John Day
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What can the Han do now? At home, their massive pressure for population expansion is contained by the one child policy. there are just limited resources in the Middle Kingdom for more people. The Chinese themselves like moving to places where they can make a comfortable living and have families without restriction, places with fewer people, more resources, less history, places like Vancouver. The Chinese government would like to send a few hundred million Han to Africa, to colonize it, not with soldiers, as the Europeans tried, but with real industrious, homesteading, hard-working, boss-obeying Chinese nationals.
This would all be good for the Chinese economy. Chinese expats provide external buyers for Chinese products and important global business networking, like inside lines on all those necessary natural resources.Economic growth is certainly possible in regional and global economies, even with $90+/bbl oil.
However, it is only possible after vast systemic restructuring, which usually takes a couple of decades, as these things go.
The clock hasn’t really started yet…
John Michael Greer (Archdruid Report) says “Collapse Now and Avoid The Rush”
https://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/06/collapse-now-and-avoid-rush.html@ Jack
Damon Vickers, in this interview, is very careful to promote the conservative investment strategy of his company. The book is several years old now, and the concerns in 2008-2009 have taken a bit of a turn since then.
The problem with the dollar is not unique, but is shared by all electronic fiat currencies. The problem is that there is a very slippery connection between the electronic assessment of money, and the real physical economy value, which it used to represent. Once that slippery connection takes a big-enough slip, then there will be nobody willing to trust that system. This could happen along our current central banking trajectory, or with cyber warfare eliminating ownership databases like MERS, or with disconnects inherent in MERS-type arrangements. We could get a really big solar-storm “Carrington Event” knock out the electricity and burn-out data storage in New York or London, and that would crash the system (I speculate).
The question of what could then replace the current system is widely debated. Expect military to play a dominant role. Throughout history there has been one currency, which was always accepted as payment from anybody, even when they were losing a war. Can you name it? (Hint: It was not heroin.)Hey El G. You’re right!
It was “Sunshine” that jumped me on that Anne Frank issue of TAE, which I guess was back in 2009. I was some kind of “hater” for saying that genocide is the same in Cambodia or Western Europe, or Israel/Palestine.
For the record again, I took my 4 kids to Anne Frank’s House, Dachau and Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh to teach them what to look out for in our species, and even themselves, when times get really tough.Please consider the reference to “Jews” as a single entity.
It is a fundamental flaw, in whatever logic proceeds from that point.
The Abrahamic lineage consisted of 12 tribes, 10 were “lost”?
Genetic analysis makes it clear that there is a group of Jewish and Palestinian people, who are the traditional inhabitants of that area, who are genetically indistinguishable from “each other”, sort of like Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
The Ashkenazi Jews from the Southern Russian/Georgian area, are a very distinct genetic group, and have numerous genetic disease syndromes which are only in their lineage.Reverse Engineer
You might reconsider your analysis of thousands of years of global banking cartels in this light. What about the Rockefellers?@KGB
For the record: Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish of the Abrahamic lineage (Mizrahic, not Ashkenazi or Sephardic).
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the ITALIANS (AKA “Romans”) for “troublemaking”, same crime as the 2 “thieves” he was crucified with.@ Babble
Cynthia McKinney was the best choice in the 2008 US Presidential election. Did you overlook her? She was certainly the most honest and had stood up against Bush/Cheney enough to be very seriously attacked, but not quite as seriously attacked as Paul Wellstone was…
Good standing of your ground, El G.
I have drifted away from the site for awhile, since the new format. I found myself missing the “regulars”.
I return today and see your guest post, which seems to be a Rorschach test for the readers, or at least for the respondents.
There are a lot of folks with very firmly fixed views, which they are always primed to vigorously defend at the drop of a hat.
I’m not so much like that but I did teach my kids that it is wrong to take pleasure in the suffering of another.
That’s as doctrinaire as I get.
There are a lot of things I don’t know yet, but many of the possibilities are intriguing.
I have certainly thought about the herd behaviors of our species, as have those who “ranch” us. I don’t want to control the herd for my profit, at the expense of many members of the herd, but I do want to stay out of stampedes, and try to contribute to self awareness. I think that knowing the truth can set you “free”, but it will mean that you can’t go with the herd, and that is hard on a body.
The first self awareness I need to work on is my own. (Of course I have a strong streak of wanting to straighten everybody else out when I notice their glaring mistakes.)
I spent the tax overpayments on an off-grid solar rig with nickel-iron “Edison cells” and 1.2 kW of panels. That’s my most recent investment, and it should be aone timer. Now, where to install it? Well, I’ve got the area, but not the location…Enjoying your input Ilargi!
We, who are reading this, need to look at what is at hand, and how to create little living seeds to plant deeply as the forest fire roars in the distance. We have lots of resources, some under-appreciated, and some to undergo deep discounts in the near future as stages of economic withdrawal-convulsions sweep over our human world. Maybe we are in the fortunate position to be out of debt, and valued, with some resources as a result. It has been a long time since I bought a new car, but I just spent $11k in overpaid taxes on a 1.2 kW solar PV set up with 10 kWHr of nickel iron battery storage. This is not for immediate deployment, but when we settle into our longer term situation, the seed we hope will grow after the fire.This is very nice. I’m glad this exploration of new and useful directions is taking place. this presentation of earthships is more practical for someone considering such a home, than what I have seen before.
Good work!
I’m sending some of these links out to friends with today’s news-picks.Steve B
The process of change in monetary system will certainly be violent, and will go first into deflation, as it is doing in the middle East, Europe and the US. There is a necessary destruction of the old regime, which is translted into humans being destructive and violent, in an effort to survive.
That’s where the copper wires get pulled out.
It is possible to trade through computerized electronic creditd, even in a complex marketplace, like the Pacific rim. Some of that is happening. It is like electronic money. It requires something like the internet and lots of computing power, a central heirarchy.
People will choose, naturally, to enrich themselves or an ally, even if it means somebody they don’t know gets killed. It’s human nature.
Any system has to work with this.
The question of how something is organized must arise at the outset, because there are people who have a skillset to selfishly use any system. We see that with money. It is less in a cash system, and more in a centrally controlled electronic monetary system, such as we are moving into.
Let’s look at a realistic scenario for any monetary system, which is arising in a self-organizing fashion after a 90% die off of the species, and destruction of vast swthes of habitat. There will be trust for one’s own small clan, and little else. Within the small clan, money will not be essential, but money, or specialized trade items, like wine, cheese or tools, will be necessary for external trade.
Living systems go through overgrowth and die-back. Bacteria and deer herds behave the same within their respective closed systems. I think we are about there.
Recall that money has co-arisen with all that our species has been through, over eons. Like language, something like money (salt, for instance) is archetypal. We have evolved species characteristics into a world, in which it is an integral part.Steve B
Perhaps I should have said that I can only REALISTICALLY imagine living without money in a small agrarian community.
I read lots of science fiction in my younger years, and found all those scenarios easy to imagine within the context presented.
You present no context, yet you feel free to speak down to me, for failing to mentally create a context, which you cannot apparently create yourself.
Why do you think the infrastructure, which is now present, will survive the end of money? Iraq got all the copper wiring stripped out of the buildings and power plants. This is happening in America now. It is only one example of the difficulties involved in major transitions.
90% of the population of the world is about to die-off.
Get back to me in 20 years.Steve B
Yes, I think that historically all transitions of large groups of people are based within fear.
That is the only thing which changes how people live their everyday lives.
This is common knowledge, certainly among those who control our species.
I can only imagine myself living without money in a very small, agrarian community, where these things commonly work. This is no frills existence. A wound gets infected and you die of gangrene. 50% of children die before puberty, etc.
I have visited such a community in the Laotian jungle. They still travel for a day to take the pigs to the nearst market, to sell, so that they may wear Chinese manufactured clothing. They catch and eat rats, other jungle-meat.The bigger question is where you will be part of a functioning community with food, water, shelter, some fuel, all the things to keep living. Functioning community AND all those things. This is a much more complex and difficult question than whether the government will confiscate your solar panels, inverter and Edison cells. The government is mostly going to collapse at some time. I hear those bunkers under the Denver airport are well stocked, but I’m not invited, and wouldn’t want to go.
MR 166
Bullets as local currency and government taking productive land from farmers are easily grasped and well-worn paradigms.
This is common fare, part of an uneasy transition period between more stable arrangements.Steve B,
I am an imaginative and innovative person, yet your words are not painting any picture which I can realistically envision. That makes your idea a non-starter for the 95% of humans who have less imagination than I do, not to mention the whole, vested intersts with power killing anything they can’t control, aspect…
Hi Steve B
There is a “time share” group here in Austin, but their time sharing is suspect, so that small groups that already know and trust each other, are setting up their own limited time share arrangements to avoid rip-offs.
I am OK with a world without money or heirarchy/oligarchy, but I cannot envision how it would realistically operate, let alone how to make the transition.
I like gift economy. It is easy, but it only goes as far as the excess ripe fruit coming off your trees. It cannot pay for advanced medical training, or support specialists.Steve B.
Money is necessary for lots of things, like flying somewhere, or having your infected appendix out.
I have needed both, and so did my Mom, and my eldest son.
Money saved our lives. We come from an appendicitis prone family.
No money = no surgeons.
I’m sure you can think of other examples.
Money allows a complexity of economy, which is otherwise not obtained in history.
I’m not a fan of money or oligarchy or economic change, just a participating observer in the whole process.How does a nice global financial oligarchy change the financial paradigm from debt-based-exponentially-growing money supply to something which does not grow, as dictated by the economic fundamentals of Peak Oil?
It appears that little collapses, zero interest, and war in the oil-places are part of the step-down experiment. All the little collapses, and taking one then another oil-supplier offline are testing how this may be accomplished short of WW-3.
At some point, the big transfer of monetary definition will be necessary. Gold would be easiest at that point.
Until then, it’s year after year of squeezing those who have the least power to resist, and watching their behavior closely, to further refine techniques.Hi Ashvin,
Here’s what I did, trying to treat the new system, somewhat like the old system:
I went down to the bottom of your article about “Who killed the money…”
I looked under “Discuss This Article”
There was a space with my name, and an empty “Message” box under it for prose.
I wrote a message and hit the “Submit” button.
There was no “captcha” as there is here.
My prose disappeared and couldn’t be retrieved.
I got a message that I had entered the wrong captcha.
I hope this helps.
JohnAloha Y’all,
Russia blames Ukraine, and Ukraine blames Russia for gas shortages to Austria and Italy over aged pipeline in the bitterest part of Winter, when all parties are using more (“fungible”) natural gas, and nobody wants to be blamed…
I don’t think Putin has anybody over a barrel. It’s just how things go.
Russian strategic interest is in building a better relationship with neighbors (Europe and China). Europe may have a stressed relationship with “Anglo-American banking” very soon, and Russia will serve strategic intersts best by being a friend through that harsh time.
Putin is no dope. This is a time to feed Europe more rope, not jerk it back hard.
