End of growth.

LabR@t

LabR@t

LabR@t

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End of growth

The economic crisis that began in 2007-2008 was both foreseeable and inevitable, and it marks a permanent, fundamental break from past decades—a period during which most economists adopted the unrealistic view that perpetual economic growth is necessary and also possible to achieve. There are now fundamental barriers to ongoing economic expansion, and the world is colliding with those barriers.

This is not to say the U.S. or the world as a whole will never see another quarter or year of growth relative to the previous quarter or year. However, when the bumps are averaged out, the general trend-line of the economy (measured in terms of production and consumption of real goods) will be level or downward rather than upward from now on.

Nor will it be impossible for any region, nation, or business to continue growing for a while. Some will. In the final analysis, however, this growth will have been achieved at the expense of other regions, nations, or businesses. From now on, only relative growth is possible: the global economy is playing a zero-sum game, with an ever-shrinking pot to be divided among the winners.
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I watched a economic tv program the other day and they alluded to the fact that the UK and most of Europe's growth is set to stall and only China/USA/India's economies will have any growth in the next decade.

the thing is our way of life is built around a growing GDP we need it to be able to service out debts. With a stalling or declining economy the future is indeed bleak and I for one am quite concerned on how this country will continue seeing how we owe Trillions of debt and our population is exploding.

Growth is it possible in the future?
 
I always take those predictions with a pinch of salt because I believe they've been wrong more than they've been right. That said, people are living longer and (on average) getting older.

Growth may be possible but I'll agree with you that those who claimed an 'end to boom and bust' were obviously deluded. Hindsight and all that.
 
Berserker said:
I suspect that immigrant comment was sarcastic. :)
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Oh sorry Just grates me how some people jump on a bandwagon.

anyway


During the last couple of centuries, growth became virtually the sole index of economic well-being. When an economy grew, jobs appeared and investments yielded high returns. When the economy stopped growing temporarily, as it did during the Great Depression, financial bloodletting ensued.

Throughout this period, world population increased—from fewer than two billion humans on planet Earth in 1900 to nearly seven billion today; we are adding about 70 million new “consumers” each year. That makes further growth even more crucial: if the economy stagnates, there will be fewer goods and services per capita to go around.

We have relied on economic growth for the “development” of the world’s poorest economies; without growth, we must seriously entertain the possibility that hundreds of millions—perhaps billions—of people will never achieve even a rudimentary version of the consumer lifestyle enjoyed by people in the world’s industrialized nations.

Finally, we have created monetary and financial systems that require growth. As long as the economy is growing, that means more money and credit are available, expectations are high, people buy more goods, businesses take out more loans, and interest on existing loans can easily be repaid. But if more new money isn’t entering the system, the interest on existing loans cannot be paid; as a result, defaults snowball, jobs are lost, incomes fall, and consumer spending contracts—which leads businesses to take out fewer loans, causing still less new money to enter the economy. This is a self-reinforcing destructive feedback loop that is very difficult to stop once it gets going.
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This scares me !

Here’s a real-world example: Over the past two centuries, human population has grown at rates ranging from less than one percent to more than two percent per year. In 1800, world population stood at about one billion; by 1930 it had doubled to two billion. Only 30 years later (in 1960) it had doubled again to four billion; currently we are on track to achieve a third doubling, to eight billion humans, around 2025. No one seriously expects human population to continue growing for centuries into the future. But imagine if it did—at just 1.3 percent per year (its growth rate in the year 2000). By the year 2780 there would be 148 trillion humans on Earth—one person for each square meter of land on the planet’s surface.

It won’t happen, of course.
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Makes you think !
 
Why does it make you think when the article itself states that it won't happen? And I'm all for long term planning but you'd be 770 years old dude - I don't think you've got much to worry about.
 
It won't happen because it can't. We will reach (in some cases have already reached) the point at which natural resources are insufficient to sustain the population.

We've already seen the consequences of that - famine, for one.
 
Berserker said:
I always take those predictions with a pinch of salt because I believe they've been wrong more than they've been right..
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Yep, because they never take future technology into account. Just take all the peak rubbish being sprouted about. especially energy.

Berserker said:
It won't happen because it can't. We will reach (in some cases have already reached) the point at which natural resources are insufficient to sustain the population.

We've already seen the consequences of that - famine, for one.
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what resources is that? we ahve more than enough food to feed the world, it's just not evenly spread out.
 
You need a healthy dose of optimism, certain resources might be finite but the human imagination is endless.
 
I'm fairly sure the next war will kill almost everybody so no worries about the pop getting too big. Nukes and all.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Yep, because they never take future technology into account. Just take all the peak rubbish being sprouted about. especially energy.



what resources is that? we have more than enough food to feed the world, it's just not evenly spread out.
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Any time Peak Oil is talked about you throw it out the window.

The IEA has even came out and said peak oil happened back in 2006.

http://makewealthhistory.org/2010/11/11/iea-peak-oil-happened-in-2006/

While i agree technology will help in the years to come, it wont come quick enough to be honest. There will be some very tough years ahead, as the energy starts to so expensive no one can afford it any more.
 
Long term we are screwed if things continue as they are, you'd have to be stupid to disagree with that.

The way things work now, can't continue if the population continues to rise dramatically. This goes for jobs, the economy, housing, food, energy resources and all the rest of it.
 
haha what a load of rubbish. What is he basing this so called end of growth idea on? references? where is the mention of this in other crisis journals?
 
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