Excessive leveraging is what the Reserve Requirements of a Central Bank are supposed to limit. Obviously, there has been a big failure to communicate and inflation of house prices and stocks over the Bush period has been rampant. Without adequate Reserve Requirements throughout banking systems the US and UK will continue to create too much credit, and their currencies will weaken unless there is real economic growth, which is not likely in this holding period of adjustment.
Obviously, banks need to exact adequate reserve requirements (deposits, lower multiples of loans over income, percentage of income paying for interest and loans, etc.) from customers or they will fold like the economic system is folding right now. If your present loans are more than three times your salary, you should cut back spending or liquidate shares (i.e. loans to companies) to pay your loans down, no matter what the favourable interest rate, dividend percent or capital gain expected. That is prudence and not recklessness as has been common over the Bush administration period.
The problem is that more credit has been created over the last decade than what combined incomes can cover with interest payments. To get back to order, people need to sell assets, such as stocks and shares, houses, and liquidate deposits paying off their debts or as much interest as will keep the creditors happy (pretty high now!).
When this does not happen the debts become bad debts and the banks have to declare that they have bad debts. If everyone has bad debts at the same time, the assets that the bank is using to recover bad debts such as repossessed objects and homes fall in value because everyone is selling stuff at the same time.
When the Fed helps the banks it does not mean that the bad debts disappear, but that the fall in asset values is more orderly over time as sales of assets progress. Prices of stocks and shares, houses, and other assets will continue downwards until the full correction point has been reached.
For the average person, this means that the sale of a property that cannot be financed can to be delayed on a downward moving market. The problem is that people will race to sell while the market is on the upper end of its downward slide. Furthermore, people will delay acquisition of assets on a market moving downward because they prefer the higher valuation. There is consequently no easy solution, just the mathematics of human and market behaviour.
We do not know what the full correction point is, but one can be suspicious that the leveraging went forward some seven years beyond reason. So perhaps values of the past seven years adjusted for some small growth in value would appear to be about right. Not very nice, but more stable than continuing to live with the fear of a rush to sell rather than more certain modest growth in value! The appropriate correction period is the next nine months not years from now as the bad bailout dynamics might induce. Laws and money cannot really buy US banks out of stupidity, just time so that they can become smarter investors in people and assets.
Scratches to Sketches
Monday 29 September 2008
Sensitivities
Each morning, I have been in the habit of taking my bike for a ride to Lake Huron and along the coast. The past week has been amazing. Temperatures were around 70 degrees fahrenheit, and there was just a slight breeze.
The sun broke through the leaves of the tall oaks splitting a hundred times within the woods to create a dazzling array of little lights and many shades of green. Acorns fell spontanously and seemingly dangerously from lofty branches a hundred feet overhead, smashing with a hard cachunk on the pathway and anyone or anything below.
I love to watch chipmunks, and these were really having a wonderful time, very excited by the warmth of the day and full of fun.
The sun broke through the leaves of the tall oaks splitting a hundred times within the woods to create a dazzling array of little lights and many shades of green. Acorns fell spontanously and seemingly dangerously from lofty branches a hundred feet overhead, smashing with a hard cachunk on the pathway and anyone or anything below.
I love to watch chipmunks, and these were really having a wonderful time, very excited by the warmth of the day and full of fun.
The Numbness That CNN Coverage of the Credit Crisis Brings to One
I have yet to decide whether it is the way that CNN covers the news or the news itself. Either way the CNN news and coverage of the attempts by Congress, the Fed, the President and the others to 'save the American main/high street and Wall Street' leave me quite numb.
The bottom line to me seems to be that leveraging of debt by all entities in the US and UK economies reached record levels growing alarmingly throughout the Bush administration period. What is clear is that nominal incomes of individuals and companies are insufficient to meet the requirements for interest payments and that the leveraging is collapsing everywhere like a deck of cards. One is quite foolish to think that such a collapse can be paid for by further leveraging by the US congress.
The fact is that the US and UK economies are now so highly geared up that a big crash in confidence will follow in October 2008. During the remainder of 2008, the result of this excess has got to be pressure on interest rates otherwise the result will be inflation during 2009, further job losses and unions pressing wage demands.
What could happen is all out war within society for what remains of income streams after the best creditors have had their share.
Can we really believe that the lenders in Asia will want to lend to dollar holders?
The bottom line to me seems to be that leveraging of debt by all entities in the US and UK economies reached record levels growing alarmingly throughout the Bush administration period. What is clear is that nominal incomes of individuals and companies are insufficient to meet the requirements for interest payments and that the leveraging is collapsing everywhere like a deck of cards. One is quite foolish to think that such a collapse can be paid for by further leveraging by the US congress.
The fact is that the US and UK economies are now so highly geared up that a big crash in confidence will follow in October 2008. During the remainder of 2008, the result of this excess has got to be pressure on interest rates otherwise the result will be inflation during 2009, further job losses and unions pressing wage demands.
What could happen is all out war within society for what remains of income streams after the best creditors have had their share.
Can we really believe that the lenders in Asia will want to lend to dollar holders?
Friday 26 September 2008
Finally Hope of Ending the US Economic Depression
My take on the credit crunch and the failures of US banks and banks that had bought into the speculative excesses of the financial markets is as follows:
Wednesday 24 September 2008
Wednesday 17 September 2008
Saving Energy Resources
In an ideal world, we could reduce the energy costs of moving ourselves and the objects that we use or consume by doing less moving and consuming.
- We eat too much. Reduce our food consumption and we can make big savings.
- We commute too far. Reduce the commute to and from work by say working at home more, we can reduce family costs and company costs, and reduce travel accidents.
- We don't get enough exercise and recreation. By cycling more and locating in places that are more suitable for living, we can greatly improve our health and reduce the costs of the health services. Less time mixing with others in a commute reduces the opportunity for down times resulting from the spreading of disease. By not commuting, we would save time that could be used in recreation.
- We bypass bad places. If we located closer to where we had a real interest in the environment, we would not bypass the bad places of our environment. We would see them and we would want to clean them up because they are near where we occupy space.
Commuting to Work Electronically
Before companies go willy nilly locating in foreign places to reduce their costs, they should ask whether they are located in the right place locally. By reducing the costs of commuting for their employees, companies can alter the family economics of their employees. One way that companies can alter the economics of the credit crunch is to think about helping their employees ride the credit storm. This does nothing to alter the physical costs of commuting and the wasted energy of driving to and from work.
There are a growing number of technologies that firms can now use that would allow employees to work from their homes or from places closer to home. We have seen how the Nintendo Wii allows a child to manipulate an image on a screen by moving an controller up and down. It would seem that there is now technology sufficient to allow people to carry out actions robotically even though they might not be located in the work place. For example, a person could move things in a central location even though they are located remotely. By visually be able to see things electronically at a distance they can set in motion processes that are controlled at a distance. The economics of this is improving steadily.
There are a growing number of technologies that firms can now use that would allow employees to work from their homes or from places closer to home. We have seen how the Nintendo Wii allows a child to manipulate an image on a screen by moving an controller up and down. It would seem that there is now technology sufficient to allow people to carry out actions robotically even though they might not be located in the work place. For example, a person could move things in a central location even though they are located remotely. By visually be able to see things electronically at a distance they can set in motion processes that are controlled at a distance. The economics of this is improving steadily.
Reducing Wasted Energy Resources by Relocation of Firms
After watching the mass destruction of homes in the hurricane allies of world, we should consider assisting those living in these areas to move to safer locations and the businesses located in these areas to be ones that are more suited to a harsh environment.
People want to locate near to where they work and earn a living. It seems ridiculous for industries to locate in regions that are very likely to be swamped by sea water.
While there is a housing and credit crisis, it might be appropriate for authorities to encourage firms to locate in safe areas and design bases of industry that get the mathematics of commuting closer to what employees need as compared to what employers need.
What happens frequently is that the employees of a firm have to bear the 'hidden' costs of commuting and damage by nature when these costs could be reduced significantly by a better choice of location by the employer.
To get the employer to pay up, one needs to ask that employers cover a significant portion of commuting and home insurance costs of their employees.
Do firms consider the costs that their employees must bear to work at the location the employer chooses for locating the work place?
People want to locate near to where they work and earn a living. It seems ridiculous for industries to locate in regions that are very likely to be swamped by sea water.
While there is a housing and credit crisis, it might be appropriate for authorities to encourage firms to locate in safe areas and design bases of industry that get the mathematics of commuting closer to what employees need as compared to what employers need.
What happens frequently is that the employees of a firm have to bear the 'hidden' costs of commuting and damage by nature when these costs could be reduced significantly by a better choice of location by the employer.
To get the employer to pay up, one needs to ask that employers cover a significant portion of commuting and home insurance costs of their employees.
Do firms consider the costs that their employees must bear to work at the location the employer chooses for locating the work place?
A Proposal to Tax Commuter Travel
My proposal is that employers pay a significant proportion of the costs of their employees moving to and from work each day. I think that this tax would alter the way employers view commuting time.
A variant on my tax proposal is that the distance of each persons commute to and from work be provided to the local municipality and the municipality be able to charge people for using the roads going to and from work. This would help recover some of the economic cost of people using fuel on the roads as they commute to and from work.
The benefit of the tax if sufficiently punitive would be to alter the way that people think of their environment. If you lived closer to where you work, you would think more about improving that area of the community to make it more pleasant. As it now stands, people will drive past slums and think nothing about how to improve the lot of the people living in those slums. This is at the root of inequalities within our environment.
We wonder why people live in bad areas, and we know that it is because they are poor. The problem is that skilled people bypass the poor areas and bypass improving the lot of people they could be helping. They bypass because they commute to work. If one reduces commuting, one forces people to think more about average neighbourhoods and give incentives of people in neighbourhoods to improve them because they must endure them all the time.
A variant on my tax proposal is that the distance of each persons commute to and from work be provided to the local municipality and the municipality be able to charge people for using the roads going to and from work. This would help recover some of the economic cost of people using fuel on the roads as they commute to and from work.
The benefit of the tax if sufficiently punitive would be to alter the way that people think of their environment. If you lived closer to where you work, you would think more about improving that area of the community to make it more pleasant. As it now stands, people will drive past slums and think nothing about how to improve the lot of the people living in those slums. This is at the root of inequalities within our environment.
We wonder why people live in bad areas, and we know that it is because they are poor. The problem is that skilled people bypass the poor areas and bypass improving the lot of people they could be helping. They bypass because they commute to work. If one reduces commuting, one forces people to think more about average neighbourhoods and give incentives of people in neighbourhoods to improve them because they must endure them all the time.
A World at the Cross Roads
Habit persistence is a known phenomenon. It governs what economists refer to as the consumption function, which is a mathematical representation of our behaviour. Even if we move away temporarily from what we thinks good, correct and right, we tend to ratchet back to earlier patterns of behaviour.
Fundamental changes in the way we do things come not from within ourselves but from the environment around us that force us or lead us to new behaviour. If the environment were like us, and predisposed the way we are to copy cat behaviours and to habit persistence, then we would be in a stable equilibrium world. Fact is our environment changes and we change as a response to our environment. Only difficulty is that our environment is not moving in the direction of change that it should be moving in. This means that we are having to adapt to a world that is full of hidden dangers that our weakness in choosing appropriate technologies have created.
There is a way that we can have some control over our behaviour and that is through making the correct technological decisions that eventually feed back into our environment. I am of the opinion that technological innovation and thus our behaviours have been stifled by the inability of human beings as a sufficiently large group to make the correct technological decisions. This means that societies tend to persist in their bad behaviours and it becomes extremely difficult for individuals of societies to move towards improved behaviours.
The world is at a technological crossroad. We are being offered the opportunity to redirect change towards good and wholesome technologies. I have no faith in the process because those people who define the most appropriate directions are being ignored or vilified while those that ratchet us back to habitual and bad behaviours are almost worshiped as saviours. It does not take a very high intelligence to understand that we need to move towards an enormous restructuring of our between work and home habitat travel.
We have technologies that could reduce travel between work and home, but we are persisting in continuing the twice daily mass movement of bodies to and from locations that are in many cases enormous, but in most cases could be greatly reduced.
What if a limit were imposed that forced people to live close to work if their physical bodies were needed at the workplace? What if employers were required to pay for peoples' travel costs to and from work? That would force a big change on our wasting of resources travelling between home and work.
Ok! My proposal is that a law be passed that requires employers to pay one third of the cost of peoples' commute to and from work each day.
Fundamental changes in the way we do things come not from within ourselves but from the environment around us that force us or lead us to new behaviour. If the environment were like us, and predisposed the way we are to copy cat behaviours and to habit persistence, then we would be in a stable equilibrium world. Fact is our environment changes and we change as a response to our environment. Only difficulty is that our environment is not moving in the direction of change that it should be moving in. This means that we are having to adapt to a world that is full of hidden dangers that our weakness in choosing appropriate technologies have created.
There is a way that we can have some control over our behaviour and that is through making the correct technological decisions that eventually feed back into our environment. I am of the opinion that technological innovation and thus our behaviours have been stifled by the inability of human beings as a sufficiently large group to make the correct technological decisions. This means that societies tend to persist in their bad behaviours and it becomes extremely difficult for individuals of societies to move towards improved behaviours.
The world is at a technological crossroad. We are being offered the opportunity to redirect change towards good and wholesome technologies. I have no faith in the process because those people who define the most appropriate directions are being ignored or vilified while those that ratchet us back to habitual and bad behaviours are almost worshiped as saviours. It does not take a very high intelligence to understand that we need to move towards an enormous restructuring of our between work and home habitat travel.
We have technologies that could reduce travel between work and home, but we are persisting in continuing the twice daily mass movement of bodies to and from locations that are in many cases enormous, but in most cases could be greatly reduced.
What if a limit were imposed that forced people to live close to work if their physical bodies were needed at the workplace? What if employers were required to pay for peoples' travel costs to and from work? That would force a big change on our wasting of resources travelling between home and work.
Ok! My proposal is that a law be passed that requires employers to pay one third of the cost of peoples' commute to and from work each day.
The Importance of Linkages Between Financial and Real Markets
It is sometimes easy for those in the financial world earning salaries in excess of one million pounds sterling to forget crucial linkages that define the success or failure of specific issues of financial instruments, whatever their role. These linkages are bridges between the real and financial economies. It seems that in the current credit crisis, many financial managers have forgotten that the main goal of a central bank is to ensure that inflation is kept in check. This role almost certainly ensures that incomes are also kept in check and with that the profitability of companies. It means that actual financial income growth correlates very closely with non inflationary growth in the real sector. The bottom line is that real incomes need to grow if finacial incomes are to grow and if financial incomes get out of line with real incomes a correction is almost certainly going to happen.Sunday 7 September 2008
Oil, Gas, Coal, and Nuclear Interests are Special Interests
Sometimes, we need reminders of what these special energy interests are about! There are systems by which large polluting firms create toxic waste, such as CO2 gas and yet still escape the full costs and consequences for other forms of toxic waste and sickness creating by-products of their activities.
We should question the political processes of the wood, oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries, those energy producers that have amassed enormous wealth over the last century. In each case, the effect of these industries has been energy, but also an enormous amount of pollution and toxic waste. It has taken these industries several generations to accept that they are major cost creators in the form of negative externalities that the public has to bear and the 'free' market does nothing to address. If a large portion of the past profits of these energy producers had been set aside for the damage they have caused our environment and the health of humanity, we would be a much safer, healthier and cleaner world. Instead, we are being pushed into a new generation of side-stepping the real costs of these energy forms.
At one time, earth had a surplus of wood resources .... no longer. Where there once were forests, we now have vast open areas that require huge amounts of fertilizers to sustain agricultural production. The fertilizers and pesticides seep into our water and we get polluted water and people get sick. Who pays for the bad water and the sickness from fertilizers and pesticides. We do! And, who mostly gets the profits from production using these technologies; farmers, retailers, and big business. But, who pays for clean water and sorts out the health issues from pollution of the environment. We do... not big business! Who has to clean up the filth in lakes and streams?
Big business produces products that are intensively energy using and pollution creating. Economic growth is based on a partial view of what it takes to live comfortably. The partial view does not take into account the human costs arising in the form of disease and pollution. We have seen what tobacco has done to the health of people, and we assessed that responsibility, but we still produce tobacco and the health costs of human disease arising from tobacco use continues. Yes! The commercial markets may be free, but they are not accountable, and they do not account for the total costs to communities of the products bought and sold.
We should question the political processes of the wood, oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries, those energy producers that have amassed enormous wealth over the last century. In each case, the effect of these industries has been energy, but also an enormous amount of pollution and toxic waste. It has taken these industries several generations to accept that they are major cost creators in the form of negative externalities that the public has to bear and the 'free' market does nothing to address. If a large portion of the past profits of these energy producers had been set aside for the damage they have caused our environment and the health of humanity, we would be a much safer, healthier and cleaner world. Instead, we are being pushed into a new generation of side-stepping the real costs of these energy forms.
At one time, earth had a surplus of wood resources .... no longer. Where there once were forests, we now have vast open areas that require huge amounts of fertilizers to sustain agricultural production. The fertilizers and pesticides seep into our water and we get polluted water and people get sick. Who pays for the bad water and the sickness from fertilizers and pesticides. We do! And, who mostly gets the profits from production using these technologies; farmers, retailers, and big business. But, who pays for clean water and sorts out the health issues from pollution of the environment. We do... not big business! Who has to clean up the filth in lakes and streams?
Big business produces products that are intensively energy using and pollution creating. Economic growth is based on a partial view of what it takes to live comfortably. The partial view does not take into account the human costs arising in the form of disease and pollution. We have seen what tobacco has done to the health of people, and we assessed that responsibility, but we still produce tobacco and the health costs of human disease arising from tobacco use continues. Yes! The commercial markets may be free, but they are not accountable, and they do not account for the total costs to communities of the products bought and sold.
Saturday 6 September 2008
Taxation and Who Directs Development of Energy Resources?
Smart Taxes
People curl up like babies when they hear the word taxation, and that is because of a frequent misuse of taxation power to pork belly projects with business as usual objectives. Taxation, however, is an important instrument for redirecting an economy towards smart objectives and away from waste and corruption. We all see waste in government spending when it is not directed towards goals that favour our objectives. That is why big energy business attacks taxation because their objectives are not those of the ordinary man, which is a decent job and secure future.
Their only goal is to use the existing technology wherever they can and they don't engage in redirecting effort into shared science and better technologies. That would be competitive suicide. Only taxes and publicly funded research redirects the science towards better technologies. Witness how the big energy companies have ignored and continue to play down solar power while they can reap more profit from gas, oil and coal. Yes, they need to be taxed more heavily and their customers made to pay the 'real cost and price of buying their toxic products.
When big businesses come into an economy from outside the last thing on their mind is how to treat working people fairly and promote the objectives of working people. Instead they are gold rushers trying to pick the big nuggets without responsibility for whom ever they employ to do it. They have a strong 'army' of lawyers and business school graduates who asset strip and hunt out opportunities for easy riches, then figure out how to make a clean break. They are the modern aggressors against decency and sharing. They preach self help when they mean to help themselves, and their philosophy ends with I. The word we is not part of their limited vocabulary. Our goals are not their goals because they mean to take all our dignity away from us.
Smart taxes limit the powers of many big businesses, but these operators know about the weakest link which is the power they have to make and break a community. They come in and change the complexion of a community till it is not recognizable, siphon off the best resources and then leave with wealth having no qualms that they are the only game in town. They may even point to the losses they have to endure after they have pulled their resources out. Meanwhile, those that follow and feed off big businesses scape around for whatever is left and make do.
Not Smart Taxes
One of the major surprises of my generation is the major support of public gambling institutions which are used as forms of tax gathering. Such taxes can put leadership in the hands of those with suspicious objectives and sap those who have addiction problems and are unable in the normal way to think through appropriately the mathematics of risk.
I have studied the effects of new technology on economies for many years. Believe me when I say that one of our greatest problems may be the remarkable and unreasonable profits that the oil and gas companies have made over the past years.
Conservatives support wise taxation
At one time in the late 1970's, I worked for a major bank in the UK and the then Prime Minister Maggy Thatcher decided to tax the excessive profits of the high street banks. This was a wise move on the part of a very Conservative leader, so its not just 'liberals' that think of taxation. Taxation is a tool of the people to redirect resources towards goals and objectives where they are needed and away from resource wasters such as, and we are all guilty of this perhaps:
People curl up like babies when they hear the word taxation, and that is because of a frequent misuse of taxation power to pork belly projects with business as usual objectives. Taxation, however, is an important instrument for redirecting an economy towards smart objectives and away from waste and corruption. We all see waste in government spending when it is not directed towards goals that favour our objectives. That is why big energy business attacks taxation because their objectives are not those of the ordinary man, which is a decent job and secure future.
Their only goal is to use the existing technology wherever they can and they don't engage in redirecting effort into shared science and better technologies. That would be competitive suicide. Only taxes and publicly funded research redirects the science towards better technologies. Witness how the big energy companies have ignored and continue to play down solar power while they can reap more profit from gas, oil and coal. Yes, they need to be taxed more heavily and their customers made to pay the 'real cost and price of buying their toxic products.
When big businesses come into an economy from outside the last thing on their mind is how to treat working people fairly and promote the objectives of working people. Instead they are gold rushers trying to pick the big nuggets without responsibility for whom ever they employ to do it. They have a strong 'army' of lawyers and business school graduates who asset strip and hunt out opportunities for easy riches, then figure out how to make a clean break. They are the modern aggressors against decency and sharing. They preach self help when they mean to help themselves, and their philosophy ends with I. The word we is not part of their limited vocabulary. Our goals are not their goals because they mean to take all our dignity away from us.
Smart taxes limit the powers of many big businesses, but these operators know about the weakest link which is the power they have to make and break a community. They come in and change the complexion of a community till it is not recognizable, siphon off the best resources and then leave with wealth having no qualms that they are the only game in town. They may even point to the losses they have to endure after they have pulled their resources out. Meanwhile, those that follow and feed off big businesses scape around for whatever is left and make do.
Not Smart Taxes
One of the major surprises of my generation is the major support of public gambling institutions which are used as forms of tax gathering. Such taxes can put leadership in the hands of those with suspicious objectives and sap those who have addiction problems and are unable in the normal way to think through appropriately the mathematics of risk.
I have studied the effects of new technology on economies for many years. Believe me when I say that one of our greatest problems may be the remarkable and unreasonable profits that the oil and gas companies have made over the past years.
Conservatives support wise taxation
At one time in the late 1970's, I worked for a major bank in the UK and the then Prime Minister Maggy Thatcher decided to tax the excessive profits of the high street banks. This was a wise move on the part of a very Conservative leader, so its not just 'liberals' that think of taxation. Taxation is a tool of the people to redirect resources towards goals and objectives where they are needed and away from resource wasters such as, and we are all guilty of this perhaps:
- big cars
- private jets
- private fuel-powered boats
What we need for leadership are statesmen that are out from under the influence of those energy practices that have been excessive and toxic. These statesmen will think of taxation as a tool for redirecting economies away from toxic practices and technologies towards clean practices and technologies.
Friday 5 September 2008
Climate Modification Through the Wrong Energy Approach
Theory
If we don't address the problem of energy use appropriately, we will create a more temperate climate in which we experience the extremes of temperature much greater than at present.
If we don't address the problem of energy use appropriately, we will create a more temperate climate in which we experience the extremes of temperature much greater than at present.
Crunchonomics and the Future World Economy
Crunchonomics is the title of an editorial in the July 19 issue of The NewScientist and refers to the difficulties created by the US economists of the US banking sector that produced the present credit crunch and resulting economic misery around the world.
The US economists are at it again. They are producing a new economic crisis on top of the existing one. We are about to experience a second round of crunchonomics, and one that will be even more painful for everyone than the current crisis and world economic depression.
I call it a depression because it is like a hurricane and not a tropical storm. The next depression to move around the world could be a category 4 or higher. Why do I say this? What is the basis of this surprising statement?
Well, I make this statement because as I watched the National Republican Party Convention in Minnesota go through the rounds of launching the Republican campaign based on bad economic principles and notions of how to get the US economy moving forward. Their prescriptions for the energy sector should get every one's alarm bells ringing.
Mr. Lieberman's back stabbing of the Democrats and McCain's lack of understanding of basic economics suggests that we have a huge population in the US who will buy into very outdated and really bad ideas. Do you want an example?
Well, let me say that a solution to the earth's energy crisis will not come by lowering the price of oil, gas and coal. My how those promoting the exploitation of the economics of these resources were in your face all convention long.
The people who control these resources stand to make billions in economies of scale resulting from doing stuff which is hardly novel. They stand to gain a windfall profit out of know technology, basically doing bugger all other than reusing rehashed techniques for getting oil offshore and out of 'nature reserves'. Do we really want these resources and the fumes from the toxic wastes of these materials to pollute the world's environment?
I say that if they succeed hang on for a really bad depression. We have seen nothing yet, and the next disaster these 'boys' can create will topple anything we have seen to date. Roll on the next killing field of choosing a bad economic and technical solution.
What is my solution?
In my view, the way to avoid a monster depression in 2013-18, is to have a spend our way out of the current depression by creating new energy technologies based on the use of solar, wave, hydro, and wind resources, planting hardwood forests, and growing algae for fuel from CO2 spewing out of energy plants around the world.
We need to spend, spend, spend while we tax, tax, tax. By intelligent spending and taxation, we can steer the world economy away from oil, nuclear, gas and coal methods towards solar, wind, and wave. The taxes are need to balance the budget of spending to develop the new solar and wind technologies rapidly. Lets get our depression right now and avoid the monster republican depression of the next decade. Have these outdated American Republican ideas not already done enough damage to the world economy?
The items we need to tax are uses of gas, oil, coal, and nuclear energy. Put these sources of energy out of business and build our economies on a safer energy foundation that puts solar energy first.
We also must tax the loss of heat from homes by assessing heat pollution for every home that is in a cold climate.
We need to cool our world down even more than it is likely to be cooled. Our goal needs to be a friendly climate rather than an unfriendly climate.
Summary
We need to spend to create need synergies in energy technologies, plant hard wood trees, encourage farmers to create more shade by subsidizing natural shade creating environmental efforts. We need to tax ourselves away from gas, oil, coal, and nuclear energy methods and toxic waste products that these technologies create.
The US economists are at it again. They are producing a new economic crisis on top of the existing one. We are about to experience a second round of crunchonomics, and one that will be even more painful for everyone than the current crisis and world economic depression.
I call it a depression because it is like a hurricane and not a tropical storm. The next depression to move around the world could be a category 4 or higher. Why do I say this? What is the basis of this surprising statement?
Well, I make this statement because as I watched the National Republican Party Convention in Minnesota go through the rounds of launching the Republican campaign based on bad economic principles and notions of how to get the US economy moving forward. Their prescriptions for the energy sector should get every one's alarm bells ringing.
Mr. Lieberman's back stabbing of the Democrats and McCain's lack of understanding of basic economics suggests that we have a huge population in the US who will buy into very outdated and really bad ideas. Do you want an example?
Well, let me say that a solution to the earth's energy crisis will not come by lowering the price of oil, gas and coal. My how those promoting the exploitation of the economics of these resources were in your face all convention long.
The people who control these resources stand to make billions in economies of scale resulting from doing stuff which is hardly novel. They stand to gain a windfall profit out of know technology, basically doing bugger all other than reusing rehashed techniques for getting oil offshore and out of 'nature reserves'. Do we really want these resources and the fumes from the toxic wastes of these materials to pollute the world's environment?
I say that if they succeed hang on for a really bad depression. We have seen nothing yet, and the next disaster these 'boys' can create will topple anything we have seen to date. Roll on the next killing field of choosing a bad economic and technical solution.
What is my solution?
In my view, the way to avoid a monster depression in 2013-18, is to have a spend our way out of the current depression by creating new energy technologies based on the use of solar, wave, hydro, and wind resources, planting hardwood forests, and growing algae for fuel from CO2 spewing out of energy plants around the world.
We need to spend, spend, spend while we tax, tax, tax. By intelligent spending and taxation, we can steer the world economy away from oil, nuclear, gas and coal methods towards solar, wind, and wave. The taxes are need to balance the budget of spending to develop the new solar and wind technologies rapidly. Lets get our depression right now and avoid the monster republican depression of the next decade. Have these outdated American Republican ideas not already done enough damage to the world economy?
The items we need to tax are uses of gas, oil, coal, and nuclear energy. Put these sources of energy out of business and build our economies on a safer energy foundation that puts solar energy first.
We also must tax the loss of heat from homes by assessing heat pollution for every home that is in a cold climate.
We need to cool our world down even more than it is likely to be cooled. Our goal needs to be a friendly climate rather than an unfriendly climate.
Summary
We need to spend to create need synergies in energy technologies, plant hard wood trees, encourage farmers to create more shade by subsidizing natural shade creating environmental efforts. We need to tax ourselves away from gas, oil, coal, and nuclear energy methods and toxic waste products that these technologies create.
Large Trees, Economies of Scale and the Environment
Its difficult to imagine a more pleasant site than a forest of large trees beside a lake teaming with fish and wild life. In my mind, I am especially drawn to an oak or maple forest of large trees beside a lake. The deer, moose, bears and other wildlife roam freely within their natural enironment and enjoy the bounty of what nature in its methods has sustained. Where do humans fit in? How can we retain this world of beauty and strength while creating our own exciting world of man-made structures, sports, and good fun?
For a start, we have to understand the economies of scale built into the natural world, especially the forests of large trees. These economies are storage economies. We can use large trees, the very tall oaks and forests of big trees to store energy coming from the sun. Whenever we store the suns energy this frees us to use some energy from the earth without destroying the delicate balance of total heat on earth. The problem is that if we use too much of the earth's stored energy, as in the case of nuclear energy, gas, coal or oil energy, we create heat greater than the heat the earth can tolerate.
We see the destructive power of sunlight on the earth's atmosphere. We don't want to add to the destruction by creating too much heat from what is already on earth. If we do, we will overheat he planet. We not only create more heat, but we release lots and lots of toxic substances into our atmosphere beyond what the earth's present ecosystems can tolerate. This results in premature deaths of species of living organisms, and perhaps the premature death of humanity. So, we must wake up and see the potential for damage to our precious world.
For the most part, the earth is protected from cosmic rays and the sun's rays by an atmospheric shield. When that shield is weakened as with a solar storm, cancerous mutations and genetic mutations can result as excessive radiation is absorbed into the flesh of living creatures, plants, animals, and other forms of life. Owing to scaling technologies, humans can destroy the shield and life itself, or make it unrecognizable through mistakes, errors and abuses.
Life on earth is sustained by a steady inflow of heat and light from the sun and cosmic rays. We can, but should not add to this inflow. Presently, we are adding heat to the earth at an alarming rate increasing exponentially. If this continues, life on earth will not be nearly as bountiful as it has been, and we could end all life but the most heat resistant forms.
For a start, we have to understand the economies of scale built into the natural world, especially the forests of large trees. These economies are storage economies. We can use large trees, the very tall oaks and forests of big trees to store energy coming from the sun. Whenever we store the suns energy this frees us to use some energy from the earth without destroying the delicate balance of total heat on earth. The problem is that if we use too much of the earth's stored energy, as in the case of nuclear energy, gas, coal or oil energy, we create heat greater than the heat the earth can tolerate.
We see the destructive power of sunlight on the earth's atmosphere. We don't want to add to the destruction by creating too much heat from what is already on earth. If we do, we will overheat he planet. We not only create more heat, but we release lots and lots of toxic substances into our atmosphere beyond what the earth's present ecosystems can tolerate. This results in premature deaths of species of living organisms, and perhaps the premature death of humanity. So, we must wake up and see the potential for damage to our precious world.
For the most part, the earth is protected from cosmic rays and the sun's rays by an atmospheric shield. When that shield is weakened as with a solar storm, cancerous mutations and genetic mutations can result as excessive radiation is absorbed into the flesh of living creatures, plants, animals, and other forms of life. Owing to scaling technologies, humans can destroy the shield and life itself, or make it unrecognizable through mistakes, errors and abuses.
Life on earth is sustained by a steady inflow of heat and light from the sun and cosmic rays. We can, but should not add to this inflow. Presently, we are adding heat to the earth at an alarming rate increasing exponentially. If this continues, life on earth will not be nearly as bountiful as it has been, and we could end all life but the most heat resistant forms.
Managing Beaver and Economies Within the Energy Availability Equations
I come from Canada.
Canada owes its successful past to the capturing and use of its vast resources living in or under forests and lakes. All these resources can be tapped and used by means of technologies that understand and embody the results of economies of scale. In pioneering times, the settlers noticed that beaver were using the forest to create artificial lakes. The pioneers mistakenly killed off the beaver and used their pelts for hats and pouches for gun powder.
Hudson Bay economics
The ancient Lake family, namesakes, who managed the Hudson Bay Company, a firm created to kill off the beaver for their hides for over a century, were responsible for much of this. Fact is that our very own ancestors were pretty damn ignorant of the effect that they were having on the long term prospects for natural life in Canada. Not so the beaver, Canada's greatest resource, but now lost! Well almost!
Beaver technology, profit, and economies of Scale
The beaver were very smart and exploited an technological principle of economies of scale. The beaver realized that they could create a most hospitable environment by means of dams located brilliantly at key points in their environment. Beaver are and were smart, full stop. They are and were industrious, and we can learn a lot about energy use, sustenance and creation from them. The beaver outlasted many prehistoric creatures by creating a wonderful environment which the settlers to Canada have managed to destroy, very effectively destroy.
Dead or dying towns across Canada
I say this as a Canadian raised in a sawmill wood furniture factory and fishing town that no longer has any sawmills, or furniture factories, and almost no fishing. The process of eliminating the furniture and saw milling industry and producing unemployment is an economic process that the neoclassical economic theories do nothing to explain.
Economic growth in my home town killed the golden goose. That is, it killed the main sources of employment in the town which were its lumber, furniture and fishing businesses. Hell! What went wrong? What went right? Somehow fishing was restored, albeit on a more limited basis, but only just restored!
Bad economics destroys economies and natural environments
The real mistake of people in the pioneering environment was that they were out for themselves and did not understand the long term implications of their actions. They were good people, but the effect they had on the world of their own children was destructive of resources and potential through economies of scale built into the natural environment, misunderstood and eliminated by settlers through ignorance. This bad process continues unabated throughout and across Canada, even accelerating in its destructiveness.
The stupidity of all this is that the perpetrators of this misdeed don't even know what they have left behind as a depleted legacy. There is no natural guide in the human brain to explain bad economics. When people form groups they copycat bad and destructive behaviour without knowing that what they are doing is fundamentally misfitting within their natural environment. The natives watched this process and still do, helpless in their struggle to get the 'white' man to understand the bad ideas running through 'his' brain.
It could be very different with just a small amount of real thought.
Canada owes its successful past to the capturing and use of its vast resources living in or under forests and lakes. All these resources can be tapped and used by means of technologies that understand and embody the results of economies of scale. In pioneering times, the settlers noticed that beaver were using the forest to create artificial lakes. The pioneers mistakenly killed off the beaver and used their pelts for hats and pouches for gun powder.
Hudson Bay economics
The ancient Lake family, namesakes, who managed the Hudson Bay Company, a firm created to kill off the beaver for their hides for over a century, were responsible for much of this. Fact is that our very own ancestors were pretty damn ignorant of the effect that they were having on the long term prospects for natural life in Canada. Not so the beaver, Canada's greatest resource, but now lost! Well almost!
Beaver technology, profit, and economies of Scale
The beaver were very smart and exploited an technological principle of economies of scale. The beaver realized that they could create a most hospitable environment by means of dams located brilliantly at key points in their environment. Beaver are and were smart, full stop. They are and were industrious, and we can learn a lot about energy use, sustenance and creation from them. The beaver outlasted many prehistoric creatures by creating a wonderful environment which the settlers to Canada have managed to destroy, very effectively destroy.
Dead or dying towns across Canada
I say this as a Canadian raised in a sawmill wood furniture factory and fishing town that no longer has any sawmills, or furniture factories, and almost no fishing. The process of eliminating the furniture and saw milling industry and producing unemployment is an economic process that the neoclassical economic theories do nothing to explain.
Economic growth in my home town killed the golden goose. That is, it killed the main sources of employment in the town which were its lumber, furniture and fishing businesses. Hell! What went wrong? What went right? Somehow fishing was restored, albeit on a more limited basis, but only just restored!
Bad economics destroys economies and natural environments
The real mistake of people in the pioneering environment was that they were out for themselves and did not understand the long term implications of their actions. They were good people, but the effect they had on the world of their own children was destructive of resources and potential through economies of scale built into the natural environment, misunderstood and eliminated by settlers through ignorance. This bad process continues unabated throughout and across Canada, even accelerating in its destructiveness.
The stupidity of all this is that the perpetrators of this misdeed don't even know what they have left behind as a depleted legacy. There is no natural guide in the human brain to explain bad economics. When people form groups they copycat bad and destructive behaviour without knowing that what they are doing is fundamentally misfitting within their natural environment. The natives watched this process and still do, helpless in their struggle to get the 'white' man to understand the bad ideas running through 'his' brain.
It could be very different with just a small amount of real thought.
Creative Economies of scale
Climate Disequilibrium
and New Energy Resources
Our understanding of economic forces is still very limited
In most economics courses, one will be taught, whether directly or indirectly, that resources cannot be created. They can be discovered, but not created. The inability of an economy to create resources is an assumption that is worth thinking about. Is it wrong, or is there something mysterious about economics remaining to be discovered? Lets rephrase the issue a little. Mining can discover new resources for an economy, but these resources were always there. Researching people, the geologists, miners, and others find mineral and other resources within an economy, but these resources are already present within that economy.
Standard economics fails on the test of being logical
The creation of resources out of non-resources, in fact, happens all the time, but it is not within the standard economics framework. Hold on! The non-resources are already present in the economy, so they must be resources. Everything within an economy must be a resource if one is to be consistent. There does not exist a non-resource within an economy. Perhaps, but this is confusing?
Our problem with economics and economic analysis is that it is inconsistent in fundamental ways. It once was that economic thought followed the mistaken notion that equilibrium is brought about by market forces. Not so! In my view, market forces have very little to do with equilibrium. One is more likely to find disequilibrium arising from fundamentals of economics, and much of this has to do with the creation of resources within economies. The creation of resources is the much neglected force within economies misunderstood for the most part by economic theory, especially neoclassical theory.
The economic notion of free markets producing equilibrium is myth
Market forces enable exchange using money, but rarely enable a steady state of equilibrium, except as short run phenomena. The reason is because of new resources being discovered, used, or created within an economy, and new resources coming from outside the economy, both give the world an economic reality of disequilibrium, if only because of birth and death realities. The fact is that the greatest resource and economy contains are its individual people, and individual people are not a constant resource. The abilities of people are constantly being improved or weakened, waxing or waning because of learning, discovery and health. Most economic models do not capture the processes of human and technical resource creation and destruction going on all the time.
Energy resources must be made, created or discovered through advanced technology
Surprisingly the most advanced technology on earth is natural and consists of photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis we would be dead. There are economies of scale to be tapped using photosynthesis as the engine of energy creation and storage. This natural technology can save the earth from the disequilibrium produced by the bad economic theories of neoclassical economics, those theories that believe in steady state equilibrium and which are totally off the mark, just plain bad economics!
For a start, economies of scale predispose economies towards disequilibrium. No economic model with economies of scale will produce a lasting stable equilibrium. Its just not in the mathematics, and yet most technologies embody economies of scale and most profits of economies are due to economies of scale. The neoclassical economic theories that neglected this or ignored this produced bad results, gross misunderstanding and wasted everyone's time in cloud coocoo land.
A sensible economic of energy assumes that energy can be captured, created and stored with the benefit of economies of scale. These economies mean that there is more than enough potential for the earth to supply the energy needs of everyone to come. The problem with the dynamics of economies of scale are that it will lead to disequilibrium in the earth's climate. The economies of scale of energy creation and storage must, absolutely must, be understood and managed.
In most economics courses, one will be taught, whether directly or indirectly, that resources cannot be created. They can be discovered, but not created. The inability of an economy to create resources is an assumption that is worth thinking about. Is it wrong, or is there something mysterious about economics remaining to be discovered? Lets rephrase the issue a little. Mining can discover new resources for an economy, but these resources were always there. Researching people, the geologists, miners, and others find mineral and other resources within an economy, but these resources are already present within that economy.
Standard economics fails on the test of being logical
The creation of resources out of non-resources, in fact, happens all the time, but it is not within the standard economics framework. Hold on! The non-resources are already present in the economy, so they must be resources. Everything within an economy must be a resource if one is to be consistent. There does not exist a non-resource within an economy. Perhaps, but this is confusing?
Our problem with economics and economic analysis is that it is inconsistent in fundamental ways. It once was that economic thought followed the mistaken notion that equilibrium is brought about by market forces. Not so! In my view, market forces have very little to do with equilibrium. One is more likely to find disequilibrium arising from fundamentals of economics, and much of this has to do with the creation of resources within economies. The creation of resources is the much neglected force within economies misunderstood for the most part by economic theory, especially neoclassical theory.
The economic notion of free markets producing equilibrium is myth
Market forces enable exchange using money, but rarely enable a steady state of equilibrium, except as short run phenomena. The reason is because of new resources being discovered, used, or created within an economy, and new resources coming from outside the economy, both give the world an economic reality of disequilibrium, if only because of birth and death realities. The fact is that the greatest resource and economy contains are its individual people, and individual people are not a constant resource. The abilities of people are constantly being improved or weakened, waxing or waning because of learning, discovery and health. Most economic models do not capture the processes of human and technical resource creation and destruction going on all the time.
Energy resources must be made, created or discovered through advanced technology
Surprisingly the most advanced technology on earth is natural and consists of photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis we would be dead. There are economies of scale to be tapped using photosynthesis as the engine of energy creation and storage. This natural technology can save the earth from the disequilibrium produced by the bad economic theories of neoclassical economics, those theories that believe in steady state equilibrium and which are totally off the mark, just plain bad economics!
For a start, economies of scale predispose economies towards disequilibrium. No economic model with economies of scale will produce a lasting stable equilibrium. Its just not in the mathematics, and yet most technologies embody economies of scale and most profits of economies are due to economies of scale. The neoclassical economic theories that neglected this or ignored this produced bad results, gross misunderstanding and wasted everyone's time in cloud coocoo land.
A sensible economic of energy assumes that energy can be captured, created and stored with the benefit of economies of scale. These economies mean that there is more than enough potential for the earth to supply the energy needs of everyone to come. The problem with the dynamics of economies of scale are that it will lead to disequilibrium in the earth's climate. The economies of scale of energy creation and storage must, absolutely must, be understood and managed.
Thursday 4 September 2008
Creating Less Toxic Futures
Meeting the Energy Gap Safely
Your Survival Requires Thought
What I would like to see is the energy business focused on energy directly or indirectly streaming from the sun rather than being focused on releasing stored energy directly from earth or matter that is earth bound.
I could have entitled this blog, "Why the Proposals of America's Republican Party to meet the US Energy Gap are Misdirected." When a nation is addicted to power, or engaged in an energy feeding frenzy, it is not likely to pay much attention to the cries of pain inflicted on future generations because we have released toxic gases, harmful nuclear radiation, and dangerous particles into our earthly vulnerable world. We don't really need to create so much toxic stuff. Does the earth have to resembly the aftershock of a mining operation, a series of nuclear bomb, garbage heap or waste dump?
What are our leaders thinking? The Republican approach to energy use to make America stronger will lead to higher taxes from new cancers and toxicities. Poisoning America! Is that what we really want.
Do leaders not see the disease they are spreading by such use of toxic materials? Do we have to turn earth into a garbage heap and nuclear waste dumpsite? The answer is no, we don't.
However, do not expect the free market to guide earthlings to a less toxic earth. We all know that companies want profit and do not account for externalities, the external costs, of toxic by-products.
Look around you. Do you feel safe putting all those chemicals on your lawns, which really do cause more cancers in men and women! We live in an epidemic of new cancer creating substances and effects. Pesticides and new chemical entities really do result in cancers and premature deaths. Do you as a Christian, Muslim, scientist, or just citizen really want to run such risks for your children and your own future.
Earthlings seem to be the creators of toxicity. We have cancer on the increase directly linked to our use of toxic approaches to energy.
Using earth's energy => increasing the incidence of cancer arising from toxic waste and chemicals of high toxicity => premature death to children and many people from cancer and allergies due to a worsened toxicity of our environment => higher taxes everywhere to pay for health care and solutions to being poisoned by our increasingly unhealthy environment.
When market mechanisms such as market prices do not provide sufficient guidence to wise choices for energy, few economists will swim against the stream and advise a different direction based on science and logic rather than faith in economic indicators. As consumers it is up to us to refuse to use energy that results in toxic waste. To be realistic, we have to be proactively involved in slowing down such efforts and speeding up efforts to use the sun's energy directly. This is the wise course of action. It will actually cost less in currency that is accountable because the toxic effects of other uses do not apply proper accounting for externality costs arising from toxic effects and cancers arising from toxicity.
When people are likely to pursue goals that put self before community, or man-made before natural, or short term profit before long term profit, there is little the 'small' man can do to pursue effective community, conservationist, or social service.
Being excluded from the decisions that will make our earth less habitable is unfortunately 'our future'. Those that take on the role of raising the challenge of taking a more difficult road will be marginalized because human nature and society does not work that way. More the pity!
We can, however, at this stage say in a blog such as this one, that the direction those loyal to traditional values will take us is going to be very painful for future generations. It is too much to expact that we will be believed.
What in the hell do you mean, Arthur?
My concern is that we as a species on earth do not have the capacity to shape our commuinity's long term destiny for the good. This is true even if we were able to somehow see the golden path that would lead to less misery and suffering. What I would like to see is the energy business focused on energy directly or indirectly streaming from the sun rather than releasing more stored energy directly from earth or that is earth bound.
Some say that the 'free' market is sufficient guide to a resolution of humity's problems. We know, however, that this is not the case and that what frequently results is immiserization growth, creatively destructive growth, and a hugely skewed distribution of wealth towards a minority of people. Such is the prospect of people making economic choices between alternatives that have only accounting mathematics and physical science as their basis.
We know that power in the political sphere is heavily skewed towards the energy producing businesses. Is it surprising then that the influence of such businesses in advertising and promotions by influence peddling and control over media will lead to people hearing and choosing among the alternatives of those with the greatest vested interest?
In America, we have long endured the presidency of George Bush of Texas, a man heavily vested in oil and gas. We are being lead to vote for a woman, Governor Palin from Alaska, whose vested interests are in the energy oil gas sector. All I am hearing is the proposals for releasing more energy stored on earth and very little about the energy streaming in from the sun.
If we master the use of energy streaming in from the sun, we on earth can get a control over our environment and can actually improve on it.
In contrast, if we use energy already on earth and not part of the energy streaming towards earth, we will destroy the earth by adding to the heat coming from the sun.
What's more we will ultimately pay more for our energy use.
My proposal is that we intensify our use of energy arriving in the forms of sunlight, wind, waterfalls, waves, currents, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, geisers and natural heat pumps. By making these forms of energy available, we do not release so much of the toxic gases into our atmosphere.
I could have entitled this blog, "Why the Proposals of America's Republican Party to meet the US Energy Gap are Misdirected." When a nation is addicted to power, or engaged in an energy feeding frenzy, it is not likely to pay much attention to the cries of pain inflicted on future generations because we have released toxic gases, harmful nuclear radiation, and dangerous particles into our earthly vulnerable world. We don't really need to create so much toxic stuff. Does the earth have to resembly the aftershock of a mining operation, a series of nuclear bomb, garbage heap or waste dump?
What are our leaders thinking? The Republican approach to energy use to make America stronger will lead to higher taxes from new cancers and toxicities. Poisoning America! Is that what we really want.
Do leaders not see the disease they are spreading by such use of toxic materials? Do we have to turn earth into a garbage heap and nuclear waste dumpsite? The answer is no, we don't.
However, do not expect the free market to guide earthlings to a less toxic earth. We all know that companies want profit and do not account for externalities, the external costs, of toxic by-products.
Look around you. Do you feel safe putting all those chemicals on your lawns, which really do cause more cancers in men and women! We live in an epidemic of new cancer creating substances and effects. Pesticides and new chemical entities really do result in cancers and premature deaths. Do you as a Christian, Muslim, scientist, or just citizen really want to run such risks for your children and your own future.
Earthlings seem to be the creators of toxicity. We have cancer on the increase directly linked to our use of toxic approaches to energy.
Using earth's energy => increasing the incidence of cancer arising from toxic waste and chemicals of high toxicity => premature death to children and many people from cancer and allergies due to a worsened toxicity of our environment => higher taxes everywhere to pay for health care and solutions to being poisoned by our increasingly unhealthy environment.
When market mechanisms such as market prices do not provide sufficient guidence to wise choices for energy, few economists will swim against the stream and advise a different direction based on science and logic rather than faith in economic indicators. As consumers it is up to us to refuse to use energy that results in toxic waste. To be realistic, we have to be proactively involved in slowing down such efforts and speeding up efforts to use the sun's energy directly. This is the wise course of action. It will actually cost less in currency that is accountable because the toxic effects of other uses do not apply proper accounting for externality costs arising from toxic effects and cancers arising from toxicity.
When people are likely to pursue goals that put self before community, or man-made before natural, or short term profit before long term profit, there is little the 'small' man can do to pursue effective community, conservationist, or social service.
Being excluded from the decisions that will make our earth less habitable is unfortunately 'our future'. Those that take on the role of raising the challenge of taking a more difficult road will be marginalized because human nature and society does not work that way. More the pity!
We can, however, at this stage say in a blog such as this one, that the direction those loyal to traditional values will take us is going to be very painful for future generations. It is too much to expact that we will be believed.
What in the hell do you mean, Arthur?
My concern is that we as a species on earth do not have the capacity to shape our commuinity's long term destiny for the good. This is true even if we were able to somehow see the golden path that would lead to less misery and suffering. What I would like to see is the energy business focused on energy directly or indirectly streaming from the sun rather than releasing more stored energy directly from earth or that is earth bound.
Some say that the 'free' market is sufficient guide to a resolution of humity's problems. We know, however, that this is not the case and that what frequently results is immiserization growth, creatively destructive growth, and a hugely skewed distribution of wealth towards a minority of people. Such is the prospect of people making economic choices between alternatives that have only accounting mathematics and physical science as their basis.
We know that power in the political sphere is heavily skewed towards the energy producing businesses. Is it surprising then that the influence of such businesses in advertising and promotions by influence peddling and control over media will lead to people hearing and choosing among the alternatives of those with the greatest vested interest?
In America, we have long endured the presidency of George Bush of Texas, a man heavily vested in oil and gas. We are being lead to vote for a woman, Governor Palin from Alaska, whose vested interests are in the energy oil gas sector. All I am hearing is the proposals for releasing more energy stored on earth and very little about the energy streaming in from the sun.
If we master the use of energy streaming in from the sun, we on earth can get a control over our environment and can actually improve on it.
In contrast, if we use energy already on earth and not part of the energy streaming towards earth, we will destroy the earth by adding to the heat coming from the sun.
What's more we will ultimately pay more for our energy use.
My proposal is that we intensify our use of energy arriving in the forms of sunlight, wind, waterfalls, waves, currents, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, geisers and natural heat pumps. By making these forms of energy available, we do not release so much of the toxic gases into our atmosphere.
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