magneze
🎧
Money lost value in Zimbabwe didn't it?!
We are closer to a crisis point now, but the whole system has been quite fucked up for years.
Moving away from money as a measure of success would be a start.
Global financial system implosion begins
- Thread starter Falcon
- Start date
We are closer to a crisis point now, but the whole system has been quite fucked up for years.
Moving away from money as a measure of success would be a start.
magneze
🎧
Where are the proceeds of economic growth going? Are they going to the people who need it? Sustainable economic growth is not much good if it's only really benefiting a few people.
Maybe there's enough money in the world.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Has it though? How do you measure 'fucked up'? There are more people alive now than ever before. That might be considered a success.
I was being slightly facetious in my point about money, but the point is that money per se is not the problem. Money is a decent idea - a good idea - in that it enables trade. There needs to be some measure of value in a world of scarce resources.
magneze
🎧
Well, here we come back to a recurring theme. How many people is too many?
A species that keeps reproducing until it's fucked its habitat is not a success by any measure is it?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Not all people are equal. You and I are equivalent to a fair few Bangladeshis, consumption-wise. But population has stabilised in the places that are consuming too much. The trick to stabilising population is to improve lives. Improve health, education, sanitation, nutrition and birth rates go down. Birth rates also go down as populations urbanise, which is happening rapidly in many parts of the world. Change the economic imperative to have large families and people will stop having large families.
But 'too many' doesn't really come into it. If there are 'too many', then you, I and most other people posting on here are near the front of the queue. No. There are as many of us as there are, and we work towards a sustainable future by working to improve the lives of those of us already here - all of us already here. It is fortunate that this has a long-term effect of reducing the birth rate - sustainable development and population stabilisation go hand in hand.
Another point about a large population is that we can expect the rates of technological innovation to continue to speed up! The trick is to direct the enormous energy of so many people in the right direction. Not just a trick but a massive challenge, but as I said before, plus ca change. We have been here before. In some ways, we are always here.
But 'too many' doesn't really come into it. If there are 'too many', then you, I and most other people posting on here are near the front of the queue. No. There are as many of us as there are, and we work towards a sustainable future by working to improve the lives of those of us already here - all of us already here. It is fortunate that this has a long-term effect of reducing the birth rate - sustainable development and population stabilisation go hand in hand.
Another point about a large population is that we can expect the rates of technological innovation to continue to speed up! The trick is to direct the enormous energy of so many people in the right direction. Not just a trick but a massive challenge, but as I said before, plus ca change. We have been here before. In some ways, we are always here.
magneze
🎧
Absolutely, the trend in population has to start to go the other way otherwise we reach another crisis point.
This does become quite circular though - if we still aim of economic growth then we need to think about where this growth comes from. Does it come from increasing natural resources - unlikely. Alternatively it could come from population growth - increasing workforce, increasing market. Again, there is a limit here. Mortgage-backed securities? Nah.
What we need is growth in something like equality. David Harvey alludes to this I think in his Enigma of Capital book.
This does become quite circular though - if we still aim of economic growth then we need to think about where this growth comes from. Does it come from increasing natural resources - unlikely. Alternatively it could come from population growth - increasing workforce, increasing market. Again, there is a limit here. Mortgage-backed securities? Nah.
What we need is growth in something like equality. David Harvey alludes to this I think in his Enigma of Capital book.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
We need to change how we measure growth, yes. free spirit had it right, though. This has been done in the past. The post-ww2 growth actually reduced inequality for a time. We have a rotten model at the moment, no doubt about that at all, and yes, that is an interesting idea of Harvey's. 'growth' is - or should be - any change that leads to an improvement in the lives of people. Measuring that can be done in various ways, but the point is that it is up to us how we measure it - it's our concept and we can measure it however we damn-well please.
Sanity can only prevail with the taking back of control of capital from capitalists. I'm a super-optimist. I think that can be done as conventional measures of growth - those that allow capitalists to buy private jets - start to fail. As they start to fail, the incentive to invest disappears. We're already seeing something like this in Japan - and the only solution is for the state to step in and start providing the investment. At the moment all countries are so wedded to the capitalist model that the state stepping in is seen as a failure, but we can switch this so that it is the reverse. Public debt = good, private debt = bad. That is a sane world. At the moment, politicians act as if the reverse were true. And debt is in itself not a bad thing. It is simply a representation of a promise for the future based on a favour from the past. Nothing wrong with it, constituted properly. Without debt, there would be no money.
Sanity can only prevail with the taking back of control of capital from capitalists. I'm a super-optimist. I think that can be done as conventional measures of growth - those that allow capitalists to buy private jets - start to fail. As they start to fail, the incentive to invest disappears. We're already seeing something like this in Japan - and the only solution is for the state to step in and start providing the investment. At the moment all countries are so wedded to the capitalist model that the state stepping in is seen as a failure, but we can switch this so that it is the reverse. Public debt = good, private debt = bad. That is a sane world. At the moment, politicians act as if the reverse were true. And debt is in itself not a bad thing. It is simply a representation of a promise for the future based on a favour from the past. Nothing wrong with it, constituted properly. Without debt, there would be no money.
magneze
🎧
There was a World Service programme on Japan earlier this week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qdrp8
One of the participants was quite adamant that zero growth was a good thing. It's an interesting listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qdrp8
One of the participants was quite adamant that zero growth was a good thing. It's an interesting listen.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I'll give that a listen. ta. 
We do have a completely mad system at the moment. The British economy is larger now than it was 10 years ago, yet 10 years ago we were doing well and now we're in crisis. It's absurd.
There are striking parallels between Japan 1990 and the UK 2008 in terms of levels of debt and its structure. We are very likely, I think, to follow in a similar trajectory to Japan. There will not be a return to large-scale private sector investment any time soon, and it will, imo, become increasingly apparent that it is the state that will need to take the lead.
We do have a completely mad system at the moment. The British economy is larger now than it was 10 years ago, yet 10 years ago we were doing well and now we're in crisis. It's absurd.
There are striking parallels between Japan 1990 and the UK 2008 in terms of levels of debt and its structure. We are very likely, I think, to follow in a similar trajectory to Japan. There will not be a return to large-scale private sector investment any time soon, and it will, imo, become increasingly apparent that it is the state that will need to take the lead.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
if it were only benefiting a few people it would not be classified as being sustainable.
eta - I use the internationally recognised definition of sustainable development, not Tony Blair's bastardised UK version btw.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
tbf to Falcon and the whole peak oil side of the debate, a massive proportion of the cause for this is the rate that we've moved from being a significant net energy exporter around 2000 to being a huge net energy importer now, just at the point when the price of this energy sky rocketed.I'll give that a listen. ta.
We do have a completely mad system at the moment. The British economy is larger now than it was 10 years ago, yet 10 years ago we were doing well and now we're in crisis. It's absurd.
There are striking parallels between Japan 1990 and the UK 2008 in terms of levels of debt and its structure. We are very likely, I think, to follow in a similar trajectory to Japan. There will not be a return to large-scale private sector investment any time soon, and it will, imo, become increasingly apparent that it is the state that will need to take the lead.
It's notable that the only times in the last few decades that the UK balance of payments were positive, and we were actually paying our national debt back were the brief periods when we were net energy exporters.
I'd be surprised if this wasn't common ground between me and Falcon.
eta there are also significant other economic / political related factors that have worsened this situation, such as the concentration of wealth at the top of the capitalist tree where that wealth is largely hoarded in offshore tax havens and not available for spending in the economy or being taxed (then spent in the economy) and the many other factors covered in various places in this thread.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
It's not countries that have to agree to write it off, it's the banks. And they don't have to agree - countries can default (like Argentina did in 2001).
The banks have turned the banking crisis into a sovereign debt crisis by forcing governments to bail them out, and then demanding austerity because government debt is too high after the bailouts and the recession they caused. Spain and Ireland were both running surpluses before the crisis - Spain was technically in better economic shape than Germany, ffs!
Fuck 'em. We should be setting up nationalised banks to take in the retail banking (normal savings, loans, mortgages and overdrafts) that always was intended to be covered by govt guarantees and let the banks duke it out with the investors they fucked over. The debt hysteria is based primarily on the best interests of the very wealthy, who don't want to pay for the downside of their stupid bets.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
Agreed YMU, but can I borrow that graph for a comparison with the total UK energy import / export situation over time?
As I was saying above, the only times in the last 40 odd years when we as a country have been able to actually pay off part of our national debt have been at points when we were briefly net energy exporters, thanks to the outputs from the North Sea.
We started increasing our national debt again in around 2002, just exactly at the point where we became a net energy importer again, and we're now on course to be left to import over half our energy requirements in around 5 years time.
As energy prices have sky rocketed since then, and are likely to continue to do so, the impact of this on the UK public accounts, and economy can only be multiplied.
Add these cold hard energy facts as a multiplier into the standard economic equations for recovery from recession and reducing deficits / paying off national debt via austerity measures, and it ought to be fairly clear exactly how much our politicians are screwing the country up.
Labour were utterly complacent about this, having no energy policy in place at all for the first 9 years of their time in power, and this lot are currently trying to out do them in the incompetence stakes on the energy planning side of things.
For avoidance of doubt, my major arguments with Falcon's view of things mostly isn't that the main thrust of what he's saying aren't possible, it's that he seems to put them across as being pretty much inevitable*, whereas I view them as being potential worst case scenario consequences of abject failures in government policy to address issues that are blatantly obvious for anyone with half a clue about the subject.
If things are portrayed as being inevitable, then it lets us and governments off the hook for their / our abject failure to take the serious actions on the issue that could have at least mitigated the worst impacts of the situation if not solved it entirely. The UK government are currently attempting to use a sticking plaster over a gaping wound in our economy, and we're in serious danger of bleeding out / losing a leg if they don't opt for major surgery in the not too distant future.
*and I have serious problems with his bottom line sustainable carrying capacity figures for the planet, and his over focus on oil vs total energy supply and a few other points.
As I was saying above, the only times in the last 40 odd years when we as a country have been able to actually pay off part of our national debt have been at points when we were briefly net energy exporters, thanks to the outputs from the North Sea.
We started increasing our national debt again in around 2002, just exactly at the point where we became a net energy importer again, and we're now on course to be left to import over half our energy requirements in around 5 years time.
As energy prices have sky rocketed since then, and are likely to continue to do so, the impact of this on the UK public accounts, and economy can only be multiplied.
Add these cold hard energy facts as a multiplier into the standard economic equations for recovery from recession and reducing deficits / paying off national debt via austerity measures, and it ought to be fairly clear exactly how much our politicians are screwing the country up.
Labour were utterly complacent about this, having no energy policy in place at all for the first 9 years of their time in power, and this lot are currently trying to out do them in the incompetence stakes on the energy planning side of things.
For avoidance of doubt, my major arguments with Falcon's view of things mostly isn't that the main thrust of what he's saying aren't possible, it's that he seems to put them across as being pretty much inevitable*, whereas I view them as being potential worst case scenario consequences of abject failures in government policy to address issues that are blatantly obvious for anyone with half a clue about the subject.
If things are portrayed as being inevitable, then it lets us and governments off the hook for their / our abject failure to take the serious actions on the issue that could have at least mitigated the worst impacts of the situation if not solved it entirely. The UK government are currently attempting to use a sticking plaster over a gaping wound in our economy, and we're in serious danger of bleeding out / losing a leg if they don't opt for major surgery in the not too distant future.
*and I have serious problems with his bottom line sustainable carrying capacity figures for the planet, and his over focus on oil vs total energy supply and a few other points.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Cheers fs. I've seen your debt/north sea oil stuff before, but I'm not au fait enough to repeat it. Interesting stuff.
This is only tangentially relevant, but anyone heard about Labour's plan to bulk buy leccy (whilst they are still in opposition)? If they go ahead with it, and it works, the argument for renationalising the utilities is surely all but won?
This is only tangentially relevant, but anyone heard about Labour's plan to bulk buy leccy (whilst they are still in opposition)? If they go ahead with it, and it works, the argument for renationalising the utilities is surely all but won?
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I'd actually think it'd be another massive factor to prevent renationalisation if the party most likely to do the nationalising were itself to be making significant amounts of money from acting as a 'bulk purchaser' of leccy - aka an electricity supply company.
If they want to tackle the issue seriously they need to propose renationalisation, not this rubbish.
eta - or if not renationalisation entirely, then nationalisation of the national grid, and a nationalised energy generation and supply company to offer an alternative to the privatised utilities.
It's nuts the amount of public investment that's going in to the system just so that nominally private sector, but actually mostly foreign state owned companies can profit from that investment.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I don't think they're planning on making a profit from it. But regardless, they're pointing out that collective purchasing is cheaper. Which it is. The logical next step is to cut out the middle-man and nationalise it to make it cheaper still.
I'm not talking about what Labour want. I am talking about the logical conclusion to the argument they are making.
I'm not talking about what Labour want. I am talking about the logical conclusion to the argument they are making.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
yeah right.
On this sort of stuff, if you don't aim to make at least a small profit margin then you're almost certain to make a serious loss at some point, and once the labour party starts seeing significant profits coming in to the party from it, I'd think this would make it significantly less likely that they'd argue in favour of destroying their new found funding stream.
tbh though I doubt they'll actually manage to make a profit on it, far more likely they'll make a proper balls up of it, lose loads of money and sweep the idea under the carpet after a couple of years at most.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Well, that is pretty much the definition of non-profit - it's a tricky balancing act to stay solvent. It's not quite the same as handing out mullah to shareholders who did nothing to earn it though.
I'm not sure it would be politically possible for them to profit from it.
I'm not really interested in whether this is a sensible or workable idea. I'm interested in the potential to highlight the logic of nationalising services that we all need.
I'm not sure it would be politically possible for them to profit from it.
I'm not really interested in whether this is a sensible or workable idea. I'm interested in the potential to highlight the logic of nationalising services that we all need.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I just think it's silly political posturing, and they should focus on the substantive issue of coming up with a sensible energy policy instead of pissing in the wind like this.
If it takes them 9 years to come up with an energy policy after they get in to government again, then we actually are going to be pretty fucked regardless of whether we've nationalised the industry or not.
If it takes them 9 years to come up with an energy policy after they get in to government again, then we actually are going to be pretty fucked regardless of whether we've nationalised the industry or not.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
If they splash on it, I think their silly political posturing provides the rest of us with a political opportunity. Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul. That works both ways. I'm looking for ways in which that can be achieved, and I think this might be one of them, that's all. Tis a minor point.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I disagree, but you're right, it is a minor point, other than the bit about it distracting them from doing what they're supposed to be doing in the energy field, and developing a sensible energy policy while in opposition.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
It's a minor point in the (current) context of this thread. It's a pretty huge point in the politics of this country. A sane energy policy would have to include nationalisation.
The CiF commenters have picked up the ball and run with it anyway, so I guess the answer to my question is: mebbe.
Turns out it was Livingstone's idea. It's in his manifesto.
The CiF commenters have picked up the ball and run with it anyway, so I guess the answer to my question is: mebbe.
Turns out it was Livingstone's idea. It's in his manifesto.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
The point being that there would be so much money involved in this sort of a project that unless it was actually a nationalised government project, then it could easily bankrupt the labour party if they tried to go entirely not for profit, because the swing in energy prices are so big, and the potential amount of money involved is so big.
just to put this into perspective...
labour party annual income = ~£34 million
EDF annual income = ~£65 billion
see the problem if labour were to try this without even the aim of a small profit margin and get it even marginally wrong, they'd be bankrupt in no time flat.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
eta - and if by some miracle the labour party actually managed to not fuck it up and end up making a profit on it, then this profit could easily rapidly become such a major income source that it would seriously impact on their policies.
I'd be amazed if they didn't just totally fuck it up and lose shedloads of money on it though.
I'd be amazed if they didn't just totally fuck it up and lose shedloads of money on it though.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Livingstone's plan and Labour's plan seem to be slightly different, but neither of them involves setting up in competition with existing suppliers.
Livingstone says that he can buy electricity at half price via TfL, and they intend to purchase leccy for all of London at that price and pass on the savings to consumers, with admin costs coming out of those savings. Cost-neutral.
Labour seems to be saying that they will negotiate prices with the companies on the basis of having 50,000, or 100,000 or however many people sign up with them. Admin costs might be pump-primed to start with I guess, but they would presumably also come out of savings made by consumers.
I don't see the potential to lose shedloads when they're not taking much financial risk at any point.
If they did somehow manage to turn a profit, they'd have a hard time keeping it for the party instead of nationalising the industry once in government. But I don't see the potential for profit here.
Livingstone says that he can buy electricity at half price via TfL, and they intend to purchase leccy for all of London at that price and pass on the savings to consumers, with admin costs coming out of those savings. Cost-neutral.
Labour seems to be saying that they will negotiate prices with the companies on the basis of having 50,000, or 100,000 or however many people sign up with them. Admin costs might be pump-primed to start with I guess, but they would presumably also come out of savings made by consumers.
I don't see the potential to lose shedloads when they're not taking much financial risk at any point.
If they did somehow manage to turn a profit, they'd have a hard time keeping it for the party instead of nationalising the industry once in government. But I don't see the potential for profit here.
What about the "bubble in education"? Student-Loan Debt in America Topped $1 Trillion.
Maybe there should be a thread for it
Maybe there should be a thread for it
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Any thoughts on the Dutch government resigning over the pointlessness of austerity?
Short-term turmoil, but is this the beginning of the end for the Austerians (and, fingers crossed, by extension, the Austrians)?
Short-term turmoil, but is this the beginning of the end for the Austerians (and, fingers crossed, by extension, the Austrians)?
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