In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to St. Matthew Island, Alaska. With no predators and an abundant food supply, the population increased to 6,000 (over 200 times the initial population) in under 20 years. This is an example of resource drawdown. Borrowing from the future to increase survival now, and it leads to overshoot. The population grew, out of control, until all of the resources were depleted, at which point it crashed. Between the severe winter of 1963-64 and the resource depletion, by 1966 there were 42 reindeer left. In the 1980s, the island’s reindeer population disappeared completely.
(More from Catton.)
This shows the importance, and the relevance of the concept of carrying capacity. I’m just going to paste in here part of that article:
Temporary exceptions
It is possible for a species to exceed its carrying capacity temporarily. Population variance occurs as part of the natural selection process but may occur more dramatically in some instances. Due to a variety of factors a determinant of carrying capacity may lag behind another. A waste product of a species, for example, may build up to toxic levels more slowly than the food supply is exhausted. The result is a fluctuation in the population around the equilibrium point that is statistically significant. These fluctuations are increases or decreases in the population until either the population returns to the original equilibrium point or a new one is established. These fluctuations may be more devastating for an ecosystem compared to gradual population corrections since if it produces drastic decreases or increases the overall effect on the ecosystem may be such that other species within the ecosystem are in turn affected and begin to move with statistical significance around their equilibrium points. The fear is a domino like effect where the final consequences are unknown and may lead to collapses of certain species or whole ecosystems.
This is exactly what’s happening now. We have exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity for humans. If our waste products hadn’t been building up to toxic levels, we might be OK. If we weren’t exhausting our future food supply by farming with unsustainable methods, we might be OK. But both of these factors, as well as others like groundwater mining are decreasing the carrying capacity. Meanwhile the population continues to increase, exacerbating these effects, and further decreasing the resources available for whoever happens to be around in another decade.
As the end of the quoted text says, as one aspect swings out of control, it unbalances other aspects, and the dominoes start falling.
In addition, more and more of the world is trying to become like the US, to live our outsized, overblown, overconsumptive lifestyle, and the downward spiral continues. Otis Graham has said that individual Americans have 32 times the ecological footprint of someone in India. It’s not just gross population, it’s how we’re living, but they are intricately intertwined. We can’t live our current flamboyantly destructive lifestyle without people to support it, and our lifestyle allows us to support the excess people. For now.
So what can we do? For starters, quit reproducing. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement has a nice big table of reasons (excuses) people give for having kids, what they actually mean when they say those things, and what they should do instead. While they make some good points (and oversimplify others), it ultimately won’t be enough. Too little too late.
The third graph here (another Overshoot excerpt) shows what’s happening now. Our load continues to increase, but we’re decreasing the carrying capacity. At some point, we’re going to hit the same crash the reindeer did, and die off catastrophically. And it’s going to be sooner than any program like VHEMT or any other similar organization can achieve results. Before population peaks and starts to decline “naturally” (ie, on its own, by increasing HDI and people deciding to have fewer kids), people are going to start dying en masse because of what we've done to the planet.
05 December 2007
Tipping points
Everybody’s heard about greenhouse gases, and the rainforests being destroyed and the icecaps and glaciers melting, but how about the permafrost melting? How about plankton die-offs? Albedo?
The big problem with climate change isn’t any of these things in isolation. The problem is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. There are many feedback loops that have already been started in motion, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about here.
But first, a bit of vocabulary. A “negative feedback loop” has nothing to do with a subjective analysis of its quality, but rather is one that negates itself, that is self-correcting, returning to equilibrium. There are many of these in normal body functioning, for instance blood sugar regulation, body temperature regulation, and water and salt conservation. On the other hand, a “positive feedback loop” increases its own output, rather than cancelling; population growth is an example.
The industrial revolution started dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in radical excess of previous levels. There were various buffering mechanisms in place which prevented the effects from being felt for much of the past 150 years. One such mechanism is the oceans.
As the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increases, some of it gets absorbed into the oceans. The reaction looks like this:
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 = H+ + HCO3-
The middle section is carbonic acid, which is what gives soda its fizz, and why old soda tastes watered-down – the reaction moves from the center to the left, giving off CO2 and leaving water behind.
But that “acid” in the name should trigger an alarm bell. As more CO2 get pushed in from the left, more hydrogen atoms (H+’s) get pushed out the right side. Which means that the more CO2 we put into the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans get. That’s a bit of a problem.
First of all, it’s only a buffer. It won’t continue to absorb CO2 indefinitely.
Second, the acidification has other effects. If you drop acid on limestone, (formula CaCO3, notice how similar that is above), it bubbles off CO2 too. Limestone is made of the compressed and crushed shells of plankton, the little floating photosynthetic things that make up the base of the marine food chain. So if we follow this chain, it means that the acid in the water starts breaking down the shells of the living plankton, which understandably would have some detrimental effects on their survival.
So the plankton start dying off, which causes the higher levels of the marine food chain to starve. As if we’re not already having enough problems with collapsing fisheries. They are also a very large carbon sink, and their mass death releases even more CO2 into the atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect continues to spiral and escalate.
Furthermore, since they’re not photosynthesizing anymore, they’re not producing oxygen anymore. And phytoplankton produce fully half of the oxygen we breathe.
So next we turn to the arctic permafrost. Or what’s left of it, anyway. All of the organic matter buried in the frozen peat bogs in Siberia and Canada has been fermenting (because of a lack of oxygen), and the resulting methane has been building up. The bubbles haven’t been able to move and escape, because the ground has been frozen. Until recently. Now that the permafrost is thawing, the methane is being released, and the bitch of it is that each molecule of methane contributes to the greenhouse effect 20 times as much as CO2 does.
Another quick chemistry lesson: If a gas molecule in the atmosphere is composed of three or more atoms, it contributes to the greenhouse effect. Nitrogen and oxygen gases, which compose over 98% of the atmosphere, are composed of two atoms each (N2 and O2), and are not greenhouse gases. CO2 consists of two oxygen atoms and a carbon, and is a greenhouse gas. Methane is composed of five atoms, a carbon and four hydrogens (CH4).
And now trending into a meteorology lesson: Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas (H2O), and the amount of water the air can hold is only going to increase as temperature does. That’s why they always talk about relative humidity, because it’s a sliding scale based on the air temperature at the time. That’s also where “dewpoint” comes from – given so much (total) water in the air, how cold does it have to get before the air is saturated, and starts condensing on the ground as dew? So there’s another positive feedback loop.
Now let’s go to another methane source – the deep oceans. Just like in the frozen peat bogs, methane is accumulating, some dissolved in the water, some frozen in pockets buried deep below the ocean floor, and some frozen in the superficial sediments along the edge of the continental shelf. As the oceans warm, the ice gets slushy and starts shifting under the weight of the sediments on top of it. Along the edge of the continental shelf, especially, it can trigger mudslides which will then release that methane into the atmosphere.
This isn’t just what-if thinking, either. It’s happened before, which means it can happen again. This kind of methane release now appears to be the major (immediate) cause of the Permian extinctions around 251 million years ago.
And as that methane oxidized to CO2 (absorbing oxygen in the process), it may have dropped the ambient oxygen concentration from its previous high of 35% down to 12%. Add to that the absence of photosynthetic plankton, and we're in serious trouble. According to that linked Science Daily article above, 16% atmospheric oxygen is like being at 14,000 feet above sea level, and will seriously impede your athletic program. Humans will suffocate at 15%.
So now we come to albedo. Ice reflects up to 90% of incident sunlight, only absorbing 10%. Water, on the other hand, absorbs over 90%, and bare soil and rock aren’t much better. As the ice melts, leaving water and glacier-scoured land behind, less sunlight will be reflected back up into space and more will be absorbed, thus heating the surface more.
And it’s not like stopping global warming today will stop these problems, either. If you drop an ice cube in a room-temperature glass of water, it doesn’t disappear immediately. It takes a while for it to melt completely, even if the glass itself is insulated completely from its surroundings. The melting in Antarctica, Greenland, and the few remaining glaciers around the rest of the world won’t stop immediately; we've heated the glass too much.
But once again, the problem isn’t any one of these alone, it’s all of them in combination. The more ice melts, the more albedo increases, which causes more ice to melt. The more air temperature increases, the more methane is released, which makes more ice melt. The more CO2 we dump into the air, the weaker plankton get, and the more CO2 they release, further increasing the greenhouse effect.
These positive feedback loops, once they get going, are very difficult to stop, because they continually feed themselves until they eventually hit some critical mass or run out of resources and are forcibly shut down. The environmental geeks who know more about this than I do have been talking about “tipping points”, that invisible transition where we’ve pushed things too far and they take off on their own, without any further input from us, and all we can do is watch. Apparently, we’ve already passed it, sooner than most predictions had placed it. And note that these articles are now nearly two years old. Here’s another article, only a little over a year old, that talks about all of the various identified tipping points.
I’ve been believing that it was still possible to stop that kind of runaway-train climate change. Not necessarily feasible, but possible. I thought we had more time before we passed the tipping point. It really wasn’t until finding all the links for this post that I discovered that we passed it two years ago. I really can’t describe how that makes me feel, aside from being a further kick in the ass to get my act together and get the hell out while I still can.
The big problem with climate change isn’t any of these things in isolation. The problem is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. There are many feedback loops that have already been started in motion, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about here.
But first, a bit of vocabulary. A “negative feedback loop” has nothing to do with a subjective analysis of its quality, but rather is one that negates itself, that is self-correcting, returning to equilibrium. There are many of these in normal body functioning, for instance blood sugar regulation, body temperature regulation, and water and salt conservation. On the other hand, a “positive feedback loop” increases its own output, rather than cancelling; population growth is an example.
The industrial revolution started dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in radical excess of previous levels. There were various buffering mechanisms in place which prevented the effects from being felt for much of the past 150 years. One such mechanism is the oceans.
As the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increases, some of it gets absorbed into the oceans. The reaction looks like this:
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 = H+ + HCO3-
The middle section is carbonic acid, which is what gives soda its fizz, and why old soda tastes watered-down – the reaction moves from the center to the left, giving off CO2 and leaving water behind.
But that “acid” in the name should trigger an alarm bell. As more CO2 get pushed in from the left, more hydrogen atoms (H+’s) get pushed out the right side. Which means that the more CO2 we put into the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans get. That’s a bit of a problem.
First of all, it’s only a buffer. It won’t continue to absorb CO2 indefinitely.
Second, the acidification has other effects. If you drop acid on limestone, (formula CaCO3, notice how similar that is above), it bubbles off CO2 too. Limestone is made of the compressed and crushed shells of plankton, the little floating photosynthetic things that make up the base of the marine food chain. So if we follow this chain, it means that the acid in the water starts breaking down the shells of the living plankton, which understandably would have some detrimental effects on their survival.
So the plankton start dying off, which causes the higher levels of the marine food chain to starve. As if we’re not already having enough problems with collapsing fisheries. They are also a very large carbon sink, and their mass death releases even more CO2 into the atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect continues to spiral and escalate.
Furthermore, since they’re not photosynthesizing anymore, they’re not producing oxygen anymore. And phytoplankton produce fully half of the oxygen we breathe.
So next we turn to the arctic permafrost. Or what’s left of it, anyway. All of the organic matter buried in the frozen peat bogs in Siberia and Canada has been fermenting (because of a lack of oxygen), and the resulting methane has been building up. The bubbles haven’t been able to move and escape, because the ground has been frozen. Until recently. Now that the permafrost is thawing, the methane is being released, and the bitch of it is that each molecule of methane contributes to the greenhouse effect 20 times as much as CO2 does.
Another quick chemistry lesson: If a gas molecule in the atmosphere is composed of three or more atoms, it contributes to the greenhouse effect. Nitrogen and oxygen gases, which compose over 98% of the atmosphere, are composed of two atoms each (N2 and O2), and are not greenhouse gases. CO2 consists of two oxygen atoms and a carbon, and is a greenhouse gas. Methane is composed of five atoms, a carbon and four hydrogens (CH4).
And now trending into a meteorology lesson: Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas (H2O), and the amount of water the air can hold is only going to increase as temperature does. That’s why they always talk about relative humidity, because it’s a sliding scale based on the air temperature at the time. That’s also where “dewpoint” comes from – given so much (total) water in the air, how cold does it have to get before the air is saturated, and starts condensing on the ground as dew? So there’s another positive feedback loop.
Now let’s go to another methane source – the deep oceans. Just like in the frozen peat bogs, methane is accumulating, some dissolved in the water, some frozen in pockets buried deep below the ocean floor, and some frozen in the superficial sediments along the edge of the continental shelf. As the oceans warm, the ice gets slushy and starts shifting under the weight of the sediments on top of it. Along the edge of the continental shelf, especially, it can trigger mudslides which will then release that methane into the atmosphere.
This isn’t just what-if thinking, either. It’s happened before, which means it can happen again. This kind of methane release now appears to be the major (immediate) cause of the Permian extinctions around 251 million years ago.
And as that methane oxidized to CO2 (absorbing oxygen in the process), it may have dropped the ambient oxygen concentration from its previous high of 35% down to 12%. Add to that the absence of photosynthetic plankton, and we're in serious trouble. According to that linked Science Daily article above, 16% atmospheric oxygen is like being at 14,000 feet above sea level, and will seriously impede your athletic program. Humans will suffocate at 15%.
So now we come to albedo. Ice reflects up to 90% of incident sunlight, only absorbing 10%. Water, on the other hand, absorbs over 90%, and bare soil and rock aren’t much better. As the ice melts, leaving water and glacier-scoured land behind, less sunlight will be reflected back up into space and more will be absorbed, thus heating the surface more.
And it’s not like stopping global warming today will stop these problems, either. If you drop an ice cube in a room-temperature glass of water, it doesn’t disappear immediately. It takes a while for it to melt completely, even if the glass itself is insulated completely from its surroundings. The melting in Antarctica, Greenland, and the few remaining glaciers around the rest of the world won’t stop immediately; we've heated the glass too much.
But once again, the problem isn’t any one of these alone, it’s all of them in combination. The more ice melts, the more albedo increases, which causes more ice to melt. The more air temperature increases, the more methane is released, which makes more ice melt. The more CO2 we dump into the air, the weaker plankton get, and the more CO2 they release, further increasing the greenhouse effect.
These positive feedback loops, once they get going, are very difficult to stop, because they continually feed themselves until they eventually hit some critical mass or run out of resources and are forcibly shut down. The environmental geeks who know more about this than I do have been talking about “tipping points”, that invisible transition where we’ve pushed things too far and they take off on their own, without any further input from us, and all we can do is watch. Apparently, we’ve already passed it, sooner than most predictions had placed it. And note that these articles are now nearly two years old. Here’s another article, only a little over a year old, that talks about all of the various identified tipping points.
I’ve been believing that it was still possible to stop that kind of runaway-train climate change. Not necessarily feasible, but possible. I thought we had more time before we passed the tipping point. It really wasn’t until finding all the links for this post that I discovered that we passed it two years ago. I really can’t describe how that makes me feel, aside from being a further kick in the ass to get my act together and get the hell out while I still can.
04 December 2007
IM conversation
Him: interesting take on the economic collapse
i've been thinking along a lot of these lines recently
Me: and what have you come up with?
Him: for starters, the housing market is going to continue its eventual implosion
the numbers so far are some of the biggest ever seen in terms of foreclosures
which creates a glut of homes the banks own and can't get off the books because no one can afford them
due, mainly in part, to people just being plain stupid and borrowing and spending beyond their means
Me: which is exactly what the culture in general has been telling them to do
Him: yes, and something i generally tend to insulate myself from these days
Me: helps to be largely oblivious to cultural influences too
Him: television being one those big "influences"
this will also lead to further isolation of communities such as the one i live in now, where travel to and from becomes more and more prohibitively expensive
digital goods might see an upsurge, such as e-books, if there is a need for them and adequate access/infrastructure in place already
Me: right, but with shipping costs spiking, that infrastructure will begin to deteriorate
Him: i was thinking more along the lines of ordering a book online and having it delivered by e-mail or stored on a server somewhere else
not that everyone reads books on computer or PDA or tablet, etc.
Me: I'm talking about the decline of computers in general
Him: yeah, physical goods that have to be shipped will be out of the reach of the majority of the populace
this place [Tennessee] right now is a good microcosm of early indicators since it was already economically tipped into the negative
houses have been on the market here for literally years
but i do see this as a good thing in that it does push for more of the mom 'n pop places to produce goods locally since they will be cheaper by comparison
smaller businesses are the backbone of a healthy/healthier economyand here, that is all too apparent now, more smaller businesses have opened up
and more people are turning to them because of the cost differential
not like it's a bad thing, it's all in how you look at it
Me: no, it's definitely a step in the right direction
Him: we had an economy shift a few years ago, most people didn't notice (service-based economy), but now we're shifting back into something that was here further back, and i don't think it's so bad because it makes us more self-reliant
Me: and will help reduce the impact felt as more things collpase
Him: yep
there will be pockets and areas around the country that won't feel it as much if at all
because they adapted to weather it out
the service-based economy was not a well thought-out one in my opinion
basically we stop manufacturing things and just go to servicing things/people
and most employees of a service industry are paid lower wages
it only benefits those on the top of the large corporations
i kept thinking to myself, while that term was being floated around, "So....if all we're doing is servicing, then who makes the shit?"
Me: there will always be a need for "services rendered", but yeah, production is much more necessary
Him: i thought it was insane to think that we could shift our entire economy over to just being service-oriented
instead of trying to compete with other nations that were reaching at least a moderate level of manufacturing capability next to ours
instead we tucked tail and said, "We give up."
at any rate, we collectively have only ourselves to blame for this
if there is any blame to be had
does it really matter who's fault it is at this point when the problem is here, and it can conceivably be fixed
as long as we know where the true root of the problem lies
people would have to shift their way of thinking to something more long term, instead of the instant gratification mode
i've been thinking along a lot of these lines recently
Me: and what have you come up with?
Him: for starters, the housing market is going to continue its eventual implosion
the numbers so far are some of the biggest ever seen in terms of foreclosures
which creates a glut of homes the banks own and can't get off the books because no one can afford them
due, mainly in part, to people just being plain stupid and borrowing and spending beyond their means
Me: which is exactly what the culture in general has been telling them to do
Him: yes, and something i generally tend to insulate myself from these days
Me: helps to be largely oblivious to cultural influences too
Him: television being one those big "influences"
this will also lead to further isolation of communities such as the one i live in now, where travel to and from becomes more and more prohibitively expensive
digital goods might see an upsurge, such as e-books, if there is a need for them and adequate access/infrastructure in place already
Me: right, but with shipping costs spiking, that infrastructure will begin to deteriorate
Him: i was thinking more along the lines of ordering a book online and having it delivered by e-mail or stored on a server somewhere else
not that everyone reads books on computer or PDA or tablet, etc.
Me: I'm talking about the decline of computers in general
Him: yeah, physical goods that have to be shipped will be out of the reach of the majority of the populace
this place [Tennessee] right now is a good microcosm of early indicators since it was already economically tipped into the negative
houses have been on the market here for literally years
but i do see this as a good thing in that it does push for more of the mom 'n pop places to produce goods locally since they will be cheaper by comparison
smaller businesses are the backbone of a healthy/healthier economyand here, that is all too apparent now, more smaller businesses have opened up
and more people are turning to them because of the cost differential
not like it's a bad thing, it's all in how you look at it
Me: no, it's definitely a step in the right direction
Him: we had an economy shift a few years ago, most people didn't notice (service-based economy), but now we're shifting back into something that was here further back, and i don't think it's so bad because it makes us more self-reliant
Me: and will help reduce the impact felt as more things collpase
Him: yep
there will be pockets and areas around the country that won't feel it as much if at all
because they adapted to weather it out
the service-based economy was not a well thought-out one in my opinion
basically we stop manufacturing things and just go to servicing things/people
and most employees of a service industry are paid lower wages
it only benefits those on the top of the large corporations
i kept thinking to myself, while that term was being floated around, "So....if all we're doing is servicing, then who makes the shit?"
Me: there will always be a need for "services rendered", but yeah, production is much more necessary
Him: i thought it was insane to think that we could shift our entire economy over to just being service-oriented
instead of trying to compete with other nations that were reaching at least a moderate level of manufacturing capability next to ours
instead we tucked tail and said, "We give up."
at any rate, we collectively have only ourselves to blame for this
if there is any blame to be had
does it really matter who's fault it is at this point when the problem is here, and it can conceivably be fixed
as long as we know where the true root of the problem lies
people would have to shift their way of thinking to something more long term, instead of the instant gratification mode
Economic ramblings
The economy is collapsing because it needs continuous outward growth, perpetual further development to be “healthy”. In most business, they’ll tell you that a cessation of growth is the same as a loss. A failure to make money is the same as losing money, which means that apparently there’s no such thing as breaking even. (Businesses have apparently reverted to the Roman system of numbers, where the concept of zero does not exist – that was the major impetus for switching from the Roman numeral system to the Arabic numerals we use now.)
With the foreclosure rate skyrocketing, and more and more people having less and less money (due in no small part to the ever-increasing cost of oil), we’re obviously headed for a recession at best, likely worse. And there’s only so far that the Fed can trim interest rates.
Side note: For those even more clueless than me, every time the Federal Reserve Board, cuts the prime interest rate lower, what they’re actually doing is trying to encourage people to borrow money from banks. That’s what that interest rate refers to, what you pay the bank on a loan you take out from them. The idea goes that if you borrow money, you’ve got more to spend, which will then provide a boost to the economy, by putting more money into circulation, rather than just languishing in a bank’s vaults. Or computers, since money isn’t real anymore anyway, it’s all virtual, it’s all just bits of information in somebody’s computer system. Let’s see how many digressions I can nest together…
Anyway, back to interest rates. There’s only so far down they can go, before that buffer is tapped out. And it appears to be done at this point. This article was written a little over two months ago, and obviously things haven’t gotten that bad, that quickly, but the way things have been going, it’s only a matter of time. And he’s got a much better handle on the large-scale stuff that’s happening now than I do.
According to that, we’re going to see prices of imported goods go through the roof because our money is worthless abroad. Add to that that the cost of actually transporting the junk is climbing, and local goods are going to be more and more affordable.
Over the longer term, as costs of transportation become more and more exorbitant, the Wal-Marts and such will fold, because they won’t be able to ship their junk from China and distribute it to all of their stores cheaply anymore, forcing their prices up and allowing local businesses to be more competitive. And people will have to do something, as those major chains will be closing, meaning a spike in unemployment, and even less money available to spend..
Many fruits are likely to drop in available quantity and quality, because they can’t be produced in the immediate area. Books are likely to become disgustingly expensive, because they all have to be shipped in from their respective publishing houses. As if people really needed less reason to read. Use your imagination.
Another side note: Ron Paul wants to eliminate the IRS, and make government revenue based entirely on a 23% sales tax. The only down side I see to this is all the people who work at the IRS being unceremoniously dumped out of jobs. Also out of work will be everyone at H&R Block and similar companies that are entirely based on doing people’s taxes.
In its favor, the people who have the money to spend will be taxed more than those who don’t. Granted, that means that prices will spike, because of the high tax rate, but paychecks will dramatically increase as well, because you’ll get a hell of a lot more of what you actually earn. It will take a period of adjustment, but I do believe that this will be a good way to prevent the rich from wrangling tax breaks, while the poor get fucked, because they can’t afford people to do their taxes for them.
The other positive aspect I see from that is that it will indirectly contribute to the fall of the major corporations. As prices go up, rather than paying the exorbitant tax on commercial goods, local cottage industries will spring up, based on barter. If you can go to the local farmer’s market or swap meet and trade a bushel of fruit for a blanket, basic staples everyone needs, why would you go to the huge store and pay out the nose for it? Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Pepsi, Starbucks, are all so large and cumbersome that they have to work on cash, for standardization purposes. They won’t be able to stand up to a fleeing customer base who would rather trade with others who are willing to eschew money as well.
With the foreclosure rate skyrocketing, and more and more people having less and less money (due in no small part to the ever-increasing cost of oil), we’re obviously headed for a recession at best, likely worse. And there’s only so far that the Fed can trim interest rates.
Side note: For those even more clueless than me, every time the Federal Reserve Board, cuts the prime interest rate lower, what they’re actually doing is trying to encourage people to borrow money from banks. That’s what that interest rate refers to, what you pay the bank on a loan you take out from them. The idea goes that if you borrow money, you’ve got more to spend, which will then provide a boost to the economy, by putting more money into circulation, rather than just languishing in a bank’s vaults. Or computers, since money isn’t real anymore anyway, it’s all virtual, it’s all just bits of information in somebody’s computer system. Let’s see how many digressions I can nest together…
Anyway, back to interest rates. There’s only so far down they can go, before that buffer is tapped out. And it appears to be done at this point. This article was written a little over two months ago, and obviously things haven’t gotten that bad, that quickly, but the way things have been going, it’s only a matter of time. And he’s got a much better handle on the large-scale stuff that’s happening now than I do.
According to that, we’re going to see prices of imported goods go through the roof because our money is worthless abroad. Add to that that the cost of actually transporting the junk is climbing, and local goods are going to be more and more affordable.
Over the longer term, as costs of transportation become more and more exorbitant, the Wal-Marts and such will fold, because they won’t be able to ship their junk from China and distribute it to all of their stores cheaply anymore, forcing their prices up and allowing local businesses to be more competitive. And people will have to do something, as those major chains will be closing, meaning a spike in unemployment, and even less money available to spend..
Many fruits are likely to drop in available quantity and quality, because they can’t be produced in the immediate area. Books are likely to become disgustingly expensive, because they all have to be shipped in from their respective publishing houses. As if people really needed less reason to read. Use your imagination.
Another side note: Ron Paul wants to eliminate the IRS, and make government revenue based entirely on a 23% sales tax. The only down side I see to this is all the people who work at the IRS being unceremoniously dumped out of jobs. Also out of work will be everyone at H&R Block and similar companies that are entirely based on doing people’s taxes.
In its favor, the people who have the money to spend will be taxed more than those who don’t. Granted, that means that prices will spike, because of the high tax rate, but paychecks will dramatically increase as well, because you’ll get a hell of a lot more of what you actually earn. It will take a period of adjustment, but I do believe that this will be a good way to prevent the rich from wrangling tax breaks, while the poor get fucked, because they can’t afford people to do their taxes for them.
The other positive aspect I see from that is that it will indirectly contribute to the fall of the major corporations. As prices go up, rather than paying the exorbitant tax on commercial goods, local cottage industries will spring up, based on barter. If you can go to the local farmer’s market or swap meet and trade a bushel of fruit for a blanket, basic staples everyone needs, why would you go to the huge store and pay out the nose for it? Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Pepsi, Starbucks, are all so large and cumbersome that they have to work on cash, for standardization purposes. They won’t be able to stand up to a fleeing customer base who would rather trade with others who are willing to eschew money as well.
03 December 2007
Greens vs. Garrisons
Probably the best summary of this article is one line near the end, "solving real problems is hard, but turning a profit from those problems is easy."
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