THE Second Great Depression Thread (merged)

[ralfy]

The problem is increasing production and consumption of goods funded through increasing credit needed to have continuous economic growth in a global capitalist economy, with more moving to service industries like finance to make more profits through financial speculation (which adds to increasing credit).

One leads to a credit crunch and the other to a resource crunch. The situation worsens due to increasing conflict, pollution, climate change, etc.

Given that, there is no recovery and no solution. In the end, we will be forced to cut down heavily on resource use and localize. Meanwhile, some might engage in resource wars, leading to more suffering and death.

[Ache]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ne ... 52944.html

A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace.

Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says "the world is on track for disaster" and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, "The Limits to Growth."

Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.

Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.

However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.

The Smithsonian notes that several experts strongly objected to "The Limit of Growth's" findings, including the late Yale economist Henry Wallich, who for 12 years served as a governor of the Federal Research Board and was its chief international economics expert. At the time, Wallich said attempting to regulate economic growth would be equal to "consigning billions to permanent poverty."

Turner says that perhaps the most startling find from the study is that the results of the computer scenarios were nearly identical to those predicted in similar computer scenarios used as the basis for "The Limits to Growth."

"There is a very clear warning bell being rung here," Turner said. "We are not on a sustainable trajectory."

[kiwichick]

crash in less than 10 years

[pfreyre]

Definitely, I give it 5-10 years tops.

[SeaGypsy]

Sadly not any time that soon. We are in the midst of a generations long slow crash and complete restructure which has only begun to grip, but will drag us into scenarios barely imagined over the next 100 years. We are magicians with numbers, agri-tech, med and bio-med, shipping, rail transit, it will no way be as rough as my grandparents endured. But it all rides on your position and expectations in life.

The intelligent response is to be somewhere you can be and do positive things you enjoy with people who don't shoot at each other, or do other unmentionable deeds. If that means shifting towns, states, countries or modes of living, career and financial choices; whatever it takes to get to that place where you can see a real future and enjoyable life. If you don't believe it's out there, you are deluded. If you have found it, well tally Ho! to you

We aren't going to see some miracle fix it for BAU. That is not what I mean. But there will be life ongoing with some kind of economy and food to go around, for the term of our naturals and then some. If that's not enough for you, better get on with creating your own reality.

[GASMON]

Sadly not any time that soon. We are in the midst of a generations long slow crash and complete restructure which has only begun to grip, but will drag us into scenarios barely imagined over the next 100 years. We are magicians with numbers, agri-tech, med and bio-med, shipping, rail transit, it will no way be as rough as my grandparents endured. But it all rides on your position and expectations in life.

The intelligent response is to be somewhere you can be and do positive things you enjoy with people who don't shoot at each other, or do other unmentionable deeds. If that means shifting towns, states, countries or modes of living, career and financial choices; whatever it takes to get to that place where you can see a real future and enjoyable life. If you don't believe it's out there, you are deluded. If you have found it, well tally Ho! to you

We aren't going to see some miracle fix it for BAU. That is not what I mean. But there will be life ongoing with some kind of economy and food to go around, for the term of our naturals and then some. If that's not enough for you, better get on with creating your own reality.

About right SG - Alot will depend on luck, being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Alot of unknown future "Black Swan" events also will dictate the future for many, and no-one can plan for these very much. A constantly changing, declining (in general terms) world, yes, a cataclysmic world failure, I very much doubt.

Gas

[Graeme]

Here is the "Limits to growth" graph with observed trends in solid lines from 1970-2000.



Note that in the link above, the authors state:

However, the study also noted that unlimited economic growth was possible, if governments forged policies and invested in technologies to regulate the expansion of humanity’s ecological footprint.

And this link:

Is this impossible to fix? No, according to both Turner and the original study. If governments enact stricter policies and technologies can be improved to reduce our environmental footprint, economic growth doesn’t have to become a market white dwarf, marching toward inevitable implosion.

And a couple more I found quite a random without much effort.

Stopping Climate Change Is Much Cheaper Than You Think

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) report, with the hairy-sounding title "Statutory Advice on Inclusion of International Aviation and Shipping," says that in 2050, the UK's emissions reductions across the whole economy will cost 1 to 2 percent of the total GDP. This updates, in greater detail, the range predicted half a decade ago by the watershed Stern Review.

wired

Be Wary of the Gloom and Doom Predicted by Energy 'Models'

Two mistakes were at fault behind these incorrect projections. The first, still common, is a Malthusian belief in scarcity based on an inability to foresee the precise source of future supplies, and the idea that since resources are finite, they must be running out right now and therefore prices should rise consistently.

usnews

One glaring omission in graph above that I can see is the growing trend of renewable resources!

[kiwichick]

the graph is at least 11 years out of date

and over the last decade china ( and others ) has grown by double digits annually

[americandream]

the graph is at least 11 years out of date

and over the last decade china ( and others ) has grown by double digits annually

And therein lies the ultimate contradiction in capital's relentless pursuit of growth on a planet with finite resources and a limited capacity for leaving its surface in search of the necessaries in order to continue that growth into the other 5 billion.

Marx captured the tragic dilemma of the capitalist poignantly in this brief observation:

"Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

[Daniel_Plainview]

the graph is at least 11 years out of date

and over the last decade china ( and others ) has grown by double digits annually

And therein lies the ultimate contradiction in capital's relentless pursuit of growth on a planet with finite resources and a limited capacity for leaving its surface in search of the necessaries in order to continue that growth into the other 5 billion.

Marx captured the tragic dilemma of the capitalist poignantly in this brief observation:

"Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

I'm curious: if capitalism won't work amid a post-PO regime, then what is the optimal capital/social structure?

[Lore]

the graph is at least 11 years out of date

and over the last decade china ( and others ) has grown by double digits annually

And therein lies the ultimate contradiction in capital's relentless pursuit of growth on a planet with finite resources and a limited capacity for leaving its surface in search of the necessaries in order to continue that growth into the other 5 billion.

Marx captured the tragic dilemma of the capitalist poignantly in this brief observation:

"Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

I'm curious: if capitalism won't work amid a post-PO regime, then what is the optimal capital/social structure?

How about a society based on giving as a means to obtain status, rather then consumptive accumulation? Much of that could be geared towards the perfection of the human mind, body and spirit. The results of which would be a civilization that would be more educated, less dependent on the capricious use of natural resources, cognizant of its environment, smaller in size and ultimately more content with itself.

[pstarr]

How about a society based on giving as a means to obtain status, rather then consumptive accumulation? Much of that could be geared towards the perfection of the human mind, body and spirit. The results of which would be a civilization that would be more educated, less dependent on the capricious use of natural resources, cognizant of its environment, smaller in size and ultimately more content with itself.

Sounds nice. I vote for that.

[Lore]

How about a society based on giving as a means to obtain status, rather then consumptive accumulation? Much of that could be geared towards the perfection of the human mind, body and spirit. The results of which would be a civilization that would be more educated, less dependent on the capricious use of natural resources, cognizant of its environment, smaller in size and ultimately more content with itself.

Sounds nice. I vote for that.

Yeah, but I'm afraid it's going to take another race of beings other then Homo Sapiens to explore that possibility.

[americandream]

the graph is at least 11 years out of date

and over the last decade china ( and others ) has grown by double digits annually

And therein lies the ultimate contradiction in capital's relentless pursuit of growth on a planet with finite resources and a limited capacity for leaving its surface in search of the necessaries in order to continue that growth into the other 5 billion.

Marx captured the tragic dilemma of the capitalist poignantly in this brief observation:

"Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."

I'm curious: if capitalism won't work amid a post-PO regime, then what is the optimal capital/social structure?

Culture is as much a product of the material environment as is the organism it serves. Consequently, a post PO society could as well be on a decline into barbarism as it could in a transition to a social economy that has abandoned accumulation via the exploitation of labour surplus value.

That being said, the abandonment of capital as a store of passive wealth will be a necessary function of the loss of that surplus value (apart from the risk of a new feudal age given that there will always be land as a mechanism).

Time will tell and the intellectual resources necessary to manage an evolutionary challenge are rapidly depleting. One has only to look at some of the replies on here to understand the perilous state we are in as a sentient species.

[pstarr]

welcome back american dream. I dig that shite!

[vision-master]

How about a society based on giving as a means to obtain status, rather then consumptive accumulation? Much of that could be geared towards the perfection of the human mind, body and spirit. The results of which would be a civilization that would be more educated, less dependent on the capricious use of natural resources, cognizant of its environment, smaller in size and ultimately more content with itself.

Sounds nice. I vote for that.

Yeah, but I'm afraid it's going to take another race of beings other then Homo Sapiens to explore that possibility.

Yes, if we continue to allow our consciousness to be controled by TPTB. What do you think the war on drugs is all about?

[Cog]

The war on drugs is about money.

While I'm on the subject of money, I have no desire to spend my capital on those who want to sit around getting stoned all day. They should throw away their bongs and become productive members of society. Perhaps attending Tea Party rallies in their spare time.

[vision-master]

and mind control, just as religion has done.............. I wonder what kind of psilocybin mushrooms are hidden at the Vatican. Direct spiritual connections with the deities is considered work of the devil by mainstream religions. Cog is a perfect example of mind control by TPTB.

[Cog]

People who use dope aren't interested in religion or getting closer to God. They are interested in getting high. Lets be honest here, if dope didn't make you high no one would use it.

[vision-master]

Very good Cog............

Tell 'us' then, how do we evolve our consciousness in order to get out of this mess?