PeakOil is You
Has the Great Contraction Begun?
Re: Has the Great Contraction Begun?
by ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 00:21:29
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', '[')url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island]Last time I checked, the Reindeer on St. Matthew's island didn't have banksters.[/url] They did have tragedy of the commons, though, which is the diffuse problem underlying humanity.
You are correct. It was trappers who extirpated the natural predator wolf from North America. Those guys needed money the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled.
The Reindeer were introduced artificially in 1944. They weren't meant to be there in the first place. But once they were, you could watch a classic yeast in the petri dish situation play itself out. My point being that even once your beloved occupy wall streeters do their little French Revolution dance, we'll be back to facing raw Malthusian dynamics which has no solution due to tragedy of the commons. That's a dilemma, I suppose, a lot of doomers even can't seem to accept, because it's an indictment on humanity as a whole, and it's much easier to draw circles around people and say "this group = villains" and "this group = victims".
The magical blue fairy that you posted in the other thread is what I think about all this PTB talk. It's the fantasy that if you just eliminate this or that elite or elite group that we'll all join hands and have a permaculture paradise. It doesn't work that way. A vacuum leads to yet another strong-man to step forward. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. And the idea that there could ever be a consensus of the plebes to live steady-state in harmony with nature is absurd considering our track-record.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
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Re: Has the Great Contraction Begun?
by GoghGoner » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 08:34:00
Debt disappears with bankruptcies/foreclosures/etc... There may be a short term liquidity squeeze but the harder it resets the faster money can move again. I don't see that as more than a short term limit to GDP growth.
I think population demographics, environmental concerns, and physical resources could cause contraction on a longer timescale. Seems to me like you need a growing body of young, healthy workers that are well fed for economic growth.
I think population demographics, environmental concerns, and physical resources could cause contraction on a longer timescale. Seems to me like you need a growing body of young, healthy workers that are well fed for economic growth.
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Re: Has the Great Contraction Begun?
by Pops » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 10:00:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoghGoner', 'D')ebt disappears with bankruptcies/foreclosures/etc... There may be a short term liquidity squeeze but the harder it resets the faster money can move again. I don't see that as more than a short term limit to GDP growth.
I think population demographics, environmental concerns, and physical resources could cause contraction on a longer timescale. Seems to me like you need a growing body of young, healthy workers that are well fed for economic growth.
I think population demographics, environmental concerns, and physical resources could cause contraction on a longer timescale. Seems to me like you need a growing body of young, healthy workers that are well fed for economic growth.
I think you outlined it well.
We over-invested, but so what, make some adjustments to the spreadsheet.
Bigger is the aging of the population, which in part drove globalization.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')N THE 20th century the planet’s population doubled twice. It will not double even once in the current century, because birth rates in much of the world have declined steeply. But the number of people over 65 is set to double within just 25 years.
...
The received wisdom is that a larger proportion of old people means slower growth and, because the old need to draw down their wealth to live, less saving; that leads to higher interest rates and falling asset prices. Some economists are more sanguine, arguing that people will adapt and work longer, rendering moot measures of dependency which assume no one works after the age of 65. A third group harks back to the work of Alvin Hansen, known as the “American Keynes”, who argued in 1938 that a shrinking population in America would bring with it diminished incentives for companies to invest—a smaller workforce needs less investment—and hence persistent stagnation.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/ ... -all-do-so
In the "mature" economies aging and flat population growth is already happening. And has been for a while, which is partly what brings up the current immigration issues. It isn't just poor people wanting in, it is that business needs young people as both consumer and cheap labor—and government does what business wants.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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