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followed by easy-going ones for the reader to recover an urge to be frightened. Thus, for example there is a rambling dialogue regarding “‘nuttin doidy’” while “chewing cheese”. Characters repeat this phrase: “‘There ain’t nuttin doidy in it.’ This seemed to be a reproach. A man said, chewing cheese:/ ‘Doidy? A doidy book?’/ ‘Not doidy, Milligan,’ growled Murphy. ‘If you want sumpn doidy I’ll take you to see Baa Lamb’s Ass at the Angus Wilson.’” (155). This discussion is referencing a SF novel; it seems forced in to add a bit more literary flavor to the work. The disagreement and insults are used to mask the repetitive lack of substance in the discussion.

This is a better novel than Beard’s Roman Women, but the bar is low. This novel might have become great if an editor told the writer to polish it, tossing out the useless digressions and inserting more direct ponderings, but it seems the editor was enamored with the author, and decided to leave the free-thought experiment stand as it was born. I hope students don’t have to read this book in college classes because it is as impossible to read this work cover-to-cover as Ulysses.

Hidden Biases Towards the Fracking Industry

Daniel Raimi. The Fracking Debate: The Risks, Benefits, and Uncertainties of the Shale Revolution. 262pp, graphs. ISBN: 978-0-231-18486-1. New York: Columbia University Press: Center on Global Energy Policy Series, 2018.

****

The debate over oil fracking is particularly relevant in the shale territory where I live in Texas. There are several oil rigs across the city, and while the owner object that they do not frack, it is very likely that they do. What impact can this have on me and others who live nearby? What impact is fracking having on the environment? Over the border, in Oklahoma, the region has seen a sharp spike in earthquakes that have knocked down many old towns, so if fracking becomes more popular around here my little house might be taken down by an earthquake in a region where they are naturally highly uncommon. Here is the summary from the publisher: “Over roughly the past decade, oil and gas production in the United States has surged dramatically—thanks

largely to technological advances such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as ‘fracking.’ This rapid increase has generated widespread debate, with proponents touting economic and energy-security benefits and opponents highlighting the environmental and social risks of increased oil and gas production.” The author, Raimi promises to deliver a balanced view from both perspectives. Daniel Raimi is a researcher at Resources for the Future (economic nonprofit focusing on the links between energy and the environment) and teaches public policy for the University of Michigan. This biography alone does not disclose any funding from frackers, so it seems possible that the book presents a fair argument. The book sets out to cover: “What is fracking? Does fracking pollute the water supply? Will fracking make the United States energy independent? Does fracking cause earthquakes? How is fracking regulated? Is fracking good for the economy?” Apparently, Raimi traveled “to every major U.S. oil- and gas-producing region” as part of his research to understand “the people and communities affected by the shale revolution, for better and for worse.”

The debate is skewed towards an argument for fracking rather than its environmental dangers. For example, the section on water contamination states: “Dozens of research papers have examined drinking-water quality in regions with extensive oil and gas development, and with a single exception (which I discuss later in this chapter), none have shown that fracking chemicals have migrated from deep underground into drinking-water sources” (34). One of the points discussed later is that stray gases are a bigger danger from fracking than drinking water contamination. The one research paper that has found danger from water contamination is about Bradford County, Pennsylvania: it found methane and 2-n-butoxyethanol in the water. Raimi eases fears by saying that on the fourth tests, these chemicals disappeared (40-2). In the industry was aware of the failed test, they might have taken drastic measures to fix the issue, and they still needed four tests for the results to clear. When I asked local frackers if they do any environmental tests prior to a new drill or later, they replied that they do not. So, across Texas, there are no requirements for them to really test for these problems consistently. The water supply does have to be tested, but perhaps standard tests don’t look into chemicals resulting from fracking. On the other hand, if there are no dangers from fracking in terms of water supply, it is important to spread this

information to keep people from panicking if frackers come into their town. The section on “climate change” begins by arguing that oil is better than coal. This is suspicious: a good, “clean” fuel would not need to be compared with one of the worst fuels on the planet to prove it’s safe for the environment (108). Raimi somewhat acknowledges that fracking significantly damages the world by increasing greenhouse-gas emissions, but instead of stopping the practice he proposes strengthening acts such as the Clean Power Plan, which would strengthen fracking, while weakening coal.

This book digresses away from truths, and dances around the issues to reach conclusions favorable to the fracking industry. I don’t trust Raimi’s independence. There are better books out there to base policies around. This is also a difficult read, but somehow also lacking in evidence.

How Giant Banks Blind the Public to Their Benefit

Walter Mattli. Darkness by Design: The Hidden Power in Global Capital Markets. Hardcover: $29.95, 6X9”. 288pp, 17 b/w illustrations, 13 tables. ISBN: 978-0-691180663. Princeton: Princeton University Press, April 2, 2019.

****

The publisher’s summary is necessary to grasp this complex subject: “Algorithmic high-speed supercomputing has replaced traditional floor trading and human market makers, while centralized exchanges that once ensured fairness and transparency have fragmented into a dizzying array of competing exchanges and trading platforms.” Mattli “exposes the unseen perils of market fragmentation and ‘dark’ markets, some of which are deliberately designed to enable the transfer of wealth from the weak to the powerful./…[T]races the fall of the traditional exchange model of the NYSE, the world’s leading stock market in the twentieth century, showing how it has come to be supplanted by fragmented markets whose governance is frequently set up to allow unscrupulous operators to exploit conflicts of interest at the expense of an unsuspecting public. Market makers have few obligations, market surveillance is neglected or impossible, enforcement is ineffective, and

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