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#280: Not what you’ve been told
#280: Not what you’ve been told A YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE ECONOMY Introduction Intended for an educational documentary, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is a 1945 composition by Bejamin Britten. A similar title – A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson – was used for a progressive rock compilation album released in 1976. What we need now […]
#259: The way we live next
#259: The way we live next REFLECTIONS ON THE REAL ECONOMY “Simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions are a threat to global food security”, according to a new report published by Nature. The technical jargon here references a “meandering jet stream” but, for non-specialists, what this means is that we can no longer rely on worse-than-average crop conditions […]
#246: The Surplus Energy Economy, part 1
#246: The Surplus Energy Economy, part 1 FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES Introduction We have reached a turning-point at which economics and the economy have parted company. Orthodox economics continues to promise growth in perpetuity, but the economy itself is going in the opposite direction. The explanation for this is simple. Conventional economics assumes that the economy is […]
#243. The Great Inflexion
#243. The Great Inflexion A SYSTEM UNRAVELS INTRODUCTION As everyone surely knows by now, the global economy has entered a recession which is likely to be both severe and protracted. For the most part, governments and central bankers are concentrating on the task of trying to tame inflation. Their critics tend to argue for more expansionary […]
#242. The dynamics of global re-pricing
#242. The dynamics of global re-pricing IN SEARCH OF EXPLANATIONS SUMMARY There is a growing acknowledgement that the World economy has entered a new era. We know that the cost of capital is trending upwards, with adverse consequences for asset prices. But there’s been remarkably little inclination to examine the underlying processes that are causing this […]
#241. Behind the crisis
#241. Behind the crisis UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN DYNAMIC As you would expect, both the mainstream and the specialist media have been giving us minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow coverage of the financial crisis which began with the British government’s 23rd September “fiscal event”. Unfortunately, this coverage and analysis is founded on a conventional school of economic thought which insists – […]
#238. Money and the end of abundance
#238. Money and the end of abundance A FINANCIAL CRISIS PRIMER Amongst the world’s decision-makers, French president Emmanuel Macron has come closer than anyone to spelling out the reality of the current economic situation, saying that “we are in the process of living through a tipping point or great upheaval”, and referencing “the end of abundance” (my emphasis). […]
#228. In the eye of the Perfect Storm
#228. In the eye of the Perfect Storm A GUIDE TO THE SURPLUS ENERGY ECONOMY FOREWORD The title of this report makes intentional reference to the Perfect Storm paper published by Tullett Prebon back in 2013, when I was head of research at that organization. Since then, my efforts have been concentrated on (a) promoting discussion (at Surplus Energy […]
#234. Britain on the brink
#234. Britain on the brink THE PRICE OF EXTREMISM Whether the country’s leaders know it or not, the United Kingdom is now at serious risk of economic collapse. We must hope that this doesn’t happen. If it does, it will take the form of a sharp fall in the value of Sterling which, in these circumstances, […]
#235. The affordability crisis
#235. The affordability crisis WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING What might be called the ‘consensus narrative of the moment’ is that our near-term economic prospects depend on the ability of central banks to tame inflation without tipping the economy into a severe recession. There are numerous complications, of course, but this is the gist of the story. What these […]
#231. Short and sharp
#231. Short and sharp A SYNOPSIS OF DETERIORATION AND RISK Might we very soon face a major financial crisis, at a scale exceeding that of 2008-09? Are we heading for a global economic slump, or can current problems be explained away in terms of ‘non-recurring events’, such as the war in Ukraine? Do the authorities have […]
#225. Gravitational pull
#225. Gravitational pull MANAGING THE REALITY OF ‘LIFE AFTER ORTHODOXY’ A new ‘heavenly body’ has entered the cosmology of political and corporate decision. This new influence is the emerging reality that the economy is turning out, after all, to be an energy system, and that long-accepted ideas to the contrary are fallacious. The concept of limits is […]
#223. Trading with the (common) enemy
#223. Trading with the (common) enemy THE SHARED CONSEQUENCES OF RESOURCE CONSTRAINTThe tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, as well as being horrific in itself, has brought us face-to-face with a brutal fact whose reality we’ve always, hitherto, managed to ignore. This fact is that the world has become accustomed to a standard of living that its energy resources […]
#222. The Forecast Project
#222. The Forecast Project PREDICTING THE ECONOMY OF THE FUTURE In the Western world, at least, there’s an almost palpable sense of public uncertainty, anxiety and discontent which might be attributed to a variety of causes. Some ascribe it to specific issues, some to the over-reach and incompetence (or worse) of governments, and others to widening […]
#221. Strategies for a post-growth economy
#221. Strategies for a post-growth economy PART ONE: BUSINESS IN A NEW ERA Under current conditions, it’s increasingly hard to understand why the inevitability of economic contraction remains so very much a minority point of view. Many of us have long understood why past growth in material prosperity has gone into reverse. Here, with the SEEDS […]
