An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy

After World War II, there was a level of optimism in government control of the economy. It was thought that government had the levers to be able to easily maximize employment and minimize inflation. Government social welfare programs provided a safety net, while the private sector provided gainful employment opportunities. The optimism seemed boundless. Civil rights movements were able to seek out enfranchisement and rights because of the great stability.

Then around 1973, everything started to unravel. Inflation started to rear its ugly head. People begin to rebel against high taxes and ineffective government. (Turns out those tax and spend levers could easily be turned up when needed, but turning them down when conditions improved was a little more challenging.) 

The "third world" had its own problems. Import substitution was a popular mechanism for ramping up an economy. Unfortunately, while this did help some industries, it left consumers with more expensive, low-cost goods. Governments also took in large amounts of loans for development projects. They were seen by the banks as sure things that would build up infrastructure that would easily be paid back. Alas, there was a large amount of graft and inefficient usage. Currency devaluation provided the nail in the coffin that led to devaluation.

Nixon brought in Arthur Burns (a Democrat) as an economic advisor. He ushered in the age of the fed as the "controller of the levers" in the economy. However, he was still learning the way. 

People became disenchanted with government intervention. Reagan and Thatcher road this disenchantment to office. They preached small government and deregulation. Alas, this approach did not return things to the "golden age".

The book has some interesting analysis, but an overly broad thesis results in a lack of focus. Government lost its ability to control, but nothing else seemed to work better. This scope allows for pretty much anything in the past half century.

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

The humble shipping container helped to usher in giant changes in the world economy. Box does an excellent job of presetning the history of the container. However, the writing at times seems to jump around, perhaps attempting to provide too many facts at once. Prior to the adoption of a standard container, the cost of loading and unloading a ship could exceed (in time and expense) the cost of transporting the good across the sea. There was little incentive to use larger or more efficient ships because they would just be bogged down in port. Containerization attempts were started with railroads. However, these ended up getting held back due to regulation. (The railroads were not allowed to charge cheaper rates even though the containers added to economies of scale.)
when a ship arrived in port, a large group of laborers was needed for the work of unloading and loading. However, this work was not very regular, and the wages paid could change based on supply and and demand on both sides. This opened things up to bribes, and later unionization (which was often along ethnic lines.) One union controlled west coast ports, while another controlled the east coast. By having a stranglehold on all port traffic, the unions were able to exert greater control than other unions. When containers threatened to reduce the labor needed for handling ships, the longshoremen negotiated significant benefits for themselves. (In essence they would "share" the benefits of containerization.) It is scary the impact that a single union could have. The unions only reluctantly accepted the progress of the container and had done their best to delay their inevitable.
Railroads too engaged in stupidity at the dawn of the container. They preferred using their boxcars rather than shipping containers. They were ideally situated to transfer containers from the ports to inland locations. However, they did what they could to not get that traffic, thus hampering their own viability and giving significant advantage to long range distance trucks.
The military initially had its own small version of containers. However, the logistic challenge that was Vietnam encouraged them to adopt the standard commercial container.
The container encouraged big container ports, often at the expense of small ones. Instead of smaller ships calling at many ports, a massive container ship would run between a couple ports. In most cases, it was major ports that expanded to be the container behemoths. However, there are some that came out of nowhere to dominate container traffic. One of the most interesting was the port of Fleixstowe in Britain. It was a privately owned backwater port not organized by the union. While the union was busy battling out with London-area port, Flexistowe built up support for container traffic and came to become the prime container port before the unions could work out their differences with the other ports.
Container traffic enabled cheap reliable transportation of good around the world, and thus encouraged just in time manufacturing. I wonder why something similar has not been tried for transportation of humans? What if we got in our pod that then whisked of to the train station, connected us to the airport, flew us across the ocean, and then took us to our destination. We could enjoy the comfortable journey without the slog of transferring between multiple modes. Could we find a way for people transit to work the same way as goods transport?

The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America

I had heard of A&P as a small Northeast grocery chain that may have been more important before. However, I did not realize how significant they were. A&P was the Wal-Mart of the early early 20th century. It evolved from a "showmanship" tea company to a cut-throat grocery company. Under the Hartford brothers, A&P expanded from the Tea and sugar business into grocery sales. At the time, most grocery stores were small independent operations that provided deliveries and credit and sold mostly individual items chosen from bulk containers. The quality was often suspect and the touch of clerks was required along the way. A&P created a centralized system with store brands as well as name brands. The stores became more self-service and did away with credit and delivery. They used their scale to give everybody low prices. (They were even concerned about stores becoming too profitable, thereby reducing the benefit to consumers.) The company grew like crazy and expanded throughout the eastern United States. The stores started out super small (as was custom in the day) and gradually grey to be larger and further spaced. There were plenty of legal challenges (including anti-trust suits complaining that prices were too high.) The company was also very conservative, sticking to short term leases and little debt allowing them to be very nimble.
After World War II, the company floundered. The Hartford brothers died, leaving the company to loyal employees. The inbred leadership was very conservative, trying to keep the same path, even as society was changing. New, large supermarkets were going up in custom-built suburban areas. A&P stores were not maintained well, and were small by comparison to supermarkets. The prices were also less competitive as A&P lost its advantages. The Hartford foundation also was sucking money from the company through dividends. Eventually the company went public, leading to even greater scrutiny before its final demise.
"The Great A&P" is very positive in its view of the A&P's legacy. The company was truly innovative. However, it did start the ball rolling on many changes from which we are still recovering. (They sponsored the "chicken of tomorrow" contest that lead to bland meat optimized for production of calories rather than bird health or taste.) Their innovations led to the elimination of many "mom-and-pop" operations, only to have A&P itself fall in favor of more nimble operations. We have seen this repeated with book-stores and other retailers. We do get lower prices and more efficiencies, but we also lose out on some of the personal benefits and product quality. If only we could get the best of both worlds.