The Great Transition

"Might there be more agile, dependable, and less awkward ways to conduct the public business in the long emergency that do not require authoritarian governments, the compromises and irrational messiness of politics, or even reliance on personal sacrifice?"

So is the austerian impulse all a matter of psychology? No, there’s also a fair bit of self-interest involved. As many observers have noted, the turn away from fiscal and monetary stimulus can be interpreted, if you like, as giving creditors priority over workers. Inflation and low interest rates are bad for creditors even if they promote job creation; slashing government deficits in the face of mass unemployment may deepen a depression, but it increases the certainty of bondholders that they’ll be repaid in full. I don’t think someone like Trichet was consciously, cynically serving class interests at the expense of overall welfare; but it certainly didn’t hurt that his sense of economic morality dovetailed so perfectly with the priorities of creditors.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismay’d ? Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’d: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

"The world has seen a hundred financial crises in the past three decades. In this column, Nobelist Joe Stiglitz argues that we could have done much more to prevent this crisis and to mitigate its effects. Looking ahead, we can do much more to prevent the next one. This is a chance to revolutionise flawed economic models, and perhaps exit from an interminable cycle of crises."

European Economic Forecast - spring 2013 - The EU economy: adjustment continues

Despite the clean technology of the past decade, we continue to extract and burn fossil fuels more than ever before

Businesses will stick to the status quo whatever the disastrous consequences unless we build a credible sustainability vision

Perhaps the most important result of this paper is the confirmation that while many people wrongly believe global warming has stalled over the past 10–15 years, in reality global warming has not paused, it has accelerated.

What is happening in Greece is typical of what I call a new war. Dramatic cuts in public spending weaken state capacity and further erode trust and legitimacy, providing a space for a combination of criminality and extremist politics. Such a combination is self-reproducing, since those involved profit from disorder. It is thus very difficult to end or to contain and a new type of predatory political economy that knows no formal borders comes into being.

"With the world’s population headed toward 9 billion at mid-century and millions of people climbing out of poverty, global energy demand could increase by as much as 80% by 2050. That’s according to Shell’s latest scenarios, which look at trends in the economy, politics and energy in considering developments over the next half a century."

"Jobs and economic growth are the results of productive systems, not the other way around. Until we reconfigure our towns and change our growth patterns, our communities are likely to continue to be starved for jobs and growth. Building pieces of infrastructure with the primary purpose of creating jobs with little consideration to context is a recipe for disaster."

"What makes the inaction more remarkable is that we have been hearing so much hysteria about the dire consequences of piling up a big burden of public debt on our children and grandchildren. But all that is being bequeathed is financial claims of some people on other people. If the worst comes to the worst, a default will occur. Some people will be unhappy. But life will go on. Bequeathing a planet in climatic chaos is a rather bigger concern. There is nowhere else for people to go and no way to reset the planet’s climate system. If we are to take a prudential view of public finances, we should surely take a prudential view of something irreversible and much costlier.."

A common refrain, from skeptics to allies alike, is that renewable energy is a great idea, but not feasible because oil, gas, and coal will always be cheaper.

We need a no-growth development model as an alternative to an austerity model which will do nothing except bring ordinary people hardship and misery – offering them no hope and no way of coping with their problems.

Reflections by the author of the "Hirsch Report" on the Conference “Peak Oil: Challenges and Opportunities for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries.”

As the euro crisis wears on, the tough austerity measures implemented in ailing member states are resulting in serious health issues, a study revealed on Wednesday.

"Porter goes so far as to say that the benefits of the capitalist system are not being seen by greater society. It’s not that profit is inconsistent with society’s needs, but rather it is seen as coming at the expense of society rather than to its benefit. If the 20th century model for capitalism was “What’s good for business is good for society,” Porter sees the 21st-century model as the converse: “What’s good for society is good for business.”

Professor Ha-Joon Chang has two things in common with Karl Marx. Firstly he’s right in much of his economic analysis of the ills of capitalism and secondly his prescriptions of the solutions to these ills are lacking.

Globalization seems to be looked on as an unmitigated “good” by economists. Unfortunately, economists seem to be guided by their badly flawed models; they miss real-world problems. In particular, they miss the point that the world is finite. We don’t have infinite resources, or unlimited ability to handle excess pollution. So we are setting up a “solution” that is at best temporary.

"There are strong grounds for believing that the climate crisis can be overcome and that many people’s lives, particularly in the poorer countries, could be materially better than they are now because of the work the production of biofuels and biochemicals to replace their fossil equivalents should bring, coupled with the additional fertility that biochar should create. Since the alternative is industrial and societal decline and, after increasing unrest, an eventual collapse, there’s every reason to think the system will incline the right way. But one thing is necessary first: the twin myths that there’s plenty of energy and that economic growth can continue must be exposed."