“All the theories agree if new money helps create new economic growth then that growth will soak up the extra money”
And this is the reason why we are going down regardless of theory. We are facing a steadily decreasing EROEI (energy return on energy invested) and I don’t see how the required additional growth can be achieved while the energy rug is being pulled away from under us. The theories being quote are nothing but outflows of times of increasing EROEI. And where shall the government invest today: New roads, more cars, more dams? That did work in the 30ies. Bridges to nowhere they are building, blowing overinvestment bubbles in solar etc.
Yes, that is indeed a deeper argument our society has not even begun to grapple with. But as you indicate, we have to and soon
I’d like to push Yerk’s earlier EROEI comment (10 Oct 8:54) a little further because it seems to me that EVERYTHING else is analogous to rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic, with all that cliched analogy truly implies. Uber-wealthy/power remains (and will remain) grimly determined to maintain – even extend – its privileges no matter what.
Precisely where our predicament sits in the period just before – to the unreality of the hour or so after, hitting the iceberg, is what this article is really about. And I mean that constructively since I often ask myself how I would have behaved had I been either a state-room ensconced VIP on the one hand or one of its third class Rif-raf on the other.
So far as I can ascertain from extensive research on the complex of issues that define it, the correlation between classic economic growth and human/industrial consumption of energy has remained as close to unity as makes no difference throughout history. That being so, future REAL economic growth will requires similar 1:1 growth in energy consumption. That is one big BIG problem folks. It is the elephant in the room of pretty well any and all MSM/Establishment discussion of our predicament – for public consumption at any rate.
An increasing EROEI implies an increasing proportion of economic activity (let alone ANY growth) being required to stand still – so-to-speak – until, well before EROEI’s own magic 1:1 ratio looms on the horizon, the whole construct hits its so-called ‘energy cliff’ and slowly (or rapidy) subsides into total collapse.
There are those who invest their faith and hope in the so-called ‘sustainable’ alternatives of wind, solar, tide, and – heaven forbid among our manifest follies – nuclear. I find myself pondering these issues extensively too. My conclusion? they cannot, even in the widest of optimistic imaginings, fuel ‘business as usual’.
From 2012
linked to this Blog.https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2012/10/why-are-we-bailing-out-banks-part-two.html
linked to this Blog.https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2012/10/why-are-we-bailing-out-banks-part-two.html
5 Years Later I have Just caught up to EROEI.
Its a Long Road one never knows when the answer is staring you in the face?
Yerk October 10, 2012 at 8:54 am #