questioneverything | One could reasonably argue that I am, after all, biased and will tend
to ignore evidence against my basic hypothesis, that civilization must
necessarily collapse due to the decline of net free energy (i.e. peak
oil combined with declining energy return on investment — EROI — and
still growing populations). I am probably not immune to such selective
bias. Thus I put it to you, the readers, to let me know of any evidence
of some reasonably impactful institutions or organizations that seem to
be working and contributing positively to human happiness (please also
include estimates of the magnitude of such impact). As I was writing
this one possible example did come to mind, if I allow that some kinds
of religious experiences are positive (and I do even if I do not believe
in most of what religions teach about an ethereal world). The current
Pope of the Catholic faith (Francis), it seems to me, has done some
worthwhile things that could have a positive impact on the followers of
that religion, if not on other states owing to their leaders paying
deference to what the Holy See says (e.g. calls for peace). But I
reserve judgment of the effectiveness of his reign on the Church. For
example, will he ferret out gross behaviors like child sex abuses or
financial corruption in the Vatican's dealings?
If you have any contributions please make them in comments here. Let's
see what sort of list we come up with. But please do not post examples
of dysfunction. We already know so many it would be an act of waste of
bandwidth.
Economists' View the “New Normal”
Meanwhile if we just examine the state and trends of the global economy
we get a basic picture of the developing collapse. An article in today's
New York Times Business section by Tyler Cowen, a professor of
economics at George Mason University “Signs of a Shakier New Normal”,
May 17, 2015, brought into focus a variety of comments made by a number
of neoclassical economists of late (including, from time to time, the
titular representative of ‘liberal’ economists, Paul Krugman) that we
have entered a new kind of economic situation that they don't quite
understand but have labeled “the new normal.” I suppose they are trying
to subtly say that they expect the current set of conditions to continue
indefinitely into the future. But, their reasons for saying so have
nothing to do with their understanding the dynamics of the real economy
and making predictions based on their bogus models. They are just
tacitly admitting that something unusual is happening and it has
persisted long enough now to be acknowledged as possibly permanent.
While the US government and a variety of media talking heads are hailing
the “recovery” the reality of life for the vast majority of Americans
does not demonstrate recovery. They continue to grow poorer, budgets are
stretched even for those who have jobs, the real cost of living is
still going up even in spite of the recent relief in energy costs, in
short for most people there is no recovery. And that is what these
economists are referring to (academically) as the new normal.
