Limits to Growth - At Our Doorstep, But Not Recognized

Zero Hedge, Our Finite World blog ^ | 06 February 2014 | Gail Tverberg

[antidisestablishment]

I thought Malthus wad dead. I guess a few of his disciples somehow survived the end of all things.

[JRandomFreeper]

His assumptions are wrong. We don't live on a finite world. We live in an infinite universe.

We won't run out of room, resources, or energy anytime soon. The only thing in short supply is common sense.

/johnny

[sgtyork]

So our economy gets kicked in the nuts by President Income Inequality and the limits to growth nonsense gets resurrected from the 70s. Next we’ll be wearing platform shoes and polyester.

[Lorianne]

Not if there is a polyester shortage

[JRandomFreeper]

'Whites go in hot water, colors go in cold water, and polyester goes in the trash.' -- my older sister, circa 1975.

/johnny

[beethovenfan]

Bullcrap. The only limits are those put on us by communist-envirowackos.

[Fungi]

Nonsense. That book has been thoroughly discredited. We also used to have a term called "carrying capacity," which referred to how many people the earth could support. When that number was exceeded, it was conveniently left in the dustbin of "scientific facts," only to be replaced with yet another undefined term--sustainable. The left is constantly on the prowl to keep the world in a “sky is falling” syndrome, only to keep us distracted from the truth. It never ends. Read Job, the same tactic is used there.

[mrsmith]

It’s an interesting read, surprisingly.
The effect he is obviously talking ‘around’ is government intervention: regulation, debt, mis-subsidization.
I’m not claiming he realizes that’s what he’s talking about...

Bureaucracy will kill us all. I’m convinced it’s what killed civilizations like the Aztecs amd other ‘lost’ civilizations.

[arthurus]

There really are limits to growth and they trace primarily to government growth and growth of market warping regulation and taxation, to control by political actors who deny the laws of economics. In an actual free market economy there will always be innovation that will substitute for and replace declining or failing structures and resources. Rulers prefer that there be nothing new and that they control all that is. New things may be out of their control so must be prevented.

[4Liberty]

Try reading the recent book, “Abundance,” instead of the dreary LTG nonsense.

[Lorianne]

Is debt abundant?

[Ben Ficklin]

There's about 7 billion on the earth today. 1 billion in the Americas. 1 billion in Europe and Russia. 1 billion in Africa. 4 billion in Asia.

By 2050, Africa will add a 2nd billion and Asia will add a 5th billion. Total 9 billion

By 2100, Africa will add a 3rd and 4th billion. Total 11 billion

[Lorianne]

The article doesn’t talk about population

[Mack the knife]

The article may have an element of truth mixed with an incorrect assignment of causation.

The article states that growth is being limited by hidden costs, i.e., the increased costs of obtaining energy and metals from poorer ores.

Note that there is no mention of the not so hidden growth of the US FedGov share of the GDP from 18% to 25%. That money is not available for either investment or for increased wages, and so it acts as a brake on economic growth.

[Vince Ferrer]

I am not a Malthus supporter, he has been effectively refuted. But I am not extrapolating an infinite projection of growth either, and do think a population collapse is getting more likely. But unlike peak oil people or other such neoMathusians, the decline is not lead by resource scarcity. The decline will happen despite resource availability, which makes it even more hard to predict or explain.

Declining population, and as a result of that, a declining economy, for the next hundred years is getting more likely. In fact, most industrialized nation's births are already below replacement level, and the developing world is not far behind. At some point in the near future, the chief problem every country may face will be how to get the birth rate up.

[Rembrandt]

This is hogwash. Capitalism thrives everyplace it’s introduced. It has flourished in America. It works in Europe even with a lot of binders thrown on it. It works all over.

Vietnam was going down the tubes til the Commies introduced “limited capitalist experiments” in the ‘90’s, then the economy took off. China has had great success with capitalism and is now surpassing the U.S. which has been burdened with OButthead. Even Cuba is now introducing capitalism on a very small scale since they don’t have an Obama in charge.

[Lorianne]

Huh?
Did you read the article?
I didn’t read anything in there that was opposed to capitalism.

[Lorianne]

The article doesn’t talk about population. It discusses many other things but primarily focusses on lack of capital formation and over reliance on debt in its place.

[Vince Ferrer]

The article doesn't talk about population, but the author seems to be a Malthus adherent, and for them, population growth to the point of resource depletion is a given (but falsified). What I am expecting, a population collapse without resource scarcity, is unthinkable by a Malthusian, so I am not surprised the author doesn't mention it.

But population is critical. It is the demand side of supply and demand. People need food, shelter, etc. and more people = more demand = more GDP. Less people = less demand = less GDP. Yet our current economic model can't allow declining population and declining GDP, because it is debt based. Our money is debt based money. How does a debt based money work in a shrinking economy? It just makes the debt more unpayable.

And I believe the most important thing is that once the collapse really gets started, it will be self fueling, because the population decline will cause a never ending depression, which will cause adults to not want to have children they can't afford and can't guarantee they will have a life even equal to their own, which lowers the population, and causes greater economic contraction.