Commentary By Ron Beasley
I used to worry about peak oil but not so much now. The thing that is going to get our civilization first is the 30 plus year old leverage bubble bursting. The tech bubble and and housing bubbles were just sub bubbles of the over all leverage bubble and this is nothing new. Nichole Foss explains at from about 13:00 to 19:00 in the video below.
Foss had a great line at the beginning of the video when she described the politicians. She said they are a crowd who only looks back never forward. It's like pressing the accelerator to the floor and only looking in the rear view mirror - a horrible accident is bound to happen.
It was also interesting that one of the reasons for the dark age was a leverage collapse in 1294 so this is nothing new. It was the the Italian banks then as she points out but she leaves out the Jewish money lenders who for the most part were deported of "disappered".
Just curious about one sentence, and would appreciate some clarification.
ReplyDelete"It was also interesting that one of the reasons for the dark age was a leverage collapse in 1294 so this is nothing new."
WHAT "dark age?" If it's a reference to the conventional historical notion of the "Dark Ages," then that "leverage collapse" had NOTHING to do with it. The year 1294, in fact, was the tail end of the Dark Ages, especially for the Italian peninsula. (I apologize. I didn't watch the video but if someone made the comment about the collapse in 1294 being a reason for the "dark age," I don't really see any need to endure the entire piece. That's some really shabby history.)
Further, there was no deportation or "disappearance" of Jews from ALL of Italy in the 1290s. (For starters, there was NO "Italy" in 1290. The Italian peninsula comprised a number of smaller states. Many of the southern Italian states, especially Naples and the Papal States, expelled Jews in several waves, but many of the northern states, especially Florence, remained open to Jews.)
I once wrote up an evaluation for our homeowners' association board regarding how our landscaper was doing things wrong. They thought it was "only fair to get his input" on my critique and, of course, he said I was wrong and provided a bunch of bogus reasons why what he was doing was correct. The board "didn't know which one of us to believe." I pointed out that I had eighteen years experience in landscape management and nothing to gain other than improving the HOA; while Frank was defending his job and that I would hardly expect him to agree with my evaluation. I tactfully did not point out that I thought they were idiots to ask his opinion.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that, as the lady on stage pointed out, of course governments favor the status quo ante, and are never going to say, "Oh, yes, we're doing it all wrong so let's change." So long as we reelect 85% of Congress and elect a president who voted to immunize the telecom industry as to spying on Americans, we are not going to see change coming from the top.
The underlying problem appears to be that economies are based on endless growth. We're now at a point where that endless growth is threatened by overpopulation, resource limitations, and because more mature economies just don't grow as fast as developing ones. To try and keep that growth going credit has been made cheap, which by its nature creates bubbles. The only way to solve these problems is to move to a more steady state economy rather than one based on growth. What are the odds of that happening? Practically zero cosidering, as mentioned in the video, politicians and economists look backwards to the status quo rather than think outside the box and look forward.
ReplyDelete@Doug
ReplyDeleteYou are right of course but as Joseph Tainter points out people rarely if ever voluntarily give up growth and it has to be forced on them. Unfortunately the thing that forces them to do it is collapse of the existing system. The current financial system is going to collapse and very soon.