UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => shootin' the shit => Topic started by: Fultonius on December 12, 2011, 01:26:55 pm
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All you hear in the news, from the politicians, company CEOs and man on the street is that we "must return to GDP growth".
Now, I think most rational people would agree that continuous, infinite GDP growth is not sustainable and, depending on your economic outlook quite likely undesirable!
I'm currently reading this report on the steady state economic model: http://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/EnoughIsEnough_FullReport.pdf (http://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/EnoughIsEnough_FullReport.pdf) but I would like to hear from some of you enlightened peeps any insight into the validity of this report?
I wonder how long it will be until a politician grows some balls, nails his colours to the mast and declares "we've grown enough, let's just improve!"
More than likely not before some almighty depression or war...
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I'd personally like to see a politician nail his balls to the mast.
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The large revenues of the internet or smaller revenues of the climbing wall industry are good examples of GDP components that no one could have envisage n years ago.
Smartphone "applications" being another, whole lot of money potentially available there essentially from a "few" hours developing and programming.
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I'd personally like to see a politician nail his balls to the mast.
Thanks Chris, now I have to clean the spit of my screen due to that unexpected outburst of amusement!
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Hmm, interesting. I only had a quick skim of the summary of that report, but it seems less about the economics of growth and more about the politics of (extreme) sustainability?
My jist of the report was that, as there is not enough to go around, we should drastically limit consumption (therefore growth), as we'll be just as happy as we were before hd TVs, imported foods etc as survey says we were happy then too...
Regarding the question of the need for growth, I think its wrong to chase growth in itself, but a lot of improvements will be reflected by an increase in GDP.
Certainly some things to mull over covered by the report, although was put off the report itself when it mentioned the need for population control...
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I'm normally happy to defend the statement "GDP per capita growth has risen since the dawn of humanity and will likely continue for a very long time", but reluctant on a climbing website as people seem to get very emotional about it.
Now now. Don't tar your own website with the Cocktalk brush!
I agree by the way.
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Maybe I'm just having a doom filled day, but I don't see how the economy could survive on smartphone apps (which are consumed by the worlds
richest 1% only fact checking is in progress... and provide little in the way of actual improvement to people lives...), the internet (which pretty much only makes money by encouraging consumerism) and other service based industries.
I'm pretty sure about 10 years ago the UKs services and financial sectors were touted as the future of the UKs economy!
I just think that in the UK (i.e. a very wealthy country in world terms) peoples lives would be enriched by having more leisure time, less consumerism and less drive for growth for the sake of growth.
In other words, do you really think GDP growth brings much other than just "GDP growth"?
(P.S. if I come across at all naive in this thread, the reason I started it is to learn more, not argue...)
P.P.S. re: the population control thing - I think any drastic, enforced population control is not the way to go - but I don't think the world can cope with many more people and certainly don't think the world will benefit from having more people. Access to family planning and educating women in developing countries are much better propositions!
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peoples lives would be enriched by having more leisure time, less consumerism
For some people sure, but I think it'd be pretty hard to convince the masses that they could be just as happy only working half the amount of hours and having to give up a bunch of the nice things globablisation and other unsustainable activites have brought us... What would people do with all of that spare time if they couldn't play video games/shop/drive across the country to their favourite crag...
(P.S. if I come across at all naive in this thread, the reason I started it is to learn more, not argue...)
Personally I dont think that there are any concreate answers to the points you raise, so discussion is the best way forward!
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I think everyone should punter Fultonius for starting a thread for the purpose of learning rather than argument. That's NOT what the internet is for!
:spank:
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Access to family planning and educating women in developing countries are much better propositions!
Not forgetting the UK itself which has a rather high teenage pregnancy rate!
Perhaps start with the classics...
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300)
(Not that I've read it myself!)
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I've heard the idea that GDP can continue growing via the expansion of goods and services which don't use any/many resources, I don't buy that this gets us out of the hole. In a world where the price of basics like food and fuel continue to rise due to per capita resources shrinkage, who is going to buy all this vapourware? The grotesque ballooning of the financial sector in the last few decades is an example of this kind of growth and look where that has got us.
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Famously the people of Easter Island when faced with existentially threatening resource constraint tried to swap one sort of GDP growth with another. Their not being here to sell us their latest range of giant rock heads is an elegant demonstration of why the idea is flawed. Units of growth are not fungible, you can eat an apple but you wont wow the party with a pie full of apps.
Edit: Wrote before Thesiger's latest post. Will reply to that when I get chance.
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I don't buy that this gets us out of the hole.
Long-run trends (10 years - millenia) certainly can't be relied on on the medium term (1-5 years). But, still, what hole? Things aren't that bad. Global GDP will probably grow 3% next year, probably mostly in developing countries ... but should we begrudge them that growth? Despite all the "slave labour" rhetoric that actually just means millions of people owning a fridge for the first time.
I'm not begrudging anyone anything. I'm not really passing comment on the rights or wrongs of globalisation. My point is that there's less and less to exploit and the economics of it are changing. Everyone on the planet having a car is nice for us all today but not so nice for our children who will be expected to drive to work on smartphone apps.
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Everyone on the planet having a car is nice for us all today but not so nice for our children who will be expected to drive to work on smartphone apps.
Perhaps, for certain sectors of employment, they'll have an app that allows them to work from home and not have to jump in the car. :shrug:
I should hasten to point out that I did not imply that writing smartphone apps was a panacea to allowing continued growth in GDP, simply that its an area where wealth has been generated that a decade ago hadn't been envisaged.
Personally, being a biologist before I got caught up in all this statistics crap I don't think continued growth is possible, there's always a ceiling. What I don't know is where on the growth v's limited resources curve humans currently sit.
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Famously the people of Easter Island when faced with existentially threatening resource constraint tried to swap one sort of GDP growth with another. Their not being here to sell us their latest range of giant rock heads is an elegant demonstration of why the idea is flawed. Units of growth are not fungible, you can eat an apple but you wont wow the party with a pie full of apps.
... would have been the conclusion of a martian economist landing on Easter Island in the early 19th century. But as an observation about Earth it would have been very uninformative. Two centuries on we muddle on into the future with considerably higher living standards than then.
I don't get your point. I'm saying that Easter Island shows on a tiny scale what happens when you run out of one sort of thing and try to replace it with another. Obviously the world is much bigger and more complex and in many respects it's this complexity which makes it harder for us to spot the constraints when they arise than it would have been for those unfortunate islanders.
The fact we have higher living standards than said islanders is irrelevant to what I said. Muddling through works until it doesn't. I'm sure we'll keep muddling through in one way or another for a long while to come I'm just not sure it will look like the growth and progress we've come to expect.
We will have to learn to live with shrinking horizons.
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I'll try and keep the prosaic prose to a minimum, for once (failed already).
I deal with figures, graphs and Macro economics; far more than I do (more interesting) engineery things these days.
This is why I'm sick of them (sorry Slackers/Toby)...
Over the years, I've developed some opinions on the world economy; without bothering to learn the jargon.
Bonjoy, limited resources?
That depends on what you mean by resources. For example:-
There is very little that we use, that we truly destroy. I've been involved with a lot of material recovery technology development over the last decade. Necessity is the mother of invention and this is one area where I'm sure a new industry and economy will emerge.
The same is true of energy. The practicality of recovering unused/reusable hydrocarbons from the atmosphere may always prove too difficult, the development of alternative energy sources (I hate the term renewable), is gathering pace.
I've been consulting to a company developing electrical systems to replace many hydro/mechanical machineries (not as easy as it sounds), as well as developing battery technology and linked up with people developing fuel cells (commercial and academic). We've spent the last 7 years reducing absorbed power on those systems to the point we now use 50% less than comparable hydraulic systems (and as of last Thursday, I became their "Northern Europe and rest of the world"manager. YYFY).
This means the amount of energy required in the world will reduce over time.
What? I hear you say!
I have spent most of my life traveling and whilst we have a long way to go, I have no doubt that standards of living have risen across the globe; the pockets (big I admit) of genuine poverty grow smaller. It seems likely that the trend in the developed nations towards reduced birth rates, will gradually spread. It seems to me the global population will plateau, then fall at point X in the future.
GDP growth can continue, certainly for a long time. It's just that the base resources will change. When we say "Oil based" economy, we mean energy based. The source of energy will change (that may hurt in the short term).
When we talk about "Raw materials", at the moment we are talking about things dug out of the ground; in the future we might just mean things recovered from previous "Things".
Our ability to produce food increases, year on year. It might change, we may end up eating a lot of ants in the future.
Our awareness of our impact on the environment/climate increases, every year more people take it seriously (fast enough? Who knows).
I think we (all of us) have to give up on the idea of making money by selling money. It's far too dependant on the whims/fears of the traders.
I know that any economy is an artifice, a product of our imaginations; but that one is just silly.
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I have no doubt that the developing economies will continue to grow and the gap between the wealthier, more developed countries and the developing ones will narrow.
I guess I was being a little more focussed on the "developed" countries when I was pondering if we have already reached, or are soon likely to reach the point where further GDP growth (in already wealthy/developed countries) is actually detrimental to the general well-being of people?
It just seems that the US and UK politicians and the City of London appear to promote GDP maximisation for the sake of it rather than actually for any specific and defined reason.
Slackers - I wasn't trying to imply we'll run the world on apps but, they do embody a sector of the market that is really, completely unnecessary and purely consumerist. While I use them, and find them fun/handy - would my life be significantly worse without them?? Debatable...
OmMatt - Oceans, air pollution, soil degradation, rare materials, hydrocarbons, waste (chemical, plastics, nuclear) - all finite resources or in the case of waste - finite places to keep chucking them! We're struggling now - what's it going to be like with 9.5bn people? :shrug:
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OmMatt - Oceans, air pollution, soil degradation, rare materials, hydrocarbons, waste (chemical, plastics, nuclear) - all finite resources or in the case of waste - finite places to keep chucking them! We're struggling now - what's it going to be like with 9.5bn people? :shrug:
Ah, you see waste; I see man made mineral veins.
Toxic to harvest?
Have you ever been into a mine?
(there are plenty of places on this planet, which are toxic to life (at least life larger than a Bacterium) for purely natural reasons. Generally, what we do is move things around; after all we have not created any of the matter or elements in these things).
I am absolutely not condoning the status quo. We are being short sighted arseholes and doing a damn good job of shooting ourselves in the foot. I believe this will change, society does/has change(d). My 6yr old is far more aware of these things than I was at 6!
It might not seem like it, but I am agreeing with you.
Up to a point...
We have been struggling for many centuries. Famine, lack of resources etc have been a feature of human existence since before we knew we were human. Yes, when there are more people, more people will be affected. On the other hand, we have never been in a better position to tackle it!
I'm a little shocked to be playing the optimist here...
The worlds financial institutions will change over the coming decades (an overnight shift would be the true disaster), because people remember; people have more power than they are given credit for (and I mean that in several different ways). History is replete with examples of people power, those who believe themselves superior often come down with a bump; individuals and social groups alike.
I suspect we continue to underestimate the impact of technology on our future.
And I don't mean PS3's.
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Bonjoy, limited resources?
Oil, water, Phosphorus (for fertilizer) spring to mind but there are others. In the long run most resources are limited.
I'm not suggesting they will run out entirely. We get more and more inventive about extracting marginal reserves and as you say re-using things. The problem is that the new way always requires more energy than the old way, often by a lot. So while for instance oil (and other liquid fuel replacements) supplied year on year may look flat, more and more of the energy extracted is ploughed back into extracting the next barrel. Eventually you get to a point where there is plenty left in the ground but there is not enough net gain to bother extracting it.
Just sticking to oil for the moment as it is pretty critical to our position. I've looked into the subject a fair bit and have seen nothing looking remotely like a replacement for it. Have I missed something? What have you seen that will replace it or is it just faith in science generally?
This means the amount of energy required in the world will reduce over time.
What about Jevon's paradox and growing world population?
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It just seems that the US and UK politicians and the City of London appear to promote GDP maximisation for the sake of it rather than actually for any specific and defined reason.
Agree totally! Interesting thread and a subject I've thought a lot about; the mantra for the world's leaders is growth and growth at all costs. There appears to be no reference to why this is so basic and essential. Just repeat ad nauseum and you too can be part of the club.
I can't escape the (cliched and not new) idea that it is all designed to ensure that those in power keep themselves and their friends precisely there. Look at the lies and hypocrisy surrounding what happened with the bailout of UK banks. How did the EU manage to sneak two of their kind into power in Greece and Italy without any fuss or serious question over whether any of it was democratic? It doesn't matter though, the IMF will get your house in order and then you'll be compliant like the rest of us.
The whole system is corrupt and insidious. The whole debate (hold on a minute there is no debate!) about growth and resource lacks any real honesty. Landfill is full (or virtually), water is running out but let's just ignore that lot and carry on regardless, 'growth' will fix everything :furious:
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Yep Toby, that's a sure sign that the base line is rising.
Bonjoy,
Sorry, would have replied yesterday, but the death of a hard drive meant I had to spend the day doing battle with the floods in Thailand...
(Cue ironic intonation)... Bloody global economy! Cost me an extra tenner for the new drive, because it rained on the other side of the planet! I ask you! And all so some bugger can work in a factory, when she'd (probably) be so much happier subsistence farming and raising twelve kids.
That is not a dig at you Bonjoy, it was just something that occurred to me yesterday, when I was getting a bit wound up about the time it was going to take to get my laptop up and running...
Yes, by the way, I am excited by some of the developments I have seen in power generation and energy storage. There are some exciting things which are yet to be published (some already in peer review). As I said before, our own humble efforts have resulted in systems that use 50% less absorbed power compared to the existing technology and we are sure we can do better!
It would land me in some serious Khaki if I detailed specific things here.
There is a growing network of Engineers and Scientists, who are working on these issues. More importantly, there is a growing economy in Knowledge Transfer. Now there's an industry that didn't exist 10 years ago...
You can get an idea from here:
https://www.facebook.com/ESKTN (https://www.facebook.com/ESKTN)
All is not rosy!
I just believe that this kind of work, will achieve more, in the same direction; than pitching a tent outside Saint Paul's.
I do despair of our media obsession.
This weeks, world ending, crisis; is next weeks Kitty litter tray lining...
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It just seems that the US and UK politicians and the City of London appear to promote GDP maximisation for the sake of it rather than actually for any specific and defined reason.
Agree totally! Interesting thread and a subject I've thought a lot about; the mantra for the world's leaders is growth and growth at all costs. There appears to be no reference to why this is so basic and essential. Just repeat ad nauseum and you too can be part of the club.
Growth is fundamental to the standard economic model because it is the only way that debt plus interest can be repaid. Without growth or with negative growth debts rapidly become unaffordable.
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I just believe that this kind of work, will achieve more, in the same direction; than pitching a tent outside Saint Paul's.
I agree completely. There's plenty that can and will be done, but I'm sure you probably agree that the world has got a big change coming, it won't be comfortable and most people are ignorant of the extent to which we are going to have to adapt.
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Yes, by the way, I am excited by some of the developments I have seen in power generation and energy storage. There are some exciting things which are yet to be published (some already in peer review). As I said before, our own humble efforts have resulted in systems that use 50% less absorbed power compared to the existing technology and we are sure we can do better!
It would land me in some serious Khaki if I detailed specific things here.
I'm waiting to see this "knowledge transferred" (bit of a bullshit bingo term IMO, people have been applying the results of research for years, e.g. Stephenson's Rocket, commercialisation is perhaps more appropriate, although some may see that as "dirty" as it implies connotations of consumerism)
Artificial leaf that could be more efficient than the real thing (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/artificial-leaf/)
(A more technical description (http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/pnas_pdfs/pnas.201106545.pdf) from the PNAS)
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Growth is fundamental to the standard economic model because it is the only way that debt plus interest can be repaid. Without growth or with negative growth debts rapidly become unaffordable.
I understand this but to grow indefinitely is impossible; we are no different to bacteria in a petri dish. Perhaps with some technological tweaks and advances we can get a bit more out of what we've got but essentially we seem to be nudging up against various limiting factors. We will hit them, sooner or later. Why stick with this 'religion' when it only takes us more quickly to where we don't want to be?
This totally ignores the social and personal side of everything: we have an infinite number of ways to 'entertain' ourselves and our choice of goods and services seemingly proliferates. Yet, the view that, in the UK at least, we are physically unhealthier than we have been for a long time and more mentally inundated and confused than ever is hard to avoid. More is not more. Growth is not the panacea that it's painted as.
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Greece and Italy have a serious current problem funding persistent publi-sector deficits. People are reluctant to lend to those countries because they don't think they'll get their money back. What's your proposed solution?
My solution would be to have never got there in the first place, to not spend where you can't pay it back. I have no detailed knowledge of Italy's economy but I imagine that the whole culture of 'growth' and unfettered and speculative capitalism contributed.
As for a way forward now, let them default. Have a big correction / wake-up call and then live within your means. Build on solid foundations not some borrowed tomorrow. Italy is particularly hard to have sympathy for: the whole thing seems corrupt to the core and Berlusconi is almost as pathetic and laughable as Bush.
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Yes, by the way, I am excited by some of the developments I have seen in power generation and energy storage. There are some exciting things which are yet to be published (some already in peer review). As I said before, our own humble efforts have resulted in systems that use 50% less absorbed power compared to the existing technology and we are sure we can do better!
It would land me in some serious Khaki if I detailed specific things here.
I'm waiting to see this "knowledge transferred" (bit of a bullshit bingo term IMO, people have been applying the results of research for years, e.g. Stephenson's Rocket, commercialisation is perhaps more appropriate, although some may see that as "dirty" as it implies connotations of consumerism)
Artificial leaf that could be more efficient than the real thing (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/artificial-leaf/)
(A more technical description (http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/pnas_pdfs/pnas.201106545.pdf) from the PNAS)
Ooo ooo oo! I want one!
I have to agree on the terminology, I'm always giving Ian shite about his job title. What they do is go out and speak to academics/businesses/developers and then go and find others to introduce them to... It works.
Commercialism is correct, although perhaps we should point out; commercial means part of an economy, not wasteful or pointless.
"The Economy" can be what ever we make it.
I hope, I'm fairly sure; we will adapt and our economy will change. GDP will continue to grow, the measure may evolve to suit this change. Wealth is a fungible thing, once it was cows, then it was gold, now it's bits and bites. The one thing it is not is absolute.
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However countries that go down this route will still need their new technocratic austerity-orientated leaders to ensure they can fund themselves. There's no magic solution.
No, but that's what people want (a magic solution). The apparently dull, unglamorous and long-term business of doing and making stuff that works within budgetary constraints may however be the only option.
I think it would have been better and had had more chance of creating some kind of legacy if the change had come from within rather than being force-fed to the Italians and Greeks. I don't think they take kindly to being told what to do. But maybe medicine never tastes good so perhaps the imposed leaders and measures will be accepted?
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As a matter of interest where do other folks get their news/info on this kind of stuff? I follow www.energybulletin.net (http://www.energybulletin.net) for articles on resource/energy/climate change/alt economics; www.zerohedge.com (http://www.zerohedge.com) for views/ (generally right leaning)articles from folk inside the financial world; www.counterpunch.org (http://www.counterpunch.org) for political (left leaning) articles; and the usual sort of sources for MSM take on the news (BBC, FT, Guardian).
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I'm finding UKB to be a surprisingly useful and educational forum!
It has the advantage of involving people from a broad spectrum of backgrounds.
Like Toby, I get to meet some (supposedly) influential people, through work.
For those who don't know, I work in the Super/Mega yacht industry. I usually meet them in a non-professional, leisure setting. I don't believe in conspiracy theories either (it would be the proverbial "herding of cats", for one thing). I think I wrote somewhere else on the forum, in more stringent terms; they are grossly ordinary. Very few standout as something special. Those that do are often the least assuming (Mark Watson, of Munich Rey, is one of those).
I'm a living embodiment of the financial crisis (in 2008 I was the MD of a shipyard building yachts over 500GT, that turned a profit of 18M USD that year, now I'm almost broke, on income support (until I start work in the new year); go figure).
And yet, I feel optimistic about the future...
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I am also lucky to meet occasionally with people in positions of power ... politicians, central bankers, chief executives, heads of private equity firms, etc. The most recent interesting one was Peter Thiel who founded Paypal and was the founder investor in Facebook. One by-product of that is that I am very unsympathetic to the sort of conspiracy theories of the world that are common on the internet and even visible in this thread. There isn't some sinister ruling class, only motivated to suppress the poor in perpetuity ... these sorts of people are just like everyone else: varying motivations, varying abilities.
News like this - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/executive-pay-increase-america-ceos (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/executive-pay-increase-america-ceos) would suggest a good proportion are self serving wankers.
I don’t believe that the current financial mess is a result of orchestrated actions by malevolent powers either, more the aggregate consequence of lots of individuals/groups exploiting dysfunctional financial regulation (mostly via legal means), on a background of stalling world growth caused in large part by resource limitations. The whole ‘too big to fail’ thing is a disaster waiting to happen, it has unbalanced the sytem and created another deadly bubble, what is capitalism if bad investments aren’t allowed to go the way nature intended? It’s a cliché but risks have been socialised to the vast benefit of those in a position to cut and run.
I have occasionally read the Economist and will make an effort to do so more often. I’m always keen to read as widely as possible to avoid confirmation bias.
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I don't think anyone is trying to suggest the ruling class are deliberately trying to "keep the poor poor", but they're sure as hell trying to keep themselves as rich as possible and to hell with the consequences.
P.S. working in the superyacht industry must be an interesting one. Some of them are absolutely stunning works of design, function and form. They do; however, perfectly embody unnecessary greed, consumerism and excess.
I'm always intrigued by the luxury goods industries to find out if the "trickle down theory" actually happens?
Rich person buys boat, boat company makes money.
Boat company pays wages to staff (high/low??) and probably creams a fair profit too.
Subcontractors pay staff, and probably also creams a fair profit.
Much of this profit probably goes back to shareholders, or owners pockets.
I'm keen to know, as a percentage, how much actually makes it from the Russian Oligarch to the GRP fabricator, engine fitter and all the other folks who work hard building these things? (And therefore, how much just gets recycled around the luxury end of the market?)
Maybe I'm just having a bitter day since I found out yesterday that my department has been canned and I need to find a new job (fortunately there are options inside the company). It's a shitter, as we were hoping to build new, clean renewable energy generation but our parent company got cold feet because the banking system and sovereign debt is so fucked in Europe that the investment was too risky.
Apologies if the lights go out in 2014...
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Late to this fascinating thread, but in the nick of time to edit Toby's pedantic edit.
"states that some CEOs have had large pay increases which may not be deserved"
May? May?
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/CEOperformance122509.pdf (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/CEOperformance122509.pdf) <- This.
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This is getting dangerously close to the kind of political bashing that stops me reading 'other' forums.
Try and keep it clean.
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I am also lucky to meet occasionally with people in positions of power ... politicians, central bankers, chief executives, heads of private equity firms, etc. The most recent interesting one was Peter Thiel who founded Paypal and was the founder investor in Facebook. One by-product of that is that I am very unsympathetic to the sort of conspiracy theories of the world that are common on the internet and even visible in this thread. There isn't some sinister ruling class, only motivated to suppress the poor in perpetuity ... these sorts of people are just like everyone else: varying motivations, varying abilities.
News like this - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/executive-pay-increase-america-ceos (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/executive-pay-increase-america-ceos) would suggest a good proportion are self serving wankers states that some CEOs have had large pay increases which may not be deserved. I don’t believe that the current financial mess is a result of orchestrated actions by malevolent powers either, more the aggregate consequence of lots of individuals/groups exploiting dysfunctional financial regulation (mostly via legal means), on a background of stalling surprisingly-stable world growth not yet effected caused in large part by resource limitations. The whole ‘too big to fail’ thing is a disaster waiting to happen, it has unbalanced the system and may have created another deadly bubble, what is capitalism if bad investments aren’t allowed to go the way nature intended? It’s a cliché but risks have been socialised to the vast benefit of those some people in a position to cut and run.
... would be my pedantic edit there. Packing for the weekend - otherwise I'd comment in more detail.
Giving yourself a huge underserved payrise while those in your charge are losing jobs and have frozen or shrinking wages is the behaviour of a self serving wanker and I'm happy to stand by my original wording. Excuse the sarcasm, but stand back and look at the trees, there's some wood in there.
You don't think the more than tripling of crude oil prices in the last decade and its knock on cost to agriculture/industry has had anything whatsoever to do with today's woes?
Growth is only superficially 'surprisingly stable' because of the afformentioned 'too big to fail' game and the subsequent huge injections of QE. Stable or otherwise growth in most OECD countries it is not fast enough to service the debts.
If the current euro debt situation and all the hugely leveraged off balance sheet liablities in the shadow financial economy don't represent a (deadly to world stability) bubble I don't know what does.
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"Try and keep it clean. "
Will do.
I'd be interested in what people think about the wisdom or otherwise of devaluing your way out of debt problems. Toby above seems to say it's wise that the ECB has rules which prevent this happening, but I've got to admit it's an area of economics I struggle to understand.
So devaluing makes people poorer, but so would paying off the debt. If you rule out growth as a solution*, then isn't it better to print money to pay your debts, then default?
*the reason I say this is that I don't see how most eurozone countries can possibly grow much in the next decade. With interest rates nearly zero, the private sector is paying off debt rather than investing. And competitiveness is appalling in these countries, since their currency is held artificially high by Germany's strong export economy...
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I found this quite an interesting read on that subject - http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-special-report-2011 (http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-special-report-2011) .
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Sorry Fried I don’t know what you’re objecting to in this thread thus far. Seems pretty ‘clean’ to me.
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I just thought Thisiger was getting a bit heavy-handed in this (non) reply to your post.
I enjoy reading the political stuff on here, but don't want it to become entrenched opinions and preaching to the not likely to be converted. It not the opinions, it's how they're presented that counts.
Apologies if I mis-read anything.
Ding ding
Round 2 :popcorn:
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http://www.theoildrum.com/ (http://www.theoildrum.com/) Energy stuff
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/ (http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/) Stuart Staniford is one of the best commenters on global risks about IMO
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/ (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/) Financial doom. Illargi and Stoneleigh called the credit crunch early and have been shouting about the sovereign debt issue for a few years now
As Toby says, the FT is good on this stuff. The economist is ok too.
And despite not sharing his conclusions, I'd also second his point about the west's problems not necessarily being global problems. Do have concerns re the impact longer term on the export economies of the east.
I don't meet anyone powerful, but trade short term electricity and gas futures for a living. Most of the folk I work with don't have a clue. I despair of them sometimes.
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Tom Murphy’s Do The Maths (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/)articles are great for a none political look at the maths and science behind various potential solutions to the energy problem. Always an entertaining read. . .
When we imagine a smorgasbord of options in front of us, we think we’ll never go hungry. But when the plate arrives and it’s a raisin here, a crumb of bread there, and a speck of cheese there, the variety alone is no longer a source of satisfaction.. . .it is as unlikely that a hundred 1% solutions will satisfy us as it is that we could strap enough gerbils together to make a serviceable pony.
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I am curious, why?
Not wanting to put words into fried's mouth, but perhaps the corrections were being almost as pedantic as I can be.
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I just thought Thesiger was getting a bit heavy-handed in this (non) reply to your post.
I am curious, why?
Please also note my opening remarks on this thread.
Careful Toby...
Capitalism is an easy target and easily misunderstood. There are some who, not to put too finer point on it; kick the arse out of the system. These high profile Monkeys, belie that fact that most of the people who benefit from the system, do so in a much more modest way...
A glib or hurried response can seem, if not arrogant, then uncaring.
I didn't read your response in that manner, I can see how it could be read that way.
Any defence of the system, needs to acknowledge the current failings of said system; which are legion.
Crap! That sounds sooo preachy!
Sorry.
I hope you get my point....
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I'm finding UKB to be a surprisingly useful and educational forum!
It has the advantage of involving people from a broad spectrum of backgrounds.
I agree, your contributions are valued Toby. Always useful to keep the spectrum as broad as possible. Researching these things on the internet presents a mass of information where its all too easy to just reinforce your own hunches.
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it would be a helpful change if the public learnt more about risk also, and realised that it is implicit everywhere, even in the underlying mechanism of ordinary bank accounts.
:agree: any links on how it relates to 'ordinary bank accounts' please?
A more general blog on risk is Understanding Uncertainty (http://understandinguncertainty.org/) by David Speigelhalter (with some guest posts).
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On the subject of disparity...
I try to think of it like this:
Generally, I think someone who spends X^n on a flash sports car, is a moron.
When my family car at a fraction of the cost, does the same job.
As long as I can service my personal needs, the moron can do as he pleases; up to the point where he impacts on my needs.
Then, I try to remember; there are plenty who would view my spending of X hundred pounds on a mat/Anazais, as equally pointless...
Clearly, a simplified version of what passes through my mind but, the essence.
"Trickle down" clearly does happen, or no one would have a job or eat...
I said it before, elsewhere on the forum; when the rich buy luxury goods, they pay a premium and thousands benefit down the chain. The goods retain some value, the worlds economy grows by that value.
We would be in trouble if the rich stopped spending money (corporation or individual).
That seems unlikely...
Is it fair?
No.
But ask yourself, what do I really need/want?
Do I really care that some woman has paid a six or seven figure sum for a lump of Carbon (aka Diamond) on a metal chain (aka Gold). Because the critical point is, she has spent the money! Almost certainly, vastly more than it cost to produce and that will be spread out to thousands.
Incidentally, the bulk of the Diamond mining industry, is dedicated to industrial application; not gem stone production. That is almost a by-product.
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Unfortunately small teams of people can make very large profits for their employers in finance - it's the nature of the business. Those profits can and will be used to reinforce bank capital to improve bank solvency, which is in everyone's interests. So it is rational for the people generating those profits to get a reasonable cut, especially if they could easily walk off to do the same thing somewhere else.
The counter-argument to this being that those small teams may be taking too much risk in generating those profits. But that's a very complex discussion. I am in favour of initiatives like the Volcker rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcker_Rule) to ban deposit-taking banks from highly-speculative trading, but it would be a helpful change if the public learnt more about risk also, and realised that it is implicit everywhere, even in the underlying mechanism of ordinary bank accounts.
It would also help if the commodities in question were more strictly attached to tangible assets...
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...but it would be a helpful change if the public learnt more about risk also, and realised that it is implicit everywhere, even in the underlying mechanism of ordinary bank accounts.
What would be even better is if the people taking the risks understood them! Or could it be that they did/do but given that there is so much to be made and the cobsequences of risk going bad mostly fall on other people's heads...
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We would be in trouble if the rich stopped spending money (corporation or individual).
That seems unlikely...
Part of the problem is that the rich DON'T spend that much, other than buying assets (hence creating asset bubbles). You give a million pounds to a millionaire, he'll most likely put it in some sort of account or buy some sort of financial product. Give that million to a thousand people living hand to mouth and they will spend it all. The multiplier effect is much greater in the latter case.
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What would be even better is if the people taking the risks understood them! Or could it be that they did/do but given that there is so much to be made and the cobsequences of risk going bad mostly fall on other people's heads...
I saw you sneaking another bird reference in there.
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Toby - thanks for rejoining the discussion. I might have been a bit heavy handed in my reply about CEO pay. Here's a more nuanced (and massive) response...
Interesting about Japan. I understand the rationality behind the argument that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. It seems this simple aphorism applies in Japan, but I'd argue it certainly doesn't in the UK.
The relationship between paying more, and getting better CEOs must break down at some point. For a start, there's a limit to how much profit even the best CEOs can make for their firms. Also, it assumes that there's a very restricted supply of people talented enough to run a large firm. I've yet to see convincing evidence that this is the case. As David Mitchell so eloquently puts in in this week's column, if top bankers (for example) are so hard to come by that we have to pay them millions, how come Bob Diamond is prepared to sack them for being rude to their PAs?
It is in shareholders' interests to pay CEOs enough to improve performance but not more than that. I think there's plenty of evidence that CEO pay in the US and UK has got way past that point. Firstly, CEO pay has exploded in the last 30 years. Not just in relation to the median wage, but CEO pay has also far outpaced the growth of their companies. Richard Lambert (ex-DG of the CBI) says this is the first time in history people have become seriously rich as mere officers of their companies rather than risking any money of their own. Secondly, there's the link that I posted earlier (together with many similar studies) that shows that future company performance is lower in companies that pay CEOs more. Surely that alone shows that high pay for CEOs has become counter-productive? Perhaps we have created a cult of the omnipotent CEO, ego stoked by his enormous pay package, who tanks his company with his misguided ideas?
This begs two questions - if CEO pay has become too high, why aren't shareholders reigning it in, and is it anyone's business but the shareholders?
Dealing with the first point - I don't know what it's like in other countries but there are several problems with corporate governance in the UK that even I can think of (and I admit, I'm basically a GCSE level economist). First, there's the fact that executive pay is set by renumeration committees who can, but do not have to, take the results of shareholder votes into account. According to Radio 4's today programme (sorry, no link - I can't remember when) there have been examples of committees ignoring shareholder votes entirely. But surely this is rare, and the committees will mostly respect it, if the shareholders decide to curb executive pay in the light of poor performance?
Well, maybe. But most large shareholders are institutional, and hold large portfolios in many different companies. And almost all shareholder AGMs take place at the same time of year, in the space of a few weeks, don't they? So it's not as easy as it should be for shareholders to actually take a hands-on approach to the day-to-day running of the firms they own. Lastly, the FTSE is often criticised because the firms listed only have a small share of tradable shares. This means the power of activist shareholders is severely limited.
So shareholders might not be as effective in governing their firms as you imply. But is it anyone else's business? Surely it's purely up to shareholders how a company is run? I admit, I have some sympathy with this idea. But the way companies are run have a profound effect on the societies they operate in. High pay for CEOs is a wren's-shit in the ocean in economic terms, but it has a corrosive effect on society, as well we see now. So society has a stake in how companies behave too.
This is why every country has corporate governance laws, and the UKs are amongst the slackest in the world. As well as allowing exploding CEO pay, they've allowed a culture change in which takeovers, deals, financial engineering and wild short-termism has become the order of the day.
City minister Lord Myners recently said that it is easier to buy a British company than one registered anywhere else in the world. British share ownership carries no legal or cultural responsibilities. Companies have no powers to require their owners to engage with them, to be "good" owners or share in strategic choices. Shareholders only have rights – to buy and sell when they choose, to vote at annual general meetings and receive dividends. - Will Hutton
Why not change our corporate governance laws to add ownership responsibility to shareholders, and to make it simpler for them to fulfil their responsibility. That would, in my mind, be a big step forward to the kind of situation you describe, where shareholders take an active role in the running of their companies.
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I read this interesting article in the Grauniad a couple of weekend ago that suggests resource consumption in the UK peaked in 2001 and that several factors are contributing to a more efficient use of our resources. Article here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/31/consumption-of-goods-falling)
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We would be in trouble if the rich stopped spending money (corporation or individual).
That seems unlikely...
Part of the problem is that the rich DON'T spend that much, other than buying assets (hence creating asset bubbles). You give a million pounds to a millionaire, he'll most likely put it in some sort of account or buy some sort of financial product. Give that million to a thousand people living hand to mouth and they will spend it all. The multiplier effect is much greater in the latter case.
Actually, I can attest, they often spend vast amounts; on very little.
I take you back to my point in the other thread about the person who spends €45M on a yacht. There will be a hefty premium on that and that money has been spent (you could say the asset now exists twice, once as a thing and once as the distributed cash). Even better, if the buyer has taken finance for the purchase, as he will also pay a premium on that product (yep, he bought a financial product and that means someone else made money out of him).
I have to stop here, if you follow the logic too far your mind will shut down.
Secondly, putting money in an account is buying a product. Someone (no, several someones), down the chain is making money from them.
The problem is viewing the "economy" as a finite pot, to be shared out. It is not.
The resources that you view the economy to be based on are finite. They are merely the current basis, they have been different in the past and I would/have argue(d) that they will change over time; they do not make the economy finite.
To the asset bubble argument.
Tulips were once extremely valuable, they are not anymore. Quite probably, someone got stuck with a vast amount of those assets on the day (metaphorically speaking), the soil dropped out of the tub...
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If CEOs / corporate governance were so great (and therefore worth rewarding) why are there so many poor business decisions made and corrupt practices? Also, how can it be that the basis of a free market is that success / efficiency is rewarded yet at the same time, those who apparently live by these rules, have things set such that regardless of how spectacular and huge their failures they're still guaranteed to walk away with millions?
Getting back to the OP, nobody has yet been able to explain why there's such non-stop parroting about the 'need' for growth from politicians etc?
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I am curious, why?
Not wanting to put words into fried's mouth, but perhaps the corrections were being almost as pedantic as I can be.
They weren't that bad :smart:
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Actually I think the UK has some of the best corporate governance in the world. But the hurdle is low.
The difference here may be a result of my small umwelt - I'd say our ownership rules are much slacker than most developed world countries. Would you agree with that?
I am not sure how that can be solved except through even more intervention in stockmarkets by private equity investors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity) who unhelpfully rank above Satan in Grauniad-reader demonology ...
Couldn't it be solved by, for example, giving shareholders legal responsibility for the actions of the company. i.e moving to a model of capitalism where being a shareholder requires engagement with corporate governance?
TBH I agree with almost everything else you have written apart from:
High pay for CEOs is a wren's-shit in the ocean in economic terms, but it has a corrosive effect on society, as well we see now. So society has a stake in how companies behave too.
which is surely an ideological assumption not a truth?
You're right, both statements in there are ideological. I'd have thought the first was moderately uncontroversial? Even if the emergence of an über-wealthy CEO-class is beneficial for society as a whole, it's hard to argue it doesn't breed resentment. The latter statement is a :worms:
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Stu, you're like a really clever friend who makes me feel just a tiny bit stupid. I love the way I have to look up words that you use. You are responsible for expanding my vocabulary - thank you :hug:
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Erm. Thanks.
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In their defence, most people don't (and won't, no matter how you try), have anything other than the most cursory knowledge of these things. They were bombarded with TV and news paper pundits, telling them how great these accounts were.
The subject is too complex (in the true sense of complex), full of emergent behaviour and shrouded in jargon, for the majority.
I've learned a lot from this thread...
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Cheers, will work my way through that in due course.
Personally I was surprised when I moved to Australia that fees were standard there and almost everywhere else in the world, and that it was the UK that was the exception to the rule. The way I had previously envisaged it was that I was giving them my money to look after, and being they employed "savvy" ( :lol: ) financial investors that they would invest some of that and turn some profit off of the money myself and others had entrusted to them. In return for, in essence having lent them some money to speculate with, they pay a bit of the profit they made back in interest kind of like paying interest on loans that they give out to people. At the same time they'd be making money off of the loans that they gave to people with interest rates slightly higher than the rates they pay to people's savings.
Apart from being a little naive on this front (I've no great desire to accumulate wealth so investing/finance/etc. has never really been of any great interest) it seems I was grossly disillusioned to think that banks and those they employ have a clue as to how to invest wisely (although I have always recognised that speculation is exactly that and money invested has the potential to be lost, but expected that long-term the investments the banks made would return some profit :slap: ).
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But ... if the US is so unpleasant because of its high inequality, how come so many relatively-poor voters back the Republicans, who currently have policies favouring increasing inequality? I am puzzled by that.
That's a simple one. They are fucking stupid. It's only exactly the same as relatively poor people voting Tory here. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is guaranteed to make their life worse but they do it anyway because The Sun told them to.
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Maybe not all of the poor people vote for Republicans or anyone else?
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No I'm not saying that it's the same as in both are influenced by the media to the same extent. Just that both make as little sense and are down to a lack of intelligence / education / information.
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Isn't it christianity and xenophobia in the states that's driving people to vote for the Republicans, rather than economic policies?
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... yet ultra-right wackjobs like the Tea Party are a recent phenomena?
As things get worse, the more extreme views come to the fore. Of course for many it's easier to blame a black president, immigrants and "big government" for the problems caused primarily by the previous administration, a lack of regulation where it mattered and lots of other hard to define or "shout and wave misspelled placards about" things. Even if the economy was peachy these people would hold the same views. The poor state of things just gives them more of a stage to expound them unfortunately.
As for the Murdoch point it's plain that he has had far more sway over the UK than the US. Fox News preaches madness to the converted whereas in this country, his support or not of whichever political party has directly affected who has been in power for decades.
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you'd think the shrinkage of radio and tv audiences by the internet would lessen not increase the power of established media
As I said on the previous page, the problem with getting your news/ info via the internet is you become the editor of your own newspaper. More than ever, you read what you want to read and disregard the rest. Not only does more choice only makes you more selective, its easier to write off stuff on the net as written by wackjobs.
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I think Toby's right about the politics in the US. "Freedom" as an unmitigated good is at the core of the US identity; I think the hard right fare so well because theirs is the politics of freedom, and every US child has been taught that freedom is what makes their country great. The fact that Fox agitates for the right so aggressively definitely helps, but it's leading people where they want to go anyway.
In this country things are different because we don't start from that cultural base, but also because the Murdoch press has been less ideological, willing to switch support from one party to another. Interesting to think which is cause, and which is effect...
Thanks for that link, Toby - that's my productivity for today shot. About the banks - this link seems to suggest that your 'typical' bank balance sheet superficially looks pretty different to your breakdown,
http://www.cssf.lu/en/statistics/banks/annual-stats/ (http://www.cssf.lu/en/statistics/banks/annual-stats/)
The biggest single item on their asset lists are loans to other credit institutions (mostly other banks?). This makes it really hard to say what kind of lending a bank is actually involved in, doesn't it? Which, I guess, is what caused the panic when assets started turning bad... It may well be when you trace it all back the breakdown is similar to what you posted, but it hardly matters if investors can't work that out.
BTW, I think all of your criticisms to my idea of shareholder responsibility are true. Increased responsibility will increase the burden of ownership, and reduce liberty. I don't think these are necessarily bad things. To trivialise the argument, we expect the ownership of a dog to require some commitment from the owner, but not ownership of a company. Just as the dog's well being matters to more than the owner, so the company's well being matters to more than it's owners - the employees, the host country, trading partners all have a justified interest. Why not expect more of people who wish to own firms?
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As I said on the previous page, the problem with getting your news/ info via the internet is you become the editor of your own newspaper. More than ever, you read what you want to read and disregard the rest. Not only does more choice only makes you more selective, its easier to write off stuff on the net as written by wackjobs.
What a load of nonsense! :P
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I missed that about bank balance sheets.
I may be wrong but I don't think that 70% of UK bank assets are mortgages. Otherwise why the fear of total meltdown because of the amount of Greek debt (and more importantly the related CDS etc) held by UK banks?
As I've said before the previous financial crisis was not caused by loads of UK mortgage holders defaulting on their Northern Rock 125% mortgages. At all.
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Yeah, but shark lets his dog run off the catwalk.
I did look at Barclay's 2009 balance sheet but couldn't understand it! The biggest items in the assets are loans to customers (£420,224) and derivatives (£416,815), followed by 'trading portfolio assets' (£151,395), whatever they are. Will the derivatives be mostly mortgage-based things, or a more complex mix of insurances, metal futures, etc?
http://www.barclaysannualreport.com/ar2009/index.asp?pageid=127 (http://www.barclaysannualreport.com/ar2009/index.asp?pageid=127)
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We've come to believe that it's inevitable that each generation will have a higher standard of living than it's predecessor, and this IMO is going to be the case on a global scale.
However on a more selfish Western European scale it is higher improbable to be so. In the west we have a very limited idea of what poor is. Personal debt was encouraged, now it appears as if it's the fault of those who were gullible enough to buy all the bright, shiny objects that were flashed before their eyes.
I'm genuinely worried that poverty (or what passes for poverty) leads to people being easily manipulated and when people are scared they move to the right. Or more likely we see the side of the silent majority whose views are easily found in any office ,pub or factory.
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you'd think the shrinkage of radio and tv audiences by the internet would lessen not increase the power of established media
As I said on the previous page, the problem with getting your news/ info via the internet is you become the editor of your own newspaper. More than ever, you read what you want to read and disregard the rest. Not only does more choice only makes you more selective, its easier to write off stuff on the net as written by wackjobs.
On reflection, yes, good point.
Even more so given the pernicious consequences of the filter bubble (http://blog.ted.com/2011/05/02/beware-online-filter-bubbles-eli-pariser-on-ted-com/).
EDIT : Incidentally I just came across this quote...
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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I'm selecting banks at random here toby - how many internet searches should I have to do to find one which is typical?
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The recession is actually the cure to the disease that is a bubble economy. The fact that we have a central bank that is continuously wrong and has been since the dawn of its arrival is the problem.
The artificial interest rates that were too low prevented a big recession in 2000 and instead of letting people go bankrupt and capitalism to work, mal investment went into housing creating the housing bubble.
People did predict the crash and those people can also see that the artificially low interest rates prevented a huge collapse in 2008. Instead the money has went into the bond market, and that is where the next bubble is - thats the next crash and this time, it wont be a housing crisis, it will be a currency one.
How do politicians in a country with fiat currency (UK/US/ EU) keep a straight face when they preach the keynesian economic line of "too big to fail" and the fact that we need to "spend" and "borrow" our way out of the problem, when thats what got us into this credit problem.
People need to read some Austrian Economics and look at that school of thought, search for it on youtube and you will get a whole host of economic investors who have predicted the crashes.
The truth of the matter is, interest rates HAVE to rise. When they do, all of the banks bailed out will collapse again, the price of commodities will increase and our standard of living HAS to go down.
A few things people say, look at Japan? they had a deflationary cycle - We wont be so lucky, remember, Japan is a creditor nation and has an economy based on strong savings and productions (which they export)
What we will face will be inflationary, if you look at currencies compared to monetary metals you will see gold at $1700 an ounce, this is not the gold price going UP, its the fact that the US dollar is going down. Compare it to the UK pound and Euro and you will see equally shite results. When the BOE introduces a nice QE its devaluing our currency and this is the problem.
Look at oil as an example, if you look at oil prices since the 50's it has not changed. It has not changed if your buying the oil in gold. It has went up massively if you buy it in pounds because the printing of money has devalued our purchasing power so much.
Austrian Economics is our only hope, I have money in gold and silver (which is 70% off its peak)
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also, going back to GDP and CPI's. I wouldn't trust the governments figures.
The CPI does not include food or energy, or any commodity that would show the real inflation.
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It's true that the previous UK government dicked about with inflation measures and targets (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches/2004/speech211.pdf) (arguably to hinder the Bank of England from stopping the housing boom before the 2005 election) however you're wrong on food and energy within CPI. See, for example, page 5 in here (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/elmr/economic-and-labour-market-review/no--4--april-2009/cpi-and-rpi--the-2009-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf).
While its true that cpi doesn't include the housing costs this isn't the main reason for the difference between cpi and rpi which is caused by the fact that cpi uses the geometric mean while rpi uses the arithmetic mean. One argument for the geometric mean is that it better reflects consumer behavior when prices increase (replacing expensive items with cheaper) and it is used in most developed countries as the prefered way measure inflation. A quick search on the internet will show that this is not without controversy.
Strangely this detail is never mentioned when cpi / rpi is discussed on the news :-\
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also, going back to GDP and CPI's. I wouldn't trust the governments figures .... the CPI does not include food or energy, or any commodity that would show the real inflation.
It's true that the previous UK government dicked about with inflation measures and targets (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches/2004/speech211.pdf) (arguably to hinder the Bank of England from stopping the housing boom before the 2005 election) however you're wrong on food and energy within CPI. See, for example, page 5 in here (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/elmr/economic-and-labour-market-review/no--4--april-2009/cpi-and-rpi--the-2009-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf).
Doesn't matter who is in power, the government will always cook the books.
If brown knew anything about economics he wouldn't have sold 200 billion £ worth of gold when it was £200 an ounce, AND announce when he was going to do it. (its now closer to £1500.) We would be better off without a central bank artificially lowering interest rates and causing the mal investments that lead to the bubble economy we still live in.
We actually need to reward savings and investment in our currency, the only way out of this is to manufacture and export our way out of it, and to stop printing money to pay for the spending. If standards of living have to drop, then so be it. If wages have to drop, then so be it. If we stopped over regulating and making it so expensive to employ people then we might have a chance.
If we cut spending, we could eventually cut taxes bringing trade back. We are a long long way from doing what is right, we have to suffer another big correction before the politicians actually do what is right. The next recession should be embraced because it means we might actually change our philosophy of economics and the role of government.
Look at the morons at the BOE today, more QE? Whilst that is good for me as gold and silver will rocket in price, its bad for the country as our currency will be attacked again. Unlucky if you have savings or bonds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/21/bank-of-england-more-quantitative-easing (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/21/bank-of-england-more-quantitative-easing)
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Philo, read some Galbraith. I don't agree with everything, but his policies worked and lead to a period of stability and growth for the US, unmatched before or since.
Surprisingly left leaning in its central control and a disdain for monetary policy, as well as fairly politically neutral.
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Oh yes, and too strong a currency is detrimental to exports...
Most manufacturers have been praying for the Euro/Sterling to weaken.
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Its not just our central bank that is creating inflation, look at how china had to do QE to stop its currency from rising. Sooner or later they will realise that they will never get their trillions back. When china allows its currency to rise, then the 1 billion people can actually afford some of the goods they export. they can consume them for themselves.
Look we have a massive trade deficit with debt fuelled spending economy, we simply cannot go on with this. If we continue to debase our currency then we will never get out of this economic problem.
The debt is the problem and low interest rates allow people to borrow and spend more adding to the problem. Interest rates have to rise, if the free market did it then we would recover much quicker but like I said before, we had a choice before to let free market capitalism work freely without intervention and adjust interest rates accordingly, but soon we wont have that choice. Is it so hard to think interest rates could be 10%? what about 20%?
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By the way, that Author you told me to read served under Roosevelt who made the severe recession a depression by government intervention.
The stimulus did not end the depression, it prolonged the recession, just like the situation we are now in. Obama is the Roosevelt of our time.
So what got us out of a depression? After the war, Capitalism did. If the government stays out, we would never have the bubbles that are the cause. Go read some Austrian Economics
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What do you suggest we manufacture and export Philo? Do you really believe we can compete with the East in any manufacturing? That wages could be dropped to levels and raw materials imported at rates that would make the UK competitive?
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we are taxed too much and regulated too much. Look at the average age of farmers, Japan, 65, USA 55 same with the UK (data from the last few years)
We make cars, but instead of selling them to the UK USA or EU that cant afford to buy cars, remember we have bought too many cars. We can export them to the developing nations.
If you look back to the industrial revolution in the USA, Ford paid the most to its workers and sold the cars cheaper than anyone else. Its not until government get involved and bring in regulations and taxes that problems start.
Everything the government gets involved in, the price goes up.
Education, Health, transport, oil prices, now banking....
Compare it to parts of the economy that actually operate under free market conditions. The price of mobile phones, does that go up each year? Laptops is another example, supply and demand. Imagine the cost of mobile phones if in the mid 90s or early 2000s if the government said "ok everyone needs a mobile phone, we will make it the law".....
Our standard of living HAS to go down, we have priced ourselves out of the market and the government subsidising the losses and propping things up only adds fuel to the fire.
The UK is finished, we have no real wealth anymore. North sea oil wont keep us up forever, we need to look at the kind of manufacturing jobs that made great britian great in the first place. As i said above, we wont be making things to consume, we cant afford to consume the products any more. Agriculture is another area that will boom when the next economic downturn comes
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Your technological examples are flawed due to improvements in technology makig these products cheaper to manufacture each year. Do the costs of these products go up each year in real terms vs. manufacturing costs? I'd hazard a guess at yes.
When was Britain great? What particular period are you talking about? The industrial revolution when the UK had an empire to draw resources from and a downtrodden working class to work in t'mills and t'pits?
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I'm not overly familiar with what your talking about philo, but you're wrong to think that the cost of "Health" is higher with governmental involvement than private/free market.
Taking the US as prima facie for free market healthcare the cost per capita is highest, yet life expectancies are lower compared to other countries where the overall cost is lower and a greater burden of the expense is covered by the government. See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system#Cross-country_comparisons) for an overview, there are quite a few books/scholary articles out there on this with greater detail.
Of course the US system is massively inflated with unnecessary tests and drugs being prescribed, but thats a direct consequence of the free market in the area as "insurance companies will pay so lets do all the tests/drugs we can".
How are you quantifying "standard of living" is it life expectancy, median wealth, proportion of population with computers/tv, proportion of population living below a perceived poverty line, or perhaps what is in my opinion the most important thing which is each individuals perceived quality of life.
The UK has one brilliant asset it can exploit, its excellent academic/scientific/research output which is indeed world class and disproportional to its size/population. The translation of this primary research into day-to-day useable 'things' (purposefully vague as there is such a wide area) is the countries greatest potential 'export' (again purposefully vague, its also possible to 'export' the educational system that underpins this by offering training to overseas students/researchers).
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Some unrelated points. I deal with quite a few small manufacturing companies which are doing really well, particualrly in the special steels industry which despite reports still exists in Sheffield. I find it quite irritating when people who don't see stuff first hand go on about the UK being "finished" and there being no industry left. It's simply not true.
Germany has higher taxes and more bureaucracy than the UK (I deal with clients there) and yet their manufacturing industry is thriving and driving the economy forward through the small and medium size firms whcih are run sensibly for long term stability rather than short term profit. This is because they are mostly "family owned" so their survival doesn't depend on what their share price does from one week to the next.
This idea that the untethered free market can solve all ills is total bollocks of the highest order I'm afraid.
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Yeah but look at how Medicare and Medicaid are government entities and because you have government guaranteed healthcare in the US it drives the prices up. Obamacare is even worse.
Im not involved in the health service and have not looked into it in detail, but the principle of free healthcare and the "right" to a service is wrong. We simply cannot afford it any longer. We are broke. You could argue that we could cut on defence spending and the pointless wars in Iraq/Afghan and the next one that looks to be either Pakistan or Iran, and put that money aside for healthcare then it might be more reasonable.
The politicians aren't even subject to the public health service, same with their pension schemes too.
Which makes me think, the politicians and the BOE/ECB/IMF/FED any politician are not smart enough to "fix" the economy. If George Osborne was so successful at managing businesses in the private sector he would be a billionaire. We need to listen to people who are actually right about what has happened and look at how we can restructure and live within our means.
Socialism is a nice idea but it doesn't work. Yes drug and insurance companies lobby to get the special benefits but its the direct involvement that pushes costs up.
Look at education, if the government didn't back all of the student loans, would private lenders allow students to rack up 20k of debt at 0.5% interest doing a pointless degree for a job that doesn't exist?
If there were no student loans then uni's would be forced to cut the prices of education as people would not be able to pay it and the competition would drive prices down.
The technology example: of course the cost goes up in comparison to the manufacturing costs but it depends what you buy and produce it in. The products get cheaper because capitalism is allowed to work. Supply and demand, if someone wants a product or service then investments will go into that sector from private funding. Its the goal to be profitable that drives the market.
Remember, governments cannot create jobs or wealth, they can only take it from the private sector through taxes and inflate the currency through the bank of England QE.
The government can only create work, not productivity. Look at the soviet system, everyone had a job but they couldn't buy anything with their wages and that is the direction we are heading.
You should all watch this:
http://youtu.be/EgMclXX5msc (http://youtu.be/EgMclXX5msc)
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Some unrelated points. I deal with quite a few small manufacturing companies which are doing really well, particualrly in the special steels industry which despite reports still exists in Sheffield. I find it quite irritating when people who don't see stuff first hand go on about the UK being "finished" and there being no industry left. It's simply not true.
Germany has higher taxes and more bureaucracy than the UK (I deal with clients there) and yet their manufacturing industry is thriving and driving the economy forward through the small and medium size firms whcih are run sensibly for long term stability rather than short term profit. This is because they are mostly "family owned" so their survival doesn't depend on what their share price does from one week to the next.
This idea that the untethered free market can solve all ills is total bollocks of the highest order I'm afraid.
ask them how much government regulations and the taxation scheme has hindered their growth. I agree that we do have SOME manufacturing, but when we have massive trade deficits then you must surely see that its unsustainable? How can we grow when we consume more than we produce.
EDIT: or do they get any govt subsidies?
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I'm their accountant so I already know how taxation and most regulations affect them as it's my job to make sure it's as little as possible. I can honestly say that taxation has had zero effect on growth in any succesful business I've seen. If it's handled correctly then it shouldn't (and I don't mean not paying any).
What hinders the growth of most SMEs is not excessive taxation or "red tape", it's banks being fucking cunts about lending to perfectly viable businesses.
No, none receive any subsidies.
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Philo are you saying people shouldn't have the right to healthcare? really?
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What hinders the growth of most SMEs is not excessive taxation or "red tape", it's banks being fucking cunts about lending to perfectly viable businesses.
No, none receive any subsidies.
fair enough, but again i think it is because the bailouts and free money given out by the bank of England with interest rates so low. Why would you lend to someone with risk when you can lend to the government. When interest rates rise all of the banks will fail again.
Stubbs:
Technically yes we have no RIGHT to someone else's service. You have a right to liberty and freedom and your life but that's about it. That's all the government should do, protect your liberty and freedom.
If we had competition in healthcare then the price would go down, eventually it will all collapse anyway so whether we have a right to healthcare or not does not matter because it will also go bankrupt. Its a nice idea but eventually we will run out of money to keep it running.
Let me ask, do you lot seriously think we have "recovered" economically?
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From what I've read, the US model for healthcare is hideously expensive, not very effective (with reference to health indicators) and really only benefits the healthcare providers...
The NHS has its issues, but I think the fact it costs a fraction of the cost of the US schemes and gets better results has got to be seen as a positive, irrespective of your political leaning (free market/vs government provided).
My opinion (not hugely well informed) is that Singapore has a fantastic health care model that is efficient, cheap and equitable. Source: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html)
The key points are:
- There are mandatory health savings accounts: “Individuals pre-save for medical expenses through mandatory deductions from their paychecks and employer contributions… Only approved categories of medical treatment can be paid for by deducting one’s Medisave account, for oneself, grandparents, parents, spouse or children: consultations with private practitioners for minor ailments must be paid from out-of-pocket cash…”
- “The private healthcare system competes with the public healthcare, which helps contain prices in both directions. Private medical insurance is also available.”
- Private healthcare providers are required to publish price lists to encourage comparison shopping.
- The government pays for “basic healthcare services… subject to tight expenditure control.” Bottom line: The government pays 80% of “basic public healthcare services.”
- Government plays a big role with contagious disease, and adds some paternalism on top: “Preventing diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tobacco-related illnesses by ensuring good health conditions takes a high priority.”
- The government provides optional low-cost catastrophic health insurance, plus a safety net “subject to stringent means-testing.”
- Almost all care is subject to significant co-pays.
The Singapore government spent only 1.3 percent of GDP on healthcare in 2002, whereas the combined public and private expenditure on healthcare amounted to a low 4.3 percent of GDP. By contrast, the United States spent 14.6 percent of its GDP on healthcare that year, up from 7 percent in 1970... Yet, indicators such as infant mortality rates or years of average healthy life expectancy are slightly more favourable in Singapore than in the United States... It is true that such indicators are also related to the overall living environment and not only to healthcare spending. Nonetheless, international experts rank Singapore's healthcare system among the most successful in the world in terms of cost-effectiveness and community health results.
Let me ask, do you lot seriously think we have "recovered" economically?
Well, I guess in a roundabout way that was part of what this whole question was about - in the West, what will "recovery" look like, will we ever return to "growth" and, most importantly, is GDP growth even desirable?
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Yeah but look at how Medicare and Medicaid are government entities and because you have government guaranteed healthcare in the US it drives the prices up. Obamacare is even worse.
Im not involved in the health service and have not looked into it in detail, but the principle of free healthcare and the "right" to a service is wrong. We simply cannot afford it any longer. We are broke.
Whats not mentioned in the table I linked is that Cuba, that socialist country which in theory shouldn't work, beats all those listed in terms of cost per capita and subsequent life-expectancies ($251/capita with life-expectancies at birth of 76/80 years for females/males respectively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Present)). Thats not to say there aren't other issues associated with their communism, but healthcare isn't one of them.
If healthcare is guaranteed in the US why is it only reserved for the poor who can't afford insurance? Why doesn't everyone stick two fingers up to the insurance companies and take the government guaranteed healthcare?
I'm not intricately familiar with the US system but would be very, very surprised if the governmental care provided to the poor is what pushes the cost up as it is done on a shoe-string budget, it won't be subsidised by the insurance companies. It really is unnecessary tests and drugs that have little effect which push the cost up (contrary to the Hippocratic Oath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath)), but if you can substantiate how Medicare (or whatever its called) pushes the cost per capita up I'm more than happy to eat humble pie.
I'm disappointed that anyone thinks "the principle of free healthcare and the 'right' to a service is wrong", it isn't in the slightest, its called altruism.
Its implementation may be being grossly mis-managed, but thats distinctly different from the principle that everyone has a basic right to life and assistance to sustain it when they require it.
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I'm their accountant so I already know how taxation and most regulations affect them as it's my job to make sure it's as little as possible. I can honestly say that taxation has had zero effect on growth in any succesful business I've seen. If it's handled correctly then it shouldn't (and I don't mean not paying any).
What hinders the growth of most SMEs is not excessive taxation or "red tape", it's banks being fucking cunts about lending to perfectly viable businesses.
No, none receive any subsidies.
Word ^
In reality, corporation tax will only have an effect on a business if it is very easy to move locations to avoid it. (i.e. the banks). Other businesses just go to where the skills and markets are and then hire expensive accountants to minimise their tax liabilities.
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Philo, are you suggesting our way out of the depression is exporting cars to developing countries. Why wouldn't it make more sense/profit to build them in developing countries?
Fultonius, have you been to Singapore? Its a big city crammed on a tiny island. That's it. Whilst I'm sure there is much to learn from their system, I can't help thinking there are many economies that can't be translated to, say, Iowa or the Highlands and Islands.
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Technically yes we have no RIGHT to someone else's service. You have a right to liberty and freedom and your life but that's about it. That's all the government should do, protect your liberty and freedom.
If we had competition in healthcare then the price would go down, eventually it will all collapse anyway so whether we have a right to healthcare or not does not matter because it will also go bankrupt. Its a nice idea but eventually we will run out of money to keep it running.
You are right in saying that there isn't sufficient money available to maintain giving everyone every single possible treatment, regardless of how much benefit it can provide, and indeed healtcare does ultimately boil down to putting a price on people's heads.
Its given the fancy name Quality Adjusted Live Years (QALYs) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year), because people have realised that its not how much longer you live, but the quality of life that individuals have relative to the cost of their treatment that is important. Its why NICE don't recommend treatment with cancer wonder drug X that meant that Susan beat cancer lived another four years, because the median survival time for people given the drug is only three months during which they're in terrible pain.
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Nope JB, I've not. And I do hear there are other issues in Singapore.
I just don't like the fact that the government seems keen to drift towards a "market driven healthcare system" without considering possible better alternatives.
I'm pretty sure the only reason the current government are moving that way is due to lobbying from "interest groups" who stand to make huge profits out of a market driven private healthcare system.
Can we not think differently for a change? What about some kind of health co-op? Something that runs like a business, but with strict rules for re-investment to prevent profit maximisation? Just chucking out ideas here!
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Can we not think differently for a change? What about some kind of health co-op? Something that runs like a business, but with strict rules for re-investment to prevent profit maximisation? Just chucking out ideas here!
Westfield Health (http://www.westfieldhealth.com/about/) a not-for-profit health insurer established in 1919 in Sheffield.
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You just have to look at the US off budget items like Medicare and Medicaid to realise that its a complete fuck up.
Look at the off budget spending (which includes Medicare and Medicaid)
If someone does not have medical insurance they are always charged the most in the US. Because they get the subsidies off the govt for that so they charge them as much as they can.
Yes people have a right to life and to live their lives as healthy as they can but they cannot have the right to someone else's service. be it medicine, education, wealth, land etc.
Remember, all great nations come to an end due to financial reasons. Every nation that has collapsed so far has moved from a gold standard.
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Philo, are you suggesting our way out of the depression is exporting cars to developing countries. Why wouldn't it make more sense/profit to build them in developing countries?
Fultonius, have you been to Singapore? Its a big city crammed on a tiny island. That's it. Whilst I'm sure there is much to learn from their system, I can't help thinking there are many economies that can't be translated to, say, Iowa or the Highlands and Islands.
The private sector creates jobs and wealth. The only way we can get out of this depression is to export goods to pay off the debt we owe. The other option is to default. Or we can default by inflation our currency like the soviet system and what happened in Argentina. The main point is, we cannot go on importing goods and paying for it with thin air from the printing press. No one will lend us any more money, and that is a good thing. I read a quote once that said something on the lines of "if your buying land, you had better be able to mine it or farm it - anything as long as your not planning to build a house on it"
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Medicare and Medicaid are the government spending money to support people who can't afford heath insurance, do you not think the problem there is the hospitals charging them as much as they can, rather then the government footing the bills?
So should people who can't afford to be treated in a hospital be left to suffer and die in your opinion?
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Look at what happened before the introduction to the systems in the US and the UK. people were always charged the least and there were actual charity hospitals that looked after people (i know shock horror.) They were of course priced out of the market when government came in and gave everyone free healthcare. I wonder, how much do taxes go towards the NHS? individually on average on a scale of 1:1. what does the average person pay towards the NHS in taxes to what they take out in medical bills.
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Philo, are you suggesting our way out of the depression is exporting cars to developing countries. Why wouldn't it make more sense/profit to build them in developing countries?
The car industry was just an example, you have to look at the raw materials and the cost of production. When it becomes cheap enough for the developing nations to ship the raw materials here and for the production to occur and export then yes it would be viable. Our standards of living have to go down, we cannot get around the problem - we have shot all of the bullets from the gun. We have no-one else to con with our debt fuelled finance spending scheme.
When no one else will lend us money, we will have the BOE buying up all of our treasuries just like what is happening in the US where the fed is doing just that. The IMF and ECB bailing out the EURO, the word ponzi scheme comes to mind.
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You just have to look at the US off budget items like Medicare and Medicaid to realise that its a complete fuck up.
Look at the off budget spending (which includes Medicare and Medicaid)
The axiom was 'substantiate', clicky-link please for me to go and read, this is after all the 'Internet'?
I've just quickly skimmed the intros to Medicare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)) and Medicaid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid) pages and would be very surprised if given treatment option A which costs $X and option B (which includes many other tests) and costs 10x $X there were any hospital or healthcare administrators who opted for option B given funds are limited. If its a case of privately run hospitals administering option B to get reimbursed by the government I'd be very surprised if such behaviour wasn't reigned in pretty quick smart by those footing the bill.
Regardless of these finer details, the fact remains, US healthcare is, per capita, more expensive than virtually every other (developed) country in the world, yet their life expectancies are in most instances lower. Is that really the sort of value that a free market healthcare system achieves and is desirable? I don't think so.
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I wonder, how much do taxes go towards the NHS? individually on average on a scale of 1:1. what does the average person pay towards the NHS in taxes to what they take out in medical bills.
I don't really care if I pay more in taxes towards the NHS than I take out in medical bills during my life time, it will be far less than if it were a health insurance company (who will often try and find clauses to avoid covering treatment)
Why?
Because at present its very reassuring to know that should I get injured or become ill that there is a system available that will look after me (to the best of its QALYs) without me or anyone else who will be worrying having to re-mortgage their house and get into horrendous debt to take care of me.
If you want to take out a private health-care insurance policy there is absolutely nothing stopping you, but that doesn't mean everyone else should have to.
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Here you go:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2528226.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2528226.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody)
theres a video too explaining things:
Why US Economy will Collapse - I.O.U.S.A. the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCgxDbOgqM#)
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If you want to take out a private health-care insurance policy there is absolutely nothing stopping you, but that doesn't mean everyone else should have to.
that would be all fine and dandy if we could also opt out of the public healthcare too.
Here is the off budget spending, sorry for the lack of clarity:
I highlighted some important ones
Public and government accounts
Detailed breakdown of government holders of treasury debt and debt instruments used of the public portion.
The total or gross national debt is the sum of the "debt held by the public" and "intragovernmental" debt. As of February 2011, the "debt held by the public" was $9.6 trillion and the "intragovernmental debt" was $4.6 trillion, for a total of $14.2 trillion.[14]
The national debt can also be classified into marketable or non-marketable securities. As of February 2011, total marketable securities were $9.0 trillion while the non-marketable securities were $5.2 trillion. Most of the marketable securities are Treasury notes, bills, and bonds held by investors and governments globally. The non-marketable securities are mainly the "government account series" owed to certain government trust funds such as the Social Security Trust Fund, which represented $2.5 trillion in 2010.[14][15] Other large intragovernmental holders include the Federal Housing Administration, the
Federal Savings and Loan Corporation's Resolution Fund and the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (Medicare).
OFF BUDGET
[edit]Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac obligations excluded
See also: Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Although not included in the debt figures reported by the government, the U.S. government has moved to more explicitly support the soundness of obligations of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, starting in July 2008 via the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, and the September 7, 2008 Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) conservatorship of both government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). The on- or off-balance sheet obligations of those two independent GSEs was just over $5 trillion at the time the conservatorship was put in place, consisting mainly of mortgage payment guarantees.[16] The extent to which the government will be required to pay these obligations depends on a variety of economic and housing market factors. The federal government provided over $110 billion to Fannie and Freddie by 2010.[17]
[edit]Guaranteed obligations excluded
See also: Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program and Exchange Stabilization Fund
U.S. federal government guarantees are not included in the public debt total, until such time as there is a call on the guarantees. For example, the U.S. federal government in late-2008 guaranteed large amounts of obligations of mutual funds, banks, and corporations under several programs designed to deal with the problems arising from the late-2000s financial crisis. The funding of direct investments made in response to the crisis, such as those made under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, are included in the debt.
[edit]Unfunded obligations excluded
The U.S. government is obligated under current law to mandatory payments for programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The GAO projects that payouts for these programs will significantly exceed tax revenues over the next 75 years. The Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) payouts already exceed program tax revenues, and social security payouts exceeded payroll taxes in fiscal 2010. These deficits require funding from other tax sources or borrowing.[18]
The present value of these deficits or unfunded obligations is an estimated $45.8 trillion. This is the amount that would have to be set aside during 2009 so that the principal and interest would pay for the unfunded obligations through 2084. Approximately $7.7 trillion relates to Social Security, while $38.2 trillion relates to Medicare and Medicaid. In other words, health care programs will require nearly five times the level of funding than Social Security. Adding this to the national debt and other federal obligations would bring total obligations to nearly $62 trillion.[19] However, these unfunded obligations are not counted in the national debt.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has indicated that: "Future growth in spending per beneficiary for Medicare and Medicaid — the federal government’s major health care programs — will be the most important determinant of long-term trends in federal spending. Changing those programs in ways that reduce the growth of costs — which will be difficult, in part because of the complexity of health policy choices — is ultimately the nation’s central long-term challenge in setting federal fiscal policy."[20]
Sourced from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt)
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I think what you're really saying is that the combination of a fully privatised health care service, combined with systems such as Medicare and Medicaid does not work.
I doubt you'll find many people to disagree.
What relevance does this have to the UK? If we privatise the NHS, how are we going to provide healthcare for those unable to pay for insurance (or with inadequate insurance) without a similarly flawed scheme as Medicare and Medicaid?
I can't quite see the link between the US having a completely unsustainable Medicare/Medicaid system and getting rid of the NHS?
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My point is that we do not have the right to medical care, we have to pay for it. I would argue that if we had more choice and competition within the health service, that would drive prices down and the quality up - not because of regulation but because who would pay to go to a hospital with high death rates etc etc?
Its because the government has killed competition by giving a NHS system that is in the long run destined to fail.
Politicians only think in 4 year cycles, and I bet 99% don't even use the NHS.
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Im posting far too much but why can't the UK look at systems that are working? Look at Europe, Iceland let banks fail and are in a better position for it.
Switzeland, Norway, these are the countries we should be following.
(none of which are part of the Euro or the political farce)
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Let's privatise everything while we're at it...
Schools, roads, defence, customs, police, social care, prisons, probation.. Fuck it, let's out source the whole civil service and while we're at it the Government too... They could be run by Camelot or Simon Cowell...
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You seem to be under the illusion that competition will lead to a cheaper better product across the board, this may be true for electronic devices, but you really need to look at how unworkable this would be for services such as healthcare. OK so the hospital in your city has a bad record, or is expensive, do you travel to the next city, or have several hospitals in the same city that would need to be expensive to have all the necessary equipment and staff, but have a smaller catchment?
As mentioned previously in this thread or the other one Iceland has a smaller population then Sheffield, so doesn't make for a great example.
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I would argue that if we had more choice and competition within the health service, that would drive prices down and the quality up - not because of regulation but because who would pay to go to a hospital with high death rates etc etc?
What, like has worked so well with the utility companies?
Amazing customer service, consumer choice, low prices?
Or do we just get profit maximisation and cartel price fixing?
Edited to say: Apologies for helping this thread to turn a bit bitchy! Cheers slackers and OMMat for bringing it back in line!
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Thanks for the links, I'll read in full later as I'm off to the Works, but in the sections you've pasted in I don't see anywhere that it states that those on Medicare/Medicaid will have the most expensive treatment because the gov't will foot the bill. The scale of the cost is likely down to the huge inequality in the US which means there are lots of poor people who can't afford health insurance and rely on Medicare/Medicaid.
I would argue that if we had more choice and competition within the health service, that would drive prices down and the quality up - not because of regulation but because who would pay to go to a hospital with high death rates etc etc?
Then you'd have to find some evidence to support that argument because most of it suggests it doesn't (http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=does+competition+improve+health+care+quality+quality+and+efficiency&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart) (e.g. Propper et al. (http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf) and Scanion et al. 2008 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2008.00899.x/abstract)).
And the notion of "people not wanting to go to hospitals with high death rates" hints at a mentality of ranking or leagues for performance with "best" and "worst" which I also think is completely misguided in the arena of healthcare, where the aim should be to standardise and ensure all perform to an equally high standard (Funnel plots are very useful in this regard for comparing institutional performance (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=funnel%20plots%20for%20institutional%20performance&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedicine.cf.ac.uk%2Fmedia%2Ffiler_public%2F2010%2F09%2F24%2Fspiegelhalter_stats_in_med_funnel_plots.pdf&ei=WW_zTtL1CIiY8gOzhO3BAQ&usg=AFQjCNFrlitMGYtMdAwSdCUapr_wDStPzQ&sig2=0AQthT7vAxDkpHEiJLn4AQ))
Of course we have to pay for health care and there are limited funds (hence the use of QALYs), but the solution isn't competition, the NHS is brilliant and does an exceptionally good job at a very competitive rate to ensure that everyone has access to the same treatments regardless of their background (you could if you had the funds do what Steve Jobs did and eschew conventional, proven treatments and pay for whatever you want, doesn't mean it would work).
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You know, I started to read this...
But, before I plough through it all.
Britain finished?
Really?
I've got small, high tech, manufacturing companies; cueing up to relocate from the Euro zone to the UK!
Our regime here is very conducive to their needs, our tax burden for corporations and individuals is one of the best there is.
I've seen plenty of industries here suffer through this period and plenty who are positively booming.
The economy is going through a correction and I'm pretty sure it will shift away from the real estate base it has at the moment. Not sure that it will shift from the financial bias, but I think it will change it's nature.
Finished?
I remember hearing that in the 70's (winter of discontent).
I remember hearing that in the 80's (miners strike, down turn in manufacturing).
And I'm not convinced the gov, past or present, bears the lions share of the blame for the current "crisis".
Our borrowing, as individuals, has been fairly responsible. There have not, for instance, been a huge number of repossessions (although I do agree that the prices are over inflated).
In the early 90s, more than half the houses on the new estate (where I had bought my first house) were repossessed! This resulted in a 60% drop in property values. When we sold the house in 2001, we had £2000 equity! After ten years!
I (along with most of those I know), disagreed with the bank bail out. Most of the deposits here were underwritten by the UK gov, anyway. It would have been cheaper on the tax payer (which included the depositors themselves) to bail out the investors...
I suspect, but cannot prove, it was fear of the market response to the bank failure, that drove the decisions during those days. Fear of the irrational response of those same markets, that you believe would be the answer to all problems.
I'm a committed capitalist, social responsibility is not the same thing as socialism. Our welfare state grew out of our industrial revolution. It was not created by the common man, but in large part by the industrialists themselves. The seeds sown, long before the labour gov of the 50s.
I've also had the displeasure of living in weakly governed states and autocratic states. Some of those states all but collapsed recently.
Galbraith, by the way, came to the fore during the second war; it would be hard to say he mishandled the US war time economy...
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At some point in the future we will have to rename the great depression of the 20/30s.
I am not optimistic about the growth of our economy, nor am I under any illusion that the politicians will do anything right. When I first started reading into it and researching how an economy grows and why it collapses it does provoke a lot of moral issues such as healthcare and the welfare state as a whole.
The point I am trying to make is that we cannot give false hopes and promises. We cannot pretend that we can afford a welfare state when the times are good to then keep it up when the bad times come by putting debt onto our children and children's children to save the face of what was once a good idea.
We cannot borrow and spend our way out of this mess and is it unrealistic to think that interest rates could rise to 10%? what about 20%? Think about how your life would be affected then. I'm no market trader or stock broker but I will go as far to say that I will protect my wealth by protecting myself from the coming inflation/hyper inflation that we are on the verge of entering - whether we collapse again in 2012 or 2013 is irrelevant.
Some small businesses are doing well OMM sure, but to have a huge trade deficit when we import and consume is no way a healthy economy and looks bleak for real economic growth.
I am also a firm believer of capitalism but you must realise that Galbraith and the Roosevelt era merely prolonged the problems with government stimulus.
From the fall of 2007-present, the bubble has moved from the housing market (which is still roughly 70% above what it should be) to the bond market and bond bubble. The only people who are going to make money from bonds are those who are shorting it to bank of England/ fed/ IMF or whoever is the last holder before it bursts.
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I actually agree with almost everything you say there*.
I just don't see how privatising the NHS is going to help in any way, shape or form. I think the healthcare and pensions should be completely funded by a central fund. This fund should not be "invested" or rely on growth. The true costs should be made public and be very transparent.
*not quite sure where you're going with the 10% or 20% interest thing. I also think we should move away from "benefits" and use that money for "services" (such as low cost child care to help young mothers back to work). But this is all getting waaaay :offtopic:.
As an aside - one thing that is commonly cited as en example of why private companies perform better than centrally run institutions is the drive to make profit. However, having worked for 5 years a fairly large engineering firm, I've found that managers who focus to closely on profit maximisation soon lose favour with employees and productivity wanes. Our meagre (~4%) "performance related bonuses" provide more stimulus than purely "improving profit". There's no reason why you can't incentivise excellent performance with a robust performance related pay/bonus system in a non-profit organisational. It's only really bean counters and CEO and investors that care about profit margin anyway.
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Philo, are you suggesting our way out of the depression is exporting cars to developing countries. Why wouldn't it make more sense/profit to build them in developing countries?
The car industry was just an example, you have to look at the raw materials and the cost of production.
Right, okay. I think it was a bad example. If export is as vital as you suggest, I think we should concentrate on exporting services and high-tech goods. I'm not at all convinced that making cars in the UK will become more viable due to a massive downwards quality of life adjustment. Where do you see that adjustment coming from? Our housing is excellent, our infrastructure is excellent. Or do you just mean removing welfare?
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I was looking at the picture on a whole, when you look at the economy you have to look at the whole standard of living and the promises we have made.
Throughout history interest rates have risen to pull in inflation.
We have had 13 weeks of "historic" low interest rates but the Bank of England should not be setting the rates at all!
You have to understand that the low interest rates are the cause to the problem. Having interest rates at 0% or 0.5% does not allow the free market to work and allows people to gamble without the risk and cause mal-investments.
Without the artificial low interest rates we would not have had a housing bubble from the dotcom bubble crash in the early 2000's. In a few years time we will be saying exactly the same thing about the bond bubble bursting.
The bubble we had from 2000-2007 was the problem, the solution is a recession. When governments step in and prop up the bubble and try to re-inflate it, they only kick the can down the road and prolong the recession hence making it a depression.
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Philo, are you suggesting our way out of the depression is exporting cars to developing countries. Why wouldn't it make more sense/profit to build them in developing countries?
The car industry was just an example, you have to look at the raw materials and the cost of production.
Right, okay. I think it was a bad example. If export is as vital as you suggest, I think we should concentrate on exporting services and high-tech goods. I'm not at all convinced that making cars in the UK will become more viable due to a massive downwards quality of life adjustment. Where do you see that adjustment coming from? Our housing is excellent, our infrastructure is excellent. Or do you just mean removing welfare?
house prices are still 70% above where they should be IMO and I guess time will tell if i'm correct with that. We have massive amounts of debt and still have massive trade deficit figures. We do have some innovative companies that produce and design high tech goods but we are still in a massive TRADE DEFICIT.
Eventually our creditors will right off the debt and allow their currencies to rise, they will stop propping us up. At that point the Bank of England will step in and start buying our treasuries. If they bought our long 30 year bonds then interest rates would rocket up. They can only buy the short term loans at 0% which will cause so much inflation the writing will be on the wall.
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After watching Frozen Planet I've been stockpiling baked beans and bogroll for a while now. Sounds like you lot are fucked, though.
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I agree about the impending bond bubble.
As JB says, we need to export goods and services that represent a comparative advantage over other countries. To be honest, I'm not sure what they are!
I don't think low interest rates are the problem, I think a debt based economy is destined to failure by it's nature. Especially so in a world of dwindling resources.
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After watching Frozen Planet I've been stockpiling baked beans and bogroll for a while now. Sounds like you lot are fucked, though.
Don't forget to equip your bunker with a pull up bar to pass the time ;)
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low interest rates allowed the government and the tax payers to borrow and spend our way into the debt crisis we have. It was the 0.5% interest rates that lead to people buying houses they could no way pay back when they reset or adjustment rate mortgages
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Philo, you're talking so much ill-informed contradictory nonsense that its hard to know where to start. One place might be this particularly meaningless nugget.
Every nation that has collapsed so far has moved from a gold standard.
Meaningless since, as the gold standard collapsed in the mid-30s, every nation, successful or otherwise, has moved off it. There is an extremely strong argument that it was adherence to the Gold Standard, rather than the New Deal, the prolonged the great depression. But perhaps you don't mean 'The' gold standard but just some unspecified gold standard. Who knows? I'm not convinced you do.
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It was the 0.5% interest rates that lead to people buying houses they could no way pay back when they reset or adjustment rate mortgages
Except interest rates didn't hit 0.5% until March 2009.
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The bubble we had from 2000-2007 was the problem, the solution is a recession. When governments step in and prop up the bubble and try to re-inflate it, they only kick the can down the road and prolong the recession hence making it a depression.
I suspect they are trying to gently deflate the bubble rather than burst it...
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It was the 0.5% interest rates that lead to people buying houses they could no way pay back when they reset or adjustment rate mortgages
There's been a lot written here about economics which I know little about (if I find the time over the festive period I'd be quite interested in reading through and learning something). However unless I'm completely wrong the low interest rates came after the property boom didn't it? Although the property price crash with predicted 20% adjustment hasn't happened, perhaps the 0.5% interest prevented a deep crash? But it certainly wasn't around when people were getting 125% mortgages in silly season.
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It was the 0.5% interest rates that lead to people buying houses they could no way pay back when they reset or adjustment rate mortgages
Except interest rates didn't hit 0.5% until March 2009.
was talking about the US, sorry they were 1% in 07 not 0.5% sorry!
I was also talking about the US. they came off it 1971. The gold standard.
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No, the US came off in 1934. The Gold Standard classically understood was then dead in the water to be replaced by the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank) from 1947. Anything post-war has been a gold standard only in a much looser sense. Still it continued to severely limit government room for manouevre and it would have been interesting to have seen the result if the US had not abandoned convertibility in 1971.
Some more economic history: Britain has run a negative balance of trade in manufactures since the last quarter of the nineteenth-century offset (massively for the most part) by a surplus on the balance of trade in services (not only financial services but also, for example returns on overseas investments, direct and indirect). Nonetheless, at the same time, Britain remains the seventh (or so) largest exporter of manufactures in the world and the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world (this fluctuates on the short run on relatively arbitrary factors such as exchange rates, exact measures etc.) The moral is that the economy is much more complex and subtle thing than you are painting it. At heart your arguments are flawed by extremely simplistic understanding of phenonema such as 'capitalism' and 'socialism'.
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You know P,if they do raise the interest rates; your gold is going to drop in value...
I agree on the gently deflate line too...
I remember the rate on my mortgage in 1990, at the time of collapse, was 17.5%. You couldn't get a 125% mrtg then and I was restricted to 4x my annual salary (net) and they refused to consider my wife's income at all.
I must have imagined that boom in post war America (and the UK, come to that).
Business is pretty good, again, in my industry. Not what it was in 2007, but growing rapidly.
Just spent a week with an ITALIAN company who have increased turnover by 125% on 2010. Up 300% on 2008. Funny, their workforce has increased by 100%, too...
Unemployment is up, here, but lower in percentage of population; than it was in the 80s. Leaving school in the 80s was scary...
If you want a case study of unbridled capitalism failing, ask Thesiger for some info on Dubai (and they are recovering).
Still not seeing how we are failing/Finished
Talk to someone who went through the collapse at the end of the 60s/early 70s. My old man was an Engineer who lost his job then and ended up as a Copper. Ask him about wages being cut in half...
I haven't seen this yet.
Again, the Gov did not create this crisis. If they bear any fault, it was the LACK of regulation, that allowed it to happen...
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Philo, you seem to be very enthusiastic about this subject. Others on this thread have been good enough to enlighten us about their backgrounds. Eg Oldmanmatt, thesiger, etc. Would you be willing to inform us of yours?
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Here you go:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2528226.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2528226.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody)
I'd suggest that the situation described is a direct consequence of having a free market healthcare and law/legislation that means that despite expecting the population to insure themselves still provides cover for those who don't.
Quite how this is an argument for privatisation I can't quite fathom out. :-\ :shrug:
I guess one option is to not provide it, but then you might get people robbing banks for $1 so they can get healthcare in prison (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/man-robs-bank-medical-care-jail-143625999.html) (note that he had previously been employed for 17years , the original write-up I read included more details, that during that time he had had insurance, but when he lost his job he couldn't afford it).
Further to the links I provided on research as to whether privatisation improves healthcare, you can work it out for yourself....
Privatise hospitals and who's going to own/run them?
Companies, and pretty big ones at that.
What do the majority of companies, particularly under a free-market that you are proposing, seek to do (ultimately)?
Maximise return on their investment.
How do they achieve this?
Its not through improving treatments/care which are invariably costly, instead its 'efficency savings' or cutting corners in common parlance, which ultimately is detrimental to those it is supposed to be helping.
I've picked up on one very specific thread of what you originally wrote for the simple reason that its one area that I do know something about. I don't disagree that there are problems, but your notion that privatising healthcare is sensible solution to reducing state costs is in my opinion wrong, and its wrong because not only will it lead to a deterioration in standards of care not an improvement as you think, it will mean that there are some people who are not treated as human beings simply because they don't have the cash to pay for it.
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Actually, you have a shinning example (?) of the health care issue, happening right here, right now.
Take a look at the problems with residential care for the elderly and disabled, which has been in private hands for sometime.
Do I need to provide links?
It has been reported on, at least weekly, for months now.
The problem, for me, is the notion that people are merely commodities, to be traded.
Insurance as the answer?
Ask someone who tried to claim against a PPI policy or against an income protection plan.
And in the end, we do pay insurance, it's called NI.
On that point does anyone know, if NI is ring fenced to welfare, and if it does cover the budget (or would if it was). I could accept, that we need to pay more NI and a small increase would surely increase the available budget dramatically.
We have the best part of three million unemployed.
There are 68 million (~) people in this country. How can 65 million people be bankrupted by supporting 3 million?
I know that is a highly simplified (to the point of facile) argument. But it is the core of the benefits/health care argument.
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On that point does anyone know, if NI is ring fenced to welfare
No it all goes in the same pot. This is why it would make more sense to scrap NI and simplify things by increasing the basic rate of tax etc. As it is, NI is a useful way for governments to disguise tax rises or make headline grabbing tax cuts while covering the cost with adjustments to NI.
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OMM went off half cocked this AM...
The UK population is just over 62M, not 68.
Still, my point stands.
Surely, ring fencing would be better? People would understand an NI rise, far better than a Tax rise.
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If people understood it then they wouldn't be able to hide stuff. What use would that be to politicians!?
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Philo....Others on this thread have been good enough to enlighten us about their backgrounds.....Would you be willing to inform us of yours?
I think it's Sloper in disguise.
The disguise being he's not being obnoxious. ;)
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Philo....Others on this thread have been good enough to enlighten us about their backgrounds.....Would you be willing to inform us of yours?
I think it's Sloper in disguise.
The disguise being he's not being obnoxious. ;)
Im really just a geek who reads too much. I studied economics in part at uni but did a lot of side reading outside of it looking at other schools of thought.
I love liberty and the free markets and I agree with the Austrian Economics.
Oh btw, Im a teacher and spend most of my spare time reading up on economics. Do not pay into a pension scheme, did not strike
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I agree with much of what you are saying Philo - that markets should be left to self stabilise (or perpetually shift between boom and bust at varying speeds) and that certain banks/countries should have been left to go bust/rebuild etc..
But I'd only if I'm playing a video game called 'World economics' and no-one is getting hurt... but thats not the case is it...
Economics makes some great models of how things work, but it is inept and flawed at accounting for people and peoples feelings. Theres nothing wrong with letting a bank go bust - or a country go to the wall - except for the people who lose all their money. Their jobs, their pensions, their savings, their houses. How do you put a cost on the suffering it would cause? How do you attach a £ to depression, hunger, detrimental health effects, increases in crime etc.. etc.. and what cost is the feeling of spending years wondering what is going to happen next?
You can not attach a cost to this.
There may well be economic reasons/viewpoints that differ to your opinions about why banks were bailed out, why the Euro is being propped up, why Greece is being sustained... but the real reason is social/political - that people will suffer - and all these measures are being taken to try and minimise pain and suffering to populations - who are usually voters too...
If life were sim city etc.. then you'd be right.. but it isnt..
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There may well be economic reasons/viewpoints that differ to your opinions about why banks were bailed out, why the Euro is being propped up, why Greece is being sustained... but the real reason is social/political - that people will suffer - and all these measures are being taken to try and minimise pain and suffering to populations - who are usually voters too...
If life were sim city etc.. then you'd be right.. but it isnt..
But propping it up and prolonging the recession is creating the largest economic crash that will happen regardless. I said before, they will have to rename the "great depression" of the late 20/30s.
All the bailouts are giving money to the very wealthy at the expense of the tax payer. The reason is political, buying votes. Unemployment is rising, inflation is rising, we have been like this since late 07. 4 years of decline, we are meant to be recovering.
Look at the recession of 1920/21 in the US. it was over in a year. When it happened again in the late 20s, the government stepped in and stimulated the economy and prolonged the problem. We call this the depression.
If they got out of the way and allowed the mal-investments to be lost in 2007/8 then we would have had a deeper recession. Would it be painful? of course it would be. But are we any better off than we were then?
What I hate most is when people say the government need to FIX the economy. Free people fix things not the governments, we will never be fixed until we have the correction that should have occurred.
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I love liberty and the free markets and I agree with the Austrian Economics.
Oh btw, Im a teacher and spend most of my spare time reading up on economics. Do not pay into a pension scheme, did not strike
What is this liberty you speak of, liberty to do what exactly?
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lib·er·ty/ˈlibərtē/
Noun:
The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life.
An instance of this; a right or privilege, esp. a statutory one.
Economic freedom:
"The free market viewpoint understands economic liberty as the freedom to produce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. This is embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative"
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Well that seems like a lovely idea, such a shame we don't live in a world where it can work.
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There may well be economic reasons/viewpoints that differ to your opinions about why banks were bailed out, why the Euro is being propped up, why Greece is being sustained... but the real reason is social/political - that people will suffer - and all these measures are being taken to try and minimise pain and suffering to populations - who are usually voters too...
If life were sim city etc.. then you'd be right.. but it isnt..
But propping it up and prolonging the recession is creating the largest economic crash that will happen regardless. I said before, they will have to rename the "great depression" of the late 20/30s.
All the bailouts are giving money to the very wealthy at the expense of the tax payer. The reason is political, buying votes. Unemployment is rising, inflation is rising, we have been like this since late 07. 4 years of decline, we are meant to be recovering.
Maybe it will Philo,
But changing things rapidly is dangerous.. There are lag times in economies, and peoples lives! Not everyone will or can up sticks and move somewhere for work for example.. It takes time.. Some people have events in their lives that mean they cannot change rapidly (children, illness, for example). While it may be seductively simple to let things crash then re-build, people don't work that way..
Political maybe, but politics does (in a sometimes twisted way) represent what people want - or they'd get voted out (hence the prevailing centralist govts in Europe)....
I'll throw this one at you. Two nations with very heavily regulated financial and domestic banking systems are doing pretty well at the moment.. Sweden and Austraila. Australia of course has loads of resources to sit back on but the global wave of financial uncertainty is but a ripple there...
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also take a look at chinas housing bubble in some of the large city's. it's all brilliant in the boom part of the bubble but the bust has to be hard. If it wasn't hard then what lessons do we teach people about risk and bad investment? Your right that people don't like change and might not like the way the change is going but medicine tastes bad but you must swallow it.
these artificial highs are like a heroin addict complaining about the withdrawals and getting another shot. The solution is to go cold turkey, it is the same for our economy. The central banks are just giving the economy another shot but we need to clean the system of all of the toxic assets. We are at risk of killing the economy with an overdose
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I would argue that if we had more choice and competition within the health service, that would drive prices down and the quality up - not because of regulation but because who would pay to go to a hospital with high death rates etc etc?
Then you'd have to find some evidence to support that argument because most of it suggests it doesn't (http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=does+competition+improve+health+care+quality+quality+and+efficiency&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart) (e.g. Propper et al. (http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf) and Scanion et al. 2008 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2008.00899.x/abstract)).
Clocked the following paper this morning which looks at healthcare in China, the title says it all with regards to the effect privatisation has (i.e. maximisation of profits) and reinforces the point I made that it results in over-prescription (although there is the caveat in this case of cultural bias)...
Reynolds L, McKee M (2011) Serve the people or close the sale? Profit-driven overuse of injections and infusions in China's market-based healthcare system The International Journal of Health Planning and Management 26: 449-470 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hpm.1112/abstract)
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The UK is finished, we have no real wealth anymore. North sea oil wont keep us up forever, we need to look at the kind of manufacturing jobs that made great britian great in the first place. As i said above, we wont be making things to consume, we cant afford to consume the products any more. Agriculture is another area that will boom when the next economic downturn comes
What made Britain 'great' was a huge amount of indigenous coal, plus rapacious imperialism. We no longer have the former (nor any analogue), the latter is not a realistic or desirable option today. Everyone one is on a grand race to the bottom in the hope of export led recovery. I don't think we even stand a chance of attaining the pyrrhic victory of winning this race.
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you are right about the race to the bottom. the US dollar will collapse first. The euro has meant people have temporarily stopped looking at the US debt crisis but that will be the first to go. We won't be far behind them, and the Euro will inevitably split into the north (germans maybe france and a couple others) and the PIGS will leave the euro. This could take a year or 5 but it will happen
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Still think privatisation of healthcare improves its standards as you were positing philo?
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public healthcare is a nice idea but we can't afford it. We should allow competition without subsidies, the privatisation of the healthcare system at the moment get the hand outs from government so what's the difference? I'd like a free market, no government involvement at all. Competition will drive higher standards
EDIT:
I have no problem with the government helping those who need it, but the young people should be allowed to opt out of paying taxes towards things like the military industrial complex, healthcare and welfare.
We could still allow some money for the elderly who depend on it etc if we cut the military spending and the wars. We could also cut the 45 million a day we send to Brussels each day which could help. Small government is the only solution, a recession is the markets answer to the bubble economy - we should embrace the recession as its the solution to the years of bad investments and borrowing too much as a result of artificially low interest rates.
Is it impossible to think that interest rates could go to 10%? 20%?
When the real economic collapse comes then it doesn't matter if your getting helicopter Merv to drop money out of a helicopter.
The fundamentals are wrong and a correction needs to occur.
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public healthcare is a nice idea but we can't afford it. We should allow competition without subsidies, the privatisation of the healthcare system at the moment get the hand outs from government so what's the difference? I'd like a free market, no government involvement at all. Competition will drive higher standards
Read the links I posted and other evidence based literature, such competition does not improve standards, rather it leads to over-prescribing, cutting corners (to maximise profits) and in turn lower standards of care (in part reflected in the life-expectancies cited earlier in the thread).
I wasn't particularly asking whether you thought it was sustainable or how it should be funded though. As with every aspect of large government bodies/companies there will be some wastage and some savings could be made, but a public healthcare system that provides the basic needs of a society can be funded publicly at higher standards than those provided privately.
I'd love to have a say in how my taxes are used but realistically thats not going to happen. If you can afford private healthcare then I doubt the burden of paying your tax is going to be much of an issue.
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I don't know how you can keep drumming that "free market efficiency" drum without ANY backup.
It's as if you just believe it to be true and therefore it is. As slackers has pointed out, all the evidence points to the opposite conclusion.
Have you ever properly worked in the private sector? In a world beyond idealistic economic models?
I've spent the last 5 years working offshore for an Oil and Gas services company (doing pipeline and rotating equipment vibration investigations - thankfully out of it now!)
In my experience, you would not believe the amount of waste that occurs in the "perfect free market economy". Things like turning up to a platform on the request of the client to look at a compressor. Turns out the compressor has been out of action for 2 weeks and will be for another 2. We can only do our survey with it online. So, the client still pays us our £50k or whatever as we've been out there and sat on our arse for a few days before getting sent home to go and do it again another day.
This is not an isolated incident, it happens all the time. Who pays for this? Not the producers....no....it's gets passed on to the consumer. You wonder why the oil price is so high? (Well, a large percentage is due to price fixing) but the baseline cost of production is rising, not falling.
Go and read The Undecover Economist and get some balance on the issue of public healthcare.
No one can disagree that privatising healthcare will, in the short term, reduce government spending. But it will, in the long term, lead to an increase in national spending on healthcare. Someone's got to pay for it, so it either gets paid through taxation, or directly by the consumer. If privatised, we will also have to pay for the profits of the healthcare providers, and, pay again to fix the balls-ups that will occur. (like the old peoples homes in England)
One is cheap, effective and has no incentive for profit maximisation, but with room for improvement. The other is expensive, wasteful and has not been proven to provide any improvement to care.
All it will do is line the healthcare providers pockets with loads of PUBLIC money, just directly, rather than through taxation.
I don't say any of this on idealogical grounds. I'm all for efficiency in the public sector, reduction of state provided services where the private sector has been proven to be more effective. I think that unemployment benefits should be reduced, but this money (and more) should be spent on much better services that can aid people to get back into work, rather than trap them in the welfare state. However; unlike you I would like all government decisions to be based on evidence based research...
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:coffee:
As true today as it ever was:
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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before I went into education I worked in web and graphic design. It was fine actually but i'd rather spend most of the year surfing. I only plan to be in this country for another couple of years then I can finally fuck off towards Asia. For the same reasons above.
Idealistic or not, liberty will prevail. When we talk about the efficiency and the "running" things, the government doesn't run anything, free people run things.
In your example Fultonius, the burden of waste lies with the company and not dumped onto the tax payer by the government.
Look at Northern Rock and Branson, the fact that he didn't want to buy up the bad assets etc shows that they are worthless. They knew they were worthless back then and "we" still bailed them out.
In fact, do you agree with the bailouts of the banks and too big to fail?
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To my uneducated eyes, you seem to be just repeating yourself, without attempting to answer many of the questions put to you Philo.
Idealistic or not, liberty will prevail.
Do you not think that this "liberty" would be only confined to those who could afford it under your economic vision?
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No I don't agree with the bailout of the banks/too big to fail.
That doesn't provide evidence that private healthcare improves standards which is the very specific point I am labouring because you have repeatedly said you "argue" or just plain believe that "competition will drive standards up".
If you're sitting on some information that supports your stance on this very specific point within the various facets of what is being discussed then I'd be very grateful of a link as it is contrary to all the peer-reviewed research I've read.
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but the young people should be allowed to opt out of paying taxes towards things like the military industrial complex, healthcare and welfare.
Are you suggesting that national security is put on the free market too, perhaps we could have three different armies and decide which on is doing best, and pay them to defend us?
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the role of government is to defend our life and our liberty. National defence and promoting democracy by force in other nations are two separate things. People misread this as "isolationist" but an isolationist country is like North Korea. We should be able to trade and communicate with other countries instead of bombing them.
Look up the meaning of "military industrial complex" next time
I should of made clear, I am for a defence of our borders but we should not go into nation building and helping america be the policeman of the world.
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This is your definition of the role of government, and it sounds like it originates from the formation of the United States to me.
I did, this included me looking up the meaning, and reading Eisenhower's address from which the term originates.
All your answers have a copy and paste feeling to them, is there a libertarian handbook we can read, rather than you just quoting the bits that suit you?
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haha no I type them all myself, I do realise that it looks a bit constructed and I constantly edit my posts to add other information. Theres many questions going on through each post and a lot of explanations.
I could just point you to the Mises Institute that teaches the Austrian Economic school of thought. Might explain things better than I can about certain topics. Everything I post is my views and understandings, whether you agree with them or not.
http://mises.org/ (http://mises.org/)
EDIT:
Your correct, that is MY understanding of the role of government, I wish we had a constitutional republic like the US where 51% do not control 49% but we cannot be perfect
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We should be able to trade and communicate with other countries instead of bombing them.
No, you've got that all wrong, we trade with them and then bomb them...
Bill Hicks - Iraq Weapons Conversion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqBOMBSDQsI#)
.....the US where 51% do not control 49% but we cannot be perfect
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: You looked at the votes for the last two elections (and countless others) here in the UK in relation to the number/percentage of votes cast for each party and how these translated into seats won haven't you?
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Indeed it is a complete joke, i voted YES for AV but its still a floored system. Too many politicians have safe seats, we could do with an open primary system so we could hold our elected officials feet to the fire. Hicks died far too young!
Here's a couple of articles weighing up competition in healthcare.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/6/1512.full (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/6/1512.full)
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf (http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf)
BBC healthcare costs: (2009) can anyone find a more recent update?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8201711.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8201711.stm)
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Here's a couple of articles weighing up competition in healthcare.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/6/1512.full (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/6/1512.full)
A retrospective piece, scarce on evidence as to whether privatisation actually improve standards (no actual quantitative statistics at all). Basically says that patients are customers and companies need to provide high levels of service at a price their consumers are happy with, which is exactly what you'd expect under a free-market.
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf (http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/ecsb/papers/deaths.pdf)
Reinforces what I've been saying, from the abstract...
...we find that the relationship between competition and quality of care appears to be negative. Greater competition is associated with higher death rates, controlling for patient mix and other observed characteristics of the hospital and the catchment area for its patients. However, the estimated impact of competition is small.
BBC healthcare costs: (2009) can anyone find a more recent update?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8201711.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8201711.stm)
That shows me the US spend a shit load for not much better. If you're advocating the French system which is non-opt out compulsory social insurance, to my mind thats equivalent to a tax.
I'm not yet convinced that privatisation leads to an improvement in standards of healthcare I'm afraid.
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Not scared to be the internet pedant in this kind of stramash, I find myself compelled to wade in here...
When someone advocates the discussion of competing complex models of economic and political philosophy it would serve them best not to insert ludicrous malapropisms such as referring to AV as a 'floored system'...
And you are apparently 'in education'....Good grief.
Do you work here by any chance?
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQzVcbzBsVIE2eo0pcA0cZxHxtorfNa41IDnuT28h6Vg0WUkhI9)
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AV still allows "safe" seats, as I said - id prefer open primaries when people can vote for who they want and it might actually change things.
Slackers, the US system is fucked too. By privatising healthcare, I don't mean the subsidised Medicare/Medicaid system of the US. We have not tried free market competition so how can we compare to it? Get the government out completely - then we would not have any lobbying for who gets to supply the drugs etc.
The French system too, the government should not be involved at all
To add, I'm looking at the bigger picture. We are still going deeper into debt, stimulus and QE does not work. If debt is the problem, how is creating more debt the solution? If we are serious about growth then we need to cut. Cutting across the board, health, welfare, military, everything. Im no expert in the healthcare service but in my opinion, and ill try gather figures (though its hard as systems of practical existence are quickly threw out by the politicians)
People should understand Austrian Economics, I'll post some things to try clear a few things up
To those who are looking for more information, http://mises.org/ (http://mises.org/) is a great source of information.
Do your own research, I have attached a couple of examples that I have read below, there will be more on here:
http://mises.org/periodical.aspx?Id=4 (http://mises.org/periodical.aspx?Id=4)
Most are sourced from "THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMIC" which is an excellent read.
Looking at socialised healthcare and socialism:
Slackers, alot of this is looking at the problems that the US system would have with Obamacare, some reference to the UK:
http://mises.org/daily/3613 (http://mises.org/daily/3613)
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279 (http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279)
http://mises.org/daily/3586 (http://mises.org/daily/3586)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_4_6.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_4_6.pdf)
Less important to read:
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_4_1.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_4_1.pdf)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_1_3.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_1_3.pdf)
Broader scheme of things and Austrian Economics:
If Pure markets are so good, why don't they exist?
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf)
Before and after the Euro. Strategies for sound currencies:
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_4_2.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_4_2.pdf)
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Hmm... a look at the Mises Institute sadly had my 'propogandameter' (tm) hitting a 9.5 and rising...
It didnt feel like there was much balance there...
A little gentle googling also revealed a rather unsavoury past with some racisist and homophobic comments coming from some of its members (President IIRC..). Though this was over 10 years ago... and some of it may be linked to a history of its links to the confederation and the 'deep south' (it is based in Austria Alabamha, not Austria, Austria...). There were also some more recent allegations of bullying of web posts/message boards etc... that were critical of its views.
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Slackers, the US system is fucked too. By privatising healthcare, I don't mean the subsidised Medicare/Medicaid system of the US. We have not tried free market competition so how can we compare to it? Get the government out completely - then we would not have any lobbying for who gets to supply the drugs etc.
The French system too, the government should not be involved at all
Here in lies a crux to your stance.....
Under your proposed free market competition what happens to those who can't afford privatised healthcare??????
What do you propose such people do/happens to them when they get ill or injured*?
A few alternatives would be...
a) Ah well, they didn't have the foresight to pay for it, its their loss, fuck 'em.
b) Ah well, they couldn't afford to pay for it, its their loss, fuck 'em.
c) Ah well, they couldn't afford it or lacked the foresight but we are humans, so lets be altruistic and help them.
d) Ah well, yes, hmm, errr well I hadn't accounted for that portion of society.
Of these three options I would prefer c) because lets face it, in Western societies the standard of living is for the majority pretty damn good. Under such a system you then end up with people like yourself who seem to resent state provided healthcare being available for all, when yourselves are just as much in need of it, but don't like the fact that there are those who, for whatever reason, can't afford to pay for it the same way yourself has done (or would like to).
However, given that everyone needs healthcare at some point its fairly reasonable to say that its a basic human right (if you disagree with this then please say so and I shall not bother wasting my time any further).
Given its something that everyone needs, surely the best approach would be to get value for money, which, based on the evidence I have cited is not achieved through a free market healthcare system.
Looking at socialised healthcare and socialism:
Slackers, alot of this is looking at the problems that the US system would have with Obamacare, some reference to the UK:
http://mises.org/daily/3613 (http://mises.org/daily/3613)
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279 (http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279)
http://mises.org/daily/3586 (http://mises.org/daily/3586)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae13_2_2.pdf)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_4_6.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_4_6.pdf)
Less important to read:
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_4_1.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_4_1.pdf)
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_1_3.pdf (http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae10_1_3.pdf)
I'll read those later, but the main problem with the US system is exactly what I've highlighted above, it purports to be fully privatised, and yet there is a large proportion of the population who simply can not afford the premiums which, as I've already highlighted, are artificially inflated because unnecessary tests/futile treatments are undertaken because what the fuck does it matter the insurance companies will pay, which is a vicious circle.
It would be lovely to think that we can/do live in a utopian society where everyone is affluent and can afford everything at the prices they are charged, but to take a few words from Ice-T's opener.....
BODY COUNT - Body Count (1992) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kul9nUImmg#)
(i.e. "Shit ain't like that, its real fucked up...")
So you're being exceptionally idealistic (usually its me being accused of this). If you purport to wish to have value for money with regards to healthcare and actually believe that everyone is entitled to it (this is perhaps the caveat that is unclear to me) then this is best achieved through a publicly funded healthcare system which does provide value for money (i.e. the aforementioned QALYs).
Basically, with regards to healthcare, you seem to be devoid of a fairly unique (out of all animal behaviors) human trait of compassion/altruism for helping those less fortunate than yourself because you don't think that anyone has the 'right' to healthcare which I find quite disappointing. Compassion/altruism for others of our species (without recourse to nepotism) is pretty much one of the defining features that sets us apart form other animals (disregarding being bipedal).
As I've already said I'm picking on one very specific aspect of what you've written. Its not because I don't believe what you are saying, its because the evidence so far shows that privatised healthcare does not lead to improved standards as you seem to believe. Ignore this if you like, but you can't change facts.
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Slackers, I agree the US system is not the solution, its the government who guarantees the insurance so that's one of the reasons the prices have sky rocketed.
If you look at what happened before the introduction of Medicare/caid in the US you can see no one was left to die, there were charity run hospitals and even (god forbid) church run hospitals where people were looked after for free. It's not until the government got involved and prices rose and priced out the charity hospitals etc
you might find this interesting slackers
http://freenation.org/a/f12l3.html (http://freenation.org/a/f12l3.html)
RP is not racist or a homophobe by the way tomtom
and here is a nice video for you to watch about RP and the economy:
Ron Paul accurately predicts the US economic meltdown 10 years ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNp1wf1T_k#)
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It didnt feel like there was much balance there...
Highly unlikely to given that it states (http://mises.org/about.aspx) that it...
...serves as the world's leading provider of educational materials, conferences, media, and literature in support of the tradition of thought represented by Ludwig von Mises and the school of thought he enlivened and carried forward during the 20th century
..so they'll just be banging out shit that supports that school of thought rather than being open to peer review/critique (in that spirit similar to the Myers-Briggs Foundation/bullshit).
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Austerity isn't the solution (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9019819/Stiglitz-says-European-austerity-plans-are-a-suicide-pact.html) was interesting, be good to hear what others with greater understanding/insight think of the points made.
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Cheers, I realised a while ago that economics is in no way science and is basically pure conjecture.
I can see that for some countries austerity is likely the only solution due to debt, but is it the best solution for all if, as is mentioned in the article, based on history/experience it only worsened the situation?
Thats not to say that the opposite extreme of throwing caution to the wind and spend, spend, spending.
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Stiglitz ideas partly make sense to me but partly don't. I, probably like most people, don't know much about the finer points of world economics and when i try to read about it it ends up going over my head and i just turn the pages to the sport section.
However i know enough about my own personal financial situation to think that making cuts in spending is essential when times are hard and you cant see income increasing in the foreseeable future and then work harder to try and improve your financial position.
I presume he is suggesting that we continue to borrow and invest, in infrastructure projects, our way out of the situation we are in but is this not partly how we got ourselves in the mess we are in now.
I personally think that what we are doing in the UK is about right, cuts have to be made but we need to invest in the right kind of projects ie Energy production and transport as Stiglitz suggests. And this appears to be the way we are heading.
I never thought i would side with the torys but it would appear that at the moment i do. (didnt vote for them or the other mob in power)
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Mobile versions of Wikipedia aren't blacked out today apparently (not checked though as the building I'm working in today is killing phone signal).
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The problem is when the austerity is placed upon the tax payers to bail out the banks etc. The only way we can get out of this is to save more and cut spending. The problem with these massive infrastructure projects that are rolled out by the government when we simply cannot afford them. I wonder how much the Birmingham - London rail service will actually cost, it will create jobs temporarily and will probably buy the votes of those affected but at the expense of everyone who pays taxes to pay for it.
I still believe that if there is a genuine supply of a service or or project, there will be private investment and incentive to do it.
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The fat get fatter (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16545898) :no:
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Profits == Increased Investment.....theory not borne out by evidence. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/feb/14/myth-of-profit-led-economic-growth)
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Sounds like the sort of typical rich smug ruling-caste New Delhi lefty who is found to have their hand in the till when their career is over.
Sorry if that seems overbearingly dismissive. Lousy day over here.
It does indeed, the last line was beneath you. Hope your day improves.
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I thought she was basically writing a short piece on the World of Work Report 2011: Making markets work for jobs (http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/ilo-bookstore/order-online/books/WCMS_166021/lang--en/index.htm) report than being any sort of deep personal/professional opinion/insight (which at 159 pages I've not had time nor inclination to digest in full but have now skimmed through).
Isn't she saying the report shows that when profits increased there was not a similar increase in investment?
The quick skim I've made of the report seems to be showing that as profits increased money wasn't put back into investing in the area of work, but rather paid out as dividends (or invested in finance markets which helped inflate that bubble).
Is there anything that shows the opposite (where profits have been re-invested) and/or anything that takes the same analytic approach but covers a longer time period?
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To me it begs the question – here’s some evidence to suggest the assumptions that politicians base their decisions on may be flawed, so where is the contrary evidence on which these assumptions are based?
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Please don't. There's quite enough of us pinko liberals on here already - we need some sort of balance. :)
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What mean are things reverting to?
I get that having a return on a given investment allows for two things a) profit and b) reinvestment.
Doing b) will obviously diminish a), but isn't it a problem when b) takes a back seat to a), yet b) is being touted as the purpose/aim?
Basically the balance between a) and b) isn't right and has been tilting towards a) over the last few years covered by the report. :shrug:
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Thanks for that, with the phrase 'mean revert' I had in mind something along the lines of regression to the mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean) and was expecting some sort of value/figure to which it would be reverting. Sounds more akin to an equilibrium point in the proportions of the GDP components (wage/profit/investment).
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Excellent thread, thanks to all concerned. Having ploughed through the whole thing, a bunch of the links and also
Fool's Gold by Gillian Tett
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fools-Gold-Unrestrained-Corrupted-Catastrophe/dp/0349121893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420347&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fools-Gold-Unrestrained-Corrupted-Catastrophe/dp/0349121893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420347&sr=8-1))
and
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/0141047976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420021&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/0141047976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420021&sr=8-1))
I still don't really get it but I'm now fairly sure nobody really gets it and that's part of the problem.
Going back to some more abstract points brought up earlier, can I ask you economists-
If the current problems are in large part due to the practice of making money by selling money getting way out of control, what would happen if we got rid of this idea entirely? What if there was no interest and no public limited companies? No making money off money and nobody owning anything they weren't directly involved in? Both these things are relatively recent developments in the history of humanity and both had plenty of opponents when they were introduced. I can see obvious benefits but I'm not convinced that they're not outweighed by the obvious drawbacks, and no interest is I believe a fundamental principle of Islamic banking so it's not really a radical idea.
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Next...
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I'm not suggesting this as a plan, I'm just trying to understand how these forces operate in the wider sense and offering this as a hypothetical. And asking because there seem to be people here who know more about these things than I do.
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Excellent thread, thanks to all concerned. Having ploughed through the whole thing, a bunch of the links and also
Fool's Gold by Gillian Tett
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fools-Gold-Unrestrained-Corrupted-Catastrophe/dp/0349121893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420347&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fools-Gold-Unrestrained-Corrupted-Catastrophe/dp/0349121893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420347&sr=8-1))
and
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/0141047976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420021&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/0141047976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329420021&sr=8-1))
I still don't really get it but I'm now fairly sure nobody really gets it and that's part of the problem.
Going back to some more abstract points brought up earlier, can I ask you economists-
If the current problems are in large part due to the practice of making money by selling money getting way out of control, what would happen if we got rid of this idea entirely? What if there was no interest and no public limited companies? No making money off money and nobody owning anything they weren't directly involved in? Both these things are relatively recent developments in the history of humanity and both had plenty of opponents when they were introduced. I can see obvious benefits but I'm not convinced that they're not outweighed by the obvious drawbacks, and no interest is I believe a fundamental principle of Islamic banking so it's not really a radical idea.
I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean but it looks like you have 2 things mixed up, capitalism and inflation. Inflation by definition is the creation of money. The prices people talk about are the consequence of the money creation.
Throughout civilisation they have always had investments, are you talking about real investments made in the faith that you measure the risk carefully and could lose it all? or are you talking about the cronies we have in the banks that were bailed out that gamble with free money at 0% and still fuck up everything.
The part about currencies is about the purchasing power. The purchasing power goes down when you print it into oblivion, all fiat currencies will lead to economic disasters.
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Thanks philo, but I get that and without wanting to be unduly rude I wasn't thinking so much of you in my last post.
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Or, Philo, you could look at it like this...
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7063/6888734543_b5e355a386.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldmanmatt/6888734543/)
2012-02-16-23-19-22_11A188BE-F97A-41A7-8CEF-FDBE3233B7B8 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldmanmatt/6888734543/) by oldmanmatt (http://www.flickr.com/people/oldmanmatt/), on Flickr
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I agree with you Toby, I've had dealings with "Islamic" finance too.
The system, in the world today, is what it is.
And there can be little argument that this system has elevated most of the worlds population out of Medieval servitude.
Most, not all and certainly not evenly.
I feel that over the coming generations, the current model will change and will have to change.
I think the effect of technology can be seen in the evolution of social unrest.
I think a meta analysis of history, would show a growth in social unrest leads to greater equality (and equality is not a measure I would base solely on a bank balance, for example increased influence for the common man on the government of the day).
I see no reason this should not continue.
In fact, I think technology will accelerate the process.
I have yet to see an example in history of any attempt to control the population at large, which has lasted more than a generation or two.
People continue to demand more and by and large they get it.
The markets evolve, there will be regulation, imposed by popular demand, which will address the extremes of the markets.
Things will settle down, until the next big swing and the next new idea...
And the cycle will repeat, different in detail but similar in process.
I expect the cycle to accelerate, swinging around a steadily rising mean.
It's what has happened to date, isn't it?
Edit
To be clear, I'm positing, not concluding.
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Your analysis misses a vital point, energy. Society has progressed in the way you describe to date because there has been abundant cheap/free energy to leverage human endeavor hence supply the demands you describe. We no longer have vast amounts of cheap/free energy going forward, so shouldn't expect old assumptions to hold true.
This article gives a good overview of energy prospects http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/)
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I'll try and keep the prosaic prose to a minimum, for once (failed already).
I deal with figures, graphs and Macro economics; far more than I do (more interesting) engineery things these days.
This is why I'm sick of them (sorry Slackers/Toby)...
Over the years, I've developed some opinions on the world economy; without bothering to learn the jargon.
Bonjoy, limited resources?
That depends on what you mean by resources. For example:-
There is very little that we use, that we truly destroy. I've been involved with a lot of material recovery technology development over the last decade. Necessity is the mother of invention and this is one area where I'm sure a new industry and economy will emerge.
The same is true of energy. The practicality of recovering unused/reusable hydrocarbons from the atmosphere may always prove too difficult, the development of alternative energy sources (I hate the term renewable), is gathering pace.
I've been consulting to a company developing electrical systems to replace many hydro/mechanical machineries (not as easy as it sounds), as well as developing battery technology and linked up with people developing fuel cells (commercial and academic). We've spent the last 7 years reducing absorbed power on those systems to the point we now use 50% less than comparable hydraulic systems (and as of last Thursday, I became their "Northern Europe and rest of the world"manager. YYFY).
This means the amount of energy required in the world will reduce over time.
What? I hear you say!
I have spent most of my life traveling and whilst we have a long way to go, I have no doubt that standards of living have risen across the globe; the pockets (big I admit) of genuine poverty grow smaller. It seems likely that the trend in the developed nations towards reduced birth rates, will gradually spread. It seems to me the global population will plateau, then fall at point X in the future.
GDP growth can continue, certainly for a long time. It's just that the base resources will change. When we say "Oil based" economy, we mean energy based. The source of energy will change (that may hurt in the short term).
When we talk about "Raw materials", at the moment we are talking about things dug out of the ground; in the future we might just mean things recovered from previous "Things".
Our ability to produce food increases, year on year. It might change, we may end up eating a lot of ants in the future.
Our awareness of our impact on the environment/climate increases, every year more people take it seriously (fast enough? Who knows).
I think we (all of us) have to give up on the idea of making money by selling money. It's far too dependant on the whims/fears of the traders.
I know that any economy is an artifice, a product of our imaginations; but that one is just silly.
I'm not sure if we've even scraped the surface of the available energy, have we?
I guess we will find out.
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This article gives a good overview of energy prospects http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/)
Very good link that yoot. No wonder we're so reliant on fossil fuels when the alternatives are so awkward.
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This article gives a good overview of energy prospects http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/)
Very good link that yoot. No wonder we're so reliant on fossil fuels when the alternatives are so awkward.
Yes, - though the alternatives are often more awkward, as you put it JB, because so much has been invested (both in research and stakes) in existing methods. Solar PV is a reasonable example of this - as the cost has close to halved in the last 10 years (not including any subsidy things) partly due to tech developments but also due to with increased production volume - which is probably due to subsidy! (I'm not just talkign about the UK here..)....
Actually, the more I think about it, Awkward is a really good descriptor.. economically awkward, politically awkward, awkward for those large petro-chemical giants...
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Yes, I had previously thought things are the way they are mainly due to fossil fuels being cheap. Actually they have a load more advantages that are harder to tackle. So awkward indeed, especially when you think about powering the likes of aircraft.
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Latest in from Onion news..
"Markets are reeling after the Dow dropped 1,000 points today following a shocking report ... that humans are fallible, imperfect creatures, frail and prone to error. Jittery investors rushed to withdraw their funds from all flawed mortal enterprise.
Traders realised they are no more than the flimsy machinations of a faltering species floating in an infinite sea of uncertainty. The Fed is incapable of intervening in the crisis, as it too is controlled by the trembling hand of man."
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I'll try and keep the prosaic prose to a minimum, for once (failed already).
I deal with figures, graphs and Macro economics; far more than I do (more interesting) engineery things these days.
This is why I'm sick of them (sorry Slackers/Toby)...
Over the years, I've developed some opinions on the world economy; without bothering to learn the jargon.
Bonjoy, limited resources?
That depends on what you mean by resources. For example:-
There is very little that we use, that we truly destroy. I've been involved with a lot of material recovery technology development over the last decade. Necessity is the mother of invention and this is one area where I'm sure a new industry and economy will emerge.
The same is true of energy. The practicality of recovering unused/reusable hydrocarbons from the atmosphere may always prove too difficult, the development of alternative energy sources (I hate the term renewable), is gathering pace.
I've been consulting to a company developing electrical systems to replace many hydro/mechanical machineries (not as easy as it sounds), as well as developing battery technology and linked up with people developing fuel cells (commercial and academic). We've spent the last 7 years reducing absorbed power on those systems to the point we now use 50% less than comparable hydraulic systems (and as of last Thursday, I became their "Northern Europe and rest of the world"manager. YYFY).
This means the amount of energy required in the world will reduce over time.
What? I hear you say!
I have spent most of my life traveling and whilst we have a long way to go, I have no doubt that standards of living have risen across the globe; the pockets (big I admit) of genuine poverty grow smaller. It seems likely that the trend in the developed nations towards reduced birth rates, will gradually spread. It seems to me the global population will plateau, then fall at point X in the future.
GDP growth can continue, certainly for a long time. It's just that the base resources will change. When we say "Oil based" economy, we mean energy based. The source of energy will change (that may hurt in the short term).
When we talk about "Raw materials", at the moment we are talking about things dug out of the ground; in the future we might just mean things recovered from previous "Things".
Our ability to produce food increases, year on year. It might change, we may end up eating a lot of ants in the future.
Our awareness of our impact on the environment/climate increases, every year more people take it seriously (fast enough? Who knows).
I think we (all of us) have to give up on the idea of making money by selling money. It's far too dependant on the whims/fears of the traders.
I know that any economy is an artifice, a product of our imaginations; but that one is just silly.
I'm not sure if we've even scraped the surface of the available energy, have we?
I guess we will find out.
Did you read the article? It goes a long way to answering your closing question.
It's not about a shortage of available energy it's about energy returned over energy invest (EROEI). As the article points out there are moons in the solar system with enough methane to run all our power stations for billions of years, but it's clearly never going to solve our problems.
We haven't scraped the surface of energy, how could we? We have more than scraped the surface of practically recoverable high density energy and the alternatives are a lot lot harder to work with.
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Yes I read the article.
It doesn't answer anything.
It is desperately weighted and glosses over many critical points and blandly assigns arbitrary values based on little more than opinion (hence the low score for nuclear).
Some categories are marked down as "eye sore" in the alternate matrix and no account is taken of such matters in the fossil fuel matrix.
Need I go on?
You continue to miss the main point.
Both population and consumption will plateau and then fall.
Technology will continue to advance (again the matrix marks down many possibilities for being unproven).
This article speaks only of what we might do today, it has nothing to say on where we may be in ten years time.
Or fifty.
Why would we cut off one stream instantly anyway?
Surely these things will develop in tandem, in parallel?
We can and will reduce pressure on the existing sources?
Are you really expecting the world to end in the next ten years?
I'm travelling, but I might be able to dig up some of the data on the new battery tech when I'm in Italy next week.
And tidal.
Don't forget tidal.
That was written off completely in that Matrix.
We've hardly even started there!
Talk about a vast untapped source of power...
Conventional aircraft, always going to be difficult.
But then, not all combustable fluids are fossil fuels.
I believe the septics have already conducted research on Slush Hydrogen propulsion.
Nah,
Call me the over optimistic Engineer, if you will, but I really don't see us running out of power...
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Call me the over optimistic Engineer, if you will, but I really don't see us running out of power...
until someone switches the sun off ;)
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Both population and consumption will plateau and then fall.
The $50,000 question being, will this happen nicely as a result of higher standards of living and declines in mortality etc, or in the hideous boom-and-bust overpopulation scenarios we witness in animal populations? We're rapidly running out of less developed countries for the developing countries to exploit whilst they get over the hump...
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Both population and consumption will plateau and then fall.
The $50,000 question being, will this happen nicely as a result of higher standards of living and declines in mortality etc, or in the hideous boom-and-bust overpopulation scenarios we witness in animal populations? We're rapidly running out of less developed countries for the developing countries to exploit whilst they get over the hump...
I would guess a little of both (or possibly a lot of both).
I don't in fact see a blissful trouble free future, but I strongly suspect our ingenuity has a long way to run.
I have a good friend who is an Epidemiologist in Lyon, he is convinced a Lethal (80% or so) Pandemic is a matter of when not if and predicts less than a decade...
Basically, I see our problems as something other than resource based.
Bonjoy, PM Systema-Ian, he really knows his onions from his fossil fuels and is a real go to guy for sustainability questions. He's been studying the energy question for years not a few weeks...
I'm more the nuts and bolts end.
Really, we do make electric motors that use 50% less power than a standard induction motor at a given output.
Half!
We use them in industrial applications at the moment, imagine when their use becomes more wide spread, more domestic.
How many electric motors do you have in your house?
We use bearings with a 10 year life (and that's just between inspections, we don't actually expect to replace them, ever), the energy saved in that change alone is massive (and so hard to quantify).
Essentially, they are maintenance free, for as long as the casing resists corrosion; again a massive energy saving in it's self.
Edit,
That 80% means eighty percent of those who contract it will die, not 80% of the population will die. Although, we could be unlucky I suppose...
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Yes I read the article.
It doesn't answer anything.
It is desperately weighted and glosses over many critical points and blandly assigns arbitrary values based on little more than opinion (hence the low score for nuclear).
Some categories are marked down as "eye sore" in the alternate matrix and no account is taken of such matters in the fossil fuel matrix.
Need I go on?
You continue to miss the main point.
Both population and consumption will plateau and then fall.
Technology will continue to advance (again the matrix marks down many possibilities for being unproven).
This article speaks only of what we might do today, it has nothing to say on where we may be in ten years time.
Or fifty.
Why would we cut off one stream instantly anyway?
Surely these things will develop in tandem, in parallel?
We can and will reduce pressure on the existing sources?
Are you really expecting the world to end in the next ten years?
I'm travelling, but I might be able to dig up some of the data on the new battery tech when I'm in Italy next week.
And tidal.
Don't forget tidal.
That was written off completely in that Matrix.
We've hardly even started there!
Talk about a vast untapped source of power...
Conventional aircraft, always going to be difficult.
But then, not all combustable fluids are fossil fuels.
I believe the septics have already conducted research on Slush Hydrogen propulsion.
Nah,
Call me the over optimistic Engineer, if you will, but I really don't see us running out of power...
The article is a piece drawing together a series of in-depth articles on the same site. If you click the links on the headers for each energy type it goes to the relevant piece. Click on the tidal one and it explains why tidal is useful but will never be a game changer.
I'm far from suggesting the world is doomed, that is not my point. My point is that there is a body of opinion that the current economic woes of the world are in large part due to the rapid decline of cheaply available energy and that this problem is only going to get worse for the foreseeable future. I was challenging your techno-utopianist statement:
People continue to demand more and by and large they get it.
The markets evolve, there will be regulation, imposed by popular demand, which will address the extremes of the markets.
Things will settle down, until the next big swing and the next new idea...
And the cycle will repeat, different in detail but similar in process.
I expect the cycle to accelerate, swinging around a steadily rising mean.
It's what has happened to date, isn't it?
Your last sentence assumes the conditions are in place for the same process to repeat in future, I'm suggesting that the energy question means the future is unlikely to look like such a straightforward extrapolation of the (abundant energy) past.
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My point is that there is a body of opinion that the current economic woes of the world are in large part due to the rapid decline of cheaply available energy and that this problem is only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.
That's an interesting point. I'm not sure if I see the connection quite so strongly myself. China is the obvious example of a country growing strongly whilst still paying a (largely) similar price for energy as the rest of us. In fact, (after the USA) China is the country with an economy most dependent on huge energy consumption, yet it's still growing. (Yes, they are developing lots of domestic shale gas fields, but I am confident that the majority of their fuel is still imported.)
To put it another way, do you think that a 75% drop in the price of oil would revitalise the British economy? 70 years ago maybe, but I don't think so today...
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And I reiterate, consumption will decrease in real terms.
I'd also question the idea that what we have now is either cheap or abundant...
It is cheaper, thanks to previous investment.
And I just don't subscribe to the assumptions of the article.
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To put it another way, do you think that a 75% drop in the price of oil would revitalise the British economy? 70 years ago maybe, but I don't think so today...
Well, it would go a lot further than dropping the VAT rate to 15% did... seriously though, yes, I think it would have a huge effect as long as the savings were reflected in consumer prices - ie wind back the inflation of the last few years.
And I reiterate, consumption will decrease in real terms.
Why, because we want to save the planet? Or the bird-flu apocalypse?
Are there any examples where this is happening on a significant scale now?
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Well, it would go a lot further than dropping the VAT rate to 15% did... seriously though, yes, I think it would have a huge effect as long as the savings were reflected in consumer prices - ie wind back the inflation of the last few years.
I agree re VAT - that was totally non-sensical. People notice every increase, but it takes a big decrease to make a difference.
What I meant re the price of oil though was that I think it plays a far far smaller role in determining how we as a nation produce than it did in the past. With service / financial / knowledge / tech components of the economy so significant, I personally reckon the high energy price argument is a weak excuse for British stagnation.
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To put it another way, do you think that a 75% drop in the price of oil would revitalise the British economy? 70 years ago maybe, but I don't think so today...
Well, it would go a lot further than dropping the VAT rate to 15% did... seriously though, yes, I think it would have a huge effect as long as the savings were reflected in consumer prices - ie wind back the inflation of the last few years.
And I reiterate, consumption will decrease in real terms.
Why, because we want to save the planet? Or the bird-flu apocalypse?
Are there any examples where this is happening on a significant scale now?
Quote from the Wikipedia article (refer to article for the references).
"During the 20th century, the world saw the greatest increase in its population in human history. This was due to a number of factors, including the lessening of the mortality rate in many countries by improved sanitation and medical advances, and a massive increase in agricultural productivity attributed to the Green Revolution.[75][76][77]
In 2000, the United Nations estimated that the world's population was growing at an annual rate of 1.14% (equivalent to around 75 million people),[78] down from a peak of 88 million per year in 1989. By 2000, there were approximately ten times as many people on Earth as there had been in 1700. According to data from the CIA's 2005–2006 World Factbooks, the world human population increased by an average of 203,800 people every day in the mid-2000s.[79] The CIA Factbook increased this to 211,090 people every day in 2007, and again to 220,980 people every day in 2009.
Globally, the population growth rate has been steadily declining from its peak of 2.19% in 1963, but growth remains high in Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.[80]
In some countries, there is negative population growth (i.e. net decrease in population over time), especially in Central and Eastern Europe – this is mainly due to low fertility rates. During the 2010s, Japan and some countries in Western Europe are also expected to encounter negative population growth, due to sub-replacement fertility rates.
In 2006, the United Nations stated that the rate of population growth is diminishing due to the ongoing global demographic transition. If this trend continues, the rate of growth may diminish to zero by 2050, concurrent with a world population plateau of 9.2 billion.[81] However, this is only one of many estimates published by the UN. In 2009, UN population projections for 2050 ranged from about 8 billion to 10.5 billion.[82]"
I just grabbed that as a quick response, I need to refer to some (printed) books at home to recall the exact studies I'm thinking of. I'm fairly sure that most forecasts predict a plateau and reduction, the great debate being where it will plateau and when.
"developed" countries nearly all show negative growth and declining birth rates and as other countries catch up their growth rates slow/retreat.
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consumption will decrease in real terms.
So we currently have 7 billion people on earth. And a extra 1.5 million every week, in 2050 that is likely to be 10 billion. All these people will want an improvement in their quality of life over their lifespan.
Lets be wildly optimistic, and assuming over the next 100 years technology can deliver maybe 6 billion people the transition to a higher standard of living without requiring any extra resources. The result is still an enormous net increase in consumption, isn't it? Or am I confused about what 'in real terms' means?
Even if technology does then begin to reduce consumption per capita, I suspect it will be at a far lower rate than the population has grown... ie without a sudden population crash we are looking at hundreds of years of increased consumption, no?
I studied Geology, I have no concern over the long term health of the planet which will bounce back better than Partridge, but not on a human timescale. And we haven't even considered the consequences of a radically changing climate during this period of peaking population...
Perhaps the problem with dealing with these huge figures is its easier to deal in rates and percentages, and lose the bigger picture of 220,000 extra mouths on earth every day. Lets pray your mate is right about the pandemic eh?
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The growth rate is slowing, if technology moves fast enough and base living standards rise fast enough, that rate may slow even faster.
The predictions are necessarily pessimistic or worst (or at least almost worst) case.
Most current estimates assume small variation only and declining birth rates based only on declining fertility.
They don't, by and large, acknowledge socio-economic factors for declining birth rates.
I'm guessing (although, if we could conclude it, the discussion is starting to look like a valid meta analysis!), clearly I'm not able to substantiate my intuition beyond I think but I think the human race will survive quite nicely. I expect bumps and suffering along the way but I find hope in the global exchange of information and ideas and I wonder where that might lead.
Our discussion here is a great example of that, it may not seem so but my opinion is being modified by each post.
Oddly, I started out reading Geology before switching to engineering (for about three months... I do have an A level in Geology though).
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Interesting article on 'nanosecond trading' (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/high-speed-trading/)
Seems things could be pretty unstable!
Sounds a bit like Game Theory in places.
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Further reading, courtesy of systema_ian.
Not back till 27th so can't get that book...
https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/sustainabilityktn/reports
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On a less optimistic note:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/20/climate-change-overconsumption?CMP=twt_fd (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/20/climate-change-overconsumption?CMP=twt_fd)
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Interesting article on 'nanosecond trading' (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/high-speed-trading/)
Seems things could be pretty unstable!
Sounds a bit like Game Theory in places.
If the stockmarket systems were in an aeroplane they would be illegal as they have many areas where the control response is not clearly stable. World stocks not that important though eh??
On the bigger picture I'm a pessi-optimist. I see all this oil/energy resource arguments as bull as talking to petrochem geologists there are proven oil stocks for hundreds of years (and alternatives) that are viable at barely above current prices and looking back at the past looking forward at the future there are technologies that will improve and some we havent discovered yet.
The negative issues for me are that the world environment is getting trashed and power and wealth is concentrating fast in a global elite who are like huge out of control leaches and (with notable exceptions like Gates etc) dont seem to care much about people who are not them. Plus I'm worried about many other things like water and modern weaponry (nuclear, bio, chemical) and overreliance on vulnerable IT systems and religion; all as potentially unstable geopolitical isssues. Then there are black swans. Live life as well as you can while the fun lasts.
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I see all this oil/energy resource arguments as bull as talking to petrochem geologists there are proven oil stocks for hundreds of years (and alternatives) that are viable at barely above current prices and looking back at the past looking forward at the future there are technologies that will improve and some we havent discovered yet.
I don't know who your experts are but they are talking utter gibberish.
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I doubt they are speaking gibbersih but we may be partly talking at cross-purposes. My sources are various university lecturers and geologists working for oil companies. Most of the untapped stocks are in oil shales but there is a lot left yet in standard reserves. When you are a good bit over $100 a barrel these oil shales are certainly economic. The problem is they are dirty and make a mess of pristine environments (north canada, siberia etc). You can also grow oil (oil palms and algea) at large volume at similar prices. Oil palms are currently one of the biggest reasons for deforestation.
My impression from these experts is there really is no imminent shortage of oil (other than cheap oil) and the counter-view is propaganda. Its just often more damaging to the environment to get it and to use it
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According to the source of all disinformation the biggest shale reserves are in the US under Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, the processing sounds like a whole lot of fun! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale) It would be interesting to know what reserves are viable without causing massive environmental damage and using huge quantities of water.
It's all very well for petrochem geologists to talk about these as viable reserves, as the technology is there and the price is almost there, but I doubt they are considering the human and economic factors. Look at the coverage a few small scale fracking tests have got in this country.
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My sources are various university lecturers and geologists working for oil companies.
Working for the oil industry, you say? :-\
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Anyhow, the problem is not so much how much oil we've got left, its what will happen to the climate if we carry on burning it...
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I doubt they are speaking gibbersih but we may be partly talking at cross-purposes. My sources are various university lecturers and geologists working for oil companies.
With due respect don’t you think someone working for oil companies might be prone to bias/repeating the company line. They may well be totally independent or they may not.
Most of the untapped stocks are in oil shales but there is a lot left yet in standard reserves.
Depends what you call a lot. It begs the question - prices are at unprecedented highs and have been on an upward trajectory for a good number of years. Why then has total production not increased since plateauing in 2005? Does this not suggest inelasticity of supply?
When you are a good bit over $100 a barrel these oil shales are certainly economic.
It may be economical for oil companies to extract at high costs but is it possible for economies to grow (in the way needed to pay off debt + interest) with the added drag of ever spiralling costs? If Tesco sells fuel at £10 a litre, it may be technically possible for me to extract some at the forecourt to fill my car, but I’m not going to have much left to buy food (which will also be ten times more expensive because it has to be moved about in vehicles). The knock on effects reach to all corners of the economy. Or does it crash the economy in something like what we are starting to see today?
Another issue (and by no means the only) with remaining oil stocks is flow rates.
The problem is they are dirty and make a mess of pristine environments (north canada, siberia etc). You can also grow oil (oil palms and algea) at large volume at similar prices. Oil palms are currently one of the biggest reasons for deforestation.
Non-crude liquid fuel replacements is a big subject which I don’t have time or energy to rehash, better you have a critical look at articles on the subject such as this http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/) . In short they are far from an easy get-out for multiple reasons.
My impression from these experts is there really is no imminent shortage of oil (other than cheap oil) and the counter-view is propaganda.
The opinion of your experts sounds remarkably like the usual propaganda peddled by the oil industry to me.
If you don’t like the look of my expert, try the US government commissioned Hirsch report: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/)
Or the leaked Germany army report, summary here (link to full report in article): http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6912 (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6912)
Or the recent article in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html) (behind paywall unfortunately but the gist is easy enough to find by googling)
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"With due respect don’t you think someone working for oil companies might be prone to bias/repeating the company line."
Of the main two people I know one was retired and the other had changed jobs out of the industry, I trust them (even being a leftie trade unionist)... the others I know less well (some through those two) say the same thing. I'm aware they may have developed a 'globalised petrochemical view' but not to extent of making up oil shale stock that doesn't exist. They were also very concerned about the ecological issues involved and the oil companies' lack of proper governance in this area and the political will required to enable full production.
"Depends what you call a lot."
At least 100+ years at current supply levels but all at over $100 a barrel.
"It begs the question - prices are at unprecedented highs and have been on an upward trajectory for a good number of years."
Not true, they yo-yo when adjusted for inflation. Also in the current world economy there is a lack of 'safe things' to invest in and oil price has been boosted by this.
"Why then has total production not increased since plateauing in 2005?"
Opec and others adjust supply to meet demand and price issues. Easy access oil is dropping. The world economic crash has flattened out the rising demand curve.
"It may be economical for oil companies to extract at high costs but is it possible for economies to grow .... the knock on effects reach to all corners of the economy. Or does it crash the economy in something like what we are starting to see today? "
My point is prices wont need to go up much further and there is plenty of supply (unless there are wars etc) if we accept the 'bad shit' that comes along with the price . As it is most of the price by far at the pumps in the UK for petrol and diesel is government tax. I think things like rehypothecation of debt; lack of regulation on certain key but risky world markets; widespread abandoning of Keynsian ecomomic solutions for recessions are all far bigger global ecomomic worries than the oil price (which is obviously a concern).
"Another issue (and by no means the only) with remaining oil stocks is flow rates. "
Never talked about this so I cant comment.
"Non-crude liquid fuel replacements ...are far from an easy get-out for multiple reasons."
Agreed, but they still produce oil in huge quantities and Indonesia and others are wrecking the rain forests to produce more (Malaysia, which I know well, has used most of its forests outside national parks for this already and palm oil is its main agri- export).
Thanks for the links btw will have a look.
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Flicked through this now. Very impressed with it.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/)
I'd missed the rate point before but its otherwise pretty much what I was told with some very good added stuff in the comments below. It estimates 50 years to 'half use' (where the real problems kick in) at 3% growth for US consumption providing rate issues or politics don't bite. I was told in school in the mid 70s that most oil would be gone by now and only 10 years ago that the 50 years in this article was nearer 25 (from a 10 years earlier start). Furture oil will be less cheap, dirtier (in real and political terms) and we need to start producing more from oil sands (or the alternatives) soon.
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The formula that killed Wall Street (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2012.00538.x/pdf)
Wall Street in the mid-1980s turned to the quants – brainy financial engineers – to invent new ways to boost profits. They and their managers, though laziness and greed, built a huge financial bubble on foundations that they did not understand. It was a recipe for disaster. The journalist Felix Salmon won the American Statistical Association's Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award for 2010, We reprint his article, first published as the cover story of Wired magazine, because it brilliantly conveys complex statistical concepts to non-specialists.
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Good post, I agree totally. GDP growth fetishism among politicians is so obviously stupid and shortsighted - the idea of more and more money, less and less finite resources - like a ponzi scheme where the future generations lose out when the system collapses and/or natural resource base is too depleted
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The original! too many others to read through
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Good post, I agree totally. GDP growth fetishism among politicians is so obviously etc
I am confused. Which post are you totally-agreeing with?
Nothing. I am confused.
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The original! too many others to read through
The "Quote" button (top right above each post) helps avoid such ambiguities ;)
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Generally forecasting needs to be as dispassionate as possible, but for most people it becomes muddied by prejudices
Walter Friedman at Harvard Business School is doing some very interesting work on the (extremely error strewn - see the run up to 1929, which forecasting not only failed to predict but probably compounded) history of economic forecasting. The forecasters are little less prone to prejudice than the rest of us ...
Most of his stuff is currently internal HBS working papers but here's one reference: Friedman, Walter. "The Harvard Economic Service and the Problems of Forecasting." History of Political Economy 41, no. 1 (2009).
I think there's a book due soon, which should be very good.
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The certainty could simply be poor language/phrasing.
I'm finding this thread educational more than anything else.
Out of curiosity in your job of making projections, what proportion are borne out successfully and what proportion are incorrect (roughly, I appreciate it's unlikely to binary in outcome)?
Do people look at historical data (Andy's post suggests they do) on which to base predictions, and how often are these predictions beyond the range covered by the available data?
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As far as I'm aware all economic forecasting relies to some extent on discerning patterns in historical data and projecting forward (what else is there to go on?)
1929 is an interesting case, not only did most of the forecasting agencies, of which there were several by then, fail to predict it but they provided a neat illustration of that famous scientific dictum (I can never remember the bloody name) whereby you can't observe something without inadvertently altering it. So people, 'the market' whatever, began behaving on the basis of forecasts, behaviour which the forecasters had failed to factor in to their models, rendering them redundant. Simple lesson, human behaviour is extremely complex.
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I'll rephrase then, how far beyond the available data are predictions made?
Extrapolating much beyond observed data is dangerous because you've no idea if the relationship seen within the observeable data range (e.g. linear) holds outside of the data range. It could be that the available data is a sub section of a non-linear relationship that observed in isolation appears to be roughly linear.
Humans/behaviour/markets are indeed extremely complex, in biology this is fairly well recognised, but it doesn't seem to be the case in economics where people risk huge amounts of money on models/theories that can't be demonstrated to be any more accurate than competing ones except in hindsight.
Isn't the scientific dictum along the lines of Schrodingers cat and/or Heisenbergs Uncertainty principle?
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Out of curiosity in your job of making projections, what proportion are borne out successfully and what proportion are incorrect (roughly, I appreciate it's unlikely to binary in outcome)?
You have over-inferred about my job: thankfully I am not a forecaster or an economist, so I can't answer that the way you want. I am a professional investor. I do have lots of performance data associated with that - which amazingly suggests I am quite competent - but it's not really relevant: in investing you can often be right for the wrong reasons, or you can be right over one time period but wrong over a longer one, or vice-versa ... you get my drift. However, I am pretty sure I spend more time having to think about broad economic and business trends than most people, and - more importantly - reflect on the forecasting and decision-making process itself. Which is why I am opinionating more forcefully on this thread than on, say, recommended restaurants in Sheffield or the beta for Tetris.
Sorry for the over-interpretation, certainly not looking for an argument or to critique yourself or anyone else, like I said its educational for me to find out more.
As an investor though aren't you using the predictions of forecasters/economists to make said investments?
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More than anything I am surprised by the certainty with which people make statements about the future, especially when linked with the notion that we are at some major inflection point, for example, the end of the fossil-fuel era, right now.
Because, I think, you are assuming that certainty is based on fossil-fuels running out or getting too expensive. We are at the end of the fossil-fuel era because we've suddenly realised we can't afford to burn any more of them. But that's not 'afford' as in too expensive to buy, its too expensive to deal with the consequences. Significant climate change is already happening, 'runaway' warming looks likely if the fossil-fuel era is allowed to continue. (Since we're laying out qualifications, my degree was in Environmental Geoscience).
I find much of what is posted above pretty irrelevant in that context.
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Well I don't know much about economic forecasts but my impression is that climate modelling will prove to be more reliable.
1. is the inflection point now or in several decades?.
For 'runaway' warming? Its hard to say, but I think unless serious changes are implemented now in the west it will become unavoidable.
2. is the tractory of depletion steep or shallow?
Not sure what you mean? Records suggest catastrophic climate change can occur over short timescales (<100 years). Warming over the last 50 is already very steep compared to natural fluctuations sonce the last ice age.
3. (most importantly) is there some as yet unknown innovation around the corner that renders the issue irrelevant.
No. Even if such were discovered, we couldn't implement it fast enough. The rate of population growth and industrialisation is far outstripping the little progress being made. I think the short term direction should be to invest heavily in a) reducing demand and b) nuclear. Long term efficiency and solar.
The way I look at it is this - over hundreds of millions of years carbon was scrubbed out of the atmosphere and sequestred underground to give the current low atmospheric concentration. Over perhaps 200 years we're putting most of it back...
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Interesting thread.
Now that we've moved on to climate change....
As some background - I worked in the Canadian oil sands projects for just over three years, at all of the major sites North of Fort Macmurry - Suncor, Syncrude Mildred Lake, Horizon, Albion and also Fort Saskatchewan near Edmonton. I carried out inspections on the end of a rope, getting intimate with the insides of various plant involved in the the oil-from-tar-process. In the minus twenty five of winter in northern Canada it was nothing but joyous.
The scale of the oil sands project is awe-inspiring: the open cast mines where the 10% of easily-accesible tar is strip-mined from the ground are visible from space (90% of the tar is deeper down), the upgrading plants, refineries and storage areas are city-scale and the logistics supporting the whole project are immense. Industrial nirvanna, wanna earn a small fortune? - go there, but be prepared for a shock to your sensibilities.
Likewise the scale of of the environmental damage is equally awe-inspiring and profoundly saddening to anyone who gives a shit about such things as the Athabasca River, Athabascas Lake and the artic tundra of northern Alberta/Saskatchewan. It also provides some perspective when reading/listening to debates by 'climate change campaigners/greens/hippy-at-the-crag types' about how we should be trying to reduce our carbon-footprint.
For anyone who believes they should be trying to reduce their personal CO2 footprint (I think we should - because of the leverage on demand described in the Kazzoom-Brookes Postulate) I recommend understanding how many megatonnes (million tonnes) of CO2 are emitted by the combined operations of somewhere like the Canadian oil sands project, and once this is known, to understand that this accounts for one industrial operation amongst hundreds globally. The figure for 2007 was 40 megatonnes - 40 million tonnes of CO2.
The forecasted figure for 2020, for Oilsands CO2 emmisions, is 125-140 megatonnes...... for one industrial area in Northern Canada.
The UK emitted a total of 495 megatonnes of CO2 in 2010, according to government stats released this month.
That 2020 forecasted carbon emissions for oil sands is higher than the total amount of carbon emitted by a number of european countries (Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark).
I find it useful to have this in mind for when I'm feeling guilty for flying to Spain to clip bolts, or for when in a 'green' debate with the occasional pious hippy you come across at the crag/coffee shop. Sure try to reduce your individual carbon footprint but know that if everyone in the UK did (which they won't) it would still be analagous- if the goal is to reduce the level of CO2 in the world's atmosphere down to below the 350 ppm it is estimated is required to halt runaway climate change - to trying to reach the moon by walking.
The leverage effect of decreasd fossil-fuel demand resulting in the decreased output from Syncrude et al. however is more significant (maybe more analogous to an airplane instead of walking?). I do think it's worth trying to do something on a personal level but I find some of the attitudes to do with carbon-useage a bit misguided when looked at in context of what's happening in the bigger picture.
It's the ignorance of the problem (as usual) and what's needed to fix it that bugs me :rtfm: ;D
Interesting background story going on right now to do with the EU climate minister trying to introduce a 'dirtyness' grading for fuels used throughout the EU, which could result in a significant decrease in demand for oil sands product. The Canadian goverment are lobbying the UK to help fight the EU legislation. Time for Cameron to show where his loyalties lie.
The smart money's in sun-tan lotion and flood defenses.
Kazzoom-Brookes Postulate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazzoom-Brookes_postulate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazzoom-Brookes_postulate)
Oil Sands scare-monger/truth: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Z7wC7daVh4C&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=syncrude+megatonne+co2&source=bl&ots=MJVfqpD1W_&sig=6-92KlPr12Xx1o4qhZkYOVufWEU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OgZOT_LZFuGj0QXBgvidBQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=syncrude%20megatonne%20co2&f=false (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Z7wC7daVh4C&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=syncrude+megatonne+co2&source=bl&ots=MJVfqpD1W_&sig=6-92KlPr12Xx1o4qhZkYOVufWEU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OgZOT_LZFuGj0QXBgvidBQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=syncrude%20megatonne%20co2&f=false)
Canadian Goverment's oil sands stats: http://www.energy.alberta.ca/oilsands/791.asp (http://www.energy.alberta.ca/oilsands/791.asp)
Latest UK government CO2 stats: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_stats/gg_emissions/uk_emissions/2010_final/2010_final.aspx (http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_stats/gg_emissions/uk_emissions/2010_final/2010_final.aspx)
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I've heard similar arguments about size of our output compared to China's. I don't agree it makes our actions irrelevant.
If we are to seriously reduce the output worldwide, it has to start somewhere. A few countries have to provide an exemplar. And within those countries, that will start by a few people and companies doing the same. Ultimately the world is nothing but individuals - cultural change can only come from within.
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I've heard similar arguments about size of our output compared to China's. I don't agree it makes our actions irrelevant.
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Not irrelevant no, but I'd argue that the scale of the problem/task whatever you want to call it isn't understood by the majority of the population. Perhaps if it were more would be done to cut carbon emissions. Or perhaps less, given what could be seen as a hopeless task. What I don't agree with are 'greens', for want of a better word, who are ignorant of the scale of change required asking people to change their personal behaviours on the presumption that small scale changes by themself will alter anything of any significance, they won't. It reeks of being seen to be doing something whist not registering the reality.
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It is a bit like saying "I went to a huge quarry the other day and now I don't feel so bad about my chipping." Should scale trump ethics/morals?
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Quite. I don't agree about most being ignorant, I think the scale of the problem is the ideal excuse use for their actions being pointless. A bit of a contradiction to my mind.
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What I don't agree with are 'greens', for want of a better word, who are ignorant of the scale of change required asking people to change their personal behaviours on the presumption that small scale changes by themself will alter anything of any significance, they won't. It reeks of being seen to be doing something whist not registering the reality.
I liked your post and the links, interesting. I would argue though that scale is borderline irrelevant: if you can do something yourself, drop-in-the-ocean comparisions shouldn't change that. Scale does matter in motivation though ie sacrifice vs reward. Obviously we all could all buy a sheepskin coat, turn off the boiler and bin the car. Most wouldn't see the sacrifice as reasonable though - but some steps are, whatever anyone else gets up to.
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Just modified my post above.
Scale doesn't trump ethics if you're talking about climbing, where personal actions are still important and climbing isn't faced with a potentially catastrophic scenerio (as far as I'm aware anyway :-\)
But if by ethics you're referring to personal behavioural choices in the face of catastrophic climate change, and said 'ethics' have been proven beyond doubt to be insufficient in themselves to avert said catastropic event, then yes, I'd say scale has absolutely trumped ethics and a different approach is required to the current, inadequete approach of turn the heating down/telly off/ride to work/driving a bluemotion/buying local.
The only real benefit of adopting the current 'green' norms in the UK are a feeling of 'doing something', and you should only have this feeling if you're blinkered enough to not know the reality.
I'm really arguing against what I believe are completely useless behaviours dressed up by well-meaning people as morally/ethically superior in the current outlook, which I believe don't do anything to address the underlying problem and which might even damage the longer-term chances of ever adopting more environmentally benevolent ways of existing.
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If we hit our current targets for reducing Carbon (as set by the government) for 2015, China alone would make that saving null in just 2 months. If developing countries choose not to heed advice on Carbon etc. then really our actions (however commendable) rapidly become irrelevant (regardless of ethics).
Your lack of chipping (drop in the ocean) means nothing when tarmac roll in with some proffessional quarrying equipment to destroy it all (apart from your ability to cry from the moral high ground).
Reducing emissions needs more joined up thought on a global scale to make real world differences. This doesn't mean I disagree with the need to change lifestyle and generally get the ball rolling in the right direction, without attitude changes there's little chance of joined up thought. We can achieve our targets (see below), but that only becomes relevant if other nations strive for the same thing, which they currently don't.
(BTW Pete - the most carbon effective per £ method for reducing emissions is by reducing the amount you heat your home. These measures have not been shown to be irrelevant, there's a document recently released studying Leeds (http://www.lowcarbonfutures.org/assets/media/Leeds%20mini-Stern.pdf)(including population growth etc.) that shows Carbon targets can be met in the UK, and how this can be achieved. What it doesn't cover is how this might be funded and/or implemented)
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If we hit our current targets for reducing Carbon (as set by the government) for 2015, China alone would make that saving null in just 2 months
Not really. There would still be a reduction in the total production over the period. As I said above, developed countries have to lead on this. The stronger the lead, the quicker China etc are likely to follow.
I'm really arguing against what I believe are completely useless behaviours dressed up by well-meaning people as morally/ethically superior in the current outlook, which I believe don't do anything to address the underlying problem
Well, as you say, there is a growing desperation to do something. I don't agree 'turn the heating down/telly off/ride to work/driving a bluemotion/buying local' are useless, I think they will be a part of a post-carbon society.
and which might even damage the longer-term chances of ever adopting more environmentally benevolent ways of existing.
How so?
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Not really. There would still be a reduction in the total production over the period. As I said above, developed countries have to lead on this.
Of almost zero worth to global carbon emissions. Thats the whole 'scale' argument, its not significant for anything other than trend setting and hoping that less developed countries come around to our way of thinking sooner rather than later (and i'm yet to hear a convincing argument as to why they'll suddenly do that).
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On the issue of scale, surely both the example of the flight to Spain and the tar sands mine should be multiplied/divided by a population size if you are to consider one action against another. A country full of people flying to Spain once a year is quite a lot of carbon and the amount of carbon per person from the population using oil from a tar sands mine might not look so huge. Also worth considering that the oil from the tar sands mine will in large part be used for socially necessary/useful things (fueling trains buses etc.), whereas clipping bolts in Spain is almost totally frivolous.
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On the issue of scale, surely both the example of the flight to Spain and the tar sands mine should be multiplied/divided by a population size if you are to consider one action against another. A country full of people flying to Spain once a year is quite a lot of carbon and the amount of carbon per person from the population using oil from a tar sands mine might not look so huge. Also worth considering that the oil from the tar sands mine will in large part be used for socially necessary/useful things (fueling trains buses etc.), whereas clipping bolts in Spain is almost totally frivolous.
I think you're confusing the moral/ethical concepts of 'frivololus/socially useful' with having any relevance with the issue at hand. All that matters for the purpose of climate change is how many carbon atoms there are in our atmosphere and how we might reduce that figure - it's completely irrelevent whether the carbon was emitted by frivolous activities in Siuranna or by rescuing baby seal pups from burning buildings (in the sea-life centre perhaps :doubt:).
That said perhaps morals will come into it one day - I'm sure if someone suggested we needed to eradicate 6 billion of the population in order to halt and reverse a potentially catastophic climate event, it would meet some stiff morally-based opposition.
As for scale - well, how many people the 40 megatonnes of carbon-per-year refining process is divided amongst is a completely moot point unless it could ever provide the energy needs of a certain percentage of the world's population such that the total energy needs of the world allowed us to use fossil fuels and at the same time the amount of carbon in the atmosphere dropped below 350 parts per million. This it blatantly cannot do, and there isn't any realistic indication of fossil fuel ever being able to provide enough energy for our needs without swamping the atmosphere with carbon. But you're right in one respect and this is why reducing energy useage is more benficial than increasing energy efficiency - just not beneficial enough to count for squat yet...
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I'm sure if someone suggested we needed to eradicate 6 billion of the population in order to halt and reverse a potentially catastophic climate event, it would meet some stiff morally-based opposition.
Its been tried in China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy) (not strictly the 'eradicating' that you are proposing, but an attempt to curb population growth).
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I hope it didn't sound like I'm proposing the eradication of 6 billion men, women and children? :ninja:
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On the issue of scale, surely both the example of the flight to Spain and the tar sands mine should be multiplied/divided by a population size if you are to consider one action against another. A country full of people flying to Spain once a year is quite a lot of carbon and the amount of carbon per person from the population using oil from a tar sands mine might not look so huge. Also worth considering that the oil from the tar sands mine will in large part be used for socially necessary/useful things (fueling trains buses etc.), whereas clipping bolts in Spain is almost totally frivolous.
I think you're confusing the moral/ethical concepts of 'frivololus/socially useful' with having any relevance with the issue at hand.
It was in response to this:
I find it useful to have this in mind for when I'm feeling guilty for flying to Spain to clip bolts
Which with what you went on to say about tar sands seemed to suggest you were holding them up against each other to make yourself feel better. In that context the frivolous/useful question is obviously relevant.
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I was merely suggesting, flippantly perhaps, that my awareness of one thing allows a sense of perspective when considering another thing. In this case knowledge of how much carbon gets emitted by a oilsands refinery compared to how much carbon a medium-sized passenger jet emits. And that, in a culture of 'carbon-footprint awareness', this helps obviate any feelings of 'wrongdoing' on my part. Thought that was fairly clear.
I maintain that any question about 'frivolous' versus 'usefull' use of fossil-fuels only becomes relevent when the scale of global carbon emissions reaches a point low enough whereby eliminating 'frivolous use' would tip the balance into a significant reduction in carbon in the atmosphere. I can't see that happening as long as global industry continues as it does.
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Encouraging this slow down may be, it's still likely to mean another 2 billion+ mouths by 2050, all of whom will be looking for a better quality of life likely to be based on increased consumption. Still a massive problem. perhaps Bonjoy and I's interest in natural history gives us a better perspective on what this is doing to life on this planet. I can't help thinking the ongoing biodiversity crisis (already regarded by most as a mass extinction event) will have nasty repercussions for ourselves soon enough.
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(http://img15.nnm.ru/7/4/1/a/9/c187dbaa6cc4c67800565f39dc6_prev.jpg)
(although its phrase I first heard in Bill Hicks' Rant in E Minor (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Hicks#Rant_in_E-Minor_.281997.29))
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3. (most importantly) is there some as yet unknown innovation around the corner that renders the issue irrelevant.
No. Even if such were discovered, we couldn't implement it fast enough.
I think you are wrong there. History shows that 'game changers' in science usually can't be predicted and often shift things real fast. This could apply to energy, CO2 cleaning or food. Its irresponsible of course to rely on this, so the slow track to fight damage must also be followed in any case. Any one else catch the Dimbleby Lecture a few days back as this was a good laymans summary of this area?
The story is more bleak in my view for ecology. I despair with the environmental damage being inflicted on our planet. I remember hitching a lift with Moff across Sabah in 1992 from Kinabalu to Sandakan (part of our honeymoon). Kinabalu is a beautiful island reserve of old rain forest with the valuable trees logged out, so should survive a while yet, but its very much the exception (there is also good mountain granite there). The journey to Sandakan was like a transit through hell: mile upon mile upon mile of destroyed rain forest being readied for oil palm monoculture. The burnt trees like black teeth screaming their last complaint at a brutal apocalypse. At the other end there was good depressing stuff on the death march atrocity carried out by the Japanese on allied troops and other prisoners. Plus there is Sepilok where you see the Orangutans displaced from the wrecked rain forest. Then you think: 'my air travel is part of the problem'. So the guilt maximises my ongoing wish to share this memory as a very small part of the massive worldwide economic carnage (including that on the seas with pollution and industrial depletion of fish and mammals). I know some ecology will adapt and survive but the loss of most of whats left of the rain forest seems pretty much certain within 20 years.
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You have far more faith than I in science. I don't think humanity or science has ever tackled anything even remotely on this scale before.
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Bollocks. Not a hope that will happen in time. Just the cost of putting anything in orbit will make this prohibitive.
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Bollocks. Not a hope that will happen in time. Just the cost of putting anything in orbit will make this prohibitive.
Yup, we're already past the point of no (simple) return...
Sadly I believe that to a degree we're all ferked - the only question is to what level we're ferked and whether - once everyone finally realises we've screwed the planets climate and decides to do something about it - we can maintain things at a manageable mid ferked level...
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This thread has certainly been a fascinating insight into why everyone is carrying on regardless anyway. What really worries me is that these are the intelligent, informed folk. We're fucked.
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It's certainly an issue that holds great potential for despair and a general head-in-the-sand type reaction. Which, on top of inertia, greed, fear and scepticism is another part of the reason why it's so hard to come up with solutions - how do you deal with an issue that 99% of people don't want to face up to - a bit like trying to convince a friend to quit heroin.
I wouldn't say we're all totally cunted though. This guy has it nailed with logic, technology and clear thinking: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/] [url]http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/ (http://[url)[/url]
He just needs a few billion more people to get psyched about his visions of how we should be behaving, a total and utter about-turn in political attitudes toward capitilism, mass outbreaks of common sense amongst ordinary citizens of the US, and co-operation and good will between every major industrialised nation around the planet.
That or an armageddon.
Home heating efficiency won't cut it ;D
Up the revolution :please:
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Bollocks. Not a hope that will happen in time. Just the cost of putting anything in orbit will make this prohibitive.
Yup, we're already past the point of no (simple) return...
Sadly I believe that to a degree we're all ferked - the only question is to what level we're ferked and whether - once everyone finally realises we've screwed the planets climate and decides to do something about it - we can maintain things at a manageable mid ferked level...
Doesn't matter, life will go on....but not as we know it....
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/SpockVulcan.jpg)
(What would be useful would be to leave a record of what caused the fuck up should intelligible life ever evolve again).
He just needs a few billion more people to get psyched about his visions of how we should be behaving, a total and utter about-turn in political attitudes toward capitilism, mass outbreaks of common sense amongst ordinary citizens of the US, and co-operation and good will between every major industrialised nation around the planet.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Neighbours can't even get on with each other, good luck with larger scale co-operation!
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Some (randomish) thoughts about this from my cold addled brain...
I thought a few years back that Katrina and Rita might be game changers in terms of US public oppinion on climate change and future perils etc.. but apparently not. So what type/size of 'event' is going to make the US sit up and think that shit - sea level rise, changing storm patterns/magnitudes/frequencies etc.. is down to climate change and we need to do something about it....
The problem with 'natural disasters' is that their effect is a creeping one - sea levels creep up - hurricane magnitudes start to grow - and coastal/flood defences are raised accordingly etc.. Maybe 2-3 years out of 5 with record/catastrophic flooding on the Mississippi would tip the balance (as its 1/3 the country..).
Democracy itself is a pretty clumsy mechanism for imposing rapid change - as it is a mechanism of consensus, it needs to wait until the majority think one way or the other (being very general..). Its interesting to look at how China has instigated many policies at a national and local scale to eventually wean itself off fossil fuels and to reduce pollution levels. You could say they that they dont give a shit about the planet but can see what is going to happen and are planning accordingly (which tbh is better than what the west is doing!). I'm not advocating dictatorship for the rest of the world (comrades) but pointing out how it does allow you to make the dramatic sort of changes that may be required to avert future climate bad shit etc..
ramble ramble ramble... in the meantime I suspect we'll muddle on along our global scale ponsi growth pyramid scheme until the world runs out of punters to feed into the bottom of it...
TT
Penned from my 2.5 star bunker in the peoples republic of Kingston upon Hull.
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If you look at the space elevator (perfectly feasible, just expensive) or the "bolas" model, it is more than fair to say "this can be done, now".
The most major obstacle to these technologies is a financial one. With our current financial model, such massive capital investments are simply impossible; requiring a degree of global cooperation beyond imagination today.
Today.
When I listen to the "we're all doomed" arguments, I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's crap of just over a century ago, "we know all there is to know, science is dead" (badly paraphrased for dramatic effect).
The "argument from personal incredulity".
I sound more positive, in this discussion, than I actually feel.
I suspect great suffering ahead.
I feel it is a necessary step in our evolution.
I work heavily in the realm of technological advancement (even if it is a an obscure part of the field) and cooperate extensively with academics (in Milano and Genova). It is truly stunning how often they fail to see the potential of their ideas, looking for academic glory; rather than practical development. That changes once the Engineers get hold of the ideas. This is something which is happening at an increasing rate, thanks to technology.
Seriously,
Watch this space.
( and don't underestimate where things like "Graphine" will take us).
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I've mentioned it on these forums somewhere before (possibly even this thread), but if this artificial leaf which is purportedly 10-times more efficient than the real thing (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/28/artificial-leaf) sees the light of day it could change a lot of problems associated with available energy.
Academic references....
Pijpers et al (2011) Light-induced water oxidation at silicon electrodes functionalized with a cobalt oxygen-evolving catalyst PNAS 108 (25) 10056-10061 (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/25/10056.short)
Kannan MW Nocera DF (2008) In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+ Science 321 (5892) 1072-1075 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5892/1072.short)
Lewis NS Nocera DG (2006) Powering the planet: Chemical challenges in solar energy utilization PNAS 103 (43)15729-15735 (http://www.pnas.org/content/103/43/15729.long)
More from the same research group (http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&num=100&q=photosynthesis+author%3Anocera&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2008&as_yhi=2012&as_vis=0)
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I like the 'do the math' guy's site but I don't think his vision of the future is very likely. I'm all for more locally based economies (importing bottled water from the Alps makes me seethe, for example), but that doesn't mean we won't have more technology based lifestyles than now.
I think the best hope is there is some short-term climate havoc somewhere populated that causes some real panic. Nemo pointed me at some records from Greenland, not got time to look it up but I think around the younger dryas event at the end, temps went up stupidly quickly, 10 degrees in as many years (or somesuch).
In the short term I find Germany's abandonment of nuclear incomprehensible. That actually is current technology that could get us through this.
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I tend toward the view that change will be ad hoc and forced by business as usual literally becoming impossible to maintain. The only hope I see for the worst of climate change being avoided is some sort of partial collapse of the current paradigm (I think this will be a result more of economic/resource issues than climate chaos, although this will feed into the problems) . I do not think change will come as a matter of choice. Ultimately that which cannot be sustained will not be sustained, however much paper money you throw at it.
I don't however see this as an excuse for individuals to not do what they can. It may be ultimately futile but at least we may find it a little easier to look our children in the eye.
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I think the best hope is there is some short-term climate havoc somewhere populated that causes some real panic. Nemo pointed me at some records from Greenland, not got time to look it up but I think around the younger dryas event at the end, temps went up stupidly quickly, 10 degrees in as many years (or somesuch).
Heatwaves could be the required havoc... 2003 (and 2010 in Russia) being notable..
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7017/abs/nature03089.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7017/abs/nature03089.html)
and
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6972/full/nature02300.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6972/full/nature02300.html)
with Summer 2003 being 'off the scale'...
(http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6972/images/nature02300-f1.2.jpg)
(they estimate the return period of 2003 summer as 9000 - 46000 years.. eek.
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I think the best hope is there is some short-term climate havoc somewhere populated that causes some real panic. Nemo pointed me at some records from Greenland, not got time to look it up but I think around the younger dryas event at the end, temps went up stupidly quickly, 10 degrees in as many years (or somesuch).
In the short term I find Germany's abandonment of nuclear incomprehensible. That actually is current technology that could get us through this.
Methane Clathrate...
I believe this is the leading contender for that event and the Storegga slide that precipitated the release of the methane. (correct me if I'm wrong Bonjoy, you're way more up to date on current thinking than I am).
Methane being a far more (by an order of magnitude) potent "Green house gas" than CO2, this is a catastrophic event which has been hanging over the earth for eternity.
(Warming the oceans doesn't help with that...)
It is interestingly, a possible short term patch on the energy question as it is considerably less potent/harmful burnt and is a veritable sword of Damocles hanging over us now; unburnt.
The Nuclear question is simply one of ignorance and unfounded fear... punter me if you like, but it is nowhere near as dangerous or polluting as it's public image would paint it. Take a look at the comparative evidence for exposure from, say, air travel; to that of living in the Chernobyl area or Fukushima...
I'd find it but it's easy to google and I've got to do some work today....
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Just one of many great articles by the Post Carbon Institute on peak oil:
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/734311-5-gas-long-hot-crazy (http://www.postcarbon.org/article/734311-5-gas-long-hot-crazy)
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The Nuclear question is simply one of ignorance and unfounded fear... punter me if you like, but it is nowhere near as dangerous or polluting as it's public image would paint it. Take a look at the comparative evidence for exposure from, say, air travel; to that of living in the Chernobyl area or Fukushima...
I'd find it but it's easy to google and I've got to do some work today....
This is a good reference for radiation exposures from different sources...
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png)
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If you read that carefully, it reinforces my point...
Carefully, as you need to remember the different time scales in the various examples and don't just focus on the size of the boxes and colours.
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While we're on the subject of energy...
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17219991 >
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Sounds like a distantly-related process to that of creating chlorine from brine by electrolysis of the brine, without the massive input of power. The chlorine plant where I currently work uses mercury cell rooms to create chlorine from brine - the plant operators inform me that the cell rooms use the electrical power equivalent of Liverpool each day (could be bollocks?). A similar process uses membanes in place of the mercury. Seems like there's lots of clever ways of chemically manipulating commonly found resources.
I don't think technology is the barrier to finding clean ways of generating energy - as pointed out elswhere we can already cover our electrical generation needs with exisitng clean (and clean-enough) technologies. It's the liquid fuels which allow the transportation and hence the current economic system to work that are currently proving impossible to replace.
I'd be interested to know more about what (if any) are the benefits of global warming. It's harder to find solid science on this than it is for the disadvantadges, there must be some good scenarios - it can't all be bad for everyone.
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It wouldn't be the first time the planet had been ice free, since the dawn of life; just the first since we came along.
In truth (and it's not an excuse for our idiocy), this is a process (GW) which has been occurring for the last 14k years or so and we are not in a true interglacial yet. What we are doing is accelerating that process.
The two subjects of environment and economics are so tightly bound up, it hurts.
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I'd be interested to know more about what (if any) are the benefits of global warming. It's harder to find solid science on this than it is for the disadvantadges, there must be some good scenarios - it can't all be bad for everyone.
Well, you'll be able to grow wine in Yorkshire (fancy buying some land in the Wolds - nice chalky soil - south facing slopes...), People living a few km from the sea may have sea front properties in a few 10's of years...
There will be many areas that benefit from warmer climates as well as those that suffer. The real issue is coping with the change. Its pretty hard to move cities like New Orleans, New York, (Hull :) ) - or move x00 million people in low lying deltaic nations like Bangladesh.. The richer nations can/will adapt to a large extent. The poorer nations less so. Many civilisations have developed to live with problems/variability with climate - so we will too - but the changes will prove expensive and probably unpopular. Though I'm sure some hedge fund managers will make a killing on it...
With change comes new hazards of course. Landscapes adapt to the conditions they exist under - so once you start raising the temperature, changing the groundwater, changing rainfall, flood likelihoods etc.. then you can upset the balance that has developed. Numerous examples of this - permafrost melting - all the strucural/geotech issues involved with that (let alone the increased release of CH4 that Matt talked about), desertification, dust storms, dune progression/invasion. In the Himalaya glacial melt floods and valleys blocked by glaciers/debris suddenly releasing water. Increase magnitude of rainfall events - leading to larger less frequent floods - aside from flooding all sorts of erosion/deposition/engineering issues there.. sea level change... all sorts of issues there from increased inundation risk to increasing rates of coastal erosion..... The earth is continuously changing - and shifting - and the surface, ecosystems and everything else adjusts accordingly. But the rates of change that are happening at the moment appear (I hate to use this word) unprecidented - that is we've no records of the CO2 changing this rapidly and climate seems to be following suit.. (this may be due to precision/resolution of palaeo-records so I hate to use unprecidented but most evidence suggest thus). So, if one of the driving forces of change (climate) shifts rapidly, then things will also adjust or shift at a rapid rate - certainly a rate we're not used to seeing in our brief experience of this planet.
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I think there's a danger here of thinking of a step-change in temperature ie a few degrees of warming & then a new equilibrium.
The sort of thing we could adapt to. This isn't what climate change is. What we have started is a process of constant & accelerating change. (As long as the pollution continues & for an unknown period after)
It may well be possible to make wine in Yorkshire... for a few years. but that wine growing region is going to keep moving & faster every year.
It's ver hard to move New York. It's a lot harder to constantly move your whole population
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I'm playing devil's advocate.
It's interesting how your answer started trying to list some minor positves (wine from Bradford), went on to more neutral ground - hedge fund managers making money from misfortune, and quickly got back into a negative narrative. Says a lot about how focussed people are on the horror stories of global warming (I'm not denying them, see above). But is that useful to only focus on one possible outcome?
I'm not cheerleading for anything, but there might also be significant positives, or at least neither negative nor positive points, in a world which is many degrees warmer, notwithstanding the now well-known negatives?
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I'm playing devil's advocate.
Never!!
but there might also be significant positives, or at least neither negative nor positive points, in a world which is many degrees warmer, notwithstanding the now well-known negatives?
Are you Donald Rumsfeld ;)
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I'm playing devil's advocate.
It's interesting how your answer started trying to list some minor positves (wine from Bradford), went on to more neutral ground - hedge fund managers making money from misfortune, and quickly got back into a negative narrative. Says a lot about how focussed people are on the horror stories of global warming (I'm not denying them, see above). But is that useful to only focus on one possible outcome?
I was trying to resist making a similar observation. The danger of trying to shock the world into action with tales about potential apocalyptic climate change is that, rather than having the desired effect of everyone selling their cars, getting out their bicycles , never flying again, etc, the majority response is likely to be, "The world's going to end? Oh fuck it, why even bother trying then..."
The governments of the developed world are like a bunch of blokes who smoke 80 a day. America is a 70-something Marlboro man, sitting on his horse, fag hanging out of his mouth. China is in his late twenties, who grew up watching Marlboro man's adverts. Marlboro man can try to persuade China to swap to Silk Cut Ultras all he likes, but China's not going to change. Well, not until Marlboro man falls off his horse.
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Am I right in saying that, in your view, the next 50 years boils down to a choice between transitioning too quickly for the current economic system to keep up, in which case it's hideaway hillbilly time or... transitioning at a pace whereby the current economic system is able to keep up with readjustments into new technologies etc, whereby it's businees as usual for those 'in' the system. ?
If so, I'm not sure which version I prefer to be honest.
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I take it to mean that not alot will happen for 30-50 years, because it'll take 10-20 years for something bad to happen, then another 20 years or so for something to be done about it.. (by not alot I mean nothing substantial..)
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Make it the next hundred years if that's a more accurate timescale.
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https://twitter.com/fieldproducer/status/175812350828486656
Weren't we just talking about this?
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We are all "in" the system.
I'd also substitute "an uncertainty" for "a choice". As I wrote a few pages earlier, the future doesn't care what we think.
Of course, I realise we're all 'in' the global economic system, sitting here drinking my south american coffee made in a machine built in China, eating a bannana from Colombia, berries flown in from south africa and typing on a laptop assembled in the US and delivered to me in the UK (get my carbon footprint).
Like you say it's interesting to consider how the current 600 year-old capitalist system might end through not being able to adjust quickly enough.
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Pessimism:
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader (http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)
Optimism:
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader (http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)
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Good feature in New Scientist on 'the future' this week too. Sidesteps the next 100 years but still interesting stuff.
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Pessimism:
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader (http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)
Optimism:
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader (http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)
Abundance is the future?! Oh these techno-optimist nutters. Change Optimism to pipe dreaming - it is unlikely any human invention will be able to make up for the squandered fossil fuels and other natural resources.
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If we think of the World war, that was the 20th century...
(Is it too dramatic to think of it as one drawn out conflict, starting in somewhere around 1914 and continuing, spreading and evolving, with the odd moment of rest; until today? After all, nearly all modern conflicts seem to be directly attributable to the end of the Empires).
I would argue, that we have seen total civil and societal collapse more than once in the life times of our Grandparents...
And we hardly think about it.
Countries that were devastated, ruined, populations culled, economies wiped out; are quaint little tourist traps twenty years later. Germany, was destroyed twice, in the last hundred years; and yet...
And yet, we move on.
Our society and economy, is radically different from that which our grandparents were born into and it continues to change; daily.
Most of the most pessimistic view points grow from the statement "If we carry on like this..."
I'm just not convinced we have ever "carried on like this".
Or that we have the faintest idea of where we will be heading tomorrow.
Given the broad spectrum of people represented on this forum, we all seem to be vaguely on the same page, disagreeing on the minutia; not the overall picture.
We all seem well informed and aware and motivated to "do something".
That, I would posit, points to a growing "ground swell".
This has to be sign of an impending Paradigm shift, no?
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Might see if I can find time to read The Origin of Financial Crises: Central banks, credit bubbles and the efficient market fallacy by George Cooper (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Financial-Crises-Central-efficient/dp/1905641850)
Review (http://www.r-bloggers.com/review-of-“the-origin-of-financial-crises”-by-george-cooper/)
Differentiates between markets for goods/services and financial markets, the former tending towards equilibrium the later doesn't.
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Might see if I can find time to read The Origin of Financial Crises: Central banks, credit bubbles and the efficient market fallacy by George Cooper (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Financial-Crises-Central-efficient/dp/1905641850)
Review (http://www.r-bloggers.com/review-of-“the-origin-of-financial-crises”-by-george-cooper/)
Differentiates between markets for goods/services and financial markets, the former tending towards equilibrium the later doesn't.
It is a good read and if you go back further and look at "the money changers" you can see how the people who control the money control the power. "Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws". N.Rothschild.
Currency wars by James Rickards is another good read if you have time. I still think we are on a path to a inflationary depression, you simply cannot borrow and spend your way out of trouble. Who knows what the world will look like in 50, 10, 5 years time but we can all be certain that the east will hold the power financially.
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Added this to my reading list this morning....
Capital in the Twenty First Century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century)
The central thesis of the book is that inequality is not an accident, but rather a feature of capitalism....
....The book argues that the world is returning towards "patrimonial capitalism", in which much of the economy is dominated by inherited wealth and that their power is increasing, creating an oligarchy.
Guardian overview (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/thomas-piketty-capital-surprise-bestseller)
Sounds interesting, if a little unconventional in the premises on which he makes his case.
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Off with their heads! It's time for a revolution...
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Might see if I can find time to read The Origin of Financial Crises: Central banks, credit bubbles and the efficient market fallacy by George Cooper (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Financial-Crises-Central-efficient/dp/1905641850)
Review (http://www.r-bloggers.com/review-of-“the-origin-of-financial-crises”-by-george-cooper/)
Differentiates between markets for goods/services and financial markets, the former tending towards equilibrium the later doesn't.
It is a good read and if you go back further and look at "the money changers" you can see how the people who control the money control the power. "Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws". N.Rothschild.
Currency wars by James Rickards is another good read if you have time. I still think we are on a path to a inflationary depression, you simply cannot borrow and spend your way out of trouble. Who knows what the world will look like in 50, 10, 5 years time but we can all be certain that the east will hold the power financially.
Well 2 years hence and that hasn't happened -
The UK is now close to being back to pre-recession GDP levels in some areas of the economy:
Joe Grice, chief economist at the Office for National Statistics (yesterday):
''This is the fifth consecutive quarter of steady growth. Overall, the economy is now only 0.6% below the pre-recession peak at the beginning of 2008. In fact, services are now 2% above the pre-recession peak but the production and construction sectors are still around 12% lower. and the US and Germany are above their GDP levels.''
or maybe it has (see below).
But then anyone claiming to be able to predict global economics should be regarded with deep skepticism and forced to read Nate Silver's Signal and the Noise:
Economic Predictions - Nate Silver - Oxford Union: Economic Predictions | Nate Silver | Oxford Union (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcTzV4xNmqg#ws)
'we have got no better in the past 40 years at predicting job rates, GDP or inflation even though people claim to keep getting better at predicting these things'.
Give it 50 years and you'll probably get lucky at some point. I predict we'll see inflation, deflation, feast, famine, recession and economic growth during that time. There will be plenty of natural disasters, wars, peace treaties, epidemics and wonder drugs and the rising and falling of major economies. Petejh - Chief economist at UKB inc.
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Everyone should read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber.
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Added this to my reading list this morning....
Capital in the Twenty First Century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century)
The central thesis of the book is that inequality is not an accident, but rather a feature of capitalism....
....The book argues that the world is returning towards "patrimonial capitalism", in which much of the economy is dominated by inherited wealth and that their power is increasing, creating an oligarchy.
Another layman's question, so don't read it as a statement.
Surely, the original Patrimonial capitalism (and isn't that just another term for Feudalism?) was based upon land ownership?
It's hard to imagine the same dominance being achieved by control of capital (which is in essence unreal/virtual/shared illusion), as opposed to a physical resource.
The number of revolutions, of various hues, throughout history; seem to indicate that such concentration of power is somewhat fleeting...
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Yup, the financial world has spectacularly failed to end in the last few years despite all the doomsayers and conspiracy-theorists. Greece is still in the euro FFS!
WHAT!? What did you just say!!??
I can't hear properly through this tinfoil hat. It's a special gold plated one that I spent all my money on cos gold will never devalue. Like Bitcoins. And tulips. And.....
Look just leave it yeah.
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It's hard to imagine the same dominance being achieved by control of capital (which is in essence unreal/virtual/shared illusion), as opposed to a physical resource.
I suspect the reality is the opposite. With capital being both virtual and invisible, it is far easier to create enormous inequality whilst keeping it sufficiently hidden to avoid revolution. And as imaginary as it is, I don't see much opportunity to unsubscribe from the illusion in our modern world.
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Phew, glad someone else has taken that role. Thick-skinned-ness being the key qualification. I nominate Sasquatch as Vice-Chief Economist.
How long is the term? :boxing: :punk: :worms:
Yup, the financial world has spectacularly failed to end in the last few years despite all the doomsayers and conspiracy-theorists. Greece is still in the euro FFS!
The financials markets are the roller coaster and we live in the theme park. We all love to go for a ride :)
Surely, the original Patrimonial capitalism (and isn't that just another term for Feudalism?) was based upon land ownership?
It's hard to imagine the same dominance being achieved by control of capital (which is in essence unreal/virtual/shared illusion), as opposed to a physical resource.
The number of revolutions, of various hues, throughout history; seem to indicate that such concentration of power is somewhat fleeting...
Capital is Capital. Whether virtual or physical, it's simply a means to an end. if you have more of it, you're more likely to get to the end :) (obviously there are differences from a practical standpoint, but less than you would think)
In all seriousness though, JB Nailed it.
I suspect the reality is the opposite. With capital being both virtual and invisible, it is far easier to create enormous inequality whilst keeping it sufficiently hidden to avoid revolution. And as imaginary as it is, I don't see much opportunity to unsubscribe from the illusion in our modern world.
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Yeah the people who top the rich lists are often those who have earned (or technically stolen in the case of the Russians) their wealth rather than inheriting it so that doesn't really make sense (not that said rich lists are in any way accurate, but still, Gates, Buffett, Abramovich etc).
Looks like a good book though.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
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Just read this: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue57/Trainer57.pdf (http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue57/Trainer57.pdf)
Quite thought provoking, if simplistic and, in the case of the "old tribal markets" a bit unconvincing. I agree with much of what he says about the current situation and the problems we face.
What I'm not so sure about is his "potential solution". It has some promise but it seems a bit wishy washy and not well argued or discussed. I think his final statement is spot on though:
Given that the
mainstream, resolutely led by the economics profession, shows no sign of ever attending to
these issues, it is difficult to maintain belief that we have the wit or the will to save ourselves
Well, that's got me in a pessimistic mood for the day.
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I was pondering buying this book: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415820950/ (http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415820950/)
And thought - "hmm, maybe I should not waste the paper and get it on Kindle" ironically it's only available in paper form.
Right, I'm off to pick up my brand new mountianbike from the post office. Guilty consumer ::)
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Yeah the people who top the rich lists are often those who have earned (or technically stolen in the case of the Russians) their wealth rather than inheriting it so that doesn't really make sense (not that said rich lists are in any way accurate, but still, Gates, Buffett, Abramovich etc).
Looks like a good book though.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
True and I think I passed on my sentiment about many of them earlier in this thread or a similar one.
The last one I worked for before retiring permanently from the Mega Yacht industry, was Pr1nce Turk1 <bin_Nasser> (I hope that's enough to stop google pulling up the thread).
I ran the refit of his yacht Sarah in BCN (that's how I came to be living in Spain when Lili's cancer returned).
The practicalities of working in that industry mean that most contact is informal. Quite often meeting the client in his (almost always a "he") dressing gown and slippers.
If I take that family as an example. There is little unity between the offspring (many battles about sexuality and the heir apparent is about as bright as a snuffed birthday candle). Toby's "Ego investment" doesn't cover it. Splurge, blow, fritter are closer. That is how I made my living!
Interestingly, I was a victim of the power shift (operations/illness, age and royal deaths) that cut off most of their access to the royal trough.
I have not met all the world super rich, by any means, but those I've met divide into two groups (imo); the self made (in the sub-sets, Canny and engaging or Sociopathic and reclusive) or Inherited (in the sub-sets, Spoilt and stupid or Disenchanted and rebellious).
Bearing in mind the offspring of the first group slip automatically into group two. As another example, see the B&mford family (who I performed a similar task for in the '90s <Virginian>).
Marrying a BA stewardess is a good way to lose some dough...
Overall point? I've never been impressed by any of them, bar one or two self made, who also seemed the most grounded.
I have a mental image of the world, as run by these individuals; as a car driven by the Keystone Cops...
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They're generally all still rich though, aren't they? Rich kids might piss a good chunk of wealth up the wall but you don't see many renouncing it and getting a job in Tesco. They piss it up the wall because they know there's plenty more where that came from, for the most part they remain a part of the oligarchy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746)
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That's true. My point, I suppose, is more esoteric.
They are not a unified group with clear leadership. Inherited wealth tends to begat idleness and diminution of wealth and ranking for the "family".
The self made drive to the top, often in opposition to each other and usually outstrip the inherited crew. Their term at the top is often ephemeral and their goals short term and selfish, rather than deliberately divisive.
In short, not a lot has changed since Imperial Rome.
Et tu Clegg?
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I'd go further...
We do not all live in the same world.
To quote Richard Bach.
“You’re sure of that. You live in the same world, do you, as... a stockbroker, shall we say? Your life has just been all tumbled and changed, I presume, by the new SEC policy - man- datory review of portfolios with shareholder investment loss more than fifty percent? You live in the same world as a tournament chess player, do you? With the New York Open going on this week, Petrosian and Fischer and Browne in Manhattan for a half- million-dollar purse, what are you doing in a hayfield in Maitland, Ohio? You with your 1929 Fleet biplane landed on a farm field, with your major life priorities farmers’ permission, people who want ten-minute airplane rides, Kinner aircraft engine maintenance and mortal fear of hailstorms... how many people do you think live in your world? You say four billion people live in your world? Are you standing way down there on the ground and telling me that four billion people do not live in four billion separate worlds, are you going to put that across on me?” He panted from his fast talking."
A little out of date (4 billion? Only thirty years ago? 7 now) but essentially the gist.
I've found the traditional priorities of life to be somewhat illusory.
Life really is what you make it and nothing has really changed in the "system", since it began.
The Information Age is certainly coming close to changing the system. Public opinion carries more clout (ask Max Clifford) and Western democracy provides limited control to the individual than has, perhaps, ever existed before.
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I can't be arsed to trawl through 15 pages, but in response to the premise, resources aren't finite and growth is now less dependent on resources than ever before.
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Resources aren't finite? Wow! That's blind sided me
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Resources aren't finite? Wow! That's blind sided me
Well, he's got a point.
As long as we develop interstellar travel within my remaining life time....
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Resources aren't finite? Wow! That's blind sided me
It wasn't hard. :-*
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Go on then Slopes, elucidate on these infinite resources.
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Plus the whole of mainstream economics is predicated on resource scarcity. Infinite resources = no markets, no price mechanism, nothing.
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Apart from cake, there will always be cake.
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Which is why we all get to have it and eat it :)
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Go on then Slopes, elucidate on these infinite resources.
Well let's start by looking at the big yellow thing in the sky, hmm, finite if you're going to talk about the next 1bn years, but for all intents and purposes infinite.
Oil, the need for oil can, it is reasonable to be expected, be met by a. improved gm based bio fuel production (I seem to recall some algae were pretty close to zero processing (compared to traditional extraction and processing) for diesel & aero fuel, then there's nuclear, fuel cell technology and so on and so on. Steel & other metals, recycling & no real shortage.
In facts there's no resource that we're not likely to have developed a substitute for by the time there's a pressing need.
The neo-malthusian apocalyptic bollocks is just that, bollocks.
It's only when we've chopped down the last forest, it's only when we've poisoned the last lake that we will realise we can't survive on teenage platitudes.
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Excellent, so by infinite you meant things that come from the sun. And increased use and demand for biofuels is doing what at the moment? Oh yes driving people into food poverty as they can't afford grains that are being bought to turn into fuel to add to diesel in developed nations.
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In facts there's no resource that we're not likely to have developed a substitute for by the time there's a pressing need.
I'd hedge my bets that some of the rare earth elements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element#Global_rare_earth_production) that are now in huge demand, which is only increasing, will run out without any viable replacement as whilst we might be able to get fusion running in the not too distant future to supply us with energy, controlling it in such a manner as to produce these rare elements will take a lot longer.
Some of them do occur widely, but not in concentrated mineral deposits that are easy to mine, but at some point perhaps the demand will make extracting them from something like sea-water viable and/or recycling (which is on the increase), but the former will be very expensive (just look at the cost of removing salt from water in the desalination plants that have started to spring up in Australia).
This ties back in to the "neo-malthusian apocyalyptic bollocks" of supply and demand of limited resources which influence a products price in face of demand as some of the rare earth elements are key to the current functioning of the touchscreens on smartphones/tablets (of course being resourceful inventors some human somewhere might come up with a cheap renewable alternative whilst current supplies are being depeleted).
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This thread has been great. 15 pages of generally interesting, informative and generally well thought out and researched points, often with references etc.
Then Sloper came along. :slap:
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In facts there's no resource that we're not likely to have developed a substitute for by the time there's a pressing need.
I'd hedge my bets that some of the rare earth elements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element#Global_rare_earth_production) that are now in huge demand, which is only increasing, will run out without any viable replacement as whilst we might be able to get fusion running in the not too distant future to supply us with energy, controlling it in such a manner as to produce these rare elements will take a lot longer.
Some of them do occur widely, but not in concentrated mineral deposits that are easy to mine, but at some point perhaps the demand will make extracting them from something like sea-water viable and/or recycling (which is on the increase), but the former will be very expensive (just look at the cost of removing salt from water in the desalination plants that have started to spring up in Australia).
This ties back in to the "neo-malthusian apocyalyptic bollocks" of supply and demand of limited resources which influence a products price in face of demand as some of the rare earth elements are key to the current functioning of the touchscreens on smartphones/tablets (of course being resourceful inventors some human somewhere might come up with a cheap renewable alternative whilst current supplies are being depeleted).
That wikipedia page is a bit outdated. I've been invested in a few different rare earth miners in the US and Canada for the past 4 years and really there isn't a shortage - prices rocketed in 2009 following China's imposition of an export restriction but that was a political tit for tat with Japan over territorial claims of some islands in the south china sea. There's a glut of 'rare' earths, and new resources continue to come on line.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1646283-rare-earth-prices-to-fade-as-china-loses-dispute-mines-raise-output (http://seekingalpha.com/news/1646283-rare-earth-prices-to-fade-as-china-loses-dispute-mines-raise-output)
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Can't we just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck up to drill asteroids for this stuff anyway?
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That wikipedia page is a bit outdated. I've been invested in a few different rare earth miners in the US and Canada for the past 4 years and really there isn't a shortage - prices rocketed in 2009 following China's imposition of an export restriction but that was a political tit for tat with Japan over territorial claims of some islands in the south china sea. There's a glut of 'rare' earths, and new resources continue to come on line.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1646283-rare-earth-prices-to-fade-as-china-loses-dispute-mines-raise-output (http://seekingalpha.com/news/1646283-rare-earth-prices-to-fade-as-china-loses-dispute-mines-raise-output)
Cheers Pete, not really a topic I keep abreast of every day.
However, that prices rocketed when China were having a tiff with Japan only serves to prove the point that there are finite resources and their availability impacts their price. At a certain point technology and resourcefullness will lead to other avenues being sought if what has been traditionally used becomes too expensive.
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Excellent, so by infinite you meant things that come from the sun. And increased use and demand for biofuels is doing what at the moment? Oh yes driving people into food poverty as they can't afford grains that are being bought to turn into fuel to add to diesel in developed nations.
From memory, some of the more modern biofuels are gm algae based and have a virtually zero impact on crop production / costs.
Expecting the early days of biofuel production to be replicated when the system and economic model matures is as cogent as looking at early days of oil production with current practices.
The is a very long list of examples whereby when a naturally occuring material becomes too expensive that a cheaper (and often more effective) substitue is developed.
Why are we still then searching for oil & gas? you ask; well it's about ROI, the investment dictates while it's still profitable to eploit natural oil and gas we'll do it. That doesn't mean that the R&D for fuel cells, bio fuels & etc aren't ongoing, it's just not economic yet to take them to market or obtain significant market penetration.
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Can't we just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck up to drill asteroids for this stuff anyway?
That's not as fanciful as it might sound, I read an article on space law (yes really) in respect of territorial possession of extra terrestrial bodies and mineral extraction fairly recently (well when I say read, I cast my eye over it an moved on to soemthing a bit more pertinent) and there was a suggestion that this could be on stream in say 80 years (but don't buy shares just yet folks)
There's also deep sea harvesting of the 'rare earths', again the article was on international law so I didn't read in depth but from this and other bits & bobs, we're probably only 5-10 years away from deep sea bed harvesting; which will massively increase the ravailable reserves; almsot certainly long enough for new technology to render their use obsolete.
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Can't we just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck up to drill asteroids for this stuff anyway?
That's not as fanciful as it might sound, I read an article on space law (yes really) in respect of territorial possession of extra terrestrial bodies and mineral extraction fairly recently (well when I say read, I cast my eye over it an moved on to soemthing a bit more pertinent) and there was a suggestion that this could be on stream in say 80 years (but don't buy shares just yet folks)
Well that sounds just AMAZING for the environment. Fly into space to mine the materials for fancy smartphones and the like. Hmm.. :-\ I'm sure there's money in it, but I'm not sure it makes sense!
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Personally I think it's bonkers economics, but then again before the article I didn't even know there was such a field as space law with various international treaties & etc.
As for this constant bleating about the environment there are those who suggest that we've got man made ways of managing climate change, there's a whole chapter on it in 'hating whitey', which I will wager is not a text that many on here would have on their book shelf.
Basically, for all intents and purposes, we're not going to enter a prolonged period of scarcity of key resources whereby the scarcity has a significant and detrimental effect on the standard of living & etc.
However pointing this out really sticks in the throat of the chicken likin industry and their short sighted, evidence light ranters.
Bonjoy, perhaps rather than passing arse chestnuts, perhaps you can debate the subject in that innovation overcomes what would otherwise be the downside of a radical +ve change demand vs supply, and then perhaps go on to consider why this is unlikey to happen for the first time at a time when developments are proceeding with increasing pace & etc
If we're concerned about anything it should be outcomes rather than resources; for example, when I switch on the light, does it work? If so I'm not concerned whether that's a result of an old inefficient coal fired power station or cold fusion. If we 'run out' of coal it will not be because there's no coal underground it will be because there's no longer an economic demand for it. We've 'run out' of whale oil for lighting, is that because there's no whales? Er no.
So can the watermelons please get a grip on reality and stop bothering us which their prohpecies of doom.
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I do hope you're trolling with that entire post.
Basically, for all intents and purposes, we're not going to enter a prolonged period of scarcity of key resources whereby the scarcity has a significant and detrimental effect on the standard of living & etc.
I Assume you meant your standard of living, plenty of people worldwide already suffering due to oil prices and food prices.
We've 'run out' of whale oil for lighting, is that because there's no whales? Er no.
You've got to be fucking kidding me. Read any book about whaling. Read a webpage about whaling. We very nearly 'ran out' of whales completely before some clever chap invented gasification of coal.
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I loose the will to live reading your fatuous faux intellectual drivel on this subject Sloper (ditto your opinions on Ukraine). Where do you start picking apart your sieve of an argument? It's easier and less depressing not to bother. I don't believe anything I say will change what you think one iota. I certainly don't have the time to waste. I shouldn't read your posts in the first place, it's like picking scabs.
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Well, as far as an ad hom attack goes that would barely break the skin of a custard. Have a wad point.
Come back with a proper response and you can have two.
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I do hope you're trolling with that entire post.
Basically, for all intents and purposes, we're not going to enter a prolonged period of scarcity of key resources whereby the scarcity has a significant and detrimental effect on the standard of living & etc.
I Assume you meant your standard of living, plenty of people worldwide already suffering due to oil prices and food prices.
We've 'run out' of whale oil for lighting, is that because there's no whales? Er no.
You've got to be fucking kidding me. Read any book about whaling. Read a webpage about whaling. We very nearly 'ran out' of whales completely before some clever chap invented gasification of coal.
More people suffer from inept and corrupt (and often correlated with left wing) governments. Plenty of people suffer from a lack of food / cash / health care for all sorts of reasons, the decline in the availability of peat, coal, whale oil* etc rarely features as a causal factor (*substitute any resource which has 'declined' or no longer relied upon).
As far as web pages go re whaling, I think you're missing the point in respect of the response to the surge in price as a consequence of supply vs demand; why do you think that people might have been driven to innovate? Could it, yes, could it possibly be, that there was an economic imperative to develop the alternative?
This is as natural as no longer relying on flint tools.
What happened when we stopped relying on whale oil; did the lights go out all over Europe, were people campaigning for the preservation of a selective whale hunt, with subsidies to preserve the whaling industry?
Of course this doesn't fit with the quasi theological approach from the watermelon fraternity (look just as sensible as Spartists shouting 'neo-liberal thatcherite & etc) but then again evidence doesn't really work well to counter the theistic approach, it's as if one seeks to argue for evolution with a young earth creationist.
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Perhaps when I have more time, energy and patience.
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Whales are a great example aren't they? Whales have recently been found to be important ecosystem engineers - essentially most nutrients sink before they can be utilised. Whales move them back up the water column, initiating what is known as a tropic cascade, producing a far more productive system. So one of the knock on effects of killing most of the whales was to massively reduce the productivity of the oceans. Read any historical book on fishing and the former productivity of the seas is staggering.
Of course since then we have removed most of the fish too, all of whom play their own role in building a productive ecosystem. The signs are that depleted seas are not simply the same but with less fish, they are becoming totally different ecosystems with biomass concentrated in less useful species to humans such as jellyfish and squid. The same sort of ecosystem collapse has already been imposed on much of the land surface. Humans, it seems, will continue to use a resource until it is uneconomic, then look for another. So far, we've got away with it. But these knock on effects are seriously limiting future options.
Interesting thought too, to regard solar as infinite. Fossil fuels are essentially a form of stored solar energy accumulated over millions of years, which we have mostly consumed in a couple of hundred. The surface area of the planet required to replace the centuries of stored energy used every day, with that received in a day from solar/ biofuels/ wind, and still leave room to grow food for 8 billion, with the seas fucked, seems a tad hopeful. Let's pray governments get behind nuclear, and fast.
The idea of exploiting space for resources is fucking laughable solely from the economics, let alone the technology.
But keep your head in the sand Sloper, if you're lucky the foie gras may kill you before things get bad.
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I've got to say while I don't agree with Sloper I do think it's a bit ironic to accuse him of having his head in the sand in a debate about climate change/resource depletion etc. I think he's right to say there exists a noticable mindset (his 'theism') in the environment/climate change/resource depletion debates which goes along the lines of: 'we could solve these problems if only we (humans) just acted rationally and altruistically'. That mindset to me seems like the biggest head in the sandpit of them all. (and yes I'm well aware of prisoner's dilemma).
Since when have humans ever acted rationally en masse? This is the species that has created bubbles in just about every commodity that's ever existed: from houses to tullips. Arguing that we could all, as a species, start acting altruistically toward the environmental now when all the evidence from thousands of years suggest otherwise, is the very definition of delusion. It aint going to happen, I think we'll probably adapt to changes in the climate and to resource depletion in the way humans always have through power struggles - there's no universal law that says the current population level is sustainable or that everyone on earth should be comfortable.
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I've got to say while I don't agree with Sloper I do think it's a bit ironic to accuse him of having his head in the sand in a debate about climate change/resource depletion etc. I think he's right to say there exists a noticable mindset (his 'theism') in the environment/climate change/resource depletion debates which goes along the lines of: 'we could solve these problems if only we (humans) just acted rationally and altruistically'. That mindset to me seems like the biggest head in the sandpit of them all. (and yes I'm well aware of prisoner's dilemma).
Since when have humans ever acted rationally en masse? This is the species that has created bubbles in just about every commodity that's ever existed: from houses to tullips. Arguing that we could all, as a species, start acting altruistically toward the environmental now when all the evidence from thousands of years suggest otherwise, is the very definition of delusion. It aint going to happen, I think we'll probably adapt to changes in the climate and to resource depletion in the way humans always have through power struggles - there's no universal law that says the current population level is sustainable or that everyone on earth should be comfortable.
Point out to many that in this regard Homo sapiens aren't really any more developed than any other species and most would be taken aback and try countering with the fact that we have language and technology and cars and space flight and an internet full of cats, but if everything boils down to power struggles for access to limited resources then really we've not evolved much beyond basic survival instincts, just that as a species we've become really clever at killing each other more efficiently.
I've always thought for a long time that it would be nice if, as sentient beings able to understand history and develop contingency's, we did look out for each other and future generations a little more than nature's red teeth and claws have dictated in the past. I recall reading a comment along these lines when I first read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene many years ago. He basically was saying "This is how we've evolved, but we don't have to continue along these lines, we can break the chains". Just tried a quick scan through the two prefaces of the copy I have but couldn't find the quote I was thinking of (perhaps its in The Extended Phenotype or The Blind Watchmaker) but a quick search led to this interview (http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/dawk-frame.html) and the following quote...
I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will. Indeed, I encourage people all the time to do it. Much of the message of my first book, "The Selfish Gene," was that we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscience intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies.
It always saddens me when people say that humans can't learn from the mistakes history tells us about and that as a society we can't improve the lot of everyone for the better, mainly because if such thinking persists its a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there were real will, perhaps under-pinned by a better understanding of how interconnected all life is through its evolution from common ancestors (which would hopefully do away with hokey religions, tribalism and nationalism) and the interconnected way in which the earth remains so far from chemical equilibrium (see Lovelock & Margulis' Gaia), to work towards a better society for all humans I believe it could be achieved.
Rose-tinted idealism? Yes, but bearing all this in mind makes me slightly less of a selfish cunt when I go about my day.
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I remember reading that. I'd like for it to happen because it sounds great - but I think it would take a miracle like the end of capitalism for it to come about. As long as people want to buy things there'll be people making it their life's aim to making money. Resources are what enables that. Climate change/environmental degradation is the inevitable outcome. 'The planet' comes a distant 2nd.
'selfish cnut
This interests me - sometimes when i hear people claim to be unselfish/less selfish in their actions it strikes me as a bit grandiose if they really think their individual actions, even collectively, have any bearing on anything so massively complex and gigantic as a planet's 'system'. Other times i think good for them!
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Wouldn't educating people that you don't need lots of things, one of the fundamental aspects that allows capitalism to persist, be a useful start? :shrug:
Quality of life isn't enhanced by having more and more possessions.
selfish cnut
This interests me - sometimes when i hear people claim to be unselfish/less selfish in their actions it strikes me as a bit grandiose if they really think their individual actions, even collectively, have any bearing on anything so massively complex and gigantic as a planet's 'system'. Other times i think good for them!
When I use it I mean I just try not to think badly of others based on their appearance/race/age/sex/nationality/circumstances, we're all human beings, and try and help others where I can rather than thinking "fuck it, they can fend for themselves". I don't always succeed but do try because you won't ever get a society to change, you can only get individuals to change. Society is just the term for a group of individuals doing things, so if individuals are less selfish towards each other then society as a whole is.
Since you mentioned game theory, there'll always be exploitive strategies that take advantage of altruism, but there are better strategies than tit-for-tat. So if someone isn't nice to me I don't automatically strike them off of my xmas card list.
I don't think I'm particularly special in doing this though, many others do it too, and lots of them to a far greater extent than I do (e.g. relief workers, medics working for Red Cross/Medicine Sans Frontier etc.)
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I tend to agree with Peter and have to say Sloper has a point, albeit made with his usual lack of of diplomacy...
What Slakers has described seems to me to be the classic Liberal / Left wing dilemma. Democracy requires each to have equal say and yet we clearly cannot be relied on to make reasonable judgments. The obvious answer being the disenfranchising of the "socially unacceptable" or their total removal from society...
And that is just the most horrific thought possible for any right minded person.
So, our economic and political systems have evolved around avoiding that question.
By and large that has resulted in an improvement in the standard of living for many. Please! Before you hang me for that statement and remind me of the poverty in the world, hear me out.
My Father's Father, was raised in a single room, by a trench gassed Father and washer Woman Mother,, with Thirteen brothers and sisters; three of whom died before the age of five, in the slums of Coventry. A room they lived in until the Germans burned it in WW2.
AKA within living memory!
Our global consciousness is only just evolving and not at equal pace globally!
The fact that we are discussing it is amazing! The discussion is changing things. When my Grandfather was a boy, if there had been a famine in a part of Africa, no one in Britain would have known or cared.
However distasteful it may be to us armchair intellectuals, Slopers assertion that market forces will be the primary drive behind change, is probably correct. Educated, liberal, thinking, perceptive people are still very much an ignored minority. The vast majority, even in the affluent, well educated West, care more about Kim Kardashian's tits, than the future.
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Wouldn't educating people that you don't need lots of things, one of the fundamental aspects that allows capitalism to persist, be a useful start? :shrug:
Quality of life isn't enhanced by having more and more possessions.
I completely agree - I'd be confident to say that I probably own less than the majority on here and certainly less than the majority overall - no car (someone else's), no house with all its contents (they're someone else's), as some will testify the same clothes forever! My rack, ropes and laptop are probably my single biggest possessions. But to extrapolate that to the entire population of the world and think that they could act that way - which is what's required for the point to have any meaning beyond a fashionable statement - is to be blind to the reality of how humans behave.
Since you mentioned game theory, there'll always be exploitive strategies that take advantage of altruism, but there are better strategies than tit-for-tat. So if someone isn't nice to me I don't automatically strike them off of my xmas card list.
I don't think I'm particularly special in doing this though, many others do it too, and lots of them to a far greater extent than I do (e.g. relief workers, medics working for Red Cross/Medicine Sans Frontier etc.)
[/quote]
I'd say most of us behave that way. The point with game theory in the context of climate change/damaging the environment is the time span. Studies have shown the most effective strategy over a long time-span is a generally altruistic approach which reciprocates bad behavior immediately afterwards but then reverts to altruism. But we're only around for the immediate short-term on earth so that strategy isn't the most effective for humans who want to gain power/wealth - you'd have to convince them to imagine they were going to live to 500 or something.
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it strikes me as a bit grandiose if they really think their individual actions, even collectively, have any bearing on anything so massively complex and gigantic as a planet's 'system'.
But they do - otherwise we wouldn't have a climate change problem or dead seas. Nothing is going on other than individuals making decisions, more's the pity.
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I wouldn't say I'm blind to how humans behave, more that I'm probably (grossly) misguided in hoping that individuals can change and develop a longer term view which is considerate to others.
However distasteful it may be to us armchair intellectuals, Slopers assertion that market forces will be the primary drive behind change, is probably correct.
Market forces do drive change and stimulate innovation, which is the point of this thread, and its confusing to at the same time assert that resources are infinite, because if the latter were true there wouldn't be any variation in the market or need for innovation. :-\
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I think Sloper was arguing that our potential for innovation, discovering new types of resources, and thinking up new uses for current resources is 'infinite'. Rather than a single current, and soon (in the next 100 years) to be outdated resource, i.e. oil.
I've posted it here before but one rebuttal to Sloper's argument for us having infinite potential for innovation and getting out of tight squeezes is this: https://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
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I've posted it here before but one rebuttal to Sloper's argument for us having infinite potential for innovation and getting out of tight squeezes is this: https://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
Interesting post,
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I think Sloper was arguing that our potential for innovation, discovering new types of resources, and thinking up new uses for current resources is 'infinite'. Rather than a single current, and soon (in the next 100 years) to be outdated resource, i.e. oil.
I expect so and thats what I interpreted was the point trying to be made, but it wasn't written in a cogent manner and was splattered with petty digs at harmless watermelons which made it hard to take any of it seriously as it just read like a claret-fuelled rant unlike the Energry Trap piece you've linked to which was an interesting read, thanks.
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Never forget that half of what Sloper writes is pure trolling. The other half being ill informed Tory nonsense.
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Pete that's an interesting post to tell us how little you have. I have 11 pairs of jeans all pretty much the same shade. I've got 15 pairs of footwear, inc shoes, trainers. I've got more climbing shoes than Stubbs. All in all hoorah for me. Now who's the good guy? You for having little so looking after yourself and not contributing to society in monetary terms, or me for paying over the odds for the shit I've got and paying someone's wages, tax etc at every turn?
Obviously I realise that most of your cash is in stocks or other such stuff.
On the other hand who's the bad guy here? Dolph has done very nearly every prob above 8a in Britain, he's drove to all these places, some multiple times. I drive to the works, 1 mins walk away, and drink coffee. Well fuck my ozone.
We only need two people to discuss anything on here, slackers and sloper since whatever is being talked about the answer will be pretty much exactly between both their opinions.
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Pete that's an interesting post to tell us how little you have. I have 11 pairs of jeans all pretty much the same shade. I've got 15 pairs of footwear, inc shoes, trainers. I've got more climbing shoes than Stubbs. All in all hoorah for me. Now who's the good guy? You for having little so looking after yourself and not contributing to society in monetary terms, or me for paying over the odds for the shit I've got and paying someone's wages, tax etc at every turn?
Obviously I realise that most of your cash is in stocks or other such stuff.
On the other hand who's the bad guy here? Dolph has done very nearly every prob above 8a in Britain, he's drove to all these places, some multiple times. I drive to the works, 1 mins walk away, and drink coffee. Well fuck my ozone.
We only need two people to discuss anything on here, slackers and sloper since whatever is being talked about the answer will be pretty much exactly between both their opinions.
😜😆😆
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Never forget that half of what Sloper writes is pure trolling. The other half being ill informed Tory nonsense.
Is there a way of telling the difference ?
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122722654497346099
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23723385
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_321960.pdf
In partial rebuttal to the "Do the Math" article.
And the comments in that article are also telling, vis-a-vis Nuclear...
I'd also point you at the Catalytic production of Hydrocarbons from sea water (mentioned in the Science thread on here), which is quite real, very promising.
Then there's Graphene...
Before opening the climbing wall, I was consultant Engineer on the design of CMC Marine systems, where we achieved a 50% reduction in power consumption across a range of Electrical equipment (manoeuvring) which increased the range of the vessels we fitted out by 25%. When I left, they were scaling up the tech for main propulsion applications. We sold them mainly to rich yachties, because they would pay and that funded our research (carried out in conjunction with Milano and Genova Uni's).
http://www.cmcmarine.com
The potential to provide propulsion at 50% greater efficacy and reduce fuel consumption accordingly! alters EROEI for the remaining fossil fuels dramatically.
I really don't think we're done yet.
Nobody has mentioned overpopulation of the planet yet.
Surely that is of greater threat to our environment and standard of living than a potential energy crisis?
Anybody want to kick off the list of who should be bumped off? Sterilised?
Sloper?
No?
It sucks, because that is our biggest problem and a far thornier branch than energy.
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Pete that's an interesting post to tell us how little you have.
Yeah that was undoubtedly the main point of my post wasn't it Dense.
On the other hand who's the bad guy here?
I don't know? Could it be you for emitting so much hot air?
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Anybody want to kick off the list of who should be bumped off? Sterilised?
How about the Man City squad, as long as it can be done before the weekend?
Sloper?
Who'd fight for the cause i.e. our no-win no fee whiplash claims?
Good to see household energy consumption decreasing. A drop in the (rising) ocean but a welcome one.
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Good to see household energy consumption decreasing. A drop in the (rising) ocean but a welcome one.
You miss my point, the first article refers to a massive drop in energy consumption in industry, which began in 2009. It was initially attributed to the crisis of 2008, but the drop has been sustained.
This is in part due to advances in tech.
The reason I highlighted my own work (and perhaps should have made clear), is that we were part of Mitsubishi.
They came up with an incredibly efficient motor with stunning ability to monitor and control just about every parameter possible, we designed the control system/software/mechanical/hydrodynamic systems to give that a commercial platform.
Through the network of companies that operate within Mitsubishi's "authorise developer" circle, that same tech is being re-applied across a range of industrial uses.
We used the Stabiliser system (much like the control surfaces of an aircraft) to develop the tech because it is an incredibly complex task (the predictive/learning nature of the software is mind boggling). Oscillating equipment in a high stress environment with loads in the Mega Newton range, driving against nothing more than a mechanical linkage and an electrical field? An application previously only possible using the incompressibility of hydraulic fluids and absolute physical boundaries (valves/positive displacement pumps)?
Straight forward rotational drives are a doddle.
(They're not, scale is a massive problem, as is convincing customers to try something new, as is power generation (producing Mega watts for propulsion as apposed to Kw for stabilisation) and then there's resonance between paired rotating assemblies and.....).
The fuel cell tech/batteries are rapidly catching up and once they cross to the Mega watt range, in a small enough package, power consumption will plummet globally.
Across industry.
Our oscillating tech has already been licensed to a few producers of production line equipment and automation systems...
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No I did get the point about industry energy consumption but my reply didn't reflect that. - although didn't appreciate the tech involved in your new control system's application across industry. Sounds amazing!
Did you do an EROEI comparison on a piece of process equipment using the new tech versus old tech? How does that affect the point on annual EROEI in the energy trap piece?
You should read this piece on energy efficiency (and the whole piece about economic growth):
Squeezing Efficiency: Rabbits out of the Hat
It seems clear that we could, in principle, rely on efficiency alone to allow continued economic growth even given a no-growth raw energy future (as is inevitable). The idea is simple. Each year, efficiency improvements allow us to drive further, light more homes, manufacture more goods than the year before—all on a fixed energy income. Fortunately, market forces favor greater efficiency, so that we have enjoyed the fruits of a constant drum-beat toward higher efficiency over time. To the extent that we could continue this trick forever, we could maintain economic growth indefinitely, and all the institutions that are built around it: investment, loans, banks, etc.
But how many times can we pull a rabbit out of the efficiency hat? Barring perpetual motion machines (fantasy) and heat pumps (real; discussed below), we must always settle for an efficiency less than 100%. This puts a bound on how much gain we might expect to accomplish. For instance, if some device starts out at 50% efficiency, there is no way to squeeze more than a factor of two out of its performance. To get a handle on how much there is to gain, and how fast we might expect to saturate, let’s look at what we have accomplished historically.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/)
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Meant to type 'did you do a power consumption comparision'.
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No, I started building a climbing wall and apart from the odd debate on here, I spend far more time worrying about who's going to instruct that group of Brownies (read "Young Offenders") or Chinese language students (read "constructively difficult"). ;)
So really not current...
Just more optimistic perhaps?
The aim amongst my colleagues in renewables was to drop consumption to meet rising delivery by renewables and they seemed fairly confident (given the multitude of approaches (Bio luminescent lighting etc)).
I'm willing to concede, that as an Engineer, I might be overconfident in mankind's ingenuity. And I don't imagine a smooth ride into the future, nor do I see any imminent end to inequality or suffering.
Given the number of UKIP signs in widows and Gardens around Torbay, I suspect we're all doomed!
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No, I started building a climbing wall and apart from the odd debate on here, I spend far more time worrying about who's going to instruct that group of Brownies (read "Young Offenders") or Chinese language students (read "constructively difficult"). ;)
So really not current...
Just more optimistic perhaps?
The aim amongst my colleagues in renewables was to drop consumption to meet rising delivery by renewables and they seemed fairly confident (given the multitude of approaches (Bio luminescent lighting etc)).
I'm willing to concede, that as an Engineer, I might be overconfident in mankind's ingenuity. And I don't imagine a smooth ride into the future, nor do I see any imminent end to inequality or suffering.
Given the number of UKIP signs in widows and Gardens around Torbay, I suspect we're all doomed!
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I think Sloper was arguing that our potential for innovation, discovering new types of resources, and thinking up new uses for current resources is 'infinite'. Rather than a single current, and soon (in the next 100 years) to be outdated resource, i.e. oil.
I've posted it here before but one rebuttal to Sloper's argument for us having infinite potential for innovation and getting out of tight squeezes is this: https://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
Bingo, but calling people watermelons is just a lot more fun.
Ps call a tory troll will be online for the next hour while I cool & drink.
Free for people like us £99 per minute for proles.
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Bingo, but calling people watermelons is just a lot more fun.
Green on the outside, red on the inside. Guess that makes you a blueberry. And me a kiwi (green and black)
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Blue berries are whiteish/translucent inside, shirly?
If there is one thing I'm sure of in this debate (me, myself, I,and wrong is always possible), strict adherence to political ideology will not provide an answer. As always the. Best way tends to lie somewhere in the middle, and probably meanders left or right as the terrain requires...
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Nobody has mentioned overpopulation of the planet yet.
Surely that is of greater threat to our environment and standard of living than a potential energy crisis?
I think it has been touched on, but this is of course the real problem. There wouldn't be any energy crisis or climate change if there wasn't so many people. Most of the problems talked about here could be solved in a couple of generations if people would just stop breeding. But that seems about as likely as people not killing each other or not fucking each over for money and power. I have no faith in market forces solving any of these problems but having said that the only thing that's ever reliably lowered the birth rate of a country is improving it's economy. But then developed countries consume more energy per head of population than less developed ones. Maybe that fact could be balanced out by increased efficiency and renewables, or maybe not and we're all fucked. I don't know.
Here's some more pessimistic links:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061102-seafood-threat.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061102-seafood-threat.html)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html?action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DSectionFront%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3Dmagazine%26t%3Dqry205%23%2Fdark%2520mountain&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html?action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DSectionFront%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3Dmagazine%26t%3Dqry205%23%2Fdark%2520mountain&_r=0)
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There wouldn't be any energy crisis or climate change if there wasn't so many people.
This is just wrong though globally. Until very recently nearly all the contribution to both issues came from the 'developed world' the majority from the 300 million in the US i.e. 5% of the worlds population.
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But if the global population was a fraction of what it is it wouldn't matter so much that 5% of it are caning so much energy.
But I suppose as the 5% figure grows, and the figure that it's 5% of grows, there's little chance of any advances in efficiency being enough to counteract it, so I guess we are just fucked.
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Ahh the internet... 15 years ago no-one outside of some specialists and a relatively small number of determined geeks would have been able to navel gaze over scientific evidence and discuss how potentially bad things could get; sure you'd always get the occasional doom-monger claiming the world's going to the dogs but what did they know - they were just going off a hunch, or the bible! But now, now we can be accurately pessimistic, and quickly inform others of our pessimism, and best of all, with the back-up of sound scientific evidence available at the click of a mouse we can prove to everybody how well-informed and correct we are to hold such a pessimistic view. And all from the comfort of our own living rooms. Isn't it wonderful?! :dance1:
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If informed pessimism is not the answer what is?
Should I try not to worry, sit back and wait for science / engineering / market forces to ride to humanities rescue.
Should I stock pile cans of cassoulet/ bottled water / weapons /size 8 blancos for life in some post apocalyptic future.
Should I liquidate all my assets and use the capital to buy a sustainable small holding somewhere far away from major population centres and well above current sea level.
Perhaps I should rush to breed/pass on my genes to another generation and let them sort it out.
None of the above really addresses the underlying problem but maybe it is too intractable for my greedy little monkey brain to do much about other than pessimistically watch it happen whilst tut -tutting all the way to oblivion.
Maybe there isn’t really a problem and I shouldn’t worry but I am as unconvinced by that as I am by the doom merchants.
A more equitable and sustainable human society would be great but I’m buggered if I know how to make it happen.
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What baffles me is the complete lack of response to these problems from our 'leaders'.
Yes switching to a non-oil (either nuclear or renewable) economy will be economically painful for the reasons given (investment up-front) but I can think of several examples where democracies took on this sort of pain.
In response to the 'great stink' London constructed a (at the time ) staggeringly expensive sewer system.
The British in 39 turned their whole economy over to the state to prepare for war & took on a debt that has only recently been paid off . Russia a little later sacrificed much more both economically & in other terms.
Yet somehow the response to this crisis is to pretend it isn't happening.
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http://www.iflscience.com/technology/solar-roads-could-power-entire-country
What about roofs?
We are quite ingenious, as a species; when we're not being utter arseholes...
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and on a less positive note...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140512-thwaites-glacier-melting-collapse-west-antarctica-ice-warming/ (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140512-thwaites-glacier-melting-collapse-west-antarctica-ice-warming/)
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Sloper?
Who'd fight for the cause i.e. our no-win no fee whiplash claims?
Good to see household energy consumption decreasing. A drop in the (rising) ocean but a welcome one.
I read in the news the other day that there are new rules to deal with whiplash claims fraud. Does this mean Sloper won't be able to afford as much claret and foie gras?
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I look after the defendant side of the firm.
There are no doubt fraudulent claims, exaggerated claims and chancers. (and they make my piss boil,; how were your Ugg boots (which you never probably owned damaged in your rear end shunt, fuck off)
However the ABI trope of 7% of claims being fraudulent are bollocks Aviva's own figures put it at c <2%.
Let's face it, innovation driven by the market (yes often following 'pure' research in the university labs) delivers whereas the green / anticapitalist doom mongering, bedwetting drivel doesn't.
Ps I'm being deliberately provactive, I understand that the reiki healers and trickcyclists in Sharrow and Nether Edge need some muppets to fleece, (I must declare an interest I get a referral fee for each counseling session they attend)
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David Graeber on Thomas Picketty:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/savage-capitalism-back-radical-challenge (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/savage-capitalism-back-radical-challenge)
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The sort of one eyed wanton fuckwittery that makes the Guardian what it is, stumbling from non sequitor to incorrect assertion, the only thing it doesn't say is 'it's not fair, Johnnies dad always let's him stay up past 11'.
Let's nail a few things, commerce and capitalism lead to the development of laws which constrain capitalism, the social consequences of capitalism drive the development of laws which drive social change.
Capitalism now is more restrained, controlled and in effect neutered than ever before.
This is a matter of simple observation
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Sloper stop talking in absoloutes mate, it just makes you sound like a child with a big stick shouting 'wah wah wah why won't anyone listen to me'.
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The sort of one eyed wanton fuckwittery that makes the Guardian what it is,
The Mail? no I read the Guardian.
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Perhaps you could point to a time when capitalism was more constrained by law and regulation? When capitalism growth and change generally and industrial or commercial innovation particularly has not led to legal changes, or draw if not causative very strong casual relationships between the consequences of capitalism and social legislation i.e law on housing etc.
<<<I'm waiting>>>
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The sort of one eyed wanton fuckwittery that makes the Guardian what it is,
The Mail? no I read the Guardian.
It doesn't mean I agree with what they print, the main draw is the crossword.
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Somewhat related to economics and growth...
Consumer Heterogeneity and Paid Search E ffectiveness: A Large Scale Field Experiment (http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/stadelis/Tadelis.pdf)
A large scale analysis of eBay data which suggests that "paid search ads" are ineffective.
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I could have told you that
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But you wouldn't have had the data to back it up. ;)
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Mate just sent me a link to this PDF, seems to get some positive reviews. Figured others might be interested....
David MacKay Sustainable Energy - without the hot air (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf)
http://www.withouthotair.com/ (http://www.withouthotair.com/)
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Solar power supply/cost out-stripping coal in Australia (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/solar-has-won-even-if-coal-were-free-to-burn-power-stations-couldnt-compete)
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Solar absolutely has a place but I'm note sure whether it's as significant part of the answer as its proponents would suggest as there are problems with storage (electric mountain in reverse??) and base laod, these are however probably chalenges that the technology and market will overcome in places like Oz and other sunny places.
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Solar absolutely has a place but I'm note sure whether it's as significant part of the answer as its proponents would suggest as there are problems with storage (electric mountain in reverse??) and base laod, these are however probably chalenges that the technology and market will overcome in places like Oz and other sunny places.
You underestimate battery tech.
Just take a gander at the leisure boat industry, where battery and inverter tech are advancing rapidly.
Even 15 years ago, I was Master of a Tall ship (SY Dream) which could run lighting, TV, Stereos etc etc for 36 hrs between charges (either from a DG or an Alternator coupled to the main engine). That was with a conventional deep cycle bank, 12x2V cells on 24V supply.
And things have moved on dramatically since then.
That battery bank would have provided lighting etc for a couple of 4 bed houses (assuming heating and cooking are done by Gas), during the hours of darkness of even a UK winter.
Coupled with a Solar bank to charge and provide power during daylight hours, I can't see why most homes could not be independent of the grid as the tech stands today? Lots of sailing vessels are now, with a combination of wind, solar, batteries and economy of usage.
I was seeing some huge advances in battery tech during my time with CMC Marine. We were developing ultra efficient motors/motor control and replacing hydraulics in things like thrusters and stabiliser systems; but one of our partner companies (based in Scotland, at work and can't remember their name) were utilising our motors into Electric vehicles (military) and developing some awesome Amp hours from exceptionally compact units.
Given our current theatres of operation (militarily), there is considerable interest in fuel autonomous vehicles, with theoretically unlimited range...
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Running on rubbish: Supermarket comes off national grid to be powered by food waste alone (http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/media/latest-stories/2014/0618-running-on-rubbish-supermarket-comes-off-national-grid-to-be-powered-by-food-waste-alone/)
8)
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Solar absolutely has a place but I'm note sure whether it's as significant part of the answer as its proponents would suggest as there are problems with storage (electric mountain in reverse??) and base laod, these are however probably chalenges that the technology and market will overcome in places like Oz and other sunny places.
You underestimate battery tech.
Just take a gander at the leisure boat industry, where battery and inverter tech are advancing rapidly.
Even 15 years ago, I was Master of a Tall ship (SY Dream) which could run lighting, TV, Stereos etc etc for 36 hrs between charges (either from a DG or an Alternator coupled to the main engine). That was with a conventional deep cycle bank, 12x2V cells on 24V supply.
And things have moved on dramatically since then.
That battery bank would have provided lighting etc for a couple of 4 bed houses (assuming heating and cooking are done by Gas), during the hours of darkness of even a UK winter.
Coupled with a Solar bank to charge and provide power during daylight hours, I can't see why most homes could not be independent of the grid as the tech stands today? Lots of sailing vessels are now, with a combination of wind, solar, batteries and economy of usage.
I was seeing some huge advances in battery tech during my time with CMC Marine. We were developing ultra efficient motors/motor control and replacing hydraulics in things like thrusters and stabiliser systems; but one of our partner companies (based in Scotland, at work and can't remember their name) were utilising our motors into Electric vehicles (military) and developing some awesome Amp hours from exceptionally compact units.
Given our current theatres of operation (militarily), there is considerable interest in fuel autonomous vehicles, with theoretically unlimited range...
I looked into this pretty seriously about 10-12 years ago when I lived in a house where wind could have powered it alone.. Its actually pretty easy if you make some changes and basically just use electricity for light and for TV etc.. fridges/freezers are a bit more tricky... but if you cook and heat from non electricity then its quite do-able with a relatively small battery bank. The big lead acid batteries are old school - but work - and can last for 10's of years with care, topping up and the odd bit of maintenance.. This of course is much easier now grid tie invertors are common - so you can just use the grid as your battery (effectively..).
But I moved. And now live in Terraces so its just not feasible..
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The price of crude is now, I think (in recent historical terms) at records lows and new fields are being developed in the North Sea and further affield.
So much for the preductions of the doom mongers and nay sayers about oil reaching $200 per barrel by 2015.
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The price of crude is now, I think (in recent historical terms) at records lows and new fields are being developed in the North Sea and further affield.
So much for the preductions of the doom mongers and nay sayers about oil reaching $200 per barrel by 2015.
Further development of cheap fossil fuels, would not seem to be good news, given humanity's generally moronic approach to long term issues...
Another couple of DegC anyone?
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Don't worry, capitalism will ride to the rescue, pump a couple of tonnes of fine volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere and we'll be fine.
PLus of course all those other thecnological advances which are allowing greater growth with lower levels of CO2 & etc
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Fraid not. Given the lag in the system we're going to suffer even if we stopped pumping out CO2 right now.
Ocean temps, ice sheets, ice caps, permafrost, methane emissions etc.. All have decedal/centennial response time. This supertankers only heading one way!
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Hence the proposals to pump fine volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere, I think last time that reduced temperatures by a few degrees.
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The problem with geo-engineering is that it creates a whole series of unknown unknowns... to do it at a global scale, to reduce temperatures by 2 degrees for a few decades - not too much, not too little would be very difficult - and very risky... christ knows what additional impacts it would have.
Besides, as I mentioned before, because of the lag in system response, it would take quite some time before any difference was noticed..
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The problem with geo-engineering is that it creates a whole series of unknown unknowns... to do it at a global scale, to reduce temperatures by 2 degrees for a few decades - not too much, not too little would be very difficult - and very risky... christ knows what additional impacts it would have.
Besides, as I mentioned before, because of the lag in system response, it would take quite some time before any difference was noticed..
I spent several months, in the summer of 2000, in Greenland.
Some enterprising local professor at the Julienhab Uni had been marking the calving face of the closest glacier, on the cliffs, since the mid '70s.
It was well over a mile from the first broad red line to the calving edge by the time I visited and I suspect a few hundred meters more today...
He was a huge, hairy beast of a Dane. He looked as though he should have been bedecked in horned helmet, furs and arm torcs, but he wept into his beer like a baby, as he told us one drunken night, how stupid we all are.
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Because of the sea ice collapse parts of Greenland have seen a 7 SEVEN Degree rise in the last Century. Bonkers.
The wealthy can engineer their way out of things by building more ac units, continuously raising flood defences, moving to more hospitable parts of the world etc... But a chunk of what will happen is probably irreversible now..
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I don't have any photos of the lines scanned (it is way before digital photography for me). But I had this on my FB.
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/10/23/3010bed40d6e2dce49a294ab722e60a0.jpg)
The vegetation should have completely recovered at the margin, within twenty years (according to the locals), so this represents considerably less than twenty years of retreat.
Edit...
Also, note here the icecap has retreated so far it is no longer calving. Leaving the Fjord ice free all summer and leading to a localised, year round, rise in water temp and therefore less winter ice. And generally less ice issuing into (in this case) the Labrador straight and therefore warmer summer temps.
Meaning it takes longer to cool in the Autumn.
Which means less sea ice in the Winter.
And on...
And on...
It doesn't take a PHD to work out where that's leading.
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We're just waiting for the economic consequences to merit intervention.
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We're just waiting for the economic consequences to merit intervention.
I'm not very confident that markets have the ability to foresee change as far down the road as needed to make this happen. The problem is that people don't tend to have this foresight, and the markets are reflective of people as a whole.
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By the time the markets react it will be far too late to reverse.
I think living with the consequences will be considerably more sensible option than attempting atmospheric engineering on a global scale.
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I'd be interested to hear some theories about the benefits of climate change, there must be some. Two possibles (anyone know?) that spring to mind are newly habitable land as previously ice-encrusted areas become tundra; and access to minerals/rare earths which are essential to the technology of the next 50 years, including, ironically, future battery and sustainable energy technology.
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It's hard to find any benefits of sea level rise.
Wine can now be grown very successfully in S Engkand and probably on the chalk in the Yorkshire Wolds in the future.
But for the gains of some places getting warmer - others will get too hot.
Tundra areas are especially vulnerable as the loss of permafrost gives rise to bogs, subsidence - and most worryingly the melting permafrost leads to the release of large volumes of methane. Methane being 4-10 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than co2.... :(
Changing climate also means weather - normal and extreme becomes more unpredictable- making more marginal places to inhabit even more marginal.
Upsides..? Well it's capitalism, so for every loser there will be someone winning...
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I'd be interested to hear some theories about the benefits of climate change, there must be some
It might not be a problem if we could all go to the moon for a few generations and reallocate the land when things have stabilised. But what will happen is a redistribution of climatic zones, most of which are inhabited. Many will have to adjust; many others will simply have to move. That is not likely to go smoothly...
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Most of that's the current common knowledge (and I'm not disagreeing with it). But I find it hard to believe there won't be some unexpected upsides (or expected, by a few smart opportunists) .
For instance - Changing climate also means weather - normal and extreme becomes more unpredictable- making more marginal places to inhabit even more marginal.
This is what most people focus on, naturally, but it suggests that there could also be areas that currently have a 'marginal' climate for habitation which could become more amenable to habitation.
Wasn't much of Canada tundra? (most still is).
Upsides..? Well it's capitalism, so for every loser there will be someone winning...
No doubt.
What I wonder is if we'll ever reach a point, hundreds of years from now, where the most advanced nations have engineered themselves - via synthetic foods and all sorts of crazy shit - into such a resilient existence independent of the 'old concerns' of the natural environment that looking after the natural world doesn't matter, or even enter people's minds. Except perhaps for a few lucky/unlucky tribes left out in the cold living from the land.
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It's hard to find any benefits of sea level rise.
Wine can now be grown very successfully in S Engkand and probably on the chalk in the Yorkshire Wolds in the future.
But for the gains of some places getting warmer - others will get too hot.
Tundra areas are especially vulnerable as the loss of permafrost gives rise to bogs, subsidence - and most worryingly the melting permafrost leads to the release of large volumes of methane. Methane being 4-10 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than co2.... :(
Changing climate also means weather - normal and extreme becomes more unpredictable- making more marginal places to inhabit even more marginal.
Upsides..? Well it's capitalism, so for every loser there will be someone winning...
You forgot the Marine equivalent of the Tundra issue.
The warming oceans will lead to melting of the Methane Clathrates.
Since this " Ice" forms the principle integrity of the slopes of any ocean trench/continental shelf margin; we are inline for massive Methane release from these deposits.
Accompanied by Storegga slides to dwarf the original and Tsunami's of hitherto unimagined scale.
So shall the meek inherit the earth.
And yea, shall joy and laughter follow them all their (very short) lives...
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Most of that's the current common knowledge (and I'm not disagreeing with it). But I find it hard to believe there won't be some unexpected upsides (or expected, by a few smart opportunists) .
For instance - Changing climate also means weather - normal and extreme becomes more unpredictable- making more marginal places to inhabit even more marginal.
This is what most people focus on, naturally, but it suggests that there could also be areas that currently have a 'marginal' climate for habitation which could become more amenable to habitation.
Wasn't much of Canada tundra? (most still is).
Upsides..? Well it's capitalism, so for every loser there will be someone winning...
No doubt.
What I wonder is if we'll ever reach a point, hundreds of years from now, where the most advanced nations have engineered themselves - via synthetic foods and all sorts of crazy shit - into such a resilient existence independent of the 'old concerns' of the natural environment that looking after the natural world doesn't matter, or even enter people's minds. Except perhaps for a few lucky/unlucky tribes left out in the cold living from the land.
The problem is the potential (very highly probable) for this to become a run away train of positive feedback.
The rapidity of the change would make any positives extremely short lived and almost certainly too brief to provide much relief for our species.
Tom is far better qualified to answer this than I, or Systema Ian if he's reading.
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Mega tsunamis.
Blimey.
Not good for low-lying human populace. Good for creating new wetland habitat? Wildfowl might not even need to fly south.
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Pete there was this series of programs of R4, unfortunately now unavailable, which made me feel a bit sick http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ynf5n (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ynf5n)
This is one of the guys they interviewed http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/cashing_in_on_apocalypse_meet_the_people_making_a_killing_on_climate_change/ (http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/cashing_in_on_apocalypse_meet_the_people_making_a_killing_on_climate_change/)
The Bugle coined the word Catastrotunity which seems quite fitting
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Yes, it is the speed of change which is the kicker.
The fauna and flora of the Tundra would be decimated and the temperate f and Fl would never naturally colonise it fast enough to beat it's own demise in the formally temperate regions.
Even if it proceeds half as fast as the worst predictions (and currently that's the curve we're on), it will constitute an extinction event of epic proportions and the pace will almost certainly exceed anything Natural Selection could contend with.
So opportunity exist for terraforming entrepreneurs...
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Pete there was this series of programs of R4, unfortunately now unavailable, which made me feel a bit sick http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ynf5n (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ynf5n)
This is one of the guys they interviewed http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/cashing_in_on_apocalypse_meet_the_people_making_a_killing_on_climate_change/ (http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/cashing_in_on_apocalypse_meet_the_people_making_a_killing_on_climate_change/)
The Bugle coined the word Catastrotunity which seems quite fitting
It couldn't be any other way really could it? To be honest I'm ambivalent between feeling saddened at the state of affairs, realistic about the inevitability of it and optimistic about the future and our ability to make the greatest advancements in the worst circumstances. We had to end up where we are or we'd still be in the 18th century. I don't let myself feel too outraged at the implicit suggestion that it's wrong for opportunists to go out looking for possibilities in circumstances beyond anyone's control. You could be out there staking claims in new territories, or sit on the sidelines fretting to no good effect about which species is next to sadly become extinct. You're both equally powerless in the big picture but at least one's being proactive.
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Intersting use of the word proactive, like it's only possible to be taking positive actions if they involve making money.
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What I wonder is if we'll ever reach a point, hundreds of years from now, where the most advanced nations have engineered themselves - via synthetic foods and all sorts of crazy shit - into such a resilient existence independent of the 'old concerns' of the natural environment that looking after the natural world doesn't matter, or even enter people's minds. Except perhaps for a few lucky/unlucky tribes left out in the cold living from the land.
With respect, Pete, are you completely mental?
Everything we have comes from the environment in some way, whether it be from an animal, vegetable, or mineral. Where are these future superhumans going to get their water from if not the environment? Where will they gain the materials to synthesise food if not from, well, food? Maybe we'll all decide to be made out of metal as skin and bone is so fragile? Maybe we'll evolve wings so that we can fly above the rising sea levels like albatross? Or some other "crazy shit"?
If you're so hell bent on making money, then just look up "Ecosystem Services". This is a simple concept that any sane and intelligent person grasped a long time ago, but has recently become popularised as a buzz phrase because it is the only way to make simple-minded, one-dimensional accountants realise that if they go far back enough in their supply chain they find "The Environment" at the root of it all.
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areas that currently have a 'marginal' climate for habitation which could become more amenable to habitation
Let's say all of Canada and Siberia become ideal grain-growing country. Do you think those countries will let the population of the less happily affected countries move there? Or do you think barricades will go up as Africa becomes a dust bowl?
There are two extremes to this - do you care only if some humans survive happily - in which case bring it on, or do you care if we cause a mass extinction and ecosystem collapse - in which case we're already there.
Having seen Waterworld I am quietly confident of my place in the future.
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Aren't you thinking of Westworld at burbage?
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The Judge Dredd type walled Mega Cities and Cursed Earth scenario doesn't seem that improbable after all.
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What I wonder is if we'll ever reach a point, hundreds of years from now, where the most advanced nations have engineered themselves - via synthetic foods and all sorts of crazy shit - into such a resilient existence independent of the 'old concerns' of the natural environment that looking after the natural world doesn't matter, or even enter people's minds. Except perhaps for a few lucky/unlucky tribes left out in the cold living from the land.
With respect, Pete, are you completely mental?
Everything we have comes from the environment in some way, whether it be from an animal, vegetable, or mineral. Where are these future superhumans going to get their water from if not the environment? Where will they gain the materials to synthesise food if not from, well, food? Maybe we'll all decide to be made out of metal as skin and bone is so fragile? Maybe we'll evolve wings so that we can fly above the rising sea levels like albatross? Or some other "crazy shit"?
If you're so hell bent on making money, then just look up "Ecosystem Services". This is a simple concept that any sane and intelligent person grasped a long time ago, but has recently become popularised as a buzz phrase because it is the only way to make simple-minded, one-dimensional accountants realise that if they go far back enough in their supply chain they find "The Environment" at the root of it all.
That's a pretty emotional response to what essentially is idle pondering Will; and quite patronising. Seems I made the mistake of pondering on an emotive issue (climate change) in ambiguous terms which you've chosen to interpret as meaning I'm a signed-up member of the 'let's fuck over everything and everyone for personal gain' brigade. Perhaps worse, I mentioned the self-evident fact that some sections of the human race will seek to gain from whatever circumstances it finds itself in, but I didn't overtly signal how they must be baddies and all us on here are the goodies.
It's likely that I'm much more informed about issues around sustainable development and renewable energy, and much less 'hell-bent on making money' - nice mental leap there! - than you (or Stubbs) might like to believe but I'm not going to churn out links of what I'm reading or bore you with details of behavior which puts me firmly in the right-on group, like some endless online dinner party of well-meaning self-righteous bores.
Your response reaffirms how difficult it is to discuss seemingly overwhelming issues which are beyond any one group's control, without some people becoming defensive and defaulting to facile characterisations. Try reading what I wrote but with a neutral attitude.
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He does have a decent point though - whatever 'crazy shit' they engineer it will still need raw materials. Only the most valuable of these will ever be economic to mine from elsewhere than this planet. Perhaps self-sufficient starships will cruise the galaxy fuelled by a controlled big bang and mining from dead planets, Earth no more real to them than the Garden of Eden is to us. But I'm not convinced.
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Perhaps self-sufficient starships will cruise the galaxy fuelled by a controlled big bang and mining from dead planets, Earth no more real to them than the Garden of Eden is to us.
Is this after the attack and their escape form the twelve planets and Kobol?
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It's likely that I'm much more informed about issues around sustainable development and renewable energy, and much less 'hell-bent on making money' - nice mental leap there! - than you (or Stubbs) might like to believe but I'm not going to churn out links of what I'm reading or bore you with details of behavior which puts me firmly in the right-on group, like some endless online dinner party of well-meaning self-righteous bores.
Your response reaffirms how difficult it is to discuss seemingly overwhelming issues which are beyond any one group's control, without some people becoming defensive and defaulting to facile characterisations. Try reading what I wrote but with a neutral attitude.
I'm sure you are very well read Pete, it's just that you have a particular habit of playing devil's advocate on a wide range of subjects. Whereas someone like Sloper generally posts their opinions (or a toryboy caricature thereof), you seem to like not posting what you actually think, but something more provocative instead. I don't think this is particularly constructive to a majority of discussions.
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Yeh like a discussion on ukb that's gonna give answers in how to avoid armageddon. None of it's real
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JB - Canada? They'd let anyone in!
Is 'Africa' (I assume you have certain parts of the continent in mind?) going to become a dust bowl? Is 'the US'? Are both, neither? China? The only thing anyone can say with certainty is if and when parts of the world do change into uninhabitable 'dust bowls' the people living there will either die or move, depending on the option available to them.
Are there parts of Africa that can absorb? Are there parts of Africa that may benefit from climate change? Seems to me if you don't know the answers, or at least are asking the questions, to the flip-side then you're just focusing on 'not hitting the lamppost'.
How about as a thought experiment people do a bit of research on any possible positive outcomes of climate change and post up on this thread - see if you can manage it in a way that doesn't get you accused of heresy or believing unfettered capitalism is the one true faith. Doing so might even help counter some angst...
Edit - playing devil's advocate or just circling an argument to get the best understanding of the various factors? Yeah I do, it seems like the most sensible way of trying to understand any complex subject.
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How about as a thought experiment people do a bit of research on any possible positive outcomes of climate change and post up on this thread - see if you can manage it in a way that doesn't get you accused of heresy or believing unfettered capitalism is the one true faith. Doing so might even help counter some angst...
Edit - playing devil's advocate or just circling an argument to get the best understanding of the various factors? Yeah I do, it seems like the most sensible way of trying to understand any complex subject.
The second paragraph suggests that other people who have posted have come to their point of view without any critical thinking and are just regurgitating the slogans of the particular camp you think belong to. This is a little rude I think.
By positives are you talking economic, geographic, sociological? Obviously the earth's climate has been changing for 4 billion years, I guess one positive outcome of the current trend could be the end of humans and cutting short the Anthropocene epoch and letting the planet sort itself out.
I guess this report from the IPCC would make some good reading to add to the list although it's quite long and maybe a bit dry! https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/full-report/
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Yeh like a discussion on ukb that's gonna give answers in how to avoid armageddon. None of it's real
Oh it's real.
We're all Doooooommeed I tell you, Dooooommmeeed!
(To be read in an hysterical Highland accent).
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How about as a thought experiment people do a bit of research on any possible positive outcomes of climate change and post up on this thread - see if you can manage it in a way that doesn't get you accused of heresy or believing unfettered capitalism is the one true faith. Doing so might even help counter some angst...
Edit - playing devil's advocate or just circling an argument to get the best understanding of the various factors? Yeah I do, it seems like the most sensible way of trying to understand any complex subject.
The second paragraph suggests that other people who have posted have come to their point of view without any critical thinking and are just regurgitating the slogans of the particular camp you think belong to. This is a little rude I think.
By positives are you talking economic, geographic, sociological? Obviously the earth's climate has been changing for 4 billion years, I guess one positive outcome of the current trend could be the end of humans and cutting short the Anthropocene epoch and letting the planet sort itself out.
I guess this report from the IPCC would make some good reading to add to the list although it's quite long and maybe a bit dry! https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/full-report/
Meant to hit "multi quote" there...
Pete, I read Geology for 2 years before switching to Engineering and still have a greater than passing interest in the subject.
Nothing that is happening is in anyway new. It has all happened before and this is certainly NOT the first time a "life form" has been responsible for catastrophic climate change and mass extinction.
It is the first time that organism has been smart enough to recognise it or do something about it.
I quite like your idea of treating it as a pioneering challenge.
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The only thing anyone can say with certainty is if and when parts of the world do change into uninhabitable 'dust bowls' the people living there will either die or move
Glad we agree on that.
I haven't been more specific because the climate system is incredibly complex, the outcomes of a general temp rise locally are not certain and I'm not a professional.
Yes I am asking the questions of the benefits, of course. Hence my point: the areas in which we are likely to see less habitable areas become more habitable (tundra/ taiga) are mainly sparsely populated. (And as others have pointed out the tundra becoming inhabitable involves the release of huge quantities of greenhouse gases.)
Whereas the areas that are likely to become uninhabitable - due to sea level rise and movement of the desert regions - are mostly fairly densely inhabited. There is a fair chance the equatorial regions might simply become too hot for humans.
Now if we lived in either a perfect utopian society or a complete anarchy everyone might shuffle sideways. In the reality we live in I see it being far more difficult. I think the bonus of growing grapes in Yorkshire, grain in the Yukon or having a little savanna in the Sahara is going to be fairly minor compared with the concurrent problems elsewhere.
There is no doubt in my mind that some will see it as a pioneering challenge and prosper. But I very much doubt that will be the majority. I hope to be dead before it gets going to be honest.
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Nothing that is happening is in anyway new. It has all happened before and this is certainly NOT the first time a "life form" has been responsible for catastrophic climate change and mass extinction.
Actually, the rate of CO2 rise is unprecedented.
CO2 has gone up and down over millions of years - and glacials and interglacials have followed suit... The rise we've seen in the last 100 years is happening far faster than anything that has happened before (that we know about)...
This is a key point - as I keep on saying - the climate systems can have long, sometimes very long lag times - and forcing such a rapid change makes many compensatory systems (negative feedbacks - e.g. carbon sinks) become less effective/redundant..
Stick some more coal on the fire eh...
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this is certainly NOT the first time a "life form" has been responsible for catastrophic climate change and mass extinction
Do you mean a single species or just 'plants etc'? I'm not heard of any past extinctions caused by a single species or even genus before.
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Stubbs, here's something I definitely do think: I doubt that human-caused climate change will lead to the extinction of every single human being on the planet. X billion? - yes, I believe a massive reduction in the species is probable but 'reports of the death of the entire human race have been exaggerated'.
I think such a powerful event will be a catalyst for a change in priorities and beliefs, from those that have dominated since the start of the industrial revolution.
Also, I do think a massive correction is probably a healthy thing in the thousands-of-years context of the long-term evolution of the species. But not, obviously, in the 20 - 200 year context of the short-term evolution of John and Jane Doe.
An asteroid strike is more likely to be the end of us all imo.
Meanwhile, I'll concentrate on training my middle two strength and PE.
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I think you and I agree on many things Pete.
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nobody should concentrate on PE
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Some people obviously need to
(http://images.medscape.com/pi/editorial/cmecircle/2005/4312/images/mulhall/slide014.gif)
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this is certainly NOT the first time a "life form" has been responsible for catastrophic climate change and mass extinction
Do you mean a single species or just 'plants etc'? I'm not heard of any past extinctions caused by a single species or even genus before.
.
Well, for one thing all that free O2 you and all us Aerobic organisms are so fond of?
By-product of Algal evolution. Totally changed Earths atmosphere and was a death sentence to billions of Anaerobic organisms...
And (here Tom is going to go Librarian Poo), we haven't caused Global warming.
We have been entering into this interglacial period for at least 14,000 years.
Sea levels have consistently been rising throughout that period (your Great X10 ^lots Granddaddy, probably walked over to Calais for a Crepe of a Weekend).
We've been noticing a distinct decline in Glaciation since we started writing things/painting on cave walls.
WE HAVE made it much, much worse and much, much faster. With the added bonus of perhaps pitching it into a positive feed back loop that will send it into uncharted territory.
But there have been plenty of periods in Earths history when it was ice free, or utterly Snow balled. All since life popped up it's interfering head and often that life was one of the driving factors.
Amongst all those pesky Asteroids, Super Volcanos and things; those pernicious little critters, beetle away screwing things up for all the other little critters.
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Stubbs, here's something I definitely do think: I doubt that human-caused climate change will lead to the extinction of every single human being on the planet. X billion? - yes, I believe a massive reduction in the species is probable but 'reports of the death of the entire human race have been exaggerated'.
I think such a powerful event will be a catalyst for a change in priorities and beliefs, from those that have dominated since the start of the industrial revolution.
Also, I do think a massive correction is probably a healthy thing in the thousands-of-years context of the long-term evolution of the species. But not, obviously, in the 20 - 200 year context of the short-term evolution of John and Jane Doe.
An asteroid strike is more likely to be the end of us all imo.
Meanwhile, I'll concentrate on training my middle two strength and PE.
Now, that one I definitely like/agree with.
Though I wouldn't underestimate how bad things might get quite soon...
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I'm not sure what Librarian poo is ;) but next time I'm in the Library I'll curl down a big stinker in the Civ Eng section :)
Matt is right though - we're in the middle of an interglacial (the bit between glacials!!!) and yes even as recent as 100kA ago sea level was 15-20m higher...
But this rise in temps in the last 100 years (that's caused by us) is much faster than you'd expect.
Pete - yes society will react at some point - problem is, that when that happens it'll be too late (it probably already is).
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I'm not sure what Librarian poo is ;) but next time I'm in the Library I'll curl down a big stinker in the Civ Eng section :)
Matt is right though - we're in the middle of an interglacial (the bit between glacials!!!) and yes even as recent as 100kA ago sea level was 15-20m higher...
But this rise in temps in the last 100 years (that's caused by us) is much faster than you'd expect.
Pete - yes society will react at some point - problem is, that when that happens it'll be too late (it probably already is).
Marine Engineering please.
None of us Mariners are very civil...
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TomTom - I don't really know what you or others are trying to articulate when you use terms such as 'by then, it might be too late. It Probably already is' - that's quite a melodramatic phrase. Too late for what? For the entire human race to continue 'we're all goners!'? - in which case I disagree completely. Or just 'too late to stop climate change'. In which case yes, I resigned myself that it's been too late for that since sometime in the 90s. What do you mean, or is it just melodrama?
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Pete - I think it's a useful exercise to think about positive aspects of climate change. Looked at from that perspective you can argue that climate change is an economic challenge rather than an environmental one. The argument goes that nature will muddle on through somehow, but the big issue will be relocating infrastructure to the parts of the globe which are still habitable.
I reckon that misses two points. The first is that the pace of change may be too rapid for much of nature to cope. The second is the risk of positive feedback leading to a severe rise in temps. By severe I mean more than around three degrees.
There's a great book called "Just six degrees" which looks at the consequences of a global rise in temperature of 2, 3, 4... degrees. The science in the book is pretty sound, and the picture it paints at six degrees really isn't pretty. If things get that far, talking terms of the end of humanity is not at all an exaggeration. Of course we may end up nowhere near that.
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Sorry - the book is "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet"
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TomTom - I don't really know what you or others are trying to articulate when you use terms such as 'by then, it might be too late. It Probably already is' - that's quite a melodramatic phrase. Too late for what? For the entire human race to continue 'we're all goners!'? - in which case I disagree completely. Or just 'too late to stop climate change'. In which case yes, I resigned myself that it's been too late for that since sometime in the 90s. What do you mean, or is it just melodrama?
There existed an opportunity to perhaps address this sufficiently to prevent things going beyond a certain tipping point (one which spelt the difference between utter disaster and something much worse); there are indications that we may have left it too late.
That is Melodrama, it is justified Melodrama.
Not much on giving into things, but it probably will get a little hairy within a generation or two.
I expect the species to survive, so generally I agree with Pete. I'm also very optimistic of our ability to adapt through technological advancement (I don't think those self-sufficient Starships are too far off the mark or even that far away).
But it's seriously likely to be a large pile of fetid shit in the short term.
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TomTom - I don't really know what you or others are trying to articulate when you use terms such as 'by then, it might be too late. It Probably already is' - that's quite a melodramatic phrase. Too late for what? For the entire human race to continue 'we're all goners!'? - in which case I disagree completely. Or just 'too late to stop climate change'. In which case yes, I resigned myself that it's been too late for that since sometime in the 90s. What do you mean, or is it just melodrama?
Pete - how could I put it more plainly! No drama - it's what I think. It's already too late to move our climate back to how it was as per pre industrial scenarios. So by the time 'society' wakes up and smells the coffee it almost certainly will be too late!
Too late for us? Humans? Well I imagine (and now I have to imagine rather than use predictions) that even if it's worst case - in the wealthy UK we'll muddle on okish .. But it will fundamentally change how we live our lives - what we can do, where we can go and or standard of living. The wealthier will of course be better off. If we were both living in Bangladesh (where 50-70% of the land will be swallowed up by the sea in the coming years) I would say it's a far bleaker picture. That's just the physical changes.. The real strife will come from the political changes that come from the physical - ie populations forced to move, scarcity of water resources etc.. If you look to history - major environmental changes have triggered collapses in society (Minoans spring to mind..)
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I think WallE might be one of the most perceptive films made recently ;)
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TT - right, that's what I assumed you meant. Yeah I agree with all of that, but, sorry to sound like a twat, it isn't new information and hasn't been for a long time now in my mind. I've just taken it as an inevitability, I think since around the late 90s, that ways of life and death are going to continue to change in the coming decades - as they have done for eternity. And for the next x-hundreds of years one of the most important influences in who gets to live and thrive and who suffers and dies will be climate change; climate change that is an inevitability of being human with all our natural drives and the consequences they bring.
Stu - looks like an interesting read, I'll get it and read it on the beach in Turkey the week after next. I hope it's more than 6 degrees warmer there than here..
What's his term of reference btw? - 6 degrees since when?
So how much has the earth warmed up so far then? Seems it's hard to say for sure, but here's some pretty solid info I copy/pasted from a blogger's website (dyor):
'The vital context: a longer-term temperature history
Two decades of cool weather, followed by 15 years of warm weather. Wide swings in temperature; a relatively flat trend since 1998 – 2000. For more about the pause see links to climate research in Section 5.
(a) From the UAH monthly report, the full record of satellite data (started in 1979). Click to enlarge.
(http://fabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tlt_update_feb2014.jpg?w=900&h=330)
(b) A different view of the UAH data, by Roy Spencer, principal scientists on the UAH team (at his website).
(http://fabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/uah_lt_1979_thru_february_2014.png?w=900&h=521)
(c) The UK Met Office shows a longer-term history
These numbers cannot be properly understood until put in a historical context, as in this graph from page 10 of “The Recent Pause in Global Warming” published by the UK Met Office in July 2013.
(http://fabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/20130723-met-change.png?w=900&h=525)'
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I'd be interested to see that plotted against global economic growth (not GDP growth/reduction) but absolute growth.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to illustrate with those graphs. They certainly don't show 'how much the earth has warmed up so far'.
I do think a massive correction is probably a healthy thing in the thousands-of-years context of the long-term evolution of the species.
Taking an objective view, I agree entirely.
But not, obviously, in the 20 - 200 year context of the short-term evolution of John and Jane Doe.
I guess this is what most of us are getting concerned about. Probably in our lifetimes, and certainly in our children's lifetimes, we're going to see some major global upheaval. The UK is a good place to be, but I doubt we will be unaffected, both directly (the thames barrier will need serious upgrades) and indirectly (climate refugees).
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I'm not sure what you're trying to illustrate with those graphs. They certainly don't show 'how much the earth has warmed up so far'.
:wall:
:shrug: That is the data you'll find if you want to discover how much the earth has warmed in the past 100 years. I'm not 'trying to illustrate' anything more than that? Unless you've access to some secret data that no-one else has seen? How much do you think the change is?
Here's another:
(https://www2.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/news/2014/201301-201312.png)
'Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 1.53°F (0.85ºC) from 1880 to 2012, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see page 3 of the IPCC's Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers'
How about NASA?:
(http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig1.gif)
What about University of East Anglia?:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/)
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Those are better, yes. The first two showed a very short period and the third showed 'rate of change' which is likely to confuse. Personally I think it's more instructive to look at much longer time periods for context.
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The interesting thing with that graph is how it doesn't seem to correlate with growth / use of coal & oil.
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Which graph and in what way does it not correlate?
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They don't correlate because all the climate data suggests that, from 1880 until the late 70s, there was an overall negative average value i.e. an overall cooling of the global temperature. Followed by a rapid change to positive values around 1978 until the early noughties.
Large-scale use of coal started in the mid 1800s, oil in the early 1900s.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg/350px-Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg.png)
The change to a relatively rapid warming trend does correlate with the second half of a period of accelerating carbon output from fossil fuel use starting in 1945 and going to present-day. Suggests to me as a layman a period of absorption with no noticeable effect followed by a tipping point.
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They don't correlate because all the climate data suggests that, from 1880 until the late 70s, there was an overall negative average value i.e. an overall cooling of the global temperature. Followed by a rapid change to positive values around 1978 until the early noughties.
That wasn't how I read the graph. It was only negative compared to the overall average from 1880-2012. The low point on the graph is around 1910, with considerable increase from 1910 to 1940, then a tapering off and substantial growth again from 1970 to 2000.
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a) it would make more sense to have a graph of cumulative fossil carbon put into the system.
b) in a system as complex as the global climate there isn't going to be a simple linear correlation.
c) am I actually expected to defend the global scientific consensus vs armchair observers here? Correct me if I'm wrong Pete, but the undercurrent to your posts seems to be that the warming problem is perhaps being overstated?
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Whatthefuck?
I'll correct you - you're wrong.
I've just copy/pasted a selection of data showing the global scientific consensus haven't I? How have you interpreted me pasting the data on warming trends here as me disagreeing with it?
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Nice to see coal making a comeback, maybe we will be able to reopen some pits and ship it to China. Surely a benefit?
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They don't correlate because all the climate data suggests that, from 1880 until the late 70s, there was an overall negative average value i.e. an overall cooling of the global temperature. Followed by a rapid change to positive values around 1978 until the early noughties.
That wasn't how I read the graph. It was only negative compared to the overall average from 1880-2012. The low point on the graph is around 1910, with considerable increase from 1910 to 1940, then a tapering off and substantial growth again from 1970 to 2000.
Agreed, but an increase in itself doesn't mean it was an increase to above-average warming, it's just an increase. I don't think it's misleading to say that the most significant increase in temps occurred in the period 1978-present day and here the picture is clear to anyone.
I think Sloper is picking up on the fact that carbon emissions from fossil fuel started increasing in the mid 1800s - so why not a direct correlation in the temp increase? Time-lag / a tipping point in the atmosphere's ability to absorb carbon would be my guess.
The fact that the temp-change is relative to the 1880-2014 average is interesting. It's a pity we can't see temperature data relative to, say, the average from 2000BC to present day because that's what a lot of skeptics hang their argument on. But whatever, the 100 year figures still paint a pretty stark picture for the last 30 years.
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Really guys that dip is a well known event!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
The data you are looking at is all way too short period for a clear picture of the rising temps.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-average-temperatures-are-close-to-11000-year-peak/
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/10/24/bb52f74e7aa2e59786a4519e01b62637.jpg)
The last thousand years.
It's not just the industrial revolution, it's the whole population increase. We burned fuel for heat/cooking in vast amounts before manufacturing much.
Can you see that massive leap at the end?
That correlates with our Industrial revolution/population explosion.
Otherwise, Pete's data is way too skewed by the "Little ice age".
Also, 1914-18 has supposedly had a cooling effect as did 1939-46, due to dust/smoke emissions.
Essentially, worrying about the peaks and troughs or even the 5 year mean is pointless and misleading.
Use a fifty year mean, at least.
Edit..
I actually meant to point out, that there has been a rising trend since 1000ad.
If you projected that trend to "ignore" the little ice age (it was a Icelandic Volcano that started that and lead to mass famine across Europe, can't recall the name. Tom?) then the current temps are way over what you would have predicted and do correlate with the Fossil fuel explosion.
That significant dip, in 1880 and for the following decade, throws out the curves but has a clear reason AND the dip is not as low as it should have been given the size of the eruption. It has been suggested that this correlates with the massive increase in CO2 emissions in the same period.
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Good to see Manns charts.... Much de and re constructed..
The important point from these is not how much it has gone up over the last 1000 years but how rapidly its risen in the last 100... Rates of change not values...
Cause of the LIA is controversial. Volcanic cooling is the new boy in town, Low solar activity the old/established paradigm (we have sunspot observations back to then). The left field idea is that mass reforestation post Black Death reduced Co2 levels and temps. Anyway- look at the temp data for the last 1kA and the LIA is small compared to the last 50!years change... And that led to frost fairs on the Thames, widespread glacial advance and years of bad harvest famine etc.. Across Europe.
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I wish my mining stocks looked like that graph.
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Apologies Pete then.
Placing the 0 point at the average of the period is the convention, but as Matt's Mann's graph shows the previous trend was general cooling. The sudden change to warming is clear, and correlates with the industrial revolution. To me it is entirely misleading to state the most significant temperature increase occurred post '78.
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Re the graph, am I being an idiot? Temperature anomaly on the vertical axis, only goes above 0 in 2 places everything else is minus. How can it be minus for everything else? -4 seems the norm, how come this isn't set as 0 since being normal is not really an anomaly
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I didn't fully answer your question JB, about whether I think the warming problem is overstated, becasue my answer isn't a short one and I've written and deleted an essay's worth. In brief: I don't so much frame climate change as a 'problem' that can be solved, as more of an inevitable self-correction to be endured and a catalyst for surviving generations to make necessary changes of outlook/behavior.
Inevitable, because ultimately it's not just a problem of science but a philosophical problem about how we live our life and the paradox of collective over individual action (no individual would choose the likely effects of global warming but no individual is responsible). Warming has been 'treatable' in theory for decades, a bit like drug treatment for Ebola was possible in theory but not acted-on until a large outbreak. It takes a lot of pain to stimulate the sort of change in behavior and thinking required to have an effect on something this big and complex. I don't think individuals feel enough pain yet from climate change, and I can't help but think it's a bit deluded of well-intentioned people to believe good-intentions and theory are going to change something with the inertia of the beliefs and habits of 7 billion people.
Matt and JB - No disagreement here that the average temp is warming. And no disagreement that it's warming with unprecedented speed in recent times and that this generally correlates to the industrial revolution and that carbon is the main cause - I do stick to my argument that the most significant increase has occurred from the late 1970s to present day JB, and I think you're incorrect to think otherwise - the data's pretty clear and these folk also appear to disagree with you:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php[/url]]According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and shown in this series of maps, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8°Celsius (1.4°Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php)
We're currently at around a .8 degree global average temp increase since 1880 (part of a cooler than average period). That's probably going to continue upwards quickly to around 2 degrees and maybe higher. To me it makes sense to research and anticipate the pro's and con's of a world 2 or 3 degrees warmer, which is likely going to be the future scenario whatever any individual wishes it to be.
Edit: Dense, you're not being an idiot because it's not at all obvious. The answer is in the small print of the research article that the graph comes from: 'the temperature anomalies for all the records are referenced to the 1961–1990 instrumental mean.'
This is common for all temp anomaly graphs you'll see, as I understand it's common to use as a reference either a 30-year period between 1960-90, or a 100 year period between 1900-2000.
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Cheers pete I thought i might be missing something like that
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU)
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So folks, what's the view about putting some fine particulant pollution in the upper atmosphere to bring the temperature down a bit? We know it works so why not?
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Non linear feedback
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We know it works so why not?
I suspect most scientists that it's this kind of arrogance that has got us in this mess. Our history of attempting to engineer ecosystems by introducing new elements would suggest caution, the climate is no less complex.
Plus you'd have the lawsuits from the fact that even if successful, almost everybody would be affected negatively in the short term.
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We also can't predict how much (SO2?) we'd need to pump into the atmosphere to bring about the required cooling - models seem to greatly overestimate cooling from past eruptions compared to observations. Plus it would require frequent 'top ups' to keep up with continued greenhouse gas emissions.
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Feedback systems are tricky even when there are only a few degrees of freedom. The climate is horribly complicated.
If we (as a species) get desperate enough to try something like this I hope it'd be something that we could at least switch off. Orbiting mirrors have been discussed. Trouble is, by the time we get that desparate, we will probably have lost the capability as this sort of thing requires huge amounts of energy.
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This got me thinking, brief though it is; don't we have a "Reporter on scene"? Sasquatch, how does this stack against your experience?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/seven-ways-alaska-seeing-climate-change-action-180956479/
I spent several months in Greenland in 2000 and saw first hand the glacial retreat; which can only have worsened in the intervening decade and a half.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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This got me thinking, brief though it is; don't we have a "Reporter on scene"? Sasquatch, how does this stack against your experience?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/seven-ways-alaska-seeing-climate-change-action-180956479/
I spent several months in Greenland in 2000 and saw first hand the glacial retreat; which can only have worsened in the intervening decade and a half.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
A few red herrings there, but also some truth to it.
#1 - Rampant Wildfires. I haven't looked into the acreage in the last few years, but i wouldn't be surprised if they've been above average. If i had to guess, i'd say they're above average as a result of the warm summers we've had the last three years. we also had a spell like this around 2003-2005 with high temps and lots of fires. Directly related to climate change - highly debateable IMO.
#2 - Glaciers are melting. This is pretty bad and is quite obvious if you've been here for any length of time and spent time in these areas. Directly related to climate change - Yes IMO.
#3 - Permafrost less permanent. Don't know about this one. There's no permafrost in the Anchorage area. Directly related to climate change - don't know enough to answer.
#4 - Weather Has Gotten Weird. Yes. One example- we have had thunderstorms each of the last three years, and i've never seen one here before, and my wife grew up here and had never seen one. The stuff they talk about is not really that odd though, except the nome thundersnow. Directly related to climate change - I think it's likely.
#5 - The Coastline Is Eroding. Yes it's happening. I don't know enough about whether its a new thing or not. I do know that starting about 100 years ago, villages become more fixed in locations, and many of those locations were very poorly chosen. In addition to ocean erosion, we have may river erosion issues with villages.
#6 - Villages Are Relocating. See above.
#7 - Traditional Food Sources Are Vanishing. How much of this is due to climate change is highly debated.
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Well, that's the climate problem solved. (flippancy, before anyone says)
Now what about rogue asteroids/nuclear states/grey goo?
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Those finte resources are going historically (hysterically?) cheap at the moment with oil, iron ore and other useful commodities typically half the price they were a year ago due to oversupply for current level of global demand. Bad news for Miners and Oil companies (larger ones forming a disproportionate part of the FTSE100) but good news for consumers and manufacturers. This should keep inflation low in the medium which in turn will help keep interest rates rock bottom. Employment in the UK is unusually high but despite this increase in real wages is lowish which in turn is another reason interest rates will stay low. Beggars belief really.
Any guesses for how things will play out for the UK and rest of World (particularly China) this year ?
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Those finte resources are going historically (hysterically?) cheap at the moment with oil, iron ore and other useful commodities typically half the price they were a year ago due to oversupply for current level of global demand. Bad news for Miners and Oil companies (larger ones forming a disproportionate part of the FTSE100) but good news for consumers and manufacturers. This should keep inflation low in the medium which in turn will help keep interest rates rock bottom. Employment in the UK is unusually high but despite this increase in real wages is lowish which in turn is another reason interest rates will stay low. Beggars belief really.
Any guesses for how things will play out for the UK and rest of World (particularly China) this year ?
All I know is my timing is terrible. I lived hand-to-mouth for years during boom times when interest and stock returns were high. Now I have a large surplus, and I've been hit with an investment triple whammy of poor returns on UK market; Canadian and US mining shares nosediving; and poor interest rates on cash in savings.
(Should have bought a BTL instead.)
It's all cyclical though... right?
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Isn't the number one rule:
'Past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes.'
Not that I'm anyone to listen to when it comes to investing. I'll almost certainly be trying to sell in the forthcoming buying opportunity.
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Are we allowed to talk about investing in this thread? I thought it was strictly for Ehrlich (http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/04/what-the-new-york-times-didnt-learn-from-paul-ehrlichs-population-bomb-fizzle/)'ian-style predictions of imminent apocalypse?
If we are, my prediction is that 2016 will prove to have been a buy-the-dip year for equities much like 1994 or 1998. There was major fretting in both those years that debt crises in emerging economies (mexico in 1994, south-east asia and russia in 1998) would break the financial system; all of which proved wrong. There are also interesting similarities between the current slowdown in China's economy and the stagnation in Japan that began in the early 1990s. Japan was about as large within the global economy then as China is now, and in many ways had built its economy in a similar way: a vigorous free-market export sector coupled with a heavily-managed domestic economy built on unsustainably loose credit. In the late 1980s it is seemed to be an universally-held truth that Japan was about to take over the world (much as people have been talking of China in recent years) and then a period in the early 1990s when it was common to hear economists explain that Japan's debt implosion was an unmanageable problem for the global economy. All of that worry was wrong too.
This might come acrross as being a bit 'all economists are cunts' - but...
Why is economics so fascinated with what has happened in the past? - In the last 150 years the world has changed monumentally - several times. We've never had a strong China, a shale gas situation, Iran coming back into the market, a .net based economy, widespread gambling on gambling (thats Hedging right...) - so why on earth are economists so obsessed with applying what has happened in the past? We are not in that situation - in fact we're pretty far removed from how things were 10 years ago.. let alone 20 or 30 or 40 etc...
Cycles? F**********load********hite. Google apophenia - and read the wikipedia page.
I deleted my rant about archaeologists and economists...
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Undelete it, you should rant more TT!
I don't think I'm wrong to say that various different parts of the global economy could be described as cyclical - am I? (I'm open to being told 'you are wrong').
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Undelete it, you should rant more TT!
I don't think I'm wrong to say that various different parts of the global economy could be described as cyclical - am I? (I'm open to being told 'you are wrong').
A chunk of my job is looking for cycles in natural systems - 90% of the time people think there is some pattern or other behind something - and its bollocks. The human mind LOVES to link cause and effect - for there to be a reason for something happening.
Global economics is a large, distributed, highly interconnected non linear (chaotic) system with constantly changing boundary conditions. And its run by bellends.
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This might come across as being a bit 'all financial analysts are cunts' - but...
Well I used to be a financial analyst, not an economist, so on the assumption that was directed at me, I have taken the liberty of editing your post.
Nope - wasn't aimed at you at all.
T'was at economics in general. Soooo much arm waiving... cults of personality.... (all the worst facets of some qualitative disciplines whilst pretending to be quantative)... Anyway, it was a bit like prefacing a conversation by saying "no offence but..." :)
Why is economics so fascinated with what has happened in the past?
Because experience shows there is reliable mean reversion within a variety of economic indicators. For example, in the long term stock prices revert to certain valuation norms, currencies revert to PPP values ...even aggregate world economic growth just oscillates around a fairly steady trend. Actually, faith in mean reversion (plus some modest risk tolerance) is the main reason why I have been able to stop work and climb full-time. But, hey, what do I know?
I'll come to that later - do you REALLY thing the past is a good predictor?
The problem with that (and its one relavent to my work - where people often use past 'events' to model what will happen in the future) is that something different can always happen in the future that we may or may not know about (lets go Rumsfeld here!). It strikes me - that there is an incredibly huge scope (or degrees of freedom in systems parlance) for known and unknown unknowns to happen in economics!
30 years ago, who would have foreseen the death plunge demise of the printed word?
What about:
The Arab Spring?
The collapse of communism/Russia/Iron Curtain.
Brexit??
A fuck of huge asteroid wiping out the UK etc...
To me the biggest indicator that stock markets are deterministic non-linear systems (like a horse race..) is that people make so much money from betting on it! Sometimes more money is bet than is traded non?
Reversion is an interesting term. How things get dragged back to a mean I guess is what you mean by this. Well, thats not uncommon in many natural systems - to have fluctuation (often wild!) around a mean - which does mean that if you take a long term view then it will return to some normality at some point. That all depends how long the long term is (fluctuations within fluctuations!) of course. So I take your point about that - which I guess means if you play the long game then its not so bad.. Well, the world economy as a whole has grown over the last 20 years, so if you had enough to start investing with with - then 'investing' or following/tracking etc.. the S&P or FTSE would and has made people a pretty income over the last 20 years..
Except Donald Trump - who great business man that he is, has made less..
However, systems that tend to revert to a mean - or oscilate around a mean in a form of dynamic equilibrium - can at times be 'shocked' or jolted into another state - into another (higher or lower) mean.
Nuclear power - and mining around that is a great example. If you look at Uranium prices then with the growth of nuclear power (70's) they were high and peaked. Then a gentle decline as it became less popular - with a big drop following CHernobyl. Then c. 2003 starts to rise again due to oil prices/carbon/global warming making Nuclear more popular - then Tsunami, Fukashima - big drop again. So you could argue that the 'market' has fluctuated around a few states where nuclear power is popular or not.
Ach, I'm rambling and I'd better post as theeres probably three been written whilst writing this :)
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Arguably is not really "run" by anyone.
If the wealthiest 50 people in the world have more money than 50% of the global population I would suggest that is not necessarily correct! Whether the 'running' is deliberate or not - they will to a degree be controlling things.
(I may have the 50 and 50% wrong - its something like that I read earlier in the week)
PS - did you see the articles about the possible semi floatation of the Saudi Oil state oil company? Would value the company at 10 Apples etc..! bonkers.
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Why is economics so fascinated with what has happened in the past?
because it's really difficult to gather evidence from the future
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Why is economics so fascinated with what has happened in the past?
because it's really difficult to gather evidence from the future
Is this another shallow attempt to get me to invest in your time machine idea?
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you're in for £50k right?
you'll get special privileges if you do some product placement for me in a few journals, local TV, House if Commons etc.
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Arguably is not really "run" by anyone.
PS - did you see the articles about the possible semi floatation of the Saudi Oil state oil company? Would value the company at 10 Apples etc..! bonkers.
In context, it is sensible enough estimation. Though Apple is very profitable at the moment, the recent history of consumer electronics is that few firms hold a dominant position for long, and the falls from grace can be abrupt and ugly (take a look at Sony). On the other hand, a humungous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghawar_Field) hydrocarbon reserve, with very low extraction costs, is a pretty nice long-term asset to have (unless those pesky climate change activists force you to leave it underground).
Funny you should say that....
(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160120/34973b3e1e93fb61de1024984b529fa4.jpg)
Having just got home from a particularly crap day, thought I'd read the news, saw this front page and wondered if this thread might have woken up...
We're all doomed.
But then, I said that in 1990, 2008 and every day since.
Mostly though, it seems to be me who's doomed.
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you're in for £50k right?
you'll get special privileges if you do some product placement for me in a few journals, local TV, House if Commons etc.
50 krona more like... My services don't come cheap. Who's going to pay for the LagerTimeTravel (tm) t shirt and logo'd fleece I'd wear?
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Yep peak oil - at least the doomsday version of it - is beginning to look like the millennium bug. I love how wrong we usually are. Just wish that talking heads were routinely accompanied by their past incorrect projections whenever they comment in the media, it would make the whole show so much more balanced (and un-newsworthy).
Lager's time machine didn't work.
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I resigned (burnt out) from Romeo Marine in July 2008, sold my Hummer and the Mrs' Merc and cashed in all my investments (nothing exotic) and was seriously pissed at all members of the financial community because I lost $30K from what I'd paid in. I get the whole "Long term" thing but I was desperate to move on and dreamed of my own Consulting and Surveying practice (and semi retirement) back in the old country.
I went on holiday to stay with friends in Como, climb mountains and sail boats on the lakes and ignore the world for all of August.
Launched myself back into professional life in September by taking the train down to the Monaco Boat Show and that was when I found out how bad things had got.
My industry took a huge hit and mainly at the top end, it really did seem like the end of the world and work was like Rockinghorse shit for the next 12 months.
By the end of 2009, the rich were spending again in Europe. The "Middle class" (those buying yachts in the 24-50mtr (200-600GT) range) were seriously depleted (think Princess yachts, through Azimut, to Moonen).
And that trend continues (both Sunseeker and Princess are struggling for orders), so those with £10-£15M to spend on a yacht are, well, not.
There seems to be an awful lot less of them.
On the other hand, at the top end £100M-£younameitonebillionormorehasbeenmooted the big yachts get bigger every few months.
I surveyed the "Dubai" before her completion, when she was the largest in the world (as part of a team) to value her. To put it in professional parlance, Fuck shit buggery Christ on a bike, you would not believe what Mo spent on that damn thing (think 20mtr by 4 deep seawater swimming pool with glass walls (all the better to ogle the young ladies) and live coral reef etc etc etc...
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Makes sense in the long-term (next 30- 50 years of reducing demand) for the Saudis to kill off as many competitors as they can while they have the wealth to do it - Canuk oil sands, US shale, even the North Sea are all deeply hurting and any new projects aren't feasible at these prices.
The Albertan oil sands oil isn't worth producing from exisitng sub-surface mines at a price below $50 per barrel - and any new sub-surface projects require a price of $80 a barrel to make them profitable.
If the price rebounds just enough to keep the Suadis happy, but not too much to make it economical to do anything other than run dry the exisiting, slightly more expensive reserves (US, N.Sea etc etc) and the v.expensive (Canada), then it's a job well done. Peak oil - not due to reserves running out, due to price - as per British coal.
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So the good news from all this is that if we buy shares in companies which produce easily extractable oil we should make a killing in the medium term? Who are they, presumably Saudi Arbia when they float their oli producing industry? Anyone else?
The other way I might benefit is that I could buy the Merc CL I've always wanted as they go for a song second hand on account too doing about 12mpg
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The negativity is spreading...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/01/markets?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/marketsisthisreally2008alloveragain
Oh and if you think 2008 is all a distant memory and we're all hunky-dory here on the Western front...
I'm so happy for you, not depending on incapacity benefit to survive or any of the other, many, groups for whom "Austerity" is more than a tired headline.
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Why crude oil prices keep defying all predictions (http://www.vox.com/2016/2/22/11094882/crude-oil-prices-iea-forecast)
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Interesting read...
The Seas Will Save Us: How an Army of Ocean Farmers are Starting an Economic Revolution (https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.4zt1e7wvc)
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Just read an excellent book that might appeal to followers of this thread; Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein (Yale University Press) - a surprisingly pacy dual narrative of US economic policy and presidential election cycles across said 70s. Increasingly I think the 70s is critical to understanding where we are today and this book provided a lot of insights.
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:wave:
Interesting read...
The Seas Will Save Us: How an Army of Ocean Farmers are Starting an Economic Revolution (https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.4zt1e7wvc)
That's a really interesting article - thanks. I shared it on LinkedIn and it seemed to resonate.
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That looks good Andy. I just read an interesting book on the digital economy and what's gone wrong by Douglas Rushkoff called Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. Review on my company blog here (http://the8ltd.com/2016/03/29/review-throwing-rocks-at-the-google-bus-douglas-rushkoff/)
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Thanks Ben. Just back from a conference where one panel Paul focused on reactions to Daniel T. Rodgers Age of Fracture (which I haven't yet read). Like Stein, Rodgers seems to see some sort of climacteric in the last quarter of the C20th, with radical breaks in politics, economics and business. Yet other papers saw some strong continuities too, things that Rushkoff also seems to empathise. Happy to led my copy of the Stein.
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:wave:Interesting read...
The Seas Will Save Us: How an Army of Ocean Farmers are Starting an Economic Revolution (https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.4zt1e7wvc)
That's a really interesting article - thanks. I shared it on LinkedIn and it seemed to resonate.
Very good.
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Maybe not unreasonably - like I say, I haven't read and there is undoubtedly much bad social science writing. That said the panel I saw was discussing things of real relevance: current uses of big data; real concrete changes in life and car insurance etc. But if in doubt read the Stein, no shortage of relevance there - but then again, Stein is an historian.
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Just reading David Mackay's obituary (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/18/sir-david-mackay-obituary) pointed me to his book (which is free on-line/PDF)...
Sustaonable Energy - Without Hot Air by David Mackay (http://www.withouthotair.com)
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Mark Carney gives a great summary of where we are today
https://youtu.be/qPKrQWcIj14
Transcript here: www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2016/speech946.pdf
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After reading about Biden's environmental tax credit scheme, it got me wondering about the relative strengths of different incentives.
In the UK we seem to use more subsidies and guaranteed pricing (CfD auction etc) and regulation to encourage/enforce environmental improvements, but the first article I read about this was also saying that it would be anti-inflationary.
Anyone Economics wads got any good explainers on subsidies vs tax credits and their impact on inflation and/or pricing/performance?