Tag Archive | "economics"
Muddling along
After a woefully inept introduction, this essay forces me to stare into the abyss of planet-destroying myth. If you believe we’re headed for a muddle-through future in which we correct massive ecological overshoot with the tranquility of Buddhist monks, this is the essay you’ve been waiting to read. Come on along, if you dare, keeping [...]
Continue reading...Warning shots
Thursday, April 29, 2010
How many do you need? I still keep hearing, “If things get bad, I’ll move to ….” And then fill in the blank with your favorite fantasy or nightmare, including these and many more: “my sister-in-law’s property in Kansas” “Mexico” “the wilderness” “a central America country” “southern Europe” “the coast” First, let’s consider how “bad” [...]
Continue reading...What works, maybe: individual options
Monday, April 26, 2010
Like global climate change, peak oil represents a predicament, not a problem. There is no politically viable solution to either of these great challenges. Political solutions require economic growth, forever, and therefore no significant sacrifice on the behalf of the electorate. Further, the industrial economy is underlain by the assumption of growth: The industrial economy [...]
Continue reading...Surveying the field and charting a course
Friday, April 16, 2010
It’s all the rage to talk about a double-dip in the industrial economy. That would be an economic trend in the shape of a W. I think an M is far more likely. The assumption of never-ending growth underlies all neoclassical economic assessments, but I think that assumption is about to break up on the [...]
Continue reading...Viral collapse
Sunday, February 14, 2010
According to economists, the beauty of globalization is worldwide access to materials and cheap (or free) labor to bring the materials to powerful countries. We provide garbage, pollution, and low wages — or, in the “best” cases we enslave workers — and we obtain materials and finished goods. This is the rising economic tide that [...]
Continue reading...City living in a post-peak world
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
This headline at today’s version of Energy Bulletin caught my eye: Are cities sustainable in a post-peak oil world? The editors at Energy Bulletin, reflecting contemporary culture, clearly do not understand sustainability. At every level, from the individual through the culture and even through the species, ours is a transient existence. We should be focused [...]
Continue reading...Fear and loathing in the blogosphere: doom, gloom, and controlling the message
Saturday, December 12, 2009
I spend quite a bit of time reading the work of other bloggers. Believe it or not, I’ve read a few books, too. This post follows my usual approach of being an equal opportunity offender as I comment on the philosophy of James Howard Kunstler, Dmitry Orlov, and John Michael Greer, along with a few [...]
Continue reading...Can we handle the truth?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released World Energy Outlook 2009 today. Even before the sham was shipped, it was exposed as a big 'ol bucket of lies. Seems the current administration thinks Americans can't handle the truth, so we need to apply some pressure to keep the lid on the facts. If this country's paragon of transparency (i.e., world's leading liar) and master of hope (i.e., wishful thinking) actually trusted the American people, perhaps we could avert chaos.
Continue reading...Unwinding
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
If Ben Bernanke and the fools at the Fed actually thought the industrial economy was recovering, they'd jack up interest rates. When the prime rate is up around 5%, you'll know the industrial economy is back on track. Alternatively, you can monitor the extinction rate of non-human species.
Continue reading...The recession is dead … long live the recession!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The world's first peak-oil recession has come to a close, according to third-quarter numbers invented by the federal government. Apparently flooding big banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers with fiat currency interrupted the plummeting descent of American Empire. The stock markets skyrocketed expectedly. Predictably, so did the commodities markets.
Continue reading...
Monday, August 2, 2010
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