Very impressed to find Jancovici here. I've been watching his intervention for 6 months and I found he has one of the most rational approach to our coming world. It is bleak but not desperate, although his main message is : technology/economy (based on our consumption of fossil fuel) will not have time to catch up on the coming catastrophies and the inevitable pic oil.
We have shaped the world to our convenience now we have to adapt to it and the illusion of infinite resource needs to end or it will end us.
What is energy, actually? (2011)
101–110 of 286 posts
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because each year the economy is still adding its GDP even if it is not growing Er .. "economic growth" and "increasing GDP" are usually considered to be synonyms? Do you have alternative definitions?
I believe they may be referring to the idea that not everything is consumed in the year it’s produced. Infrastructure, for example, is useful years or even decades after it is built (and, presumably, counted in GDP).
To make it concrete, if there are two people in the economy: Alice and Bob. The only products that are exchanged is clothes and shoes. Every year, Alice sells 100 Galleons of shoes to Bob and Bob sells 100 Galleons of clothes to Alice. So the GDP of their economy is 200 Galleons. But assuming that shoes and clothes don't decay in one year, Alice and Bob will become wealthier and wealthier in apparel every year.
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#103Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…
I could reply to any of the many plain wrong comments but let's consider this one:
> Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth
Greedy corporations make more stuff to increase profits although people don't really need or want it.
But with all those unsold products and undelivered services, how on earth do greedy corporations make money? Maybe people actually need that stuff or simply want it for $reasons?
> The end result is a sort of "Red Queen" effect where everyone is forced to compete harder and harder just to maintain his/her existing standard of living.
That isn't true. First, no one is "forced". Only the government can force you to do something even on your own property or on your free time. If you have a problem with that you should be anti-state (or at least anti-tax, so that government doesn't need to collect tax or doesn't have resources to come up with schemas for, and means of, coercion). Second, the value of money is eroded by state-controlled central banks, not greedy corporations.
> We know that the more extreme a competition becomes, the more ruthless the participants become, often to the point of acting immorally.
If they wrong you, you can sue them (assuming the government doesn't indirectly or directly participate in the scam). Also "immoral" isn't necessarily against the law. Look into the actual violation and if it is illegal, consider why is can go unpunished (say, the silent theft of workers' savings though the expert-recommended 2% inflation rate).
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because each year the economy is still adding its GDP even if it is not growing Er .. "economic growth" and "increasing GDP" are usually considered to be synonyms? Do you have alternative definitions?
If your GDP is $100 billion and your growth rate is 0%, you're still adding $100 billion to the economy every year (assuming that not all wealth is not consumed within the same year).
Do you know if your assumption is true? GDP ignores depreciation/destruction.
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#105I calculated that I use 3000kwh per year (only direct electricity+gas) If everyone use such amounts there were no global warming. But humans always have not enough stuff...
House hold energy use is pretty much insignificant except in locations where the AC runs all day.
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#106That's easy to say from the First World, where they already traded our (global) environment for (local) gains. But what are the people in poor countries supposed to do? Just stay poor forever?
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#107Why do we need public companies?
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Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inflation is already almost zero in much of the West. People demand growth because they want to get richer, regardless of the prevailing conditions. I would also like to point out that if there were to be no growth and no inflation (edit: and a static population level!), then the only way to add a dollar to your pile is to permanently make someone else a dollar poorer. That seems likely to accelerate the lethality of…
No it really is not. CPI-U is manipulated to make it seem like inflation is almost at zero therefore limiting the cost of living increases for SocSec and other government programs. So instead of having a 2% CPI, we actually have closer to 9% It also allows companies cover for Wage Compression because many employers base at least part of annual raises on "Cost of living Adjustments" so if the government is saying Infl…
Question is whether you deserve salary gains to cover financial inflation, or if price cuts did to technology advancements are good enough.
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would also like to point out that if there were to be no growth and no inflation (edit: and a static population level!), then the only way to add a dollar to your pile is to permanently make someone else a dollar poorer. That's fine when wealth distribution is "the 0.01% owns 80% of the wealth". Plenty of dollars to go around...
How real is that wealth? Tesla is worth billions, it hasn’t ever had a profitable year. The more I learn about how money works, the more I think of it as a convenient work of fiction — and worse, one that means fundamentally differently things to normal and super-rich.
It’s real, but it doesn’t always take the form of dollars (probably the most popular misconception). Warren Buffet is a billionaire, but most of that wealth is locked up in businesses that are producing products. If he really wanted all of that cash, he’d have to find a buyer or liquidate those businesses (probably at a loss).
Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)
#110Why do we need public companies?
I'd more ask why we need corporate charters sponsored and endorsed by the government. They solely exist to exonerate private persons from responsibility for harm done.