Western neoliberal economies are on the brink of a steep economic decline. Barring an energy / productivity miracle a prolonged and deep recession is clearly on the horizon. While mainstream pundits keep “informing” the public how GDP was actually growing in the past decades (except for a few brief moments), and how the G7 is still the top economic power block, the real economy of goods and services tells a completely different story. Growth — in the sense of real economic output — has stopped 18 years ago in the West, and conditions are now ripe for a rapid contraction. A sobering assessment of the real economy — in which your humble blogger is still actively involved — has become due. Buckle up.
As long time readers might already know by heart: money is not the economy, energy is. Money is but a claim on energy and resources. Everything we mine, grow, manufacture and consume takes energy to produce. No energy, no production, no services. The more we produce / consume the more energy is used up. And while it may seem like that rich countries have somehow decoupled their economies from energy use (ie managed to grow GDP much faster than energy consumption), in fact the opposite is true. All they did was send their high energy intensity manufacturing and mining abroad, then imported all they needed using their overvalued currencies, thus becoming more independent on foreign trade than ever.
The public, together with it’s ruling elite, was led down the primrose path with GDP, and now a reckoning is in short order.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
