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Guest Post: Destined to Fail – Magical Thinking at the G20
Submitted by Chris Martenson
Destined to Fail – Magical Thinking at the G20
The G20 meeting has revealed two important things that tell us something about our combined economic future. First we learned that the US lost the battle to try to get everyone back on the Keynesian print-a-thon bandwagon. This tells us something about US leadership in these troubled times. Once-upon-a-time, the US could dictate such things, and those days are apparently over which deserves to be noted.
I am a supporter of austerity as the least worst of two paths which I will outline below (the other being printing), but I want to be sure to give the global rejection of the US position on stimulus the proper attention it merits. Here’s the relevant information:
TORONTO — Despite President Obama’s pitch at the summit meeting for developed nations here for continued stimulus measures to prevent another global economic downturn, the United States will go along with other leaders who are more concerned about rising debt and join in a commitment to cut their governments’ deficits in half by 2013, administration officials said on Saturday.
(Source – NYT – all quotes below from same article)
In the lead-up to the G20, the US was lobbying heavily for a very different outcome. The US wanted continued stimulus and thin-air money printing and made its plea for this policy stance very publicly in the days and weeks leading up to the G20 meeting.
The reasons for this stance are numerous and complex, but one stands out prominently: Elections are coming up. If you are an incumbent, now is not the time to cut off the stimulus efforts.
The story here is that the US wants to stay on the path of printing, borrowing, and government stimulus, but a significant portion of the rest of the developed world has decided this is not a direction that makes sense. Such fundamental splits in philosophy are what great historical turning points are made of.
The second thing we learned is that, despite these differences in how to fund future growth, there is nothing yet to indicate that any the world leaders are aware that the very concept of perpetual growth is an unworkable fallacy. It’s obvious, hopefully to even the most casual of thinkers, that someday, sooner or later, whatever growth one is engaged in will have to stop. Nothing grows forever; everything has a limit.
But apparently the concept of limits is not part of the magical framework of modern economic thinking (emphasis mine, below):
Mr. Cameron and Mr. Obama, in their first private meeting since Mr. Cameron took office, acknowledged their different approaches toward balancing the need to promote greater economic growth and job creation in the short term with the long-term desire to reduce national debts, which reached dangerous heights during the downturn. But they played down those differences.
It’s funny how these things are always expressed as a “need.” We “need” economic growth and job creation. Have you ever wondered why this is? Why is it that we “need” either? Needs are not negotiable; wants are. How sure are we that job creation and economic growth are actually needs?
Well, we need job growth, because there are more and more people entering the work force each year due to population growth. If there were no population growth and everybody already had a job, then there would be no “need” to create jobs. Zero percent job growth is the right amount for a stable population. No growth = no need for new jobs.
So we can therefore reduce the politicians' statements about the need for jobs to its more basic level and discover that they are really saying we “need” population growth. It's certainly been a very real and dominant factor for a very long time, but it is not a need. There are many who would even say it shouldn't even be considered a “want.” We can trace an enormous number of the problems or predicaments we face to over-population or to the strain that results from accommodating the needs of a growing population.
It seems to me that if job creation is a ‘need’ then we’d do well to ask ourselves if we’d prefer to spend our time trying to figure out how to create an ever larger number of jobs in perpetuity or if we’d like to spend our time figuring out how to create a stable population. While this may be an uncomfortable topic for some, it also happens to be reality.
Since it’s logically true that eventually population growth will have to stop it’s entirely probable that we’d gain more bang for our buck if we expended our efforts towards creating a stable population than trying to build a perpetual-motion job creation machine.
And what about the “need” to grow the economy? Where does that come from?
If you’ve watched the Crash Course you know that this imperative for economic growth comes from the money system itself. Debt-based money requires growth. If we had a stable population engaged in stable and sustainable activities using non debt-based money as their freely circulating medium of exchange, then there would be no “need” for economic growth. Zero percent economic growth would work just fine.
But we’ve got a growing population and we’ve got debt-based money and that’s the long and the short of it. Hence, we are stuck with the political reality that we “need” growth in the economy and job creation (even though these “needs’ are self-inflicted by our decisions, not due to some fundamental law of the universe like gravity).
Knowing that something is wrong with this perpetual growth narrative, we've taken to adding a few comforting words around ‘growth’ to make it seem as if our thinking is actually very clever and mature:
“But we are aiming at the same direction, which is long-term sustainable growth that puts people to work,” Mr. Obama said.
“Long-term sustainable growth” that “puts people to work.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Who could be against that?
The problem is that the first part of the statement is an oxymoron. There’s no such thing as “long-term sustainable growth”. Heck, in the long run, there’s no such thing as “sustainable growth.”
Sooner or later, whether its bacteria in a Petri dish, mice in the pantry, or humans on a globe, growth stops. The only question is whether you cease that growth by design, on your own terms, or by disaster on some other terms.
Whenever you hear the words “sustainable growth” I invite you to recall this line of thinking and ask yourself if such a thing as sustainable growth is even possible. If it is, I have certainly I have never seen any workable plan, not even sketched onto a napkin in crayon, that explains how growth can be sustainable. Growth always ceases the only question is when and under what terms.
Some more quotes from the G20:
Mr. Cameron added, “Those countries that have big deficit problems like ours have to take action in order to keep that level of confidence in the economy which is absolutely vital to growth.”
(...)
The Obama administration did have allies at the meeting in opposing rapid moves to withdraw governments’ stimulus measures. The Brazilian finance minister, Guido
Mantega, told reporters that the debt-reduction targets could compromise economic growth
(...)
Trying to bridge the differences among leaders here, [Timothy Geithner] said: “Our challenge, as the G-20, is to act together to strengthen the prospects for growth. This will require different strategies in different countries. We are coming out of the crisis at different speeds.”
(...)
The setback underscored the difficulty Mr. Obama has had in making the case for stimulus. At home as abroad, Mr. Obama is confronting the limits of the consensus that took hold after the economic crisis began in 2008, which favored bigger deficits to spur job creation. At stake, as the administration sees it, is continued global recovery or a relapse into another recession.
Recovery, growth, and jobs. This is what the world seems to want in unison, and this is something we can easily understand and appreciate given the fact that all the world’s leaders were born and raised during a period without limits.
Now that we can clearly see a wall of limits right in front of us, the question remains as to which countries will be able to navigate the treacherous shoals of change as we try to find a different set of understandings upon which to build a new world that can offer prosperity without growth.
It’s a big challenge and I am keeping my fingers crossed that somehow we’ll manage to figure out that our current trajectory is unsustainable and that we need entirely new thinking, centered on reality, to enter our global discourse. The alternative is to default into the comforting arms of growth only to discover, much to our dismay, that it was prosperity we wanted after all and that growth and prosperity are very different things. In a world of limits, one steals from the other. My preference would be to have prosperity be the thief and growth the victim, but our leaders seek the opposite.
This theme of what we might expect in a world of limits is a dominant portion of my analysis that I perform for my enrolled members. We do not live in a world where anything will suddenly run out, but a world where there will be slightly less and less that needs to be spread around more and more people, and more and more debt.
Running an analysis of all three E’s, the Economy, Energy and the Environment, and tying these to personal actions and financial implications is one unique service I that I provide. The other is to be your information scout.
The Challenge For The US
Now, back to the more immediate challenge for the US:
Yet even within Mr. Obama’s administration there are fault lines on how much additional stimulus is desirable.
Some news reports in recent days suggested that Peter R. Orszag, the budget director who recently announced that he would be leaving in late July, was resigning partly out of frustration that he had lost the argument for deeper and quicker reductions in projected deficits.
The apparent rift here is between Orszag, who wants the US to begin to live within its economic means, and the staunch Keynesians Geithner and Summers who want to print and spend to achieve political aims. As a card-carrying member of the green eyeshade club, Mr. Orszag knows that their path represents the eventual and probably catastrophic bankruptcy of the US.
Rather than continue to duke it out with the “print now, pay later” club, Orszag has opted to leave for greener and friendlier climes. In full disclosure, Larry Summers is among my least favorite people on the planet. I cannot figure out how he manages to get to such prominent positions given the fact that his track record is a nearly unblemished trail of poor decisions and economic ruin. Everything in his record suggests that his only form of competency is political ambition, yet somehow he keeps getting his ideas enacted. It’s a real mystery and not the good kind, like where that extra $20 in your pocket came from. In my view Summers is a gigantic liability for this country and the current administration and the sooner he is sent packing the better. Geithner too for that matter.
At any rate, the G20 plan calls for the US to cut its existing budget deficit to only 3% of GDP by 2013. For the US this would represent a decline from a $1.4 trillion deficit to a roughly $420 billion deficit, or ~$1 trillion in cuts in just three years.
Without getting too technical, this is just not going to happen. Cutting a trillion in federal spending would cut 7% from the GDP.
And even if we were willing to undertake a 7% hit to GDP, where would the trillion come from? It turns out that much of the US deficit is now structural meaning it sits in the “mandatory” column as opposed to the “discretionary” column. To help frame the predicament, I’ll note that Obama recently proposed a three-year freeze on all non-defense discretionary budget spending which – drum roll please – constitutes only $447 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget.
In other words, finding a trillion is simply out of the question if the only part of the budget that can be controlled right now because it is both discretionary and politically viable in an election year, is only $447 billion. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone and you can't save a trillion from a budget of less than half a trillion. And that’s only part of the problem.
One path to getting the deficit to 3% from its current 10% of GDP is to cut spending. However, this path carries the seeds of its own failure. Government spending is a big part of GDP so cutting spending shrinks the GDP. The more spending is cut the more GDP shrinks which makes the deficit ratio less favorable. Adding insult to injury, government revenues expand and shrink in proportion to GDP so cutting spending actually leads to reduced revenues which leads to higher deficits which lead to more cutting which results in an endless spiral into the dumpster.
The other path consists of elevated government borrowing and spending done with the hope that eventually GDP climbs up over time thereby reducing the deficit to GDP ratio. The US sees this as the only viable option but Europe has figured out that this path too has its own ‘end-game’ which is the eventual collapse of sovereign debt and the high likelihood of associated political and social chaos.
Neither option is really attractive at this point, which is the definition of a predicament.
My final analysis is that because we have such political animals as Summers driving the ship of state the US will tell the G20 it agrees to the plan but will not honor those words. At least not during this election year. And probably not next year either because it will be inconvenient then too for some reason or another. And probably not ever unless forced by external circumstances because the political class in the US seems unable to confront the idea that limits apply.
And so the US, and its ever compliant side-kick Japan, will continue to spend wildly even as Europe dutifully wrestles with the new reality. At first it will seem like the US is the place to invest because its ‘growth prospects’ will appear stronger but someday, and not too terribly far in the future, it will dawn on the financial markets that the US is a hopeless basket case saturated with debts that cannot ever be paid back under current terms. This is already true, but for some reason financial markets seem ignorant of this reality. Someday there will be a sudden revolt in the Treasury markets, a new equilibrium will be found, and vast quantities of wealth and our national standards of living will disappear seemingly overnight.
And that’s only if those other two E’s don’t thunder out of the chute and into the arena for all to see. Then all bets are off.
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Infinite growth on a finite planet. EPIC FAIL.
Great essay by Chris! His crash course is a great watch.
All empires/ civilizations fail, just ask the Romans, Mayans, Chicoans, Minnoans, Mycenians, Ancient Egyptians, various Chinese breakdowns, the Mughals, the Ottomans, the British, Spanish, Portuguese etc. This time the fail will be global.
Marginal cost of civilization > Marginal benefit of civilization = Collapse.
\singing "Take me to the Moooooon...." \end_singing
Will someone please put a round into the head of the Malthus zombie?
You'd think by now people would know body shots just don't do the job!
Perpetual growth is only limited to the Earth, and we only occupy an infinitesimally tiny portion of it's surface.
Once that gets too crowded, we have a whole solar system to expand into (which will be many millenia from now, so don't worry about the tech, I think we'll have it figured out by then).
The author's premise that perpetual growth is unsustainable is incorrect. The universe is stable, ordered, benevolent and expansive even if the minds of many bear witness to the opposite fact. Scarcity is a mindset. All behaviour is a result of mindset and setting. Under the right circumstances an individual will automatically self-actualise their potential. The current GDP of the world is about $40 Trillion. At 3% growth rate from 2012 the total will be $120 Trillion by the middle of the century. Of course there are limits to the amount of liquidity that can be injected into the system. There must be some forms of regulation. Oversight is required. Money like people must obey certain constraints. I can prove all the above points empirically, anecdotally and scientifically. I have a vast amount of life experience and pure research to back up what I say. Happy to sit with any interested parties to present my claims. (BTW, I am already doing so...)
Scarcity is a mindset.
So, you believe energy can be created or destroyed?
I very much look forward to your treatise on how a couple hunderd years of accumulated knowledge in science and engineering is entirely wrong.
Sure it is. We've believed for the longest time that diamonds were scarce. We have more gold in the world than applications for it. The subject of oil depletion will be long gone way before we get there. Spices were once more valuable than gold.
And BTW, Energy can be created and destroyed or at least converted into forms not synonymous with energy (mass)? Did you know that 4 pounds of sunlight hit the earth everyday? Radioactive depletion is a way some elements convert from mass into energy. In fact according to Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence theory, mass is completely convertible to energy and visa versa no matter what the substance. A toothpick can power NYC for 2 days according to the theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence
Right, e=mc^2. But you're not creating or destroying anything under that postulate - only converting forms (your attempt to pass that off as unrelated notwithstanding).
"The Sun" is for this planet a true "free lunch" (as in, TANSTAAFL "free lunch"). But neither is that a limitless resource.
explain how the sun, for practical purposes (meaning that us, our children, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, etc as long as you want to extend it), is not a limitless resource.
Oh, for the blip on the sun's life horizon that is the life of we and our immediate progeny, it's a limitless resource.
But it will die. Eventually.
The sun is a limited resource. Has always been.
The superficy exposed to the sun radiations is limited.
The exploitation rate of this superficy is limited.
For solar addicts, it means that if you cover the whole Earth superficy with top notch solar panels, you cant get beyond that limit.
People are used to confusing limit and finitude. Two different concepts. Even though it might converge to be the same in cases.
With that, you got mixed over finitude in time and finitude in exploitation rate.
A resource can infinite in time (or considered) and be finite in exploitation rate, which is the current issue. Oil is not to be perceived finite in time at present times but its exploitation rate has topped in some ways.
'Splain to me where all dem virtual particles come from whydontcha!?
Damned if I know, I'm not a particle physicist - just a humble engineer.
Care to enlighten me with a non Wikipedia source?
Scarcity and abundancy are a ratio as they are a perceived offer/demand stuff.
Slightly different from finite.
On the other points, people speak of not yet developped technologies.
It is interesting because used mainly by the West. The rest of the world is invited to yield their energy resources so that the West can deliver new forms of energy to be drawn from.
Who is taking risks here?
Keep your propaganda. This is not a forum of western people addressing third worlders to convince them to sacrifice their future but a forum used by westerners only. This kind of rhetorics is useless.
The very centre of creation is an energy of unfolding potential. I do not have the time to talk metaphysics and physics here on this forum. I resolved all these issues many years ago. It's fun to be an expert on various subjects. I visit ZH for a number of reasons. If I am guilty of casting pearls before swine so be it.
Americans once thought as you do. But on a long enough time line......? Good luck.
Are you going treat us to zero point energy? Or maybe the Aliens will be kind and transfer their advanced technology to us? Ooooh! There you go, problem solved.
Reality doesn't give a damn about opinion. It is, what it is. And collapse is coming because man has been to arrogant and stupid to learn to live within limits. Nothing in nature is infinite. You ever seen an infinite chicken? How about an infinite whale? Why? because nature has limits. Empires, nations, banks, people have limits and once carrying capacity is crossed, there's a bottle neck and population collapses. The precursor to this would be economic collapse.
You first.
Spectacularly unconvincing. And insulting to boot. Splendid.
I do not have the time to talk metaphysics and physics here on this forum. I resolved all these issues many years ago. It's fun to be an expert on various subjects.
All the issues, Einstein? Please, do share with this poor dumb physicist your enlightenment. Throw me some crumbs, champ! I promise I'll give you proper credit. Maybe we can get few patents together... who knows? Let's make enough money so you can feed the poor and I can get my own tropical island. Come on, you speak and I press the (ignore) record button.
+1.
Mr. Neira you are a douche.
So cool! When SHTF you can eat the very center of creation, which evidently has a creamy unfolding nougat potential center. Sweet! And here I am growing corn and beans. DANG! Do you have a pamphlet or handy pocket-sized card I can refer to when I run out of other options?
It's fun to be an expert on various subjects.
Scuse me while I involuntarily vomit. More likely your expertise lies in your own delusions.
Yeah, right... run that by a person who's starving.
Any idea how funny this is.... in a bad way?
The reason the person is starving is that the setting is inadequate. I am not saying that as at mid 2010 the world is perfect. There is an enormous amount of work to be done. What I am saying however is that a world of relative abundance whereby a certain level of the general welfare is reached for 6 billion people is possible. This is not blue sky thinking. All nations can be redeemed. Great leaders do two things. They change mindset and setting.
Your mockery has been noted. Be very careful who you cast dispersions on...
Dispersions? Oh man. And I thought you were worth baiting.
You and Johnny Bravo have a bit in common. I see a fat IPO in your future.
I see this in my empirically, anecdotally and scientifically calibrated crystal ball.
"...dispersions..." -- snicker, snicker
No. This guys heading for a massive traumatic sheparding failure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgQalXaIxs
Very good! Thanks for the link.
We need to find all the LIARS, and, well... you know.
The world is now 50% overweight. The rest are by definition underweight.
Satsified?
Or do you want everybody to be a fat fuck before you'll admit that scarcity isn't an issue?
Adam,
I'm not sure why you couched your comment from the standpoint of economics when the main point of Martensen's article was biological limitations associated with human economics.
Theoretically you're correct, if humans start leaving earth and populating the universe. Non-theoretically your premise of unbridled expansion is what comes out of the south end of a north bound horse.
As a biologist it's clear to me that the human population has exceeded the long-term carrying capacity of the earth. The results of that is that we are diminishing the carrying capacity through our actions much like eating into the capital of an interest bearing account.
Where I come from we call that "shitting in your mess kit" and we better get it turned around quick or mother nature will do it for us and we all know it's not nice to fool with mother nature!
All hail Gaia !
The deep green ideology is so close to satanism it is not funny. G-d gave us dominion over the flora, fauna and minerals of the Earth. Read Genesis with an open mind and see if you can discern any truths in it.
+1000000000000000 as so far as the true color of Green.
+++++++++
George Carlin is dead.
George Carlin is God.
...Heh heh heh...
Let me guess ... not a fan of religion?
VK : Makes perfect sense to me...
"The deep green ideology is so close to satanism it is not funny. G-d gave us dominion over the flora, fauna and minerals of the Earth. Read Genesis with an open mind and see if you can discern any truths in it."
Go suck one of the numerour poisonous plants stupid shit.
Neira has never figured out a basic concept of knowledge: Knowing the name of a thing doesn't mean you know the thing. He thinks by reducing an entire argument into a simplistic category he has refuted it.
Fame physicist, Richard Feynman on this subject:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAQV05fPEk
@Adam Neira
How lame. Your rhetorical tricks are very weak. You talk in extremely vague terms while simultaneously reducing your opponents statements into strawman black and white terms, making them easier to refute, while noone can argue against you because of vague double speak. You argue semantics and continually shift the goal posts.
"All hail Gaia ! The deep green ideology is so close to satanism it is not funny."
-If that's how your brain works I feel sorry for you. He made valid points, while you made us all dumber by reducing what he said into very basic philosophical 'genres'.
"The universe is stable, ordered, benevolent and expansive even if the minds of many bear witness to the opposite fact. Scarcity is a mindset."
"Under the right circumstances an individual will automatically self-actualise their potential."
-too bad it takes energy to create the 'right' circumstance, and more energy to attempt to figure out what the right circumstances are. And of course there's still no way to predict the future.
"The author's premise that perpetual growth is unsustainable is incorrect."
"What I am saying however is that a world of relative abundance whereby a certain level of the general welfare is reached for 6 billion people is possible."
-So we went from perpetual growth to just stability?
-Also note just because the universe will expand doesn't mean human civ will with it.
-Obviously he was talking within our lifetime. Yes we know that theoretically human civilization will expand again after this civilization fails.
You obviously haven't thought about how the Heisenberg principle applies more generally to reality... How every time you create logical arguments you make hidden assumptions...The nature of words and how we communicate...The flow of information and its relationships...How your concept of your own self/ego fits into all this...
You claim the universe is benevolent yet that's just as arbitrary as it's opposite.
Anyways I could go on but I only feed trolls once. Good luck with that philosophy. It's got some gaping holes in it.
Prove it's not benevolent.
Whoops! Can't. Best you can do is 'arbitrary'.
If follows that everything else is the individual's choice, if you follow Heisenberg's principle out to it's logical extreme, which is that observing is reality, and we clearly choose what to observe (what, you can't turn off CNN?).
So choose, motherfucker!
Is that what you read on Wikipedia? Your assertion that observing is reality is bullshit. If a guy bangs your chick and you weren't there that doesn't mean her orgasm was an illusion nor that you made a choice to observe (or not) this happy event. It just means you're clueless. See, I can teach you quantum mechanics without the Hamiltonian.
ROTFLMAO!! +10,000,000.
Once again, has to repeat but it is only a part of the human population who is exceeding the long term carrying capacity.
It is not a humanity problem but certain areas of the world issue.
"Scarcity is a mindset".
You've been mind fucked by religious leaders who collect money in exchange for "favors" from god.
You claim that the universe is "benevolent"
...and you claim you can back that up?
Go for it big guy.
Totally agree that scarcity is a mindset and that sustainable growth is not only achievable but has been the way of civilization since homo sapiens started covering their genitals. We have the mental capacity and drive to responsibly develop and utilize existing resources, and then to invent others when the "need" arises. The problem, as I see it, is that short-term "me" thinking and greed overcomes the rational and sustainable effort so to maximize and concentrate the accumulation of wealth to the detriment of society as a whole. Needs for all is replaced by the wants of a few.
Apparently, the surface of a planet is NOT the right place for an expanding
technological civilization.
There you go again, trying to make a rational argument in a way that forces people to think about it.
Help me out. In order to cut deficits by half in 3 years, you have two options:
1. Massive tax increases on every input into an economy.
2. Extended period of hyperinflation.
Are there other options? I have long thought that each country should purchase 100 percent of each other countries sovereign debt based on pro-rata share of their GDP and then just right it all off by shrinking their currency....That way the core ecnomy is not hurt, and each country to leans up their currency.
3. Run a massive 15% deficit this year and then cut it by 7.5% in 2013. There, problem solved. Keynesians rejoice.
4. Create a world bank with a single worldwide currency.
Wipeout all sovereign governmental debt and start loaning the new currency.
World bank loans money to industry/government which employees citizens who are paid in world currency which they use to purchase goods and pay taxes which returns to world bank.
A nice little loop.
"Are there other options?"
Well, yes, the obvious one which will be taken. Default on the debts. That will cut the payments down to something reasonable.
This, btw, is the normal way this situation is handled, if you look history over the span of Centuries. See the book "This time is different" for an excellent look at the subject.
Or, in short, no, this time isn't different.
3. Quit throwing so much money away.
That unimaginable cut to "only" a 3% deficit would leave us at ~420bn--or still greater than the highest record-shattering deficit Bush and Nancy teamed up to bring us.
And THAT is now the impossible, extreme, severe standard? Insane.
That 7% cut to "GDP" is a cut to "G", not "DP". DP would rise, and that's what matters.
"Quit throwing so much money away."
Reminds me of this Onion classic.
The IMF should open a casino and start a lottery .
They have already. The chips are human lives and the rich always win and the poor always die. It's all rigged via structural adjustment programs;
1) Install puppets in Government
2) Crash economy
3) Buy all assets back on the cheap
4) Let the serfs suffer and die.
Been happening in Africa, S. America and Asia for a long, long time.
Re: The chips are human lives and the rich always win and the poor always die.
HA! Yup, so true. The sad thing is history shows us the patriotic peasants love to play the part of the "chip". There's always going to be a nobility, huge numbers of believing peasants worshipping their nobility, and a few vassals that are smart enough to work for the nobility helping to scamming the peasants.
You don't get to pick if you born a noble, or not. But you can choose not to be a dumbass.
so when do we just poison the poor and unwashed serfs?? I guess the GoM spill is a start - a few more wars can do the rest...
oh and corporations controlling the water supplies will finish the rest off
It's already been happening. It's the difference between real food and the fake stuff sold at most supermarkets. Add to that air and water pollution, and throw in a chemical spill every now and then.
But this is all sooo last millenium. We no longer have to worry about human overpopulation depleting the resources for the rich:
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/04/16/6524765.html
None of the poor, or middle class, who eat Genetically Modified Foods are going to be having grandkids, so this problem has been taken care of. Truly Darwinian selection in action.
duplicate (thought they got new servers/???)
duplicate (thought they got new servers/???)
I always have a problem when commentators, writers, analysts and a host of other enlightened observers really think that no one else but them "get it". Sorry, but our esteemed world leaders and the power elite who yank their collective chains certainly do "get it".
The issue isn't one of perception, knowledge, awareness or any other presumed insight. The single, overriding issue that dwarfs all others is managing the herd. That is, if the truth ever got out to the masses, then it wouldn't matter how many security guards you had on your payroll, or high your electrified security fences rose into the night sky.
Laid bare, the power elite would be subject to the same lawlessness and rule of the jungle as the residents of any American inner-city on a hot summer night. So they lie; oh boy, do they ever lie. 'Cause that's all they got. This essay over at Of Two Minds sums up our situation perfectly well. (Cog Dis, did you write this?)
This part is important, so listen up. You know how we all tour the web, upset, angry, frustrated as hell with people telling us the Fannie Mae bailout was for our good, we were going to make money on it, that the oil spill was under control at 1,000bbl/day, that deficits don’t matter, that unemployment is at 9%, and that 12% of the nation on food stamps and the annihilation of New Orleans and Detroit don’t mean anything? Who tells us those lies?
Let’s not even pick on this administration, or the last one, for this sort of thing goes back to President Wilson. Let’s be broad, let’s be generous. Was it both parties? Yes. Was it corporate advertising? Yes. Was it Television, including every major news outlet by the 5 controlling companies, every book released by the 5 remaining publishers, every textbook you’ve ever read, every teacher and professor you’ve heard? Yes. Was it every false, propaganda-addled government statistic released since Kennedy, each unlisted mortality of war, every vanishing job, every dollar of inflation? Yes.
Was it the total machine, every authority figure you’ve ever seen, convincing you that our life is forever better and better, that America is greater and greater, every day, from every office of power public and private, although this is has been measurably false since wages started falling in 1971? Yes. Is this the same empty propaganda they heard in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, East Germany under the Soviets? Yes. And it’s having the same effect on us: it’s driving us insane.
So. You’ve been lied to. You’re being lied to with every word you hear. You’ve consumed maybe 10,000 lies that are inside you, eating you up, warring, making your judgment faulty, your actions irrational, the results arbitrary, contrary to the expectations you’ve been told, the way we were told the world would work. You need to get them out, and to expel one per day will take 30 years hard labor. Only a catastrophe can make it go faster. The one we’re creating.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjun10/Eric-Andrews06-10.html
What people forget about the "king has no clothes" story is how desperately the peasants want the king to have clothes. The vassals make-up the stories the peasants demand to hear.
No, no, no. It's not true.
I want my mommmeeeeee!
You're mean!
Gee...Zeroes
(Reuters) - Deficit pledges made by Group of 20 leaders on Sunday won't provide a big boost for financial markets, with uncertainty about the strength of global economic recovery still the larger concern for investors.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65Q3CF20100627
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
Yeah but, REAL mericans don't take transit. Too many of those people.
I didn't know Gloria was Sic!
lol
I prefer "Sic semper tyrannis".
Bloodbath?
It has always been thus...however the length of the timeline is always the issue at hand ;-)
I fear these morons who reply do not know Latin.
Probably, but their writings are so childish.
Perhaps (I for one admit to my Latin being very rusty) - but I'm pretty sure even us morons can effectively use Google to help if needed.
There; I fixed it.
When do the feds finally have to feel some Austerity like everyone else. They still gave federal workers raises this year depite the trillions in debt...
No austerity for the nobility until the very end of the game. Then a few heads role. But, that's just for show too. The really smart nobility get out of town and put the vassals in charge.
Hey, you there, Ben. You are now head of the entire country. Good luck. We're flying to - uh - well, we'll call ya...
I'm so fucking tired of all these pledges from these clowns. Didn't we pledge since Nixon that we will be energy independent by late 70s? Din't the Europeans pledge never to run deficits in excess of 3%? Lisbon Strategy? The Coyote conference? To quote George Carlin: "It's all bullshit and is bad for you".
I remember going to some exposition in the mid 60s where it was all this future stuff controlled by robots (housekeeping, cooking, etc. real Jetson's stuff) and the conclusion was that man would have all sorts of freetime to sit around and self-acctualize. I am still waiting. Where is my freakin robot.
You don't need a robot. Look, the difference between the lifestyles of the rich and that of bums is the money, otherwise they're equal in many respects. Both walk around self-actualizing, have nice tans and don't pay taxes.
Well, we've got the Romba and a whole bunch of poor immigrants. That should count for something, don't you think? Yesterday I've met a really pissed house robot. Asked him why and he said "Did you really have to make Mexicans cheaper than us?" He was fuming... literally. He tried working on the Mexican border but he couldn't stand the damn sand.
You are the robot...didn't you get the memo?
Was married once to a guy in AI and Robotics. I was closer to that dream than you! Like the doc said, AI and robotics? Wassamatta? Don't they make real guys any more? Ah well... Nope. the engineering and software required for the gaziilion variables would tax the brain beyond all the willing and able we have in the world. But there could be a break through, after all, it is just a matter of choosing paths, hopefully intuitively...
So the Great Spender Obama comes into office wanting to project a less dominant USA. He goes to the Big Global Meeting, is dominated (mission accomplished), but told to cut his deficit in half (aww, shit).
Loser on both counts.
I believe the G-20 resolved to cut deficits just as much as I believe China is confident in the future of the dollar.
Thing:
* Most REAL Mericans "believe in" perpetual growth.
* It's sad that Canadians have to pay for this G20 nonsense. If you have to spend 1B bucks to guard people maybe they should try teleconferencing next time. The nobility is useless.
Big Foot
Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20008924-503544.html
The real problem is "restoring 8 million jobs" for average Americans; meaning real people - average, the big middle. What are the average people supposed to do?
Are the peasants capable of admiting there are average people in America?
The average people are supposed to shut the hell up and keep paying more taxes until they finally give up and become part of the political royalty's dependent constituency.
See Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Baltimore, Philly, New Orleans, etc.
Not a very good prognosis for America's future. The average people are more than just "those people". The average people are the majority. (You know, that middle one standard deviation bubble).
I liked this article a lot. It really got at the core of some of our problems. The actual solutions can provide continuous growth, but it is how we measure growth in the first place that needs a redefinition. The entire accounting system. Then we should be able to grow by 'making more with less'.
Unfortunately, this hi-tech, efficient future model seems set to be delayed continuously by the out of control, corrupt, bureaucratic government systems currently running amok in the developed world. As the article states, the brick wall where the physical world cannot support these flawed economic models is right around the corner. Rock on!
Re: this hi-tech, efficient future model seems set to be delayed continuously
Worse, it fails to address what the average people are supposed to do. If we really believe the bullshit future story (mythology) that: efficiency makes life better, then somebody had better figure out what the average dumbass is supposed to do all day; you know - the devil's workshop and the idle mind (and all that).
If perpetual growth isn't possible then EITHER you've got to have less humans or each human has to do less work (and not be pissed off about having less to do).
A basic truth is that there's lots and lots and lots of average dumbasses running about, and unless society figures out something useful for them to do they'll start doing the default (average) human activity of killing and destroying everything in sight (assuming the last 10000 years of human history keeps repeating itself).
your right. humans as a resource of potential value has to be factored in too. all the 'dumbasses' don't really have any value unless they are being productive in some way, not consuming more of the earth's resources than they helping to utilise. probably the biggest problem. i think it could still work, we are going to need to build out and operate things for the forseeable future.
it's just the leadership and direction that's all screwed up. if we were heading in the right direction with the right attitude, should be plenty of useful things for people to do. and in the end, if there is less for people to do and we have made more with less, it *should* be a good thing.
i dunno what the alternatives are - lots of deaths, descending into chaos, having to become completely self-sustainining, being controlled by a fascist-communist system, a new dark age or somehow muddling through. it would be nice if was something productive though.
I think you are assuming that what you see now isn't the only correct system.
The world is run by the smart amoral scumbags (smart sociopaths). As a competitive evolutionary trait, NOTHING would be a better than being a sociopath.
So, what you see now - the sociopaths winning - is the ONLY possible past and future. To be successful, you've got to be running a scam on other humans, or participating in one. NO exceptions.
(Disclaimer: I work for 2Big2Fail Zombie bank. We pimp loans. I’m participating in the scam, but I never could have created it. I’m not very smart – but I am an amoral scumbag.)
You say the same thing as other people have said to me. That the crux of doing good for yourself is to con and exploit other people, either directly or indirectly. That this is just the way things are and will be. And it's true. But isn't the idea here on ZH and with this crisis in general that the 'con' is starting to break down on some level and/or the underlying physical economy will demand a change in the way we do things. Or will we just move on to the next sets of cons? Sucks, but I can't do a whole lot about it regardless.
ZH may expose this con, but the cause cannot be addressed. Humans worship sociopaths. The system will simply evolve into a new con. This con will probably never be exposed because the peasants are too invested in it now, America itself is a scam. It's unpatriotic to question the scam too.
Oh, btw, you can also attempt to get FAR away from the epicenter of the scam. If I could, I'd move to New Zealand. Not because there are no sociopaths there, but because the really smart sociopaths move to Australia, England, or - of course, sociopath paradise of the world - the United States. So there's less sociopaths per square mile there.
So, something to think about if you want to get away. I'd leave, but my parents (and parent's in laws) wouldn't go. They are too old (and patriotic dumbasses).
heh. I'm in England and thinking of moving to Australia. NZ certainly worth a look too. Canada came up speaking to people recently, but a bit close to the US for comfort. Prospects don't look good for the UK either, as bad as the States might be. Too overpopulated and too many idiots whose brains have dissolved from non-stop TV abuse. The weather sucks a lot so people usually stay inside and watch things like Celebrities Come Dancing -_-
[quote]
RICH Economy step 1:
Offer a prize of $50,000/year to any worker that designs a
machine/software/process that will replace him/her.
Offer an additional prize of $30,000/year to ALL OTHER WORKERS
that get replaced.
Answering conservative objections:
1. A machine works 24/7, thereby tripling output immediately.
2. Machines do not take sick leave.
3. Machines are never late for work.
4. Machines do not form unions and constantly ask for higher wages
and more fringe benefits.
5. Machines do not take vacations.
6. Machines do not harbor grudges and foul up production in sneaky,
undetectable ways.
7. Cybernation was advancing every decade anyway, despite the
opposition of Unions, government, and other Alpha males; it was
better to have huge populations celebrating the reward of $30K
to $50K/year for group cleverness than huge populations suffering
the humiliation of welfare.
8. With production rising due to Cybernation, consumers were needed
and a society on welfare was a society of very meager consumers.
The majority of the unemployed, living comfortably on $30k/year, spent
most of their time drinking, smoking, engaging in primate sexual
acrobatics and watching TV.
When Moralists complained that this was a subhuman existence, Hubbard
answered, "And what kind of existence did they have doing idiot jobs
that machines do better?"
[/quote]
Paraphrase of R.A. Wilson located in "Shrodinger's Cat"
NOTaREALmerican
Dayworld
excellent post. thank you.
Please, alot of this global financial mess 'is' the United States fault. I would not listen to us either.
No, not just the US. True, the US is the world reserve currency, and we print more than anybody else, but the banks throughout Europe cooked their books with worse leverage than did the banks in the US, and US banks were levered 30:1, 80:1, etc.
So, everybody screwed everybody. A US collapse didn't take out Europe ... everybody is playing Russian Roulette with their own books, including the US, one of the worst offenders.
Hi Mikla. Like your posts.
With the image above, this seems like a good place to drop the following.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/785759...
It's coming ...
.
would be nice if 'sustainable' actually meant sustainable and not just an excuse to tax us all like crazy while neither planning or investing in a real sustainable future.
better yet, governments could plan and invest in this future without increasing taxes at all. just give less money and importance to financialization and more to real things. disaster this way comes.
Re: better yet, governments could plan and invest in this future without increasing taxes at all
Uh, hate to tell ya this... But in the game of life: the reason it's fun to play the "part" of the government is because you CAN tax and give all that loot to your buddies. This is the “part” the libertarians never take because they don't comprehend that being a smart amoral scumbag AND buying a few politicians is required to win the game. Fascists and socialists always figure this out pretty early in the game. I shouldn't tell you this, but if you get a chance: buy one of the "Central Bank" pieces too. You can't win without a "Central Bank".
Re sustainable.
Ain't nothing "sustainable" until humans stop increasing the population. No signs of that ever happening. Way too many imaginary friends in people's brains making up bullshit stories for that to happen.
so what's your message? there is absolutely no way out without population reduction/control?
are there any constructive solutions that are possible from where we are? or is it a waste of ones time to think about those things?
There is no "solution" because there is no problem. The sociopaths always win.
Re: i don't want to become a central banker thanks.
You can participate in the scams run by the central bankers tho. That's the only way.
Bow tie,
Of course constructive solutions exist. But they involve de-construction of dominant paradigms to find their place in the sun. The dominant paradigm, well, dominates.
It dominates discourse as strongly as it dominates dialouge. It's deep speciality is self-preservation.
And the alternate paradigm, yet to pick up strength, is too weak to show up as "real" in most peoples psyche or even the group psyche.
For example, if the profit motive was sidelined for a month, collectively, you owuld see solutions crawl out of the woodwork like you would not believe.
I found my own alternative paradigm (http://squareandc.net ) . BUt it leaves most people panicked. Too much change is hard to handle.
Organic growth is the only kind sustainable. Electricity as we have it now is a giant curse upon us.
The age of the machine has crept into our minds and only mechanistic thinking can believe that infinite growth is even feasible. For a machine it is, till the power goes off, and then it does not care.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/27/obama_calling_bluff_of_those_complaining_about_debt_he_created.html
I'll buy the perpetual growth concept, since we are always standing on the shoulders of the generations that preceded us in the millenia prior; that of course does not mean that perpetual growth plays out in every single year, decade, or even century. It might be another year before we resume the upward tragectory, or it might be another millenia (remember the last 'dark ages'?).
Before asking yourself if you "want" or "need" economic growth and jobs creation, you should first ask "is it even possible or conceivable"?
You don't have a choice in this matter and you certainly cannot decree such policy. That would be communistic, socialistic or as the US play it, government jobs.
It's like innovation. You can't expect it because you think you're entitle to it or desire it, it must be done and that rule is government by natural law, physics or market forces.
Take alternative energy for instance. Everyone thinks we need it, everyone wants it so why don't we have it (at least an efficient source to offset fossil fuels completely)? It's because no one has yet figured it out.
I agree that the government plays a huge role in economic growth and jobs creation whether it be through tax cuts, incentives or research funding but I'm sure even if it cultivated an environment conducive to growth, there still remains the means and motivation to make it possible.
I have alway's believed that the US government possesses some unbelievable technologies obviously funded by taxpayers through NASA, DoE, DoD etc much like ARPANET and GPS. Now is the time to unleash such knowledge to the public for it's own sake.
The US typically keeps great tech cloistered away where it whithers and dies. Through the university system, it also cripples and mis-allocates the efforts of the finest minds in science and engineering.
Think about what all those robotics engineers devoted towards developing mine-hunting IED-bots could've accomplished in private industry.
Fucking DARPA.
Great ideas go 'black', never to be heard from again ... outside the GMIC.
On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everything goes to zero
Nothing grows forever; everything has a limit.
If left alone, cancer will grow forever, or at least until it has exhausted the resources of the host.
Actually, the whole darn Universe might do just that.
Then you feed it in a petri dish and it goes on and on and on..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
+1, fascinating link!
A few points:
"As a card-carrying member of the green eyeshade club, Mr. Orszag knows that their path represents the eventual and probably catastrophic bankruptcy of the US."
It is clear on an accrual basis, due to underfunded long term liabilities, the US is Bankrupt. However, the application of the term Bankrupt really does not apply to a sovereign nation with a central bank with the power to create money.
The focus on accural limitations is not the primary concern for the administration. This battle is already clearly lost. The strategy is one of positive Treasury cash flow in the near term. Any reduction in the world capacity to buy US debt is catastrophic for funding the government. The real danger for Obama is to promote fiscal irresponsibility when it is clear we need foreign investment in our debt to achive positive cash flow. Any upward pressure on rates will quickly result in forced currency debasement.
----------
Chris talks about the inability for sustained growth. But in the US there is the opportunity to maximize food production which never gets funding.
The issue with feeding our people and creating communities, is our mal-investment towards unproductive debt. The immediate challenge is not the finite capacity of the planet for energy or food, it is the ineffective application of limited financial resources to maximize food production and create energy on a sustainable basis. The limit on prosperity is our own stupidity and not mother earth.
----------
What is somewhat incredible is to hear the administration talk about growth, when it is clear that in todays economic reality, growth will suffer with the removal of government subsidy. How can this fact somehow go unnoticed. Let me rephrase.
It is obvious, temporary subsidy will always end. This is why it is temporary.
But, to not be prepared for the consequences of a temporary measure, is remarkable stupidity.
----------
I have been trying to understand how the Administration will deal with crisis. In a way it is getting amusing in what politicians and Bernanke say in public. It is so unworkable at times that I can only laugh at the public discourse.
However, my fear is that crisis will be delt with in a way that cripples the movement of capital in and out of the US. The corraling of taxible wages. The application of the Laffer experiment to bleed the taxpayer.
Mark Beck
Check out resiliant communities and Global Gorrillas
What happens, ecologically, if 2 billion people in China and India decided to have SUV's and 42 inch LCD flat panel TV's?
Should we start mining on the Moon? VALE is ready to dig big holes, increasing the number of Moon's craters.
And we need take over all that unobtanium on Pandora. Kill the fucking Na'avis!
By the way, I think you know why, on Avatar movie, unobtanium was priced 20 million per kilogram on year 2154. That's the equivalent to 10 bucks today.
Hyperinflation, bitches.
If Avatar ended right after home tree got blown up, it would have more accurately reflected reality.
You actually took the silly political moralization of the Avatar movie seriously? That would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Since I live in a country where VALE treats the Amazonian indigenous people as Na'avi, yes, I took it seriously.
I can almost feel the subsonic rumbles as Krugman gnashes his teeth as he chews on this defeat. I guess the other G20 folks realize - just be cause it is cheap to borrow and stimulate right now, doesn't mean you should try to get everybody employed by signing up for a bunch more sub-prime loans at the federal level! Go Germany!! - AB
HOLY SHIT! IF WE CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING, GDP WILL FALL!!!!!!
It's not the "growth" paradox that needs to be solved. It's this idiotic worship of statistics that mean nothing. If the government doesn't produce anything and most of the government spending is "structural" (meaning it's just a transfer payment), how is government spending an addition to production? The answer is it's not. And it never will be. In fact, because it's just a transfer payment, it must necessarily to be a transfer payment from the productive to the unproductive. And to endlessly debate this "austerity" and how it will stint growth in the productive sectors of a country is moronic.
We're not faced with government spending and growth on the one hand and "austerity" and shrinking economic activity on the other. We're faced with a handful of governments trying to figure out a new lie to convince half the world's population that more needs to be confiscated in the name of "stability".
Amen brother!
A lot of good points in this essay, particularly in its emphasis on the importance of limiting population growth, but it's undermined by one particular part of its thesis:
Well, no. Not at all. Humanity is unique (among known species) in its ability to innovate its way out of problems and expand its Petri dish.
Some civilizations, like Rome, ultimately collapse because they fail to innovate, even when those innovations are possible.
Right now, however, we're at a unique moment in the history of technology. Nanotechnology is in the process of opening up the floodgates to a raft of new technologies that will transform every aspect of technology and ultimately society itself over the next century.
You obviously haven't read the Limits to Growth published in 1972. Nearly 40 years on and we are on course for a population collapse by mid century. Our trajectory is the same. Technology only accelerates the collapse. Read the literature. There is NO way out of collapse. Peak oil means that nanotechnology will be moot as it is resource intensive. There are limits being reached everywhere, credit expansion has peaked,thus global economic failure is inevitable. Peak phosphate has been reached. Gold production has peaked, water is scarce, soil quality continues to decline. We are clearly in global population and consumption overshoot that will result in massive economic and population declines.
time to start your damn eugenics. The USSR first.
i hope these new technologies start to find more and more applications and become available sooner rather than later. could solve a lot of our problems. make more with less! is there not more than enough for us to provide for everyone living on this planet right now? we just need to stop a second and think about how to make it possible.
seems like governments are getting in the way of potential innovation at a critical time. it runs the risk of making things unworkable if the world becomes too unstable :|
I'm no crazy starry eyed optimist, and I do think we need to fix these structural deficits, but the fact is that without US hegemony bitch slapping the rest of the world into place international trade would slow to a trickle.
See how long the Chinese and Indian expansion would continue if we pulled out of South Korea and Japan. How long do you think oil would stay below 100 a barrel if we pulled out of the mid east and let the Saudi elites defend themselves.
We are going to have to restructure the shit out of this country, and it's going to take one hell of a cataclysmic non-financial event to knock us out of first place. Stand up like a proud American and get these chumps out of the office in the next election but if you think there's a better place in the world to live then don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
I beg to differ.
I am fucking sick of the USA being the world's policeman and global hegemon --- and talk about unsustainability! We can no longer afford it, even IF it were a morally legitimate and fiscally sensible policy, which it is not. I'll be damned if I am going to buy the status-quo line that every American foreign intervention and occupation somehow constitutes "defense"! It is OFFENSE, nothing less! The neocons can take their hysterical fearmongering, which then justifies their insanely unnecessary warmongering, that then rationalizes every expansion of authoritarian state power and diminishment of our freedoms, and shove it all up their collective asses.
Imperialism, ironically, spells the death of empires. Rome learned that lesson the hard way, and so did the Mongols --- when will we?
Actually the Mongols morphed into the Ottomans who's reign lasted over 600 years (arguably ruled the world for 400 of those). Using that logic, the US has 340 years of world domination left in it.
Huh?
The Turks began moving westward and had already invaded Anatolia, displacing the Byzantines throughout most of Asia Minor (Battle of Manzikert, 1071 AD), almost two centuries before the Mongols consolidated and expanded out of their East Asian heartland under Ghenghis Khan.
The lifecycle of empires has been declining. Look it up, each and every empire seems to have less and less mileage. Using that logic, the US peaked in 2000. By 2020 it's over.
The Mongols also morphed into the Mughals who ruled for over 300 years in India. The Taj Mahal was built at the apex of that dynasty. It ended when the British took over and sent the last Mughal Emperor into exile in Burma. For a little more depth...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview6
Soon, and it will be the HARD way.
Re: when will we
"We" who? The peasants or the nobility. Personally, I think the empire "thing" has helped keep the peasant dumbasses loving their nobility for the last 50+ years. The peasant's own winky swells along with the greatness of Merica.
(Queue: Slow motion flag...)
When the mythology of American power (uh) shrinks the peasants will look at their winky and cry in shame. This is never a good thing for the dumbasses, which is why ONLY through perpetual victory can we make America's winky strong.
(Queue: Slow motion eagle. Peasant looking skyward, winky - and flag - waving in the wind!)
Somewhat vulgar, but not an inaccurate assessment.
The communique was an offering to the bond market. That's the only thing achieved in this meeting. It remains to be seen whether it was achievement or not.
Check out how long it takes Obama to order a mo f-ing cheeseburger...
http://rt.com/Best_Videos/2010-06-25/obama-medvedev-hang-burger.html
So what's the over & under on 75% of the Keynesian's getting out of here alive? ;-)
I'd never bet against self-delusion (look at the number of imaginary friends that are bouncing around in people's brains).
I'd also never bet against a system that can be gamed by the smartest amoral scumbags. History shows the sociopaths win. They'll keep this going as long as they can. If the Soviet Union lasted 70+ on complete religious bullshit, the sociopaths should be able to do the same with Keynes.
"... Your mockery has been noted. Be very careful who you cast dispersions on..."
I didn't say a word! Honest, wasn't me...