An economist explains what is happening to the global economy
qz.com
qz.com
there are some interesting tidbits like technological change creating (short-term) economic upheaval and credit cannot fuel economic growth. but the conclusion drawn is a curious amalgamation of progressive individualism that simply doesn't follow from the observations that come before it.
governments are not special in requiring vigilance to keep them in check. religions, corporations and other large political bodies (in the larger sense of the word) also require vigilance. the answer isn't simply individualism. these political bodies form because they provide social and economic efficiencies that we want. such groups form instinctively and immediately, and as such, we won't stop the formation of political bodies. the question then is how to we structure the collection of political bodies so that they keep each other in check, since no one individual can effectively orchestrate such a balance?
democratic capitalism is interesting in that it's an (imperfect) iteration of such a system.
Am... no, it ends with an assertion that human rights should be respected, not trampled by saving insolvent companies, invading countries and enforcing fundamentalist beliefs.
he doesn't attempt at all to address the complexity of balancing the rights of the individual with the stability of the whole society. this is the hard part and he doesn't say anything about it at all. throwing out some rah-rah speech about how we should all be democratic capitalists, even through rough terrain like ours now, doesn't actually make a convincing argument. he also doesn't string together the tidbits of economic data he cites to form a coherent argument for why technological progress leads to our current geopolitical problems, though that's the presumed meat of the article.
that's what i (and seemingly a number of others) was reacting negatively to. even though i'm sympathetic to his line of reasoning, he's anything but convincing.
I do like opinion pieces on economics.
edit: typo: quantized => quantitated
It also struck me as originating from a highly US-centric view of the events in Latin America/Europe/Middle East. Low in nuance and meshing poorly with how the leadership of these countries understand and characterize their own economic/political dilemmas and decisions. It essentially assumes a "one right path for the world" and considers confused or invalid any deviation in discourse or policy. Also seems to perpetuate the old Colonialist chestnut - civilize the world (often directly against its will) at any price.
But whatever you think of Ukraine, just remember how we reacted when Russian put nukes on our doorstep. Yet the US government is happy to meddle in Ukraine, on Russia's doorstep, and is shocked, shocked! when Russian reacts very negatively.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-25/hacked-us-documents...
> No facts, no cold hard hard data, no references, all
> emotional hand-waving.
If you want to understand the world, look at the numbers, like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
A non backed assertion example: "Technological revolutions result in negative turns in the distribution of income, as income flows towards those who take early advantage of the new technologies."
Today the number One distribution machine is the computer of the central banks that let them print billions of currency a day(dollars, euros or yenes) backed by nothing real in the material world.
This people print on a single day the wealth that takes a year to generate in the real world. Look at how much shadow money there is in securities and derivatives compared with the real economy. As Warren Buffet says, it is a weapon of mass destruction.
Even something technological like Facebook earned most of their money from an artificially pumped stock market, not from the real world selling products and services.
I have profited enormously from the stock market because I understand this, it is not so hard. It is way harder to create valuable products out there in an economy that is taken for ransom by the banks, big companies and governments that are robbing them blindly.
Another powerful assertion: "Russia’s annexation of parts of Georgia and Ukraine brought back another monster that we thought had disappeared between the 1930s and the 1940s—the territorially acquisitive authoritarian Great Power."
Russia should have supported a violent coup d'etat in Ukraine that replaced their pro Russian democratically elected gobertment. They also should have given them Sevastopol, and also let the US putting "defense" missiles there pointing to Moscow.By the way they should also let the US to destroy Russia-EU commercial relationship, and why not let foreign companies control their bast natural resources(as the biggest country in the world).
Russia, like the US or China, has her own interest, like any other country.
Thinking a modern country is going to behave like Iraq when you invade their country to take their resources is probably not a good idea.
The economists actually learn that US had very strong protectionist policy for its own economy and that it actually helped. Free market is mostly an expression used for something that is used to sell your stuff to other nations or to allow your companies enter some market.
It must be pretty hard to everybody else or most funds would be beating the market. What is your strategy in picking stocks that takes advantage of these inflated equities?
Ukrainian government was an oligarchy, bought by Russia (The president miraculously changed his mind right before it was time to sign the treaty - having before, repeatedly, said how important to growth and stabilisation of Ukraine affiliating with EU was)
Then, when it all blew up, he run off to his masters in Russia.
Russia is actively fueling the fighting in Ukraine, providing weapons, specialists, training, money etc. A passenger liner was shot out of the sky using modern Russian AA battery that had to be provided by Russian state. Poor, poor victimised Russia...
About the missile batteries - Russians freaked out when they learned that US shops carry ASAT/Anti ballistic missiles, not because it is a direct threat, but because it stops them from doing something stupid with their nukes.
I don't know how you think regulating coal is going to keep the economy safe. Different industries are regulated for different reasons. The financial industry is regulated to protect the rest of the economy from the irrational behavior of investors.It's pretty significant to the subject were discussing.
I don't think coal regulation is particularly important one way or the other. The problem is that as industry with influence, like finance, were able to escape legitimate regulation, the total amount of regulation on business has roughly doubled since the mid 70's, which is a drag on the size and resilience of the economy.
Basically http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mastascu/econtrolhtml/sysdy...
Then again, world war 3 might break out next year. You can never tell such a thing in advance.
That's what they said about WWI. Direct quote. My observation is that most populations are pretty readily swayed to support a war. And the invisible hand is no match for martial law in organizing resource commitment in a war footing. It's been decades since this happened on a large scale, so I think we've forgotten how truly terrifyingly effective a war footing can be for a major power.
I mean, can you imagine the kind of utter devastation that would result if the United States, as a society, really, and I mean really, decided that Islamic terrorism was an existential threat, and mobilized to fight it on the fully integrated national level comparable to WWII?
If the country were all-in -- spending at the level of the European powers during WWII -- this would mean an expenditure of perhaps $30 trillion per year for three or four years focused on that goal, an intensity which is almost beyond imagining. That's war mobilization in a modern economy. It's hard to conceive because it is, frankly, inconceivable. How would that even work? But possible? Oh, yes.
Why?
Putins daughters live in Europe/US. Same for childer of other Russian top government officials. Same for China. Who will go for total war?
On the brink of the war western military may assassinate the top government officials of the enemy hawk faction using fly-bots or some other kind of high tech minidrones. I have no information on the current capabilities though I've read about some of those being developed.
Asteroid mining will change the incentive structure for total war.
Further AI development will change the incentive structure for total war.
The world becomes less violent with every passing year. Look at the gapminder data.
We will see lots of local conflicts, hunger revolts, sectarian violence, mechs-human battles in Middle East and other futuristic tropes though.
Although while reading this article, I couldn't help but think that this entire article is a theory and it's just one author's opinion. Because of the arbitrary 100 year timeline, it seems a lot of thinkers are drawing parallels to the early 1900's and perhaps the start of WW1 in 1914.
"British free trade, industrial monopoly, and human slavery, travel together, and the the man who undertakes the work of reconstruction, without having first satisfied himself that such is certainly the fact, will find that he has been building on shifting sands, and must fail to produce and edifice that will be permanent. Look where you may, you will find prosperity to exist in the inverse ratio of the connection with Britain." -Henry C. Carey (Lincoln's Economic Advisor)
Mr "economist" if you don't understand that Russia's actions were a direct reaction to the US led coup in Ukraine, then I don't need your explanations about what the heck is happening in the world : you're clueless.
My take on this, is that the USA are collapsing and they intend to take the rest of the world with them. Don't think I'm anti-American, I can make the difference between decent ordinary Americans and their crazy government.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/08/false-flag-in-odessa/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/30/the-media-ignores-the... http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/02/18/us-and-eu-are-pay... http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/25/shocking-videos-h... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/us-backing-neo-n... http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-has-installed-a-neo-naz...
edit: Heh. Downvoted. Sometimes I feel people really don't like hearing the truth about what their empire does in their name. Lets not get started on Gladio B... I know... Conspiracy theorist... yadda yadda.
Revolutions are such messy things.
History will usually call "revolutions" the overthrown of unpopular governments doing outrageous things, and "coup" the overthrown of legitimacy-elected governments doing things that only a minority considered objectionable. You can see how this could lead people to judge the Ukrainian series of events in different ways.
Russia's position is also that the US is failing - a trope that jmnicolas also brings up. jmnicolas therefore seems to be echoing the Russian party line here.
Any ways, I will not take even a Noble winning economist seriously if he says he can "explain" global economy. These systems are far too complex. A Computer Scientist with exceptional knowledge about Compilers might be as clueless about machine learning as the next guy. No one can really explain these things. The closest explanations about such things in my opinion is given by either Milton Friedman or Nissim Taleb, and their explantions seem to be that there is no explanation.
this text is biased to the bone!