Ruling the World of Money
Ruling the World of Money Ten times a year— once a mouth except in August and October— a small elite of well dressed men arrives in Basel, Switzerland. Carrying overnight bags and attache cases, they discreetly check into the Euler Hotel, across from the railroad station. They have come to this sleepy city from places […]
3 Reasons Why 2022 Will Be Unforgettable
3 Reasons Why 2022 Will Be Unforgettable Photo by Milan Seitler After the crazy year we’ve just had, one good question to ponder for a moment is: What does the U.S. economy look like as we head into next year? To answer that, this article will examine three sectors by looking at economic activity (including Wall Street), […]
Russia Advises NATO to (Finally) Honor Its ‘Not One Inch Eastward’ Pledge
Russia Advises NATO to (Finally) Honor Its ‘Not One Inch Eastward’ Pledge Unlike in 1990, Russia has many options left to itself if NATO ignores its proposal for peace and continues to advance on the former Soviet space. As NATO continues its mission creep inexorably towards the Russian border, Moscow issued a security proposal to […]
Inflation Is a Policy That Cannot Last
Inflation Is a Policy That Cannot Last Are we heading toward a Fed policy that fixes inflation at a permanent rate of five to six percent? We could be. But inflation is a policy that cannot last. We’re currently experiencing a massive wave of price inflation. This should come as no surprise. The Fed has increased […]
The Fed’s Catch-22 Taper Is A Weapon, Not A Policy Error
The Fed’s Catch-22 Taper Is A Weapon, Not A Policy Error Back in 2018 leading up to Christmas the Federal Reserve began publicly flirting with the notion of ending asset purchases, reducing their balance sheet and committing to an all around taper of stimulus. I wrote about it extensively at the time along with my […]
The Sovereign Debt Crisis Arrives
The Sovereign Debt Crisis Arrives While the world is turning, the economic crisis emanating from the SovereignDebt Crisis in Europe is propelling a very serious outlook as we head into 2022. I have been warning for the past 10 years that the situation would become critical. I have attended meetings with many central banks over […]
Chaos and the Triumph of Survival
CHAOS AND THE TRIUMPH OF SURVIVAL One of the most horrifying works of art is Bruegel’s “The Triumph of Death” painted in 1562. The painting depicts the end of life on earth. I sincerely hope that this is not what the world will literally look like in the next decade or two but metaphorically this is not […]
Rolling Blackouts Spread Across Europe Amid Energy Crisis
Rolling Blackouts Spread Across Europe Amid Energy Crisis Europe’s energy crisis worsened this week when Kosovo introduced rolling blackouts to most of its two million citizens, according to Bloomberg. On Thursday, the Kosovo Energy Distribution Services (KEDS) announced rolling two-hour power blackouts for 2 million people due to an “overload” of its electrical grid. KEDS asked […]
Everything Going Great
Everything Going Great Bad Faith, Worse News, and Julian Assange Gospel, a word from Old English, is a compound that means “good news.” And it’s gospel that’s been in short-supply as we head into the Christmas season. Whenever this fact gets me down, I remember that finding evil, malfeasance, and even suffering in the headlines […]
The hidden recession of 2020
The hidden recession of 2020 After 20 months of economy-wrecking lockdowns and restrictions, 2019 is fondly remembered as a period of prosperous calm. Memories though, are deceptive. And in the days before we learned what gain-of-function meant, things were not as rosy as they now seem. Although the decade 2009-2019 was officially one of the […]
Blueprints for impossible futures
Blueprints for impossible futures “A People’s Green New Deal” demands a different kind of impossible Over the past two decades, a proliferation of “Green New Deal” literature has promoted various strategies for changing the structure of the global energy system to combat climate change. While the term was first coined by the neoliberal economist Thomas Friedman, […]
Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice
Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice The Post Growth Entrepreneurship Incubator helps founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable non-extractive practices. Annie Spratt via Unsplash Melanie Rieback is the founder of the Post Growth Entrepreneurship (PGE) Incubator, Nonprofit Ventures, as well as her own successful post growth business, Radically Open Security (ROS). We sat down with […]
Tim Merges the Worst Climate News in History with Epic Images
Tim Merges the Worst Climate News in History with Epic Images “Climate change is one of a host of environmental ills for which technological solutions are being proposed. In fact, most of the proposed solutions exacerbate environmental ills in other dimensions such as species loss and mass extinction. This tendency of technological reasoning to ‘bleed’ from […]
Science, Forests, Bears, and Clouds
Science, Forests, Bears, and Clouds Last night at sunset, a big chill, dark red clouds to the west. And the half moon, above the black cypress trees to the right, silhouetted against the fire of the dying sun. Below Bellosguardo, that silent little wall where sometimes a black cat walks, and to the left you can […]
The Selling of Degrowth
Shutterstock THE “SELLING” OF DEGROWTH Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it’s too late? Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and ecologists have argued that economic growth has long outstripped the capacity of the planetary ecosystem. They have developed numerous sophisticated models […]
