Ask HN: Was that it in terms of economic growth? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Was that it in terms of economic growth?

7 pointsManuelKiessling10 comments

There’s a thought that crossed my mind recently, of which I’d love to learn the HN community’s opinions.

I’m heavily (50% of net worth) invested in broad EFTs in the classical “buy-and-hold/get-rich-slow” scheme.

There are many dimensions to the discussions around this approach, but the one aspect that nailed it for me at the end of the day was: “in the long run, the world economy always grows”.

But some days ago I thought: “What if that’s it? If that’s the level of economy the planet could reach, and it’s downhill from here for many, many decades? What if we have used up the fossil fuels we can use up without killing ourselves, if that’s all the sand we could use to build our buildings, if that’s the fertilizer we were able to produce, if that’s all the rare earths we could find to build the technologies for our renewables – but mainly, what if that is the amount of energy we could produce/harvest, and we simply cannot make the economy any larger?“

I mean, with all the inflation and stuff – maybe we are simply running out of everything…?

I just planted some fruit trees in my backyard. Assuming all goes well there will be more fruit in the future. I plan to eat some of that fruit and give some of it to my friends, family, and community. That means that absent any decline the amount of goods available has increased.

You can make houses out of mud and clay.

Some countries are turning garbage into fuel and using that fuel to power their homes and businesses.

The economy can always continue to grow. It doesn't always grow, but there's no real reason to expect that we are about to run out of everything.

The only thing that I'm concerned about us running low on is food. Localized food shortages are likely over the next couple of years and that can cause major instability which is not a pleasant experience historically speaking.

If everyone plants their own fruits, the market actually shrinks. No one will buy or sell fruits because we all have enough.

What matters for market/economy is not how much stuff there is, but whether stuff is being circulated and money is being moved around.

There's no economy for air because everyone has access to it.

If for some reason the air becomes scarce, suddenly there will be a market for it and the economy will "grow".

Official measures of economy are mostly about money moving around.

If there is less air and there is suddenly a market for air is humanity collectively richer or poorer?

> Official measures of economy are mostly about money moving around.

Agreed.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not worried about the official numbers representing a doomsday scenario.

There's three things, how prosperous the world will be overall, how prosperous the country will be overall, and then each individual.

Even if the world economy stops growing, if the world population plateaus at a similar time, the standard of living for each individual may not go down with it.

With renewables and digital goods, we have also managed to start decoupling commerce of physical goods from economic growth, and I think it is likely, economic growth will continue for the foreseeable future despite having fewer resources.

We have plenty of everything what we need for decades and longer. What we see is different in my opinion. The result - was that it in your question - is the same, but the cause is different.

If I overlook roughly:

- a lot of people

- a lot of people.

That lot of people can be separated into rich and poor (1-bit reduction). There are far more poor people than rich. The poor ones build clusters of different sizes. Usually the location of the many clusters is somewhat "in the neighbourhood" and so, one is able to identify bigger k-clusters In different parts of the world. The biggest clusters are also within the same k-cluster or, somehow, side-by-side. The k-clusters can only occupy the area which hasn't been occupied by the rich's clusters upfront. The area occupied by the richs upfront is usually good land what enables the rich to live prosper and develop, while the poors struggle for a living.

This leads to tensions. Tensions lead to conflicts. Conflicts lead to refugees. Refugees lead to fears & jealousy and xenophobia. That amplifies everything and the loop starts.

Economy and wealth is depending on resources. Like ones that can be sold and/or used, like oil, food, knowledge.. At certain point there must happen a pivot in the relationship between the poor and the rich, where the rich can not get anything useful from the poor anymore, and instead, the poor need rich's resources, so they're importing it. To keep up with the development speed of the rich, the poor need to get even more of the rich.. The rich need that for the economy of theirs. The loop closes after the last:

While all that happens, the poors need an assurance for the elderly theirs, which is kids. No money, mo' kids. That amplifies EVERYTHING.

So, the problem is the economy by itself, not the lack of resources bringing it to a halt, in my eyes

You could be right, I think we will see more wars explicitly over resources before the music stops, however. It’s been argued that even WW1 was a war over resources, and we have had plenty of wars since over specific resources. [1] I think the violence will be much worse and geopolitics much more heavy handed and desperate when we are actually nearing the end of “infinite growth.” Some people believe we will technologize ourselves a solution before it gets that bad, it remains uncertain. Seeing commodities prices double in value is a definite clue that things are getting tight, and many people have bet that commodities markets will become more expensive in the future. But the current pricing may very well be transitory. A number of analysts (from the likes of J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, as well as the largest hedge fund) think the next ten years will have zero real return on investments [2]. This would not be the first decade with zero net returns [3]. Like I said though, my gut feeling is we are not at the end of the massive growth, and that it will be abundantly clear if the time comes. Not to say things are looking cheery now, but my money is on growth over the next 20 years, even if the next ten are not great. The best case scenario should that time come would be a soft landing into a much more balanced and organized economy. [0] Adam Smith himself predicted its inevitability. Who knows if mankind will ever be mature enough to take such a drastic, self-aware step.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy [1] https://www.sharing.org/why-nations-need-to-share/conflict-o... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-face-a-lost-deca... [3] https://thebestinterest.medium.com/decades-of-zero-return-cc...

What we've learned over the life span of the market is that ultimately American business can figure out how to get the economy functioning and ultimately power through any problem. I wouldn't doubt it. If you are in it for the long run then stay invested. But build up your emergency fund if you don't have one.

Warren Buffet has always advocated the idea of investing in the stock market because it will continue to grow. He also says that if the market ever falls apart to the point that it won't come back then he feels that things would be so bad that there would be so many worse problems that the investment won't matter.

I feel he's right so I stay invested.

We’ve had inflation and stuff before. What makes this time different?

Can’t really really put my finger on it – it’s more like a gut feeling. Something along the line of “in the past, every scarcity was temporary, because we could always fossil-fuel-burn ourselves out of the problem – but this time we can’t.”

That’s a fair point.

I don’t really agree with it, because

- we will continue to fossil-fuel-burn ourselves out of the problem, climate change be damned

- we’re not actually running out of coal or natural gas

- even with oil, extraction is getting more expensive rather than falling off a cliff

There are geopolitical constraints around importing fossil fuels. These were temporary in the 70s and they’ll be temporary today. I don’t want to play down the effects of this: it can really ruin your decade. But geopolitical constraints aren’t permanent.

You didn’t mention the demographic transition — a greater proportion of pensioners having their pensions paid for by a smaller proportion of workers. This is surely going to be a massive drag at some point, and is something we haven’t experienced before. Is it starting to cause pain? I don’t know.

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