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Localisation: A strategic solution to globalised authoritarianism

April 9, 2019

Ladakhi girls. Photo credit: Helena Norberg-Hodge

Localisation: A strategic solution to globalised authoritarianism

For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the past few years is deeply worrying. It has us asking ourselves, how did this happen? How did populism turn into such a divisive and destructive force? How did authoritarianism take over the political scene once again?

From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialised and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalisation. When I say globalisation, I mean the global economic system in which most of us now live – a system driven by continual corporate deregulation and shaped by neoliberal, capitalist ideologies. But globalisation goes deeper than politics and the economy. It has profoundly personal impacts.

Under globalisation, competition has increased dramatically, job security has become a thing of the past, and most people find it increasingly difficult to earn a liveable wage. At the same time, identity is under threat as cultural diversity is replaced by a consumer monoculture worldwide. Under these conditions it’s not surprising that people become increasingly insecure.

As advertisers know from nearly a century of experience, insecurity leaves people easier to exploit. But people today are targeted by more than just marketing campaigns for deodorants and tooth polish: insecurity leaves them highly vulnerable to propaganda that encourages them to blame the cultural “other” for their plight.

Let me illustrate how this happened in Ladakh, or Little Tibet, where I first visited as a young woman and where I have worked for over four decades. Situated in the Indian Himalayas, Ladakh was relatively isolated—culturally and economically—until the late 1960s. When I arrived in the early 70s, a campaign of Western-style development had just been launched by the Indian government — giving me the opportunity to experience what still remained of the ancient culture, and to observe the changes that came with modernisation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Globalization is the Demise of Humanity”: Towards an “Economy of Peace” with an Alternative Monetary System

January 20, 2019

“Globalization is the Demise of Humanity”: Towards an “Economy of Peace” with an Alternative Monetary System

Globalisation is the demise of humanity. That being said, if we want peace, solidarity, harmonious cohabitation, justice and equality – we have to defeat globalisation. And to be able to defeat it, countries which strive to take back autonomy and sovereignty may want to move away from the oppressive fist of the west.

BREXIT offers Europe and the world a formidable opportunity to break loose from the rigged, dollar-based fiat monetary system. BREXIT opens the door for other European Union (EU) nations to do likewise. Different polls indicate that between 60% and 80% of all EU citizens are fed up with the corrupt EU, wanting to leave. In France, whose Mr. Hollande has reached the attribute of least popular President of all times and who is openly called a traitor of the people, a recent survey says more than 85% of the French are against the EU.

Europeans are also worried about the gradual but steady integration of the EU with NATO. A militarisation of Europe with a US-led war machine moving ever closer towards Moscow is a strong and present danger for WWIII – meaning Europe may become again the theatre of war and destruction the third time in 100 years. Encircling China with two thirds of the US Navy fleet in the South China Sea, provoking territorial conflicts via the Philippines, a former colony and a US vassal; and presenting a constant menace with uncountable military bases in the area, all the way to Australia, are no signs of peaceful cooperation by Washington.

Bringing down the EU would break up the Euro and may also break up NATO. This, of course, is non-coherent with Washington’s hold on power over Europe and aggression against Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Biggest Monetary Experiments In History: Part 2

June 29, 2018

The Biggest Monetary Experiments In History: Part 2

In part one we discussed the troubling issues in Europe (in case you missed it, you can read it here).

Today… Japan

The story of Japan is really a story that begins with globalisation.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, globalisation is described as:

“The process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.”

It is, in a nutshell, international trade, and one of the things it’s done is add huge swathes of the global workforce to the world’s economy.

I bring up globalisation because of what it’s done to the global labour supply.

Realise this labour supply wasn’t Joe-middle-class-Sixpack with a Beemer, a two story house in the suburbs, and a white picket fence.

When most people think of this workforce, they picture small brown people in shabby clothes toiling in sweatshops in China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.

And by and large that’s it.

We’re not talking about Joe Sixpack. No, this was Amit in Bangladesh with 45 kids, working 29 hours a day, and paid the equivalent of a Happy Meal at Mackers.

And when we got such a massive disparity in costs, market forces went to work and did what market forces do.

The supply of goods produced exploded, and the cost of labour on a relative global basis fell.

I guess we could call this a labour supply shock, and what this did was it helped keep wages suppressed in developed markets while those in developing markets rose. This is how Amit raised his living standard so he can afford his 5th wife.

Now, the flip side of suppressed wages in the developed world was, of course, ever cheaper imported goods as the cost of those has plummeted. Declining real wages in the developed world have been cushioned by deflation in consumer goods.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What’s Wrong with the Economy: 9 Toxic Dynamics

June 13, 2018

What’s Wrong with the Economy: 9 Toxic Dynamics

These nine dynamics are mutually reinforcing.

Beneath the surface signals of an eternally rising stock market and expanding GDP, we all sense something is deeply, systemically wrong with the U.S. economy. These nine structural dynamics generate secondary dynamics, all of which are toxic to social mobility, sustainable prosperity, accountability and democracy:

1. The financialization of the economy, which transformed services, credit, risk and labor into commodities that could be traded globally. Financialization generates enormously asymmetric returns: those with access to low-cost credit, global markets and expertise in finance collect the lion’s share of gains in income and wealth.

2. The technological transformation of the economy, which has placed a substantial scarcity premium on specific tech/managerial/communication skills and devalued ordinary labor and capital. As a result, the majority of gains in wealth and income flow to those with the scarce skills and forms of capital, leaving little for ordinary labor and capital.

3. The end of cheap fossil fuels. The fracking boom/bubble has obscured the long-term secular trend: the depletion of cheap-to-access and process oil. As many analysts have observed (Nate Hagens, Gail Tverberg, Richard Heinberg, Chris Martenson et al.), the global economy only grows if energy and credit are both cheap.

4. Globalization, which transformed the developing world into the environmental dumping ground of the wealthy nations and enabled the owners of capital to offshore waste and labor.

5. The destructive consequences of “growth at any cost” are piling up. “Growth” is the one constant of all existing political-economic systems, and none of the current Modes of Production (i.e. the structures that organize production, consumption, the economy and society) recognize that “growth” is not sustainable.

The first two dynamics drive three other dynamics that have hollowed out the productive economy:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The massive hidden costs of the fossil fuel system

May 31, 2018

The massive hidden costs of the fossil fuel system

Two stumbling blocks on the road to regeneration: externalities and subsidies

The prevailing opinion among today’s political and economic elites is that economic globalisation is in some sense inevitable, perhaps even the summit of human achievement. The oft-repeated mantra is that ‘there is no alternative’ and we should adapt to it as best we can.

Rather than being inevitable, economic globalisation is, in fact, the result of a number of carefully chosen policies. Paradoxically, as we shall see, many of these directly contradict the basic tenets of classical free market economic theory, from which the proponents of economic globalisation draw much of their inspiration and authority.

By understanding the key reasons why the global economy behaves as it does today, we will be in a better position to discern the core patterns underlying economic behaviour and, if we choose, to change them. Two key drivers of today’s global economy are externalities and subsidies.

These two factors heavily skew market prices in favour of large-scale industrial goods and services and against small-scale and locally-based economies. These two drivers are further reinforced by the type of money systems that are dominant in today’s global economy that create a structurally dysfunctional growth imperative and wealth disparities with devastating impacts on health, social cohesion, as well as, national and international security. Kenny Ausubel, co-founder of Bioneers, has put it succinctly:

“The world is suffering from the perverse incentives of ‘unnatural capitalism’. When people say ‘free market’, I ask if free is a verb. We don’t have a free market, but a highly managed and often monopolized market. …we have banks and companies that are ‘too big to fail,’ but in truth are too big not to fail.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sustainability Boils Down to Scale

May 18, 2018

Sustainability Boils Down to Scale

Only small scale systems can sustainably impose “skin in the game”– consequences, accountability and oversight.

Several conversations I had at the recent Peak Prosperity conference in Sonoma, CA sparked an insight into why societies and economies thrive or fail: It All Boils Down to Scale. In a conversation with a Peak Prosperity member who goes by MemeMonkey, MemeMonkey pointed out that social / economic organizations that function well at small scales (i.e. localized) fail when scaled up and centralized (i.e. globalized).

I was immediately struck by the impact of scale on markets (Capitalism) and the state (Socialism), an ideological spectrum I’ve written about recently.

Both markets and governance function well at a small scale because those making the decisions must absorb the consequences of their actions/choices.

In large-scale centralized systems, those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid who wield the greatest influence are typically immune from the consequences of their (self-serving) decisions.

Indeed, the entire point of centralized hierarchies is to buffer top decision-makers from the consequences of their actions and choices.

This ties directly into Nassim Taleb’s most recent popularization of the critical role played by participants having “skin in the game,” i.e. exposure to the consequences of their actions and choices.

In a small localized group, it’s basically impossible for anyone, even those at the top of the local welth-power pyramid, to escape the consequences of extractive activities that disupt the local ecosystem.

For example, should overfishing destroy the local fisheries, even the leaders no longer have access to fish.

Should the leadership pursue a conflict with a neighboring tribe, the leaders are just as likely to be killed or maimed as any participant (and very possibly more likely to be killed/injured, as leaders are naturally high-value targets).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Geopolitics, Globalization and World Order

December 24, 2016

Geopolitics, Globalization and World Order

Understanding the objectives and logic that accompany the expansion of nations or empires is always of paramount importance in helping one draw lessons for the future

In this series of four articles I intend to lay a very detailed but easily understandable foundation for describing the mechanisms that drive great powers. To succeed, one must analyze the geopolitical theories that over more than a century have contributed to shaping the relationship between Washington and other world powers. Secondly, it is important to expound on how Washington’s main geopolitical opponents (China, Russia and Iran) have over the years been arranging a way to put a stop to the intrusive and overbearing actions of Washington. Finally, it is important to take note of the possibly significant changes in American foreign policy doctrine that have been occurring over the last twenty years, especially how the new Trump administration intends to change course by redefining priorities and objectives.

The first analysis will therefore focus on the international order, globalization, geopolitical theories, their translations into modern concepts, and what controlling a country’s sovereignty means.

Before examining geopolitical theories, it is important to understand the effects of globalization and the changing international order it entails, a direct consequences of US strategy that seeks to control every aspect of the economic, political and cultural decisions made by foreign countries, usually applying military means to achieve this objective.

Globalization and the International Order

It is important to first define the international order among nations before and after the collapse of the Berlin wall, especially focusing on the consequences of existing in a globalized world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The Resentment Will Explode” – In Dramatic Twist, McKinsey Slams Globalization

July 14, 2016

“The Resentment Will Explode” – In Dramatic Twist, McKinsey Slams Globalization

Moments ago, in a speech in Washington, IMF head Christine Lagarde said that “The greatest challenge we face today is the risk of the world turning its back on global cooperation—the cooperation which has served us all well. We know that globalization – and increased integration – over the past generation has yielded many economic benefits for many people.”

The IMF is not alone: for years, consultancy giant McKinsey towed the party line as well saying in 2010 that “the core drivers of globalization are alive and well” and adding as recently as 2014 that “to be unconnected is to fall behind.”

That appears have changing, and cracks are starting to form behind the cohesive push for globalization, at least among those who benefit the most from globalization.

In a stunning study released today, one which effectively refutes all its prior conclusions on the matter, McKinsey slams the establishment’s status quo thinking and admits that the economic gains of changes in the global economy have not been widely shared lately, especially in the developed world. In the report titled “Poorer Than Their Parents? Flat or Falling Incomes in Advanced Economies” it finds that prospects for income growth have deteriorated significantly since the financial crisis, and that the benefits from globalization are now over:

This overwhelmingly positive income trend has ended. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, Poorer than their parents? Flat or falling incomes in advanced economies, finds that between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in those same advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, or more than 540 million people (exhibit). And while government transfers and lower tax rates mitigated some of the impact, up to a quarter of all households still saw disposable income stall or fall in that decade.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization

May 14, 2016

The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization

Gordon T. Long and I discuss the failure of the status quo’s “New Normal” in a new 34-minute YouTube program.

It is not possible to coherently discuss the “New Normal” economy without discussing financialization–the substitution of credit expansion and speculation for productive investments in the real economy–and its sibling: globalization.

Globalization is the result of the neoliberal push to lower regulatory barriers to trade and credit in overseas markets. The basic idea is that global trade lowers costs and offers more opportunities for capital to earn profits. This expansion of credit in developing markets creates more employment opportunities for people previously bypassed by the global economy.

Though free trade is often touted as intrinsically positive for both buyers and sellers, in reality trade is rarely free, in the sense of equally powerful participants choosing to trade for mutual benefit. Rather, “free trade” is the public relations banner for the globalization of credit and markets that benefit the powerful and wealthy, not the impoverished.

Financialization and mobile capital exacerbate global imbalances of power and wealth.

Trade is generally thought of as goods being shipped from one nation to another to take advantage of what 18th century economist David Ricardo termed comparative advantage: nations would benefit by exporting whatever they produced efficiently and importing what they did not produce efficiently.

While Ricardo’s concept of free trade is intuitively appealing because it is win-win for importer and exporter, it doesn’t describe the consequences of financialization and the mobility of capital. In a world dominated by mobile capital, mobile capital is the comparative advantage.

The mobility of capital radically alters the simplistic 18th century view of free trade.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Globalization Really Fueling Populism?

May 8, 2016

Is Globalization Really Fueling Populism?

BRUSSELS – On both sides of the Atlantic, populism of the left and the right is on the rise. Its most visible standard-bearer in the United States is Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee. In Europe, there are many strands – from Spain’s leftist Podemos party to France’s right-wing National Front – but all share the same opposition to centrist parties, and to the establishment in general. What accounts for voters’ growing revolt against the status quo?

The prevailing explanation is that rising populism amounts to a rebellion by “globalization’s losers.” By pursuing successive rounds of trade liberalization, the logic goes, leaders in the US and Europe “hollowed out” the domestic manufacturing base, reducing the availability of high-paying jobs for low-skill workers, who now have to choose between protracted unemployment and menial service-sector jobs. Fed up, those workers are now supposedly rejecting establishment parties for having spearheaded this “elite project.”

Central Banking’s Final Frontier?

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This explanation might seem compelling at first. It is true, after all, that globalization has fundamentally transformed economies, sending low-skill jobs to the developing world – a point that populist figures never tire of highlighting.

Moreover, educational attainment correlates strongly with income and labor-market performance. Almost everywhere, those with a university degree are much less likely to be unemployed than those without a secondary education. In Europe, those with a graduate degree are, on average, three times as likely to have a job as those who have not finished secondary school. Among the employed, university-educated workers earn, on the whole, much higher incomes than their less-educated counterparts.

But if these factors account for the rise of populism, they must have somehow intensified in the last few years, with low-skill workers’ circumstances and prospects deteriorating faster vis-à-vis their high-skill counterparts. And that simply is not the case, especially in Europe.

In fact, higher education has provided significant labor-market advantages for a long time. Judging from the available data, the “wage premium” for workers in occupations that require high levels of education has been roughly constant in Europe over the last decade. While it has increased in some countries (Germany and Italy), it has decreased in others (France, Spain, and the United Kingdom). The difference in employment rates of the highly educated and the less educated has also remained relatively constant, with the less educated actually closing the gap slightly in recent years.

A comparison between trends in the US and Europe further weakens the “losers of globalization” argument. The wage premium is substantially larger in the US (300-400%) than in Europe (50-80%). Other labor-market statistics, such as unemployment rates, show a similar pattern, indicating that higher education is more valuable in America’s labor market. Yet the US economy is less open to – and less affected by – trade than the European economy is.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The world industrial system as bacteria in a Petri dish

April 21, 2016

The world industrial system as bacteria in a Petri dish

In a previous post, I speculated that a thermodynamic system such our industrial economy is completely dependent from its “outside”. As it grows and incorporates this “outside”, it is obliged to store high entropy inside itself. Possibly, the epidemic diffusion of riots in the very heart of the global system is an indicator of this predicament. Here, I will try to discuss another aspect of the same topic: the fact that, apparently, we are unable to do anything to avoid global collapse despite our deep knowledge of Natural laws and our incredibly powerful technical means.

40 years after the publication of “Limits to Growth”, we discover that we have been just following the trajectory of the “base case scenario” of the book; business as usual, and with a disturbing accuracy level. In fact, in the intentions of the authors, the BAU scenario was not a forecast, but just one scenario among others, useful to analyse how the system works and changes. But the real world itself has turned this scenario among others into an authentic prophecy (image source)

How was this possible?

It could be that we have done nothing to change our policy and economy, but this is hard to believe. In the past 40 years, we have seen a number of major changes and all of them were completely unpredictable at the beginning of the Seventies. For instance, the partial collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of China to the level of the second planetary power, the globalisation and financialization of the economy, the Internet, the Euro and so on. The Meadows and their staff could not have incorporated all this into their model, simply because they could not imagine anything like that. So we are forced to think that such epochal happenings have been marginal accidents in the evolution of the global socio-economic system.

To get a better understanding of this issue, I think it is best to start by considering World3 itself. In a post of some time ago, Ugo Bardi showed that, behind its complexity, World3 has a very basic thermodynamic architecture. It is a system that builds up and stocks information, with a positive retroaction to the inside flow. The larger the system is, the more it is able to extract low entropy from the wells and throw out entropy to the sinks.

In other words, the BAU scenario more or less describes the activity of bacteria inside a Petri box. First of all, it starts to exploit the very best resources (for instance: sugar) and so it grows. As it grows, it needs more resources and so it starts to digest everything available and, at the same time, it evolves as fast as possible in order to implement its efficiency in the exploitation of increasingly rare and poor resources. This until, at the end, it digests itself and dies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Deutsche Bank: Negative Rates Confirm The Failure Of Globalization

March 13, 2016

Deutsche Bank: Negative Rates Confirm The Failure Of Globalization

Negative interest rates may or may not be a thing of the past (many thought that the ECB had learned its lesson, and then Vitor Constancio wrote a blog post showing that the ECB hasn’t learned a damn thing), but the confusion about their significance remains. Here is Deutsche Bank’s Dominic Konstam explaining how, among many other things including why Europe will need to “tax” cash before this final Keynesian experiment is finally over, negative rates are merely the logical failure of globalization.

Misconceptions about negative rates

Understanding how negative rates may or may not help economic growth is much more complex than most central bankers and investors probably appreciate. Ultimately the confusion resides around differences in view on the theory of money. In a classical world, money supply multiplied by a constant velocity of circulation equates to nominal growth. In a Keynesian world, velocity is not necessarily constant – specifically for Keynes, there is a money demand function (liquidity preference) and therefore a theory of interest that allows for a liquidity trap whereby increasing money supply does not lead to higher nominal growth as the increase in money is hoarded. The interest rate (or inverse of the price of bonds) becomes sticky because at low rates, for infinitesimal expectations of any further rise in bond prices and a further fall in interest rates, demand for money tends to infinity. In Gesell’s world money supply itself becomes inversely correlated with velocity of circulation due to money characteristics being superior to goods (or commodities). There are costs to storage that money does not have and so interest on money capital sets a bar to interest on real capital that produces goods. This is similar to Keynes’ concept of the marginal efficiency of capital schedule being separate from the interest rate.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Got Food? How Local Food Systems Can Build Resilience for Turbulent Times

September 8, 2015

Got Food? How Local Food Systems Can Build Resilience for Turbulent Times

Corey Templeton
The Deering Oaks farmers’ market, held every Wednesday and Saturday in Portland, Maine.

Consider, for a moment, that lettuce leaf on your plate. It probably traveled a long way to get there—about 1,500 miles, on average.¹ In fact, your dinner has probably seen more of the world than you have: the average American meal contains ingredients from at least five countries outside the United States.²

The complex, globalized system that puts food on our plates is a technical and logistical marvel, delivering unprecedented quantities of food at historically low prices.^3,4

But that system is surprisingly fragile. Its globe-spanning supply chains are easily disrupted and its vast monocultures are vulnerable to drought and disease.^5,6 And, because the system is entirely dependent on fossil fuels, it is subject to the shortages and price swings that afflict those commodities.⁷

New Yorkers got a firsthand look at the fragility of the food system when Superstorm Sandy pummeled the city in 2012. Days after the storm, trucks were still stranded on roadsides, unable to make deliveries. Some grocery stores saw their stocks destroyed by the storm surge; others lost power and trashed their perishable goods. Thanks to “just-in-time” supply chains that kept inventories to a minimum, shortages set in quickly.⁸ As a result, hungry New Yorkers stood in line for hours, waiting for emergency supplies of food and water.⁹

Most New Yorkers weathered those shortages, and a massive crisis was averted. Still, Sandy should serve as a wake-up call. In the era of climate change, our cities will face more monster storms, floods, and other extreme weather events.¹⁰ At the same time, a wide range of natural and human-made crises—from epidemics to terrorism—have the potential to bring our food system to its knees.¹¹

In these turbulent times, we need to make our food supply systems more resilient. Producing and distributing food on the local level could help us weather disruptions of all kinds.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Transition for Humanity Into the Post-Petroleum Age: 10 Commandments.

September 1, 2015

A Transition for Humanity Into the Post-Petroleum Age: 10 Commandments.

On her blog, “Our Finite World”, Gail Tverberg outlines the likely prognosis for humanity, and our best possible choices, as we run up against the Limits of Growthhttp://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/02/17/reaching-limits-to-growth-what-should-our-response-be/ The case she unveils is, to say the least of it, sobering, but I am reminded of an article that I wrote some while ago http://scitizen.com/future-energies/the-10-commandments-guidelines-to-surviving-in-a-post-peak-oil-world_a-14-3709.html, which, with a few amendments and reconsiderations, I now re-post here. The original set of 10 commandments provided a simple set of rules for members of a small community to live in reasonable harmony with one another, and that is essentially the requirement for an oil-dependent society that has necessarily fragmented into smaller communities, once its supply of oil has been severely curtailed. At first sight this does seem like a prognosis of “doom and gloom”, as indeed it will be if there is no sensible scale-down of oil-fuelled activities. Indeed, a “wall” of fuel dearth will suddenly appear, and we will drive straight into it; or really be abandoned by the wayside of the petrol-fuelled journey of globalisation. So, here are some suggestions (not rules or commandments, but logical consequences and prospects for the era that will follow down the oil-poor side of Hubbert’s peak). Overall, it will be necessary to curb our use of oil in the same amount as its rate of declining supply. The world’s major 800 oil fields are showing an average production decline rate of -5%/year http://aspousa.org/peak-oil-reference/peak-oil-data/oil-depletion/ which determines the size of the “hole” that must be filled by a matching production rate of unconventional oil, just to preserve the status quo, let alone to permit a growth in supply. Clearly the depletion-rate will not be precisely linear, but certain courses of action are indicated.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Perfect Storm’ Engulfing Canada’s Economy Perfectly Predictable

August 4, 2015

‘Perfect Storm’ Engulfing Canada’s Economy Perfectly Predictable

Years ago Andrew Nikiforuk, citing experts, warned where Stephen Harper’s priorities would lead us.

Economists, an irrational tribe of short-sighted mathematicians, are now calling Canada’s declining economic fortunes “a perfect storm.”

It seems to be the only weather that complex market economies generate these days, or maybe such things are just another face of globalization.

In any case, economists now lament that low oil prices have upended the nation’s trade balance: “Canada has posted trade deficits every month this year, and the cumulative 2015 total of $13.6 billion is a record, exceeding the next highest, in 2009, of $2.95 billion.”

But this unique perfect storm gets darker. China, which Harperites eagerly embraced as the globe’s autocratic growthlocomotive, has run out of steam.

As the country’s notorious industrial revolution unwinds, China’s stock market has imploded. Communist party cadres are now moving their money to foreign housing markets in places like Vancouver.

Throughout the world, analysts no longer refer to bitumen as Canada’s destiny, but as a stranded asset. They view it as a poster child for over-spending, a symbol of climate chaos, a signature of peak oil and a textbook case of miserable energy returns. Nearly $60-billion worth of projects representing 1.6 million barrels of production were mothballed over the last year.

A new analysis by oil consultancy Wood Mackenzie reveals that capital flows into the oilsands could drop by two-thirds in the next few years.

The Bank of Canada doesn’t describe the downturn led by oil’s collapse as a recession because the “R word” smacks of negative thinking or just plain reality.

Surely lower interest rates will magically soften the consequences of a decade of bad resource policy decisions, Ottawa’s elites now reason.

Meanwhile the loonie, another volatile petro-currency, has predictably dropped to its lowest value in six years along with the price of oil.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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