Not Nearly Enough Growth To Keep Growing

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

Jackson Pollock Shooting Star 1947   It’s amusing to see how views start to converge, at the same time that it’s tiresome to see how long that ta
[See the full post at: Not Nearly Enough Growth To Keep Growing]

[Joe Clarkson]

Wait a minute! Do you mean to say that Trump won’t “make America great again” after all?

Well of course not, and neither can anyone else. As minimal growth turns to permanent recession, the big issue is how well we will handle the collapse of the global market economy and the dire repercussions that will entail.

Will declining resources be distributed fairly? Will we try to grab the resources of other countries to try and stave off the decline of our country? What will we do with an ever-increasing number of unemployed people? How will we return as many people as possible to the task of producing their own food after food riots become commonplace? How are we going to keep almost everyone on earth from starving to death?

I would like to think that Trump is grappling with these important questions right now, but I doubt that even their possibility has once entered his thoughts. If they ever do, he’ll probably think that, like climate change, the very concept of limits to growth must be a Chinese hoax.

[oxymoron]

The french revolution hinged on debt and scarce food – basically liberal economists deregulating the grain market. Any parallels with the world right now? I mean water is a commodity and unsustainably managed – think Vegas. All this we know but the conditions for shit going cray-cray are quite good. Raul’s post – Unrest in the only growth industry left – sums it up.

[Olduvai]

Infinite growth on a finite planet, what could possibly go wrong?

[V. Arnold]

It is my understanding Nixon went off the gold standard so he could put more “money” in circulation.
IIRC the gold standard limited debt to the gold on hand; without gold standard, unlimited debt because our is a sovereign and global reserve currency.
It would appear the dominance of the dollar is over, as is the U.S. hegemon; the world is now firmly multi-polar.

[rapier]

One way to interpret Trump and the rise of alternate parties in Europe is they are proposing a sort of cure for low or no growth. Although certainly Trump and probably the others imagine growth will come again with the right mix of policies what they are actually proposing is to cut more and more people off from the system and thus maintain the modern lifestyle for fewer and fewer. It isn’t about growing the pie it is about taking it away from some to give to others. This is the only possible possible political path so that is the path being taken.

Trump wants to bring the jobs and money back to the US so as to to take growth away from others, while the GOP in general is working to take things away from the lower class and actually growing the lower class.

[Castiel123]

Could you expand on why a certain amount of nominal growth is required to just “stand still”? This conclusion is not obvious from where I sit. Also, if oil is becoming increasingly less profitable to extract, how does that reconcile with the recent collapse in oil prices? It seems like it should be going the other way.

Thanks in advance!

[zerosum]

@ rapier

In one word

ZERO SUM

[seychelles]

Killing them slowly with pseudokindness.

[Author]

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