A correspondent, Evan, saw my article about money, and, referring to this quote from it:
"One must realize that THE ECONOMY CAN'T GROW TEN PERCENT PER YEAR. If it does, there's some kind of bubble. Why? Because money is based on real products, and the overall system of factories, transport methods, workers, education, etc, just can't grow that fast."
... said:
You make a great point. I used to work as a development chemist years ago at a mid-sized U.S. Conglomerate. I enjoyed occasionally stopping by the office of the corporate Economist to abuse him a bit; after a while he got used to me. I would always ask him what was coming and he finally said, "Look, the U.S. economy grows at 2% annually, sometimes less, sometimes more. My biggest job here is dressing that up for the corporate wizards' satisfaction -- sometimes it is a bit less sometimes a bit more . . . just plan on 2% over time and that is what you see. If it is less or more for more than a few years OR if it is a LOT less or more, then LOOK OUT!
I find it fascinating that this world is so far out of touch with reality that hardly anybody realizes a simple truth like that (I'd been reading about money for years before it became clear to me). And so they think money can grow and grow and grow, and so we end up with the current hardship.
5 comments:
Sure it can grow and grow and grow.
On trees...
The legendary Moolah Tree can be found in the hanging gardens of the highly secured New World farms of Forte-Knocks, and its golden-green leaves are harvested by the Financial Mogul's priests with a big, box-shaped machine called the Printing Press.
One epic hero named Mad Oaf managed to get inside, repeating Hercules' exploit in the Garden of the Hesperides. They say he returned with 50 unicorn-pulled chariots of precious leaves, who then magically evaporated overnight, leaving his nation in utter disappointment and disarray to this very day. Mad Oaf, now renamed Mad Ox, has begun a new quest, seeking for the Golden Fleas, and itching for success after the Cornucopia of Virtual Abundance has suddenly dried up.
There's a blog I read fairly often to stay on top of the world's economic unwinding and I find it both entertaining and illuminating - so I thought I'd pass it on to you. Maybe you already know it?
The Automatic Earth is at:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
There are limits to growth, and they aren't pleasant. The earth is a petri dish, and the more waste products we produce out of balance with other organisms'/systems' ability to process them back into resources, the less able will be the petri dish to support our type of organism.
When the birth rate far outstrips the death rate, we depend on that 2 (or 10%) just to keep even economically, but we have yet to absorb the idea that we can't keep crankin' out the humans like we are either. The human bubble will pop.
Anon 1:45
Thank you Thomas Malthus.
Personally, I don't like that need to limit the Earth's population bandied around too much. Mainly because it's the people who are best equipped economically and morally to raise up the next generation of humans who heed it, while the rest of the world who the warning seems to be directed against continue breeding. There is some reason to it, but it's interesting to look at what's happened in the last 170+ years since Malthus preached doom and gloom. Thanks to technological advances we've been fortunate in multiplying our food production ability. According to World Hunger Education the Earth currently produces a 17% surplus of the food needed to feed the world's current population. (Understandably, there are many complicated factors that limit the distribution).
What has happened is that many of the "developed" cultures/countries have limited their birth rate that they are dying out (Western European countries/Japan) and need to rely on immigration to keep their economies running. So ironically these "stewards" of the world order who exercised self-control to gain a better quality of life are being over-run by cultures/peoples who needed to escape from countries that didn't share those values and unfortunately bringing their bad habits with them (including large families that the state subsidizes).
A crude way to put it is the Islamization of Europe simply because the indigenous population wishes to avoid the economic inconveniences of children while those immigrants from Muslim countries value large families over the Western's view of economic inconveniences.
"kronostar said..."
that seems to be the way its been since humans first started populating the planet, and its been pretty successful so far, I dont think theres much point worrying about it
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