Modern central bankers are from the school of thought where there is always an eloquent academic model to approach each crisis with. Naturally, volatility is their enemy—in a highly leveraged world, volatility usually leads to dislocation and crisis. Central bankers obviously know that the halving of oil’s price in a few short months adds unnecessary volatility to their carefully orchestrated worlds. What they want Read More

Let me be clear: I am no expert on shale wells. I’m not even an “almost” expert in the shale sector. If you called me an idiot when it comes to shale drilling, I wouldn’t argue with you. With that caveat out of the way, I’m going to generalize about the shale sector (anyway). In oil and gas, most of the money is spent up front in Read More

In 1324, King Edward II of England codified something that had already been taken for granted for nearly half a millennium—the definition of the inch. Henceforth, the inch was defined as “three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end, lengthwise”. A foot was then 36 barleycorns and a yard was 108 barleycorns. Taken to its logical extreme, five yards make a Read More