Economic challenges
What follows is a letter I sent to my brother, a lecturer in economics in Austria
Looking around the globe at the moment and listening to people of various stations in life, it would appear the John Maynard Keynes is a load of rubbish and many of the concerns Von Mises raised may be showing themselves in the current situation. On the other hand, we never did give Edwin Gibben Wakefield's concepts the test they were meant to have in the creation of South Australia.
Therefore I believe it is time that a fresh economic theory be created...
To me it is absurd that they always talk about growing economies and growing populations that we must either populate or perish! It is also equally absurd that as a species and supporting philosophy we will deny what is happening all around us until it is forced on us. Fort example a commentator the other day noted that we always turn to the building industry for recovering from recessions. And that this represents 7% of the work force and 10% of the economy. While in the middle east there may be great need for reconstruction on a regular basis to just have society stand still, in most other peaceful societies, more construction means growing populations. This also means strains on water supplies, energy supplies and food creation schemes.
I also notice that in many if not all of the solutions I have heard to various problems around the planet such as peak oil, over population and climate change, answers are only ever provided for one part of the problem in the false assumption that the other challenges MUST sort themselves out.
My concern is that we need a scheme or strategy to address all the challenges before it is too late. Personally I believe that it is much to late to solve all the problems and that un-imagined change will sweep across the planet in the next few decades.
Here are some thoughts that a new economic strategy must take into consideration.
- War is wasteful and destroys assets while also creating a multi level carbon foot print
- Global population should be around one billion people. Not 6.5 billion. Therefore shrinking populations are critical
- Energy needs to come from areas other than fossil fuels without loading down human food requirements.
- We need to pay countries who grow trees as the planet's lungs to leave existing forests alone and to grow more trees.
- National economies need to view something other than massive concrete structures as success and progress
Working against any of these changes is the
- need for a price to be attached to anything of perceived importance
- The fear that who ever makes to first move, considering that all scientific advisers are in broad agreement about the global plight, will plunge that country's economy into ruin
- belief that this carbon trading concept will work.
As you ponder this, keep in mind that we are quickly chewing through non renewable resources as we support a population who all want what the "best" of the people on the planet have. The challenge is that the planet simply can't deliver on this request. The planet can't even continue to deliver at its current rate.
What do you think? Do we need a radical change or do we just pour another beer and talk about the good old days?
Of course there is considerable depth to each of these points and they may well become the basis of future Skype discussions. One other point I would like to make relates to your questions about the Australian economy. I would suggest that around the world there are two types of economic disaster. The primary one is where something has collapsed. In America and England it is their banking systems through unbridled greed. Australia, and a few other countries, are suffering due to the secondary effects. China, for example has reduced it's "growth" to single digit numbers.
This has caused a reduced demand for Australian minerals and grain and this has rippled through as reduced income for Australia. This has lead to job losses. America and England have had a large part of the fiscal management structures either collapses of be showed to be untrustworthy. The result is that the primary countries are in very deep shit. The problem is that what they represent effects all of us globally. For example the US represents around 50% of all stock markets....
I hope this makes sense to you. The time for change has passed but maybe we can help?
This is a compilation of ideas and notes compiled by Garnett Znidaric who has been observing the evolving situation for more than thirty years. Send comments to info@gzrecord.com |