The Economy's Crashing Because We're an Industrial Civilization on a Dying Planet

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://eand.co/the-economys-crashing-because-we-re-an-industrial-civilization-on-a-dying-planet-2505e36bd4db

Inflation skyrocketing. Stock market tanking. Pundits are calling it “a tough new economic climate” and “a slow economy.” So…how bad is the economy going to get?

If you really want to understand this question, then let’s talk about it seriously and subtly. There’s a certain thing, a kind of stupidity, which happens in our economic discourse. The economy’s always booming. Have you noticed? As soon as “the pandemic ended” — which of course it hasn’t — the economy was said to be booming.

The truth, though, is far from that. Do you know anyone who feels good about their economic prospects? I don’t. With the exception of aging generations, and maybe including plenty of them, literally every single person I know has spent their adult worried intensely about one thing first and foremost. Money.

At this point, we have a downward spiral of what’s called intergenerational inequality. Wages have been stagnant in America since the 1970s. In Europe, since 2000 or so. That hurts the generations who’ve grown up amidst stagnation most. So at this point, Gen X did worse than the Boomers, and it was considered to be almost funny, but then Millennials did worse than Gen X, and things started to look pretty bad, and now Zoomers basically have no economic future whatsoever. Owning a home, starting a family, retiring? LOL — good luck with that. And the generations which come after them? They’ll have it even worse than that.

*snip*

[SoonerPride]

1. With unemployment at 3.7% our economy isn't crashing.

It’s overheating.

Thus the inflation.

This is nonsense.

[brush]

2. Agreed. There's a difference. We've been thru inflation before.

And we've come out of them before and will this time.

[oioioi]

4. Wish it were so

The planet is overheating. Soon enough there will be massive migration and unimaginable famine in some parts of the world.

Massive retooling of the global economy and energy production is needed if there's to be any chance of averting catastrophe. The unraveling of democratic political systems worldwide reflects our historical failure and apparent inability to collectively address this. 10-15% inflation could well become normal -- the ship is sinking and there aren't enough lifeboats for everybody.

[PSPS]

3. Hogwash. Nobody knows who this "Umair" guy is, but he sure has no idea how an economy works.

[Nevilledog]

5. He's a British economist and author.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umair_Haque

Umair Haque is a British economist. He was the director of the Havas Media Lab,[1] has previously blogged in the Harvard Business Review and is author of the book The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business.[2] The book sets the "incumbent" capitalists of the 20th century against the 21st "insurgents" and states that the latter are creating a more sustainable "new capitalism".[3][4]

[PSPS]

12. So? He has no degree in economics. He just works for a "media lab" and writes opinion pieces.

[Amishman]

6. This reminds me of the overly pessimistic climate change predictions of a generation ago

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

Like this one from 18 years ago that predicted England having a 'Siberian' climate in 20 years and cities under water from rising seas levels.

We have rising food prices primarily due to expansion of the money supply, rising labor costs, and rising energy costs. Not because of climate related crop failures.

We are likely entering a recession not because of climate related factors but because of mismanaged monetary policy.

Is climate change real? Yes!
Is it a huge problem that requires immediate action? Absolutely!

Is it why we're entering a recession? Absolutely not!

Why is this a problem? Because over dramatic and incorrect climate predictions and claims undermine the credibility of the rest of the science.

[oioioi]

14. The more things (climate) change...

Thanks for the old article from 2004 - Britain isn't quite Siberia (yet), but most of it wasn't too far off the mark...

‘You’ve got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you’ve got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It’s pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,’ said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 ‘catastrophic’ shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver


Most Texas counties receive crop disaster designations

Soil moisture in most of the state is so low that crops are already failing or expected to be much smaller than usual even with the recent rain, said Jourdan Bell, a regional agronomist for Texas A&M AgriLife in Amarillo.

More than 200 Texas counties have received crop disaster designations — which makes loans and other financial assistance available — from the U.S. Department of Agriculture due to extended drought conditions.

The olive crop in several South Texas counties could be a near-total failure, according to experts at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, and cattle ranchers have reported culling their herds as rangeland dries.

In the Panhandle, at least 40% of the wheat crop, which is typically harvested in June, will likely fail this year, Bell said. The number of failed acres “is increasing by the day,” she said.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/texas-drought-wildfires-heat/


With food prices climbing, the U.N. is warning of crippling global shortages

Fears of a global food crisis are growing due to the shock of the war in Ukraine, climate change and rising inflation.

According to U.N. figures, the number of severely food-insecure people has doubled in the past two years, from 135 million pre-pandemic to 276 million today. Now, more than half a million people are experiencing famine conditions, according to the U.N., an increase of more than 500% since 2016.

In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, the number of people facing extreme hunger has more than doubled since last year, from roughly 10 million to more than 23 million today, according to the report. Across the three countries, the report notes, one person is likely dying every 48 seconds from acute hunger-related causes stemming from armed conflict, COVID-19, climate change and inflationary pressures worsened by the war in Ukraine.

In India, a devastating heatwave has upset the nation's wheat harvest, driving up prices around the world for the staple commodity. Earlier this month, as temperatures in the capital of Delhi hovered near 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced a ban on wheat exports. The announcement helped push wheat prices to record levels.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100592132/united-nations-food-shortages

Commodity price inflation is here to stay.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. The Author Should Stick To Subjects They Understand

A few stats thrown in to pretend to be analytical followed by spurious conclusions & hyperbolic nonsense.

[Nevilledog]

8. He's an economist

[ProfessorGAC]

10. My Comment Stands

Cato is full of economists who don't have a clue.
He's obviously far less knowledgeable than he thinks.
The conclusions are ridiculous.

[PSPS]

13. An "economist" with no degree in economics. In other words, he has an uninformed opinion.

[Hortensis]

9. End times/apocalyptic fears are soaring these days, and of course

there are secular versions. No coincidence that threads like this are showing up on DU as rapture prep does on other forums.

I've always thought that spending one's life fearing that one terrible event after another (finally) indicates the approach of the end of the world is a lousy way to live, even for those who expect to be raptured to the lap of God. Googling shows many hits for dealing with end times anxiety, most religious in nature. (Understandle, albeit irrational anxiety to my mind, considering that in over 2000 years, the kindly Christian "god" has never raptured victims from frequently unimaginable suffering but always left the millions to it.)

The worst huge problem, though, is of course of acceptance and apathy replacing commitment to doing better;
hell, encouraging people to insist all efforts must fail. People who embrace the ultimate failure are not those who've advanced civilization through millennia of "end times," dragging the prophets of doom along with them.

Reality is that our children are going to live on this planet with what we leave them and what they make of it. And their children. And theirs.

Right now, VOTE. Pessimists might vote as if access in future to dependable air conditioning depends on it. That not everyone who does now always will if we don't get on that seems possible.

[Kaleva]

11. I look upon adapting to climate change as a challenge I'll do my very best to win.

I don't fear the future nor do I think the situation is hopeless. It will be tough but with focus, knowledge, hard work and some luck, it's doable.

The social and economic upheaval climate change will cause is real as the farm belt in the US moves north, populated areas become depopulated and sparsely populated regions experience a large influx of migrants.

Unstable third world nations might not be able to survive and whole areas will desend into political, social and economic chaos.

[Hortensis]

16. Yes. We've never been at this point before, but it's always been the

way for situations to become untenable before forcing big change. This one's our fault in a way previous climate changes weren't, and we have a lot more people to keep alive, but we're also able to do enormously more for ourselves than just migrate and learn to eat new plants when deaths threaten annihilation.

After 4 million years of that, or 200,000 for homo sapiens, we not only extremely recently discovered we live on a globe (!) but that over a nanosecond of 270 years we've become a major geophysical force ourselves.

Humanity's now rushing even faster to develop understanding and ability to change climate deliberately. If it weren't for AC, people in temperate climates who've caused almost the entire problem would have demanded implementation long before this.

[roamer65]

15. 8 BILLION IS TOO MANY.

Mother Nature eventually will solve the problem if we stall too long.