jonabark
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Tender but clear-eyed, and very moving, Illargi. This combination is a large part of why I read you frequently. I deeply appreciate your thoughts about allowing those who suffer to end their own lives. My mother took her own life 3 years ago. She was in a lot of pain for the last year and she had told her children that she wanted to end her life. I guess we thought she was exaggerating, but very few would say that without meaning it and my mother had never said anything of that kind. My sister and I both felt after her death that we should have honored what she said and taken her to Oregon where she could have died with those she wanted present and with dignity and a minimum of pain.
I hope your words will help others think about these issues with compassion. No easy answers here.For those of us with friends who like Obama and believe the economic news, where can we look for an effective counter to his numbers and spin? Who most effectively takes apart these claims?
As you say,both major political sides like the basic story and seem to have some agreement on the numbers. Is the key counter-argument about the unsustainability of ever increasing debt, or more to do with how the money gets distributed/grabbed, set against the instability of the food, , ecological problems, war, banking and energy supply?
My problem is that the message I hear from automatic earth is hard to translate with clarity to others.Rather disappointing to see so many global warming deniers on a website I like. I even like Ron Paul ( the only political clue from Ilargi)apart from Paul’s abysmal denial of the need for ecological environmental regulation. Both libertarianism and Keynesian economics fail to include the role of a healthy ecosystem as the foundation of life and wealth. Still, I would take a sincere antiwar libertarian over either major US party.The idea that Climate Change is a socialist scam is funny. There are virtually no socialists with global power. All the big players are tied to fossil fuels and have nothing to gain by promoting the scientific consensus. In fact all the efforts of the true powers have been to suppress or discredit climate science and the threat from greenhouse gases, fracking, nuclear waste, and also to threaten the spineless politicos with economic devastation if they actally get serious about stopping the burning.. The US is much more of a functional international military and economic police state such as Mussolini would have celebrated as vindication of the glories of fascism, than anything resembling a liberal socialism.
How long the denials will continue as the planet heats, the oceans acidify, the storms, floods and droughts devastate, the glaciers melt will probably get pretty weird.
Anyway, I am glad you brought up the topic, but think you should take a more clear personal position.
I also think Ilargi should give some acknowledgement in the blog of the work of Naomi Klein. She does impressive research and analysis on the ties between economic ideologies and social, political consequences.Raul, could you describe some possible triggering events for this kind of lurch into depression? Also how much of the economic power arrangements are ‘stabilized’ by the US military, and is that stability eroded by the consequences of recent wars or is it reinforced? Finally how soon could the proverbial feces make contact with the ventilator?
By ‘stabilized’ I don’t mean something good, but basically a sense that the ultimate backup for the Dollar and the exercise of US political and economic power is the ability to destroy or cripple competitors with no meaningful accountability.The continuation of the current criminal ponzi scheme is ultimately about raw military power. It’s work for the bankers or face annihilation. It is a medieval arrangement between the military rulers and the high priests/ bankers. The rulers ceased to be nation states with the rise of fascism(we were just the winners of that war which was to temporarily decide the style of fascism that would prevail) and the concomitant rise of the corporate powers and the oil based economy. The chance for Democracy in the US is about the same as in Egypt . Only massive non-violent tax resistance and a world wide insistence on a transition to green local economies, and bio-regional politics can preserve a habitable planet.
One of the key factors in markets is bond trading. It is key to this article and many others on AE. For those of us who are less savvy on macroeconomic basics, can Ash or others recommend some articles that outline the role bonds have traditionally played and how bond markets are currently working or being skewed, perhaps something written for a general educated reader?
While I agree that the constitution of the Republic provides a framework for a modest self governing and self correcting republic and embodies ideals of shared liberty, It began by creating and allowing classes of citizens( slaves, landholders, servants, unlanded) and did nothing to stop the continual breaking of every treaty made with aboriginal tribes. Instead it increasingly became a legal cloak for the practical aspirations of continuous imperial expansion. As for the idea that Berman places all imperial and colonial propensities to violence on America’s shoulders, that is neither implied nor stated. Berman is countering the idea of American exceptionalism and idealism, not saying we are uniquely prone to these patterns.
Thanks for the feedback Ashvin, I do hope you may attempt some comparative analysis regarding nations who may be better situated for a post growth economy.
Good article and interesting graph. I would like to hear more about the indicators on the graph as to how Ashvin or others see the graph, I would also like to see a graph that includes Ireland, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy, France, England by comparison. Maybe the data is unavailable? I would also like to hear more about Sweden’s economy. We see the dip from the austerity years. What has changed and are they or Denmark, or Switzerland more insulated from the Euro woes?Iceland is also of interest. I feel I would have a more complete picture if instead of continuing at look at the train wreck in Greece and the Eurozone I could have a basis of comparison with those nations making other choices. The core question being this: are there nations making better choices as regards the end of growth who are likely to have a less painful transition to a post growth world?
That someone like Stockman is in fundamental agreement with the bailing wire analysis of the wall street/banker economy is powerful stuff. That he foresees a “real margin call” is a confirmation that the magnitude of the MSM scam about recovery is enormous. That they can and do ignore and obscure the growing number of expert skeptics despite the enormous risk involved suggests a top-down decision to deceive the public and suppress dissenting voices. Ashvin is the most direct in suggesting the nasty link between the neo-con ideology and large banking interests, but the promotion of starvation and War against Iran as something that will make “everyone ” more secure is as pure a form of fascist propaganda as I can imagine and it is here now. Is there really going to be individual survival and local economies without grass roots political resistance?
