tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post1617525977273148622..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: How cascading failures in the global finance system could mean TEOTWAWKIKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-43629913714055480402012-08-09T18:36:00.617-04:002012-08-09T18:36:00.617-04:00Meh. Economics doesn't exist. Force does. &quo...Meh. Economics doesn't exist. Force does. "We're not shipping food, because we won't get paid!" <br /><br />Guns come out, "No, you will deliver food or we will blow your fucking head off."<br /><br />Food gets delivered.<br /><br />"We're not selling oil because we don't like your currency."<br /><br />Guns come out. Nations invaded. Oil flows.<br /><br />"We're not lending money because it's all broken and we can't see a profit."<br /><br />Guns come out, banks are nationalised, debt vanishes. Bankers are lined up and shot. Money gets lent. <br /><br />TEOTWAWKI is not a bad or a good thing. There is only transformation. It is much better to measure Good or Bad against metrics like Democracy and Involvement on one end and comfort and longevity on another. There are a number of metrics one can use. <br /><br />I read that thing by Korowicz and was appalled. Such a complete and stunning lack of imagination.Henry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-12963553546043362902012-08-07T11:11:37.172-04:002012-08-07T11:11:37.172-04:00I have two suggestions for preventing TEOTWAWKI, a...I have two suggestions for preventing TEOTWAWKI, and thanks for the word.<br /><br />Both involve understanding.<br /><br />1. Cartesian Economics: The Bearing of Physical Science Upon State Stewardship <br /><br />http://habitat.aq.upm.es/boletin/n37/afsod.en.html<br /><br />2. The Role of Money<br /><br />http://ia700306.us.archive.org/15/items/roleofmoney032861mbp/roleofmoney032861mbp.pdf<br /><br />It's all about the relationship between real physical science and our monetary system.<br /><br />As Nobelist Soddy said in conclusion of studying the money system: ""It's not a system; it's a confidence trick.""<br /><br />It's about the paper that is about to destroy the planet as we know it. But, it's only paper.<br /><br />Thanks.joebhedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113967013126217266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-17845214091212019282012-08-06T06:54:05.136-04:002012-08-06T06:54:05.136-04:00Having studied the curves of what we are committed...Having studied the curves of what we are committed to in terms of Climate Destabilization - and they include the ongoing acceleration of at least six of the interactive mega-feedbacks on warming - the loss of global cohesion and economic resilience due to a global collapse would in my view preclude the collective actions that are essential to halting that destabilization of the climate and so preventing serial global crop failures. (Note: no additional future emissions at all are required for climate impacts that severe).<br /><br />If we fail to mitigate the timelagged effects of GHG emissions to date, the start of crop failures at the global level is possible this decade, probable in the next, and probably inevitable in the 2030s - as best I can understand the drivers' interactions. Very senior scientists are of the same general view. To put this in a human context, a food shortage gets compounded by a degraded capacity for collective response, viz the great medieval European famines, where a mere 10% to 15% food shortfall killed more than twice that fraction of the population.<br /><br />Thus I continue to strive for fundamental 'perestroika', but I don't share the glee at the thought of global economic collapse - both for the above reason and also for the dire political prognosis - given the left's utter disarray under neo-liberalism and its lack of well mobilized public protest capacity (perhaps 100th of what it was in the '60s ?)<br />and given the historical record of the chaotic collapse of long-established regimes' directly empowering utterly brutal warmongering fascist replacement regimes. (Such regimes would not only inherit current arsenals but also the covert research into new WMD, while having dumped any notion of international law along with membership of the UN).<br /><br />I suggest that for these and other reasons we need to achieve a sustainable collective global governance more urgently now than ever before in our history. Allow petty nationalism or pettier localism or popular absentionism to mess it up this time - and all bets are off.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />BillhookBillhooknoreply@blogger.com