APEC 2024 Peru. Biden shafted to a corner in the back row. Xi in front row next to Peru's President
3/21/2011
Say No to destructive growth formula
The growth formula built on population expansion will destroy the earth. The obsession for growth based on high consumption of goods and services to obtain economic growth numbers will also lead to the depletion of raw materials and limited fossil energy sources. It is crazy to leave the world to crazy economists who only believe in growth in numbers and numbers while mother earth is being eaten up, destroyed, without any conscience.
High consumption is greed, gluttony for no good reason. Why should a car be built to run on 7000cc engine, why should one person owns ten or twenty cars, ten houses, yachts, and many wives and tens or hundreds of children? Having wants and greed are good to some extent. But when these become wasteful and leading to the destruction of earth, it must be stopped.
Imagine if every country just keeps on producing more people to generate more economic activities, more consumption of produces and resources, and of course energy, it will lead to an earlier death of mother earth.
There must be a rethink. There were plentiful of land and resources available to humankind when the world’s population was a few hundred millions or less. Now we have several billions to share the space, air and food supply and resources. We are consuming everything at double quick time. It is time to consolidate our resources and improve the lives of people with more production/growth but lesser consumption. Stop wasteful production and wasteful consumption.
The free willing economy where the fittest survive and enjoy everything they want in abundance, without any care to how their wasteful consumption is destroying the earth must be stopped. The crazy idea of growth and growth without thinking about the consequences must be stopped.
At a micro level, this little rock is overpopulated, over consuming the limited resources. And the crazy thing is that it is claiming progress and claiming that without growth, life will be a misery. Life will come to a standstill and the system will break down. Yes, under the current belief that economic growth is everything, things will change. The formula is a bigger cake for more people. More people, more economic growth, more demand for space, water and energy. Can this be change to smaller cake for lesser people?
There must be a freeze on population growth in the world and in every country. Mother earth is under stress. The food chain is under stress. The resources are being depleted. Fossil fuel is being drawn down to a dangerous level. Ya, the savior is nuclear fuel. Everyone is looking towards nuclear energy as the panacea to sustain economic growth and energy consumption. This will eventually lead to a catastrophic destruction of lives and everything on earth.
The First Man to realize that humans is getting out of hand with greediness in consumption, in wanting affluence, in ownerships of plenty; power, money and vice was the Greatest Leader Of All Time Mao Ze Dong Of China. And me respects him the most for this aspect of him. He was an Atheist and implemented the stop at one child policy for China.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the Capitalist, Imperialist, Democratic and Materialistic World do not agree. Today, some like Mr Chua C L, have the ability to see the consequential damages destructive growth and consumption will bring.
BUT, by and large, beings are selfish and greedy, only the enlightened understand virtue. Few even know that their beings are temporal, even when a being is alive, he/she/it is limited in time, in appetite and physical condition.
Me
does like to tell my Dear Redbean and others not worry too much, Nature has ways for renewals and to 'punish'. It has the power to destroy, It also has the power TO RENEW, so really, there is nothing to worry too much.
Live as You are born to behave and me says; one does not nor is able to live the ways one wishes and fancies most of the time. In fact quite just the opposite is usual and normal. Maybe we always equate Doomsday as the end of the World. It does not, there are regenerations here on Earth and there are countless worlds in the infinities of space and time.
For the believers at least, there are two other worlds waiting for them, Heaven and Hade. So, in a way, destruction brought upon oneself does not mean the final end, it could just mean going into another world, imagined or otherwise.
patriot
Part 1
ReplyDeleteredbean's piece is so full of logical fallacies and economic myths, I don't even know where or how to begin to refute his points.
But his fears are justified. It is the causes where his errors fall. Anyway, I'l give it a shot:
1. The very nature of the study of economics is based on Man making choices on the margin -- basically in the present moment -- to "change his state" to a "better" one. It is chasing ENDS using available MEANS to improve the present state to an "imagined" future state. He chooses based on his his hierarchy of values and employs the use scarce resources (the most scarce being TIME) available at that very moment in an attempt to achieve his intended objective.
2. Resources at any given time, are limited -- i.e. "scarce". What the economically-challenged forget is TIME. We are mortal, so like it or not our existence and existential experience occurs in TIME. Resources are limited because of TIME -- it takes time to produce those resources. Also everyone else is competing for many of those resources in the present moment, each person trying to achieve their ends. So now we have the concept of supply and demand, and because of competition amongst the many actors the ideas of price and opportunity cost.
3. This mechanism of price is the main "signal" which transmits information to the individual actors which they use to moderate their actions. All resources used as means to achieved ends have to be bought and paid for in the "market'.
In order to be able to BUY, the individual actors need to have the means to enter in that exchange. These means (usually money but not limited to money itself) does't appear like magic. Actors need to acquire the medium of exchange which means they themselves have to produce.
The govt controls the money. They print what they need ad use DEBT to back it up. This is where the problem stems from
4. Production itself is TIME BASED. E.G. In order to buy a car for cash, you need to work and earn and consume less than you earn, and save the surplus over TIME. If you borrow the money you pay "interest" to the lender i.e. he is compensated for his CHOICE over TIME to consume less than he produces so that he has surplus funds to LEND for others to use. When you borrow funds (money capital) you pay "rent" on someone else's capital-good.
Matilah, we are going in different directions.
ReplyDeleteMy main point is how many people can this planet take to be comfortable, or how many people can this piece of rock take to maintain some sanity? The fishes in the oceans are depleting. Ok grain stocks are rising with GMs. Good and bad. Not sure about the effects, just like the half boiled egg. I will post a pic on this over the weekend. The sight of a lembeh lembeh egg white is chilling and nauseating. Somehow it doesn't look fit for human consumption.
And energy sources, esp mineral oil, is being used up fast, real fast. Then all the motherfuckers will say, No Choice Now, we need to go nuclear.
Now, before we go over the cliff, like the advertisement on global warming, there is still time to do something. Should the world hold down population growth and keep it at this level, even shrink another 20%? The leser the population, the lesser the consumption.
Stop the bull shit about economic growth, higher GDP, all from higher consumption. It is the quality of life and the sustainability of the eco and economic system that is at stake.
Say bull to the high property prices as a sign of wealth. The real value of a 4 rm flat is to hold a cerain number of people comfortably. The ballooning price is nonsense, does not increase in value in the same way.
We pump our population recklessly to 5m and now going to 11m or more for what? Would it be better if we maintain the present population size, improve producitivity and growth, maybe lesser, but enough to make life better for everyone?
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ReplyDeleteNo one will ever know the answer to that one. "Sustainability" rests complete on the resources you have on hand, and the accuracy of the information you have at the time to make informed choices. If uninterfered, with the price mechanism is great: if you make the wrong choice, you pay for your mistake -- leaving those who make the right choice to earn the benefits from their actions.
ReplyDeleteMoney expansion distorts the price mechanism which is the fundamental "signal" to guide economic actors (all of us) to make informed decisions. It rewards "bad choices" (of over consumption and over production) and penalises "good choices" (of under consumption and saving) because there is no propensity to save if your purchasing power is decreasing, and the cost of borrowing is CHEAP compared to the "sacrifice" of saving. i.e. it penalises SAVERS and rewards BORROWERS.
By printing money you have a situation of an unlimited resource (paper currency) chasing real, tangible and finite resources -- land, food, commodities, available housing etc.
The "economic growth" is a in part INFLATIONARY and that sends a false (price) signal that "we are doing great!" and govts and individuals then make choices on that info and of course they will be in error.
The signal: "we are doing great" guides individuals to have families and create new individuals. Govts go nuts and "plan for the future" borrowing and printing more money to "build infrastructure". Debt goes higher, adding more dislocations to the CAPITAL STRUCTURE and sends more false price signals which then falsely guide decision making.
Any time the spontaneous order of the free market's price system is interfered with, the average, disempowered person is penalised. If you are in a position of power, you stand to gain -- at other people's expense.
Money and credit expansion fuels GREED. (there, patriot, happy now?)
Money and credit expansion is the fuel which propels DESTRUCTIVE GROWTH.
On the finance side: now you can understand why Austrian School-based hedge funds are SHORTING debt and paper currencies In time, the piper will have to be paid because printing money collateralised by debt then going out and SPENDING like a lunatic is going to have catastrophic consequences.
On that I agree: the economic model of high consumption which is not based on high productivity and REAL SAVINGS is destined to fail. Very badly. (or fortuitously -- depending on your position in the market)
At the moment S'pore is OK, and is likely to remain so. S'pore (and many Asian cuntrees – inc China, Japan, S Korea, India and Malaysia) is a NET EXPORTER of capital so I would cautiously state that 10-15 million is possible – however I remain against any “official” policy to socially engineer this.
In response to Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteMao Ze Dong was a menace.
At least 20 million peasants died in his from resultant famines fatally flawed & ill-planned "Great Leap Forward". It also left the Chinese economy in shambles.
The rigidly-enforced one-child policy has perpetuated millions of infanticides, and produced a crisis of sex-ratio imbalance 50 years later aka right now.
Don't forget his particularly revolting Cultural Revolution.
Please educate yourself before you spout rubbish, "patriot".
The Singapore model is really bad, but the Mao Ze Dong model is, arguably, a thousand-fold worse.
There were and are policies for nationhood, for the individual citizens and for the rulers themselves.
ReplyDeleteLeadership quality shall be measured in how a ruler prioritize them. Evidently a rogue regime will have the leaders fattening their own pockets by selling state resources, natural and otherwise, enslaving its' people and suppressing them so as to weaken them to the level of incapable to fight back.
On top of bullying his/her fellow countrymen, despots and tyrants breed cronies and put their own family members to succeed themselves, perpetrating a dynastic system.
Benign and great ruler put the peoples' welfare and wellbeing before him/herself and will do all he can to give the people the best possible. He/she will not seek self satisfaction first before serving the masses. Such a ruler is invariably also fiercely patriotic and will lead the people to defend his/her country to the last drop of his blood.
True, Chairman Mao Ze Dong had certain policies that disadvantaged some of his people. The MOST IMPORTANT FACT about Chairman Mao and most of his Cabinet Members was that few of them ever enriched and amassed fortunes for themselves nor made their biological successors took over powers from them to continue ruling the people.
As for educating myself, me does it all the time, however there certainly is limitation in my ability to know all. As for being 'patriot', patriotism is ONLY meant for the state and DEFINITELY NOT meant for any despot and ruler that delegates power to his/her kins and cronies.
Me does feel happy to have your interactions and earnestly hopes to learn from You.
patriot
anon 551:
ReplyDeleteSingapore's economic model is indeed problematic. I'm not defending it, but I will say that at least for the privateer/ individual enterprise who doesn't give a shit about the all-encompassing "merchantilism" i.e. state-controlled and run "capitalism", there is room to maneuver and do quite nicely.
patriot: I find it unbelievable that in this day and age, there are still people who will defend that mass murderer -- who was worse than Hitler -- Mao. He was a cruel, brutal and insane PRICK.
Hahaha....
ReplyDeleteLol
Matilah tell it to the Chinese in the Mainland that Chairman Mao was a mass murderer.
However call him whatever anyone fancies, menace, mass murderer, culprit and scoundrel. He is second to Lao Zi and Dr Mahathir is third and last in my mind.
And call me a moron, an ignoramus or anything anyone likes. However, try to be civil.
patriot
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ReplyDeleteI think any word you choose would suit you, patriot ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to tell the Chinese in China anything -- what for? It won't benefit me.
Better I come up with something to sell them in great quantities and large profits... then I can buy more of their children and women to keep as pets and slaves.