Hot Money
I watched the new documentary Hot Money by Susan Kucera tonight.
An intelligent world-wise father (General Wesley Clark) and his son discuss some of the problems we face with many smart participants. I don’t think they interviewed a single idiot, which was refreshing.
They know something is seriously wrong and make an honest attempt to connect the dots. They come tantalizingly close to a complete picture of reality, but miss the all important overshoot drivers of over population and declining returns from non-renewable energy.
Which of course means they understand everything, except what matters.
Nevertheless, Hot Money is excellent and worth watching because it has a lot of intelligent substance.
I also think it indicates a growing mainstream awareness of how close we are to collapsing, and I suspect herd awareness (coupled with denial of the real causes) may be the trigger.
Some of the important points made:
- the financial system is a bomb waiting to explode, climate change may be the trigger
- climate change is real and very serious
- droughts, floods, and fires are a big problem now
- it now takes more than 3 dollars of debt to create 1 dollar of growth, it used to take less than 1 dollar of debt to create 1 dollar of growth
- farmers are struggling and failing due to climate change, debt, high input costs, and low crop prices
- real incomes and living standards are falling despite lower taxes than the 50’s
- some young couples are not having children because they see a terrible future
- it was much easier to make a profit in the good old days, doubly so if you were early enough to steal land from the aboriginals
- companies now invest more money in stock buy-backs than R&D
- there is no such thing as trickle down economics
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
