RE: The myth of endless economic growth

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Musicmystery -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 12:47:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery Will more people mean more needs? Will more people mean more hands available to work toward those needs? That's economic growth. I think the trend is currently in place and quite visible. That's exactly your problem and the problem of several posts after yours. It's a trend! Well why didn't you say so! People's gross misunderstanding of economics comes from these two fallacies: scarcity and unsustainability. Here's why. Scarcity. Economics' big assumption is based on AT THIS EXACT SHORT TERM MOMENT, assuming ALL REMAINS EQUAL. Without this important assumption, models could never isolate, study, or predict outcomes from individual variables. But it's only a snapshot, not experiential reality. Nor does this mean economists are full of shit--it means people don't understand what they're looking at. In the LONG run, EVERYTHING changes. Yes, right now, this second, I only have so many apple and only so many apple trees. But that can change. OK, I only have so much land--that can change. But there's only so much land--I can graft other trees. I can follow methods of better production I just don't bother with right now. But there's still a theoretical limit? Sure. But it's so far away that it exceeds the number of apples we would need. And if not apples, another food source. If oil runs out, another energy source. Sunlight seems plentiful. There are always alternates in the long run. Trends. This ridiculousness assumes everything will keep going like it is right now, at current rates (or rates of increase or decrease) or similar more complicated points on similar more complicated models. It's ridiculous because those "trends" never materialize except in the minds of those fervently interpreting data to fit their assumptions. Things change. Things always change. Things always have changed. Things will never remain the same as they are now with no change in conditions. Never. Ever. Again, a useful model for adjusting current approaches. Useless except to delight those who love doomsday proclamations. Which, incidentally, has never happened either, despite passing repeated predicted dates. How is higher production possible? There will be more people. That simple. Only by insisting that this production must look exactly like the current "trend" does the model break down. It won't look like it. Markets always change. That's even true in the money-grubbing version of capitalism. Smart businesspeople adjust with innovations and changes in markets. Dumb ones complain about the times, while their competitors take advantages of those times. There. are. always. opportunities. because. there. are. always. needs. Only when people no longer have needs (or wants) will there be no more economic opportunities.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 6:28:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: subfever A resource-based economy, and a relevant education for all. The goal? Evolve beyond money, politics, and war. Humanity and Earth will then both heal and thrive. Humanity will heal and thrive?!? How does that solve overpopulation (which is what needed to be fixed)? quote: ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet Enact Agenda 21. And this addresses over population? Really? The assumption was made that we are at max sustainability (your statement said we were either there or had already gone beyond) for population. What is your first move to fix that? Or, are you saying that we are at max sustainability for current technologies?

Iamsemisweet -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 6:40:00 PM)
You asked your question. I answered. End of conversation DS.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 6:52:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MrRodgers There are more likely much freer markets under socialism because of direct govt. involvement, rather than private greed and risk taking and particularly with other people's money. I'm just glad I wasn't drinking something when I read that. Oh good Lord, no. When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. Did people starve in the USSR? Yes. Was it because there wasn't enough opportunity and ability to grow enough food? No. Was it because the Central Planners fucked up the resource allocation? Yes. The Soviet rulers decided what was made and how much was made. Socialism didn't work because it can't allocate resources efficiently enough. As with most stuff Government does to manipulate Markets (and, if Gov.'t. wasn't involved in the Markets so much, do you really think they'd be able to be bought so easily by Corporations?), inefficiencies abound and prices aren't the honest indicators they are needed to be. Everything gets all fucked up and prices are artificial. Demand gets skewed and supply gets skewed and Markets aren't flexible enough (because of government meddling) to correct. Guess what, people. We aren't done yet. All those "toxic assets?" Have those cleared? Or, have they just been repackaged?

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 7:21:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle The debate about climate change has overshadowed other environmental challenges that face us. Can economic growth be sustained into the future indefinitely? Will the mix of climate changes, population explosion, limited resources, rapid development, land food and water shortages prove to be insurmountable? Your thoughts and responses ....... Hello beloved. Or "lieber tweakabelle" as in Deutschesprache letter salutations. If you would listen to one who had the great fortune of having one year of geology as at the same time going into economics, I would like to assure you that though physical materials are finite on this planet, human capacity for dealing with any and most every circumstance seems to be well established in our history, that particular capacity as yet not having scientifically proved limits. We have already shown quite well that we know how to accomplish more while using less. Granted, the steamboat paddles and the steam trains were the heighth of inefficiency, but did we not eventually advance from those crude beginnings? We would be completely deforested and even most of the way towards being de-coaled were that not the case. That Eniac computer that took up the space of a very large government basement at one time is now something that takes up minimal real estate on any home PC's CPU or easily tossed onto a flash drive. The problem is not scarcity of physical resources; we could both engineer to use less and recycle to use what we've already got out of the ground to further extent for years to come. No, the scarcity as exists now is regarding any will to see what is before us and want to do anything about it. PS quote: When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. See what I am saying here? Good gosh.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 7:28:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Oh good Lord, no. When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. Oh CHRIST just shut up. Read about Germany, about Denmark, about Norway, about Austria, about Sweden, about ... and learn about any measures of societal and economic success while you're at it. Whatever, just STFU in the meantime.

Real0ne -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 8:28:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: MrRodgers There are more likely much freer markets under socialism because of direct govt. involvement, rather than private greed and risk taking and particularly with other people's money. I'm just glad I wasn't drinking something when I read that. Oh good Lord, no. When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. Did people starve in the USSR? Yes. Was it because there wasn't enough opportunity and ability to grow enough food? No. Was it because the Central Planners fucked up the resource allocation? Yes. The Soviet rulers decided what was made and how much was made. Socialism didn't work because it can't allocate resources efficiently enough. As with most stuff Government does to manipulate Markets (and, if Gov.'t. wasn't involved in the Markets so much, do you really think they'd be able to be bought so easily by Corporations?), inefficiencies abound and prices aren't the honest indicators they are needed to be. Everything gets all fucked up and prices are artificial. Demand gets skewed and supply gets skewed and Markets aren't flexible enough (because of government meddling) to correct. Guess what, people. We aren't done yet. All those "toxic assets?" Have those cleared? Or, have they just been repackaged? yeh look ar what they did to burzynslis cancer cure, then if that was not bad enough the real kick in the teeth the FDA stole his fucking patents on top of it! the gub does no typically fuck it up they ALWAYS fuck it up and steal all your rights along the way in the name of protecting you that evaporates the second you sue them for failing to protect you.

tweakabelle -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 9:29:32 PM)
quote: The problem is not scarcity of physical resources; we could both engineer to use less and recycle to use what we've already got out of the ground to further extent for years to come. No, the scarcity as exists now is regarding any will to see what is before us and want to do anything about it. My own view is that until the tension between social and democratic needs of the 99% and the economic interests of the 1% is resolved, there will be little cause for optimism. So perhaps the question should be: how do we democratise economics? If there is a satisfactory answer to that question, all I know is that answer cannot rely on free market economics

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/21/2012 10:22:22 PM)
The so called "free market" is a term and concept used by both proponents and opponents, in neither case from any good understanding or to any good purpose. Likewise the so called "one percent." Here's the news: people making 200k-300k USD are not the problem here, whatever the congressional unleavening of tax burden to attract some portion of those who are in fact such easlily led tax whores. The problem is with some portion of the .1% and more especially the .01%, both of whom infest the US much more than any other country (400+ billionaires in the US, 53 in Germany, let's figure that out). I hope that you can see by the latter figure that a market economy, even if a somewhat social market economy, is not the lost cause you seem to be intent on ascribing to it. I seem to be a robot in referring the 'free marketeers' to continental Europe as evidence to the contrary of their notion of imminent destruction by any government administration of common goods and services, so now I feel the inclination to adjust your perspective likewise in pointing out that some goodly portion of that continent muddles along just fine even with the profit motive of small and large companies being in the mix. So I might then leave you with a different sign-off as from earlier. The problem is not the market system, the problem is with whatever countries that not only do not give a crap about their own citizens, but rather outright dispise them and express such spite at every opportunity. This, as much as anything else, explains how Germany total net exports the crap out of the US while at only 1/4 the workers.

tweakabelle -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 2:30:45 AM)
It does seem to me that we are saying much the same thing in radically different ways. The core issue is creating an alignment of economic and societal interests. We have seen the failure of centralised systems in the East, and of laissez-faire free market systems in the West. Both fail for essentially the same reason - they fail to create a successful dynamic synthesis of the needs of society and the needs of those who dominate the economic area. In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. We do differ on this: These issues are about to be exacerbated by a series of problems that humans haven't faced before - burgeoning populations, limited resources to be divided among ever greater numbers of competing consumers, absolute limits on things like the amount of arable land, water and so on. There is no reason to believe that the successful resolution of past crises will be replicated indefinitely. History does not generate confidence in humans' ability to react co-operatively to meet challenges - as the climate change debate reminds us. Across the board, nations have continued to pursue national interests and decline to act together to meet a common challenge, to the detriment of all. It is self evident that free wheeling economic growth can be sustained indefinitely. From where I sit, it seems that future survival demands developing and introducing new economic models that are responsive to and compliment societal goals. More of the same cannot meet the challenges of the future. Put simply, something has got to change or the whole thing falls down and collapses.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 3:44:15 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet You asked your question. I answered. End of conversation DS. I asked. You answered. I asked how your answered pertained. You decide to not answer. Apparently, you weren't looking for a conversation, or aren't interested in actually having one. It is what it is.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 3:48:20 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Oh good Lord, no. When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. Oh CHRIST just shut up. Read about Germany, about Denmark, about Norway, about Austria, about Sweden, about ... and learn about any measures of societal and economic success while you're at it. Whatever, just STFU in the meantime. Are we any of those countries? Didn't think so. Lemme guess, you're going to tell me that light rail would fix all our ills, as it has in Europe, right? As great as their rail system is (and, it is), it wouldn't necessarily work in the US. Ask Amtrak. Amtrak is nice and all, and can provide a helluva service. It just can't sustain itself. What hasn't Government screwed up in the US?

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 3:53:11 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn The problem is not the market system, the problem is with whatever countries that not only do not give a crap about their own citizens, but rather outright dispise them and express such spite at every opportunity. This, as much as anything else, explains how Germany total net exports the crap out of the US while at only 1/4 the workers. So, you're saying that a stronger social support system would decrease the consumptive ways of the USA? Try going to a German IKEA and using your credit card.

GotSteel -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 4:12:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: joether Why not just ask for the Cure for Cancer or give the chemical formula of turning Lead into Gold? That would be MUCH easier of a discussion.... Agreed alchemy is real straight forward by comparison. quote: ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#Gold_synthesis_in_a_nuclear_reactor Gold was first synthesized from mercury by neutron bombardment in 1941, but the isotopes of gold produced were all radioactive.[3] Gold can currently be manufactured in a nuclear reactor by irradiation either of platinum or mercury. Only the mercury isotope 196Hg, which occurs with a frequency of 0.15% in natural mercury, can be converted to gold by neutron capture, and following electron capture-decay into 197Au with slow neutrons. Other mercury isotopes are converted when irradiated with slow neutrons into one another or formed mercury isotopes, which beta decay into thallium. Using fast neutrons, the mercury isotope 198Hg, which composes 9.97% of natural mercury, can be converted by splitting off a neutron and becoming 197Hg, which then disintegrates to stable gold. This reaction, however, possesses a smaller activation cross-section and is feasible only with un-moderated reactors.

Edwynn -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 5:11:27 AM)
Complement societal goals, but I knew what you meant. But as far as the Malthusian limit of arable land vs. population goes, society seems to be cutting down on the birth rate as we speak, even with out Chinese draconian birth limits. If the countries constituting the UN security council's "P5+1" would send as much reproductive controls and education and sexually transmitted disease prevention and education as they do armaments to countries run by dictators and "war lords" we might find our way to some progress here. Yes, it seems ironic that where the West and East ship their most destructive capability and the adult death rate is much higher, birth rates are also higher, but when we consider that a constantly beleaguered society is likely a society restrained from their own otherwise natural development and that maybe they have to have more babies just to keep from becoming extinct, it starts to make more sense intuitively. So there is one possible solution to overpopulation right there. Less guns, better trade relations, more sex ed. As for the arable land, it is highly unlikely we'll ever run short in that account at least up to or even beyond total planet population of 10 billion. That latter figure is what I have read over the years as being both the limit of human sustainability and just coincidentally where population growth seems to be trending as a peak, though I don't recall at the moment when that is supposed to happen. After we're both gone in any event. But the larger issue in agriculture is the subsidies and price supports existing in Japan and Europe and North America that devastate the farmers in Africa and in India. Plenty of arable land in both places, but their cash strapped governments cannot match the largess of the noted developed countries in supporting their own farmers, so there is a lot of agricultural capacity in waiting there. Come to speak of it, there is a very prominent group right there in your own back yard addressing that very issue, along with others. In any case, I am not arguing that what we are doing at present is sustainable, and my alluding to various points of progress in the past is not to be taken as any prima facie evidence that we are somehow guaranteed that such form of progress is inherent within the present paradigm. I merely pointed out that solutions are available, and even that 'there's more where that came from.' The use of our current staple commodities has already been reduced, even oil to some lesser extent. But in any case the basic economic Solow growth model displays, with foundation of much empirical evidence, that improvement or increase in use of technology is the only factor that can sustain growth in already developed economies, and essentially the only way that developing economies can move forward. As it stands in the more developed economies of today, there is no question that putting brighter minds to the task of increasing efficiency and reducing cost by using less is the way to go. Now, if we can just figure out how to overcome the situation of new-hire oil engineers being paid almost double new-hire engineers in any other field ... But let's dispense with the notion that the economic models are wrong. These are essentially the same economic models that work well enough in several European countries. The problem is political impediment to anything resembling good sense. Economic models are very basic and do not of themselves create whatever political fiascos resulting from politically twisted gross distortions thereupon. I'll continue to work on economics and finding solutions. The political types would be wise to quit trashing the neighborhood with ideology and sit down and shut up and listen for a change. Not that such will happen anytime soon. I am not counting on past glory in coming up with solutions to present problems, I am looking at what we have today regarding economic regimes that take all of society into consideration. However imperfect, several continental countries are implementing such political economy, even though struggling at the moment due to toxic financial pollution from less enlightened countries. We need a new political model, no question of that.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 5:16:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle In the west everything is secondary to profit, in the east everything was secondary to the State's interests. Tell me what is wrong with profit. And, I can assure that while profit is extremely important to most companies, it is not the only thing important to companies.

Iamsemisweet -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 5:49:24 AM)
I have no doubt that humans will not run out of arable land, since they will simply drive into extinction anything that gets on their way. Water is more of an issue.

Kainundeva -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 6:11:40 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML quote: ORIGINAL: Musicmystery Will more people mean more needs? Will more people mean more hands available to work toward those needs? That's economic growth. I think the trend is currently in place and quite visible. That's exactly your problem and the problem of several posts after yours. It's a trend! Well why didn't you say so! People's gross misunderstanding of economics blahblah How is higher production possible? There will be more people. That simple. blahbla ok. and you really think there will be unlimited people growth?

luv4MG -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 6:24:16 AM)
NM

xssve -> RE: The myth of endless economic growth (3/22/2012 7:22:49 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Oh good Lord, no. When Government gets involved, it almost always screws something up. Oh CHRIST just shut up. Read about Germany, about Denmark, about Norway, about Austria, about Sweden, about ... and learn about any measures of societal and economic success while you're at it. Whatever, just STFU in the meantime. 20 years of republican rubber stamping of the FIRE sector, and Eight years of directly abetting them has pushed up to the point where one good war will finish us off financially as a global power - we're basically 17th century Spain right now. Smith had ti right however, consumption is key in market economics, it's an extension of the labor theory of value: remove financial leveraging/depletion of primitive capital out of the equation, and what you have left is labor and consumption - human economics operated on that level for millions of years, albeit even in that primitive state of sustainable grace, resource depletion still occurred, and life was short, nasty and brutish. So, basically you start with labor and consumption: in a theoretically sustainable system you don't produce more with your labor than you consume in a reasonable amount of time - for the most part, enough to last the winter in colder climes. As production efficiency increases, larger surpluses are produced: easy when there are fewer people and a great deal of primitive capital available: land, water and natural resources, wood, stone, metals, etc. A natural free market economy arises, specialization becomes possible, and urban centers arise, sustained by overproduction (surplus labor) - one of those specializations is finance, which is mostly a mater of barter in a primitive economy: Og can hunt like a motherfucker, but he can't chip a flint for shit, while Ug can churn out spearpoints all day long, but can't hunt while he's doing it, so Og regularly supplies Ug with meat in exchange for spearpoints, which he keeps breaking. Finance is the middle man: no Ug lives in town, somebody else has to haul flint into town (raw materials), so Ug can chip spearpoints, which Og has to travel into town to buy - now we have a merchant, Urk, who sells Ug's spearpoints to Og at a markup, pays Oog to haul Flintrocks in for Ug to Chip, pays Ug for the spearpoints, and keeps some for himself. If it's meat, it's still pretty tight, but before long, Ug is trading his meat at the butchers, and buying the Spearpoints with some universal medium of exchange, money - usually precious metals, because they're pretty, you make jewelry out of it, and chicks dig bling, thus there is a steady and constant demand for it. Now you have a complete capitalist system, and eventually, new financial specializations arise: a banker, who loans Urk money to buy a wagon so he can haul more Flint, and Ug has to borrow money to hire more workers to chip the more flint, etc., etc. Notice that other specialties have arisen: transportation, and procurement of raw materials for processing, other processing specialties for stone, metal, and wood, and everybody prospers, especially the merchant and the banker who do not create this economy, but arise out of it. Now, given that financing is so much more lucrative than breaking your back hauling Flint, losing your eyesight chipping, it, or even dying of exposure hunting - imagine an economy where everybody borrows and lends money and nobody makes or processes anything. I really need somebody to describe to me how that is supposed to work.

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