I've seen a lot of documentaries and youtube videos lately about economic collapse in the world. Normally, it would be easy to brush off most of these as conspiracy theorist type propaganda. However, a lot of them seem to based not really on speculation, but fact. There are generally 3 main postulates on why collapse is coming:
1) peak oil - when the maximum amount of oil that can be produced is being produced. this is happening now. Not much more oil can be produced per day than is being produced now. As demand rises in other developing countries and the supply stays constant, the price goes up, clearly.
2) rising debt levels - every country in the world is now wracked in debt, and this can only go up. There is no possible way to pay back the money, because it doesn't exist. Essentially, a government gets a 1000$ loan from its "Federal Reserve" or central bank. The central bank then wants the money back + 0.005% interest, or whatever it may be. But that central bank also prints the money. Thus, they print the 1000$ but the 0.0005% does not exist. Simple concept.
3) water shortages - many areas of the world are short on clean water already, and that is set to increase. A good example is a massive underground water supply in the mid-west of the US. Nothing is replenishing the water supply, but it is being used. It will be sort of a problem when that runs out!
I've argued with a friend of mine about the resource based economy proposed in the movie Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (good watch, by the way). He considers himself a pure capitalist (where you let the banks fail that fail instead of bailing them out). He certainly does not agree with me about what should happen after collapse, but he does agree that there will be one. He also recognizes the threat of peak oil and water shortages. You know it's scary when two people on opposite ends of the spectrum agree on the conclusion.
Good movies to watch (by all means be as skeptical as you want!)
1) prophets of doom
2) zeitgeist: moving forward
3) collapse
I'm interested in peoples comments even if they comment 5 months from now
1) Yes, The Saudi's are currently using their stored supplies to increase their output.
ReplyDelete2) Perpetual debt comes to mind. After all, Fiat Money could be simply described as debt on a piece of paper.
3)May get much worse in the future as East Asian populations grow.
I agree with your friend that banks should be allowed to fail, I also think that retail banking should be separated from Investment banking.
However I see the 'Venus Project' (If i remember correctly) seems to 'utopian' and will not be an accepted by the world.
...Must watch these films, maybe they'll have an effect on my views :P
P.S. Nice to see a well thought out blog - Will be following!
i heard of the movies but never had time to watch. Well for Japan collapse is also coming obviously :/
ReplyDeleteI feel that with pure capitalism, you are also destroying many many lives. Our current set up may be very flimsy and debt-filled, but humans do whatever is necessary to sustain.
ReplyDeletei am intrested in watching zeitgeist, that looks nice. ( saw you're intrested in poker, then you can take a look at my blog! :))
ReplyDeletehttp://pokeretc.blogspot.com/2011/03/online-poker.html
Zeitgeist is a cool recommendation!
ReplyDeletei'm glad you liked it )
ReplyDeleteI'm going to check these movies out and comment back at some point
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Zeitgeist: moving forward, and simply due to the nature of Western Civilistion - It will never work.
ReplyDeleteThere are too many people socially conditioned to act in a capitalist way, because that's just currently 'what is'.
I can't forsee it ever working without something crazy happening. After an economic collapse it would get suggested and gain a small following, but there are too many people that would dismiss it straight away.
when total collapse happens it might be more understood. it's going to be an uphill battle, that's for sure. I believe when technology is so advanced working seems far more pointless than it is now (which is hard to fathom considering nearly 100% of jobs now are meaningless, useless, or unimportant), then we might see a better movement for change.
ReplyDeletesomething crazy happening isn't so hard to imagine. when peak oil hits and billions of people starve to death, that's pretty big.