I was objecting to anti-Semitism. Bankers, hate on them all you like.
I see what you did there. Quite clever.
The financial lobby and economic policymakers beholden to it may indeed comprise the bulk of the first E culprit.
But, the three E's can be thought of as three Russian matryoshka dolls, the smaller ones nested inside the bigger ones. So, the largest of them, Environment, is much larger and more significant than Energy, and certainly more than Economy.
The larger of the three E's encompass the smaller ones in time as well:
The destabilizing shift that Chris succinctly dubbed Economy is the end of the debt supercycle and the decline of the US-dominated international financial order. We might say that we are transitioning out of an economic system that started with Bretton Woods in 1944.
The destabilizing shift that we call Energy here is passing the peak of conventional oil production; I don't know if we've passed the peak of anthracite coal production as well, but high quality coal reserves are also depleting rapidly. Coal and oil supplied the vast majority of the energy for the industrial revolution, an event that the characters in Paolo Bacigalupi's post-collapse world call the industrial expansion. In other words, we are now facing a transition from an industrial expansion that began around 1800 to an industrial contraction. This second, larger matryoska doll encompasses most of the period when the British held global hegemony as well as the period of American hegemony (so far) that coincided with the dominance of the USD.
The destabilizing shift that we call Environment is a massive transition out of the relatively stable and moderate Holocene climate and biosphere that emerged after the last ice age to a climate and biosphere that are less hospitable in a number of ways due to human impact. Climate change is the keystone of this third shift, but even if one is not convinced of that, there are enough other major changes in the biosphere that make the natural systems in which we live in today MUCH less likely to be able to sustain 2-3 billion people long-term (to say nothing of 7 billion) than even a few centuries ago when our impacts - although large - had not reached the extreme and intense levels of industrial humanity.
This third transition, then, is about the degradation of natural systems that have been relatively stable and moderate. Neither too a hothouse Earth nor an ice age, but rather a climate and biosphere that is "just right" to use the Goldilocks metaphor. The Holocene is the biosphere in which all human civilizations have developed, and we seem to be leaving that state. So we are leaving a period of time which started around 10,000 B.C. This encompasses the entire agricultural age as well as the industrial expansion.
Even if you disagree with the claim that industrial civilization has cut the Holocene period short and now entering a new geologic age, called by Stoermer, Creutzen, and many other scientists the Anthropocene, it's still hard to deny that the Earth's natural systems - ranging from collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, depleting fresh water, degraded soil, release of industrial toxins, all the way to the pH levels of the oceans - are pretty severely out of balance and getting more so. We're talking about changes that will still seriously challenge the survival skills of homo sapiens sapiens long after the U.S. dollar and the United States itself has been forgotten.
Image source: How Mankind Remade Nature - Wired Magazine
Unfortunately, unlike the much simpler and less significant first E - I see the culprit behind the third E when I shave in the morning. It's not that - in the schema of behavioral economics - the major destabilizing shifts of the third E don't have a face. It's that they do have a face and it is mine. :)
Cheers,
Hugh
Unfortunately, unlike the much simpler and less significant first E - I see the culprit behind the third E when I shave in the morning. It's not that - in the schema of behavioral economics - the major destabilizing shifts of the third E don't have a face. It's that they do have a face and it is mine. :)Stop shaving in the morning. No more guilt. Problem solved. /sarc
[quote=Zoltar]I yield to the vastly superior quantity of your posts.
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I laughed my ass off when I read this post (and up-voted it as well). Note to self: Avoid getting into a battle of wits with other PP'ers. Some are obviously well armed.
There is an awful lot going on and I do find it hard to keep track of it all.
Great post by the way, Hugh, IMHO.
Could this be the LAST bubble of the oil age? If it is, then it could keep going for a lot longer and get a lot larger than we think possible at the moment.
Debt is necessary (in our present monetary system) for consumption and employment because it provides 95% of our money supply. We can pump up debt as high as we want as long as we can afford the interest payments. Just manipulate bond rates lower and you can borrow more. Simple.
Paying back our debts is red-herring. We are never going to pay back our debts at today's purchasing power. Everyone knows this. That is not the purpose of debt.
Default? No. QE can go on forever. Just don't expect your purchasing power of your money to stay the same !
Ed
Following on. Debt levels (money supply) will continue to increase until we reach the limit to growth imposed by the resource base (especially fossil fuel energy resources) of the Planet. Beyond the limits to growth, expanding our money supply will have no effect on consumption and employment. Welcome to the age of resource wars. Some would argue that we are very close to that point, if not beyond it.
Ed
My apologies, I didn't declare that the medium should be physical and not an abstraction that can be expanded ad infinitum. I'd add two limits to money; one physical (or at least full reserve backed by physical), the other restraint by law. I suppose this leads back to a gold standard but I'd like to see a variety of currencies based upon local availability which undermines the ability of any single currency to dominate. Crudely speaking the nature of money would act like a 'drop down menu' with those involved in the transaction deciding which one they will use. Again, this still requires work (and the small matter of global acceptance).
Excellent post, Hugh. I acknowledge that most of our attempts to resolve the three E's are futile considering that the problems are greater than the small number of minds willing to address them. Currencies come and go but we've only got the one spaceship. Perhaps we should remind ourselves that we are simply clever monkeys and take solace that a few managed to make it to the moon. However, I'm one of those annoying dreamers who still believes that a way out is possible (call it cognitive dissonance) - I can't function any other way (I don't believe in free will). To solve these problems each one needs to be broken down individually and then reassessed in the context of a larger world.
So I start with the smallest, currency - it's the most immediate to me (based on those primal feelings of being robbed/cheated). Next comes energy. The environment I can do very little about directly. Perhaps you pick the best spot and hunker down. I suppose it depends on how you deal with the issue. Do you view the world top down and solve it as a system? Or do you view the world bottom up and solve the details? Or do we sit back and watch the fireworks? That depends on perspective. My preference is localised administration, think Athenian democracy. I believe a system of localised consent empowers people to confront and solve issues head on. Who knows, it may even set an example
It's not just bankers and police who have become unaccountable. 1,400 girls (mostly white) are sexually assaulted in a small British town and neither the police nor the politicians do anything.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/08/27/rotherham-england/
Tom
"Welcome to the Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor."
[quote=Time2help][quote=jennifersam07]
Is this a joke?
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Great quote!
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/30/books/l-voltaire-and-the-jews-590990.html Seriously, individuals, industries, companies, nations may do evil, usually motivated by greed or hate, but entire classes of humans defined only by their religious affiliation cannot be condemned as evil.
[quote=jennifersam07]
[/quote] At least according to this author writing on the issue of anti-semitism. http://muzzlewatch.com/2007/02/07/moses-the-first-jewish-anti-semite-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-ajc/ Who would have thunk? At least Voltaire had a good quote. According to Gold Meir, Moses led the Israelites around the desert for 40 years and then brought them to the one spot in the Middle East that didn't have any oil. Bummer. All that work and he still wasn't appreciated. Must have been his anti-semitic rhetoric. My suspicions are that everyone might, sooner or later, be considered anti-semitic if the situation calls for it since Jews and Arabs are both Semitic and the globe seems to be somewhat divided between those that support one group and those that support the other. Now, all that aside, can we get back on topic?
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/30/books/l-voltaire-and-the-jews-590990.html
Seriously, individuals, industries, companies, nations may do evil, usually motivated by greed or hate, but entire classes of humans defined only by their religious affiliation cannot be condemned as evil.
So the goyim are no longer permitted to quote Voltaire now?
A little less gatekeeping, please, jennifersam07 and a little more constructive commentary.
Anything to say about “Operation Protective Edge” I wonder?
Jennifersamo7, don't let the critics get to you, this site needs women who respectfully state their opinion! There have been a number who have left so develop a thick skin, ignore the likes of, those who would silence you, and keep on posting.
AK Granny
We seem to be pitted against each other after allowing my posting to determine the direction of the debate. Just to be clear here I am only anti corruption, I do not hate.
It is a fact that there are a number of Jewish people in powerful positions that are at the pinnacle of economic and political corruption in the USA, not to mention what goes on in and around Gaza. In no way was I equating the 99.999% of the Jewish race with these power hungry psychopaths.
I hope that clears up this misunderstanding that was caused by myself.
"They will never silence the voices of the voiceless"
Peace and love to all.
I'm a pretty tough old bird. Raised 10 kids and spent my career in the electronics industry where there are more misogynists than most places. Haha.
But surely there are also Episcopalians equally corrupt, so why couple the religious affiliation with the corruption at all? It just seems irrelevant to mention it to me. Respectfully submitted.
Yes there is corruption from all religious affiliates, you will find no argument from me there. The Tallestmanonearth nailed that one nicely.With all due respect, my last post was as clear as I could make it. I hope you can accept that, there was nothing in it to target you personally, if there had been, I am sure I would have been unable to make this post by now.
Lets just keep up the bankster bashing!