biases we have. It seems like a fruitful line of investigation, and a good corrective to the all seeing market… at least for now.