Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
- Worse Than Obama's Kill List? American Support for It
- States Take On GMOs in Battle Over Labeling
- Nearly 50 Climate Activists Arrested Outside Obama's White House
- Genetically Engineered Meat, Coming Soon to a Supermarket Near You
- DOJ Kill List Memo Forces Many Dems Out of the Closet as Overtly Unprincipled Hacks
- Watch a City-Sized Glacier Collapse
- Nearly 50 Climate Activists Arrested Outside Obama's White House
- Around the World, A 'Billion Rise' to Fight Violence Against Women and Girls
- Study Finds 80% of All Antibiotics in US Used for Big-Ag
- DOJ Kill List Memo Forces Many Dems Out of the Closet as Overtly Unprincipled Hacks
Popular content
Today's Top News
Climate Change – Our Real Bequest to Future Generations
Deficit hawks try to scare us about the debt we're leaving. That's economic nonsense – unlike the costs of global warming
It is remarkable how efforts to reduce the government deficit/debt are often portrayed as a generational issue, while efforts to reduce global warming are almost never framed in this way. This contrast is striking because the issues involved in reducing the deficit or debt have little direct relevance to distribution between generations, whereas global warming is almost entirely a question of distribution between generations.
Thailand was recently hit by the worst flooding the country has seen in 50 years. (Photograph: Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)
Seeing the debt as an issue between generations is wrong in almost every dimension. The idea that future generations will somehow be stuck with some huge tab in the form of the national debt suffers from the simple logical problem that we are all going to die. At some point, everyone who owns the debt being issued today, or over the next two decades, will be dead. They will have to pass the ownership of the debt to someone else – in other words, their children or grandchildren. This means that the debt is not money that our children and grandchildren will be paying to someone else. It is money that they will be paying to themselves.
There are certainly issues of intra-generational distribution. If Bill Gates's grandkids own all the debt, then there will be a serious issue of income inequality 50 or 60 years out – but that is not an intra-generational issue.
Of course, some of this debt will be owned by foreigners. The interest and principle payments by our grandchildren will make the country as a whole poorer. However, the foreign ownership of US financial assets, including government debt, is determined by our trade deficit, not our budget deficit.
Those who proclaim themselves concerned that our grandchildren will be stuck making huge payments to the Chinese or other foreigners should be focused on reducing the value of the dollar. A more competitively priced dollar will be the key to getting our trade deficit closer to balance and reducing the outflow of dollars each year that are used to buy up US financial assets.
The main factor that will determine the economic well-being of our children and grandchildren will be the strength of the economy that we pass down to them. This will depend, in turn, on the quality of the capital and infrastructure we pass onto them, along with the level of education we give them, the state of technical knowledge we achieve and the state of the natural environment.
If we cut the deficit by making spending cuts that affect our progress in these areas, we will be making our children worse-off, not better-off. Of course, leaving their parents unemployed for long periods of time will not improve our children's well-being either.
If the deficit has little to with the well-being of our children and grandchildren, global warming has everything to do with it. We run the risk of handing them a planet without many of the fascinating features that we had the opportunity to enjoy (for example, coral reefs that are dying, plant and animal species that are becoming extinct, landscapes that are being transformed). Far more seriously, we face the likelihood of handing them a planet in which hundreds of millions of people risk death by starvation due to drought in central Africa, or through flooding in Bangladesh and other densely populated low-lying areas in Asia, as a result of human caused global warming.
The guiding philosophy on this issue in the United States is pretty much that we can inflict whatever harm we want on people elsewhere in the world because we are powerful and they are not. This is certainly true today, but will it still be true 60 or 70 years from now? Do we expect that the United States will still be able to act unilaterally without regard to the consequences that our actions have on the rest of the world?
Before anyone tries to answer this question, they should consider that the International Monetary Fund's projections show China's economy surpassing the US economy before the end of the next presidential term. And China is not the only country whose growth is substantially outpacing ours.
The point is not that we should worry about an invasion from hostile powers, but instead, that we should not imagine that we will be able to inflict great harm on the rest of the world with impunity. In other words, our children and grandchildren may well be forced to pay a substantial price for the damage caused by our greenhouse gas emissions today.
Those who want to worry about questions of generational equity might start to wrap their heads around combating global warming. Global warming threatens to do far more damage to the well-being of future generations than the social security and Medicare benefits going to baby-boomers, no matter how much the deficit hawks try to twist the numbers to claim otherwise.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
77 Comments so far
Show AllThe children of the 99% will owe Trillions to the children of the 1%. It is the pursuit of growth of a consumer society that cause the next mass extinction event. We cannot "grow" ourselves into a paradise of green sustainable economics. We cannot buy a 40,000 dollar Chevy Volt electric car that requires 10,000 dollar batteries every 4 years. This is delusional nonsense. Energy transitions take at least 20 years and we spent the last 5 years going the wrong way by burning dirtier fuels. We are too stupid and greedy to live.
We've spent the years since Reagan came into office and took off the solar panels and dismissed Jimmy Carter's Energy Speech that we could be independent of foreign oil by year 2000. Reagan took us in the opposite direction and gave too much power to oil, gas, coal which they already had too much of and now have income and profits larger than most nations in the world. oil, gas, coal killed the trolley cars back in early/mid 1900's, killed hemp industry, almost killed train industry, killed electric car back in early 90's. If we would of pursued green energy back in 70's after first oil embargo and gas lines, we would be so much better off and we would of innovated and research and invented ourselves to be world leaders in green energy instead we are allowing China, India and other nations to be leaders. Shameful! politicians are now working for these industries and not America's economy or American people.
Although politicians are now telling us we need to "reduce the deficit", their actions (all sanctioned by the 1%) continue to reflect Dick Cheney's mantra that "deficits don't matter".
Although politicians are taking advantage of economic distress to gut "domestic programs" in the name of deficit reduction, the deficit will continue to grow as corporate welfare programs continue to grow.
Mr Baker is to be credited as an economist pointing out the debt issue of climate change. It is still an article supporting "economic growth", as a solution. There is in fact no good solution that any human wants to take up. What the future holds is a reduction in earth carrying capacity of human population. Carrying capacity falls from multiple causes. One is from running out of fossil fuels, in this half century. Oil goes first, then natural gas, closely followed by coal. Mineral resources are being depleted, and need more energy for extracting poorer quality resource. Recycling requires a lot of energy. Climate change from our energy waste, accelerates loss of agriculture productivity, as does reduction in energy supply. The longer term carrying capacity may be around 1 billion, if we are lucky, and thats at reasonable standard of sustainable living.
All the good solutions involve scaling back the economy to reduce human consumption of the planet to below safe sustainable levels, and rapidly scaling back human population growth. Change is unlikely, since every race, nation, language, tribal and religious group is still competing to get more of never enough. Increased scarcity will promote increased competition. This is the mutually agreed-upon end for the majority of modern society: Ever greater material consumption provided by never-ending economic growth. Growth ends very soon, against our will, but our rates of consumption will be scaled back to the maximal envelope dictated too by the reducing amounts of what is left.
Is there a cartoonist in the house?
The sketch I'd envision would feature a nicely dressed businessman atop a HEAP of $100 dollar bills. Underneath it, we see a DEAD earth.
The biggest problem is that patriarchal systems, of which capitalism is a natural outgrowth, have displaced the inherent value of very real items onto the manmade construct of paper money. Most people behave like rats on a wheel rushing to get more and more of that paper money. After all, it's the chief collateral used for all sorts of necessary (and not so necessary) transactions and negotiations.
Still, this focus on the artificial construct of wealth has allowed entire nations to run through, poison, or abuse their REAL capital: that which is found in forests, aquifers, good soil stock, clean air, and most importantly toxic-free waters.
I'm glad that Mr. Baker is speaking up about the lack of investment in that REAL (i.e. natural) economy. And I'm also pleased to see him compare its long-term value with that defined by manmade monetary ledgers.
He's reaching an audience that doesn't think about these things; and although he hardly goes far enough, it is a start... albeit a very late one, in waking up those who still believe in the dollar, or Mammon, as reliable life preserver once the great waters begin to rise all around them.
Sioux Rose:
E.F. Schumacher also used the term "natural capital" in his book Small is Beautiful. He pointed out that capitalists worry when the monetary capital of their firms decreases, but they don't worry about depletion of the natural resources they exploit and deplete, which is their natural capital.
He also alluded to natural time scales (though in different words), which are defined by the rate at which compounds released to the environment are broken down by baterial processes, and thereby recycled. Many of the synthetic chemicals we release are brand new to the environment, so new strains of bacteria have to evolve to deal with them (so their rate of recycling is much longer than most chemicals).
We are going to hell in a handcart and do not seem to care.
Sheepherder -- I would say we are going to hell in a Ferrari and don't seem to care. A handcart is waaaayyyy too slow and doesn't burn enough petrol.
I read Small is Beautiful shortly before it was put on the heretics reading list.
yuppers ... otherwise known as "collateral damage"
Thank you. You are absolutely right.
...am currently reading and working my way through Ellen LaConte's book "Life Rules". I think she has done the best analysis and provides the reader with (eco)logical solutions.
.
for those of you who want to have a glimpse first: http://www.ellenlaconte.com/
I think the King Midas story is applicable here, although today he would probably turn his daughter into a tranche of a derivative rather than gold.
Wow only the last few paragraphs of this entire tirade address global change. Why is that?
China's growth and that of other countries is only surpassing our's because multinational companies that originated here chose to move their industry to China and elsewhere in search of more profit. They did so because current infrastructure and deregulation allowed them to, and they profitted by doing so.
"The main factor that will determine the economic wellbeing of our children and grandchildren will be the strength of the economy that we pass down to them. "
Not so. The main factor that will determine the economic wellbeing our our children and grandchildren will not be hinged on a false economy built on the profits of 01% of the people, it will be built on their strengths of character and their ability to critically think and follow the "money". Even if poor I hope they will be able to see through the lies.
Studies have found that during times of rapid climate change man evolves faster than previously. I hope our kids are up to the "evolution".
"Studies have found that during times of rapid climate change man evolves faster than previously. I hope our kids are up to the "evolution".
This incomplete and misleading statement is now being heavily promoted on "science" programs sponsored by the Koch brothers. The subtext is that the most intelligent and adaptable will survive, meaning guess who.
Wow! What will they think of next :-(
There are two divergent evolutionary paths going on now. One is an evolution that embraces humanity, life, creativity and love. At its core is an understanding of complete oneness and manifesting this understanding in all aspects of our life-collectively-in community with all living things. The second path, is the mechanized, controlled human being-that consumes all in its path and seeks control and domination rooted in fear. There is a choice. However, prayer is not enough. Action in community is required with great self sacrifice to realize the first vision. This is not about light versus dark-it is about life versus frozen, unrelenting death-not a natural death-but a living hell- the ultimate projection of shadow upon a degraded existence. Further these paths are not compatible or complementary. Shadow can be instructive-but it is rooted in fear and annihilation. Nor should shadow be confused with the primordial creative/destructive force-that is silence, stillness and darkness. Shadow is not darkness-it is more like delusion-always rooted in fear. A plea for love-that gone unanswered-will seek the destruction of all as recompense.
If you are not actively engaged in this battle to preserve the first path, then you have abdicated your role in shaping the outcome-for yourself and future generations. Because the second path is inherently false-the first will ultimately prevail-through the physical survival of the human species is not assured. The crux is how much unnecessary suffering will we allow to take place in the transition. There is no escape from responsibility and consequence. None.
I realize that this post will be perceived as out of place-or worse. But whatever you may think- you need to understand that in my state-I experience suffering at once-the experience of oneness-is also the experience of the suffering of all. The last 50 years of recorded human history are unique. We literally stand at the brink of destruction. Try to make this fully comprehensible. Try to live with this awareness everyday. Shed tears if you can for this condition and all who suffer now-whether you know them directly or not. Then you will know why I wrote what I wrote.
LJG: Excellent post and a lot to think about. Incidentally, I also used the meme of "the shadow" a few minutes ago in another thread. Powerful insights. Thank you for sharing them.
Climate change will require rapid mutation, not evolution of humans to adapt. Unlike disease organisms and insects, humans have never been adept at rapid mutation.
What you say makes very little sense. It is true that because of greater rates of multiplication, bacteria and other simpler organisms can adapt faster than mammals, for example. Viruses use very interesting means to incorporate genetic material from their hosts and propagate themselves as a type of vector.
Human beings, while not as adaptable genetically, can modify their behavior as individuals or in groups fairly quickly. Humans can employ sophisticated technology to alter their physical and mental/emotional landscape. We are very adaptable. What is happening is that the degradation and destruction that we are bringing to ourselves and our planet is accelerating beyond our ability to repair. And as we do this, life on this planet- lovingly asks, why? Why are you destroying yourself? For by destroying other species and contaiminating our air, water and soil- we are in the end destroying ourselves- physically and spiritually.
i agree with you LJG. we could adapt, easily. however, most people know that they are the hunted and respond with hunting the others. only power/energy/money seems to count.
~LJG100~... You stated it perfectly,,, excellent!
"Far more seriously, we face the likelihood of handing them a planet in which hundreds of millions of people risk death by starvation due to drought in central Africa, or through flooding in Bangladesh and other densely populated low-lying areas in Asia, as a result of human caused global warming."
Hey why don't we quit calling it "human caused", and call it more accurately what it is: "corporate caused". Let's be honest they are the ones calling the shots and making the impact on the planet. It was a corporation that polluted the Gulf, it was a corporation in Japan that build a substandard nuclear plant, it is corporations in China, India, Indonesia, etc. that are spewing pollution....it's not "human" caused.
Gardener: If memory serves me well, it wasn't long ago that you were denying climate change in these threads. As to your point about "not human caused, but corporate caused," a more accurate way to state it would be "corporately led." Human beings, as consumers, have SOME choices. It was nothing short of derelect behavior to see U.S. carmakers design SUVS and other gas-guzzling behemoths when it was already clear that burning fossil fuels at such phenomenal rates was altering climate.
Many Amerikans believed the Koch-Brothers/oil-company sponsored "think" tank PR that climate change was NOT based on human activity, so they decided to purchase these fuel-monsters and just DRIVE on... speeding the planet's ecological demise.
Instead of either-or metrics, we should use something like percentages to indicate rates of culpability. For instance, the "leaders" who grant oil companies all sorts of ecological lee-way, get top billing. The oil companies, are next in line. The MIC and its martial forms of backing all the illicit deals, also heads the list for top billing in the culpability department. Somewhere down that list is the idiot who purchases the oversized vehicle, especially if s/he lets the motor roar while the guzzler is parked... just so fatz can stay cool with the AC pumping while the chubby hubby enters the convenience store to pick up smokes, ice cream, or whatever.
There is NO respect taught for the LIVING WORLD, for Mother Earth, ecology, stewardship, or conservation! Zero!
SHEEP: I was introduced to the concept of "Natural Capital" through a powerful article published in Mother Jones about 15 years ago. It was a paradigm-shifter for me... the authors (I can't recall their names at the moment) were working to get those specifics onto financial ledgers and other measures used for financial transactions. The concept runs parallel with Evo Morales' efforts to get Mother Nature and her ecosystems into the fiscal equations used for international trade deals, and so forth.
Resistance by the world Mammon has built shapes itself through an ideology that has taught people to care less about everything that most matters.
Well then duh.
I guess if I got this news and I was thinking of having children, I might, well maybe, just maybe, think about NOT having more kids, at least for a while.... say another twenty years.
Dean Baker writes: "It is remarkable how efforts to reduce the government deficit/debt are often portrayed as a generational issue, while efforts to reduce global warming are almost never framed in this way."
To the contrary, intergenerational injustice is the primary theme of climate justice advocates. Most notably, James Hansen called his book "Storms of my Grandchildren," and frequently speaks of the ecological debt we pass to future generations. Concerns about global warming are often framed as a generational issue. The problem is: these concerns are ignored.
I appreciate Dean Baker's attempt to put the fiscal deficit in perspective relative to the ecological deficit. But he inadvertently underestimates intergenerational injustice when he suggests that global warming will cause problems in distant lands: "drought in central Africa, or through flooding in Bangladesh and other densely populated low-lying areas in Asia." How about drought in central Texas, and flooding in New York and other densely populated low-lying areas on the Eastern Seaboard?
Baker may be trying to point out that third-world countries such as Bangladesh are going to suffer because the developed world has not done anything much to reduce carbon emissions. If we suffer because of our activities, that is one thing, but to cause others to suffer is something else. That may be his point.
I think you're right about that. The poor and young are disproportionately injured by global warming, poor youth worst of all. But people need to understand their carbon-intensive lifestyles are ruining their own children.
There's not much hope Americans will ever give a damn about Bangladesh. There may be hope they can be motivated to protect their own young.
Dear Mother Earth,
Folks are talking about your recent messages. I've been trying to keep abreast of reflex indicators on Earthquake 3-D. Many of us know that we're too ignorant to really diagnose the intensity of your suffering in this right now. It would be inane to say we feel your pain, but damn, its definitely being felt.
Resonance is still a problem under the dominant system. I'm sure if you continue to try to sound off to us, we'll really become conscious again. I say again, because we know we've evolved the internal electro-bio-chemical networks parallel to yours that were primary system advances (currently arrogated by the twits).
Don't give up on us Mom. Some have really tuned in and are eating crow - oops, sorry - I mean just plain seeing the value of accountability and humility. Seeing thousands of birds drop out of the sky for the second New Year in a row says something and millions are trying to figure out if you or us - my guess is its the latter.
Its hard Mom. Your generosity is unparalleled as gift and so ubiquitous that these half-assed (yeah- I know it is a funny image isn't it?) twits won't grow out of the oral/anal stage of immediate gratification. So many of your stewards are suffering, Mom.
Keep on us, Mom. My half-deaf ear is to ground, my hands working on translating as best I can, and I know I'm not alone. The sixth year of the garden - though relatively small is strong and still healthy.
Belated winter solstice gratitude to you, Mom.
With all the love in the world,
Old Goat
I do not speak for the Tar Sands movement, though I have actively participated in it. What I am trying to do is avert an eco-holocaust. Truly, the term "climate change" is a euphemism for what is taking place-an unfortunate framing for a crisis that is effecting life as we know it. It is of course no coincidence that Republicans have made the pipeline a wedge issue, tying it to a completely unrelated bill. If the pipeline is approved, it will be another pivotal moment in human history-that will be met by oil company profits and the agonizing cries of suffering from the poor, weak and vulnerable who will see their lives torn asunder for the benefit of the 1%. As climate change progresses, disease will spread, economies will be brought to their knees, great cities will be underwater, mass extinction will accelerate, agriculture will collapse, water supplies, already threatened, will be exhausted, nations will need to go to war to compete for dwindling resources. Attempts will be made at geo-engineering- attempts will be made to darken the skies-but they will fail. As this suffering intensifies, your children and your children's children will ask, over and over again-why? Why did you do this to us? And the answer will be...profit and greed-indifference and complacency. You will not be remembered
The pipeline through Nebraska is not really important. Extracting the Tar Sands oil is important. If the route through Nebraska is vetoed, the Canadians will build a pipeline to the Pacific and use tankers to get the goo to refineries.
The only reason to stop the pipeline is to prevent leakage - see today's article by an engineer who worked on another pipeline built by Transcanada.
No- denying KKL will make it harder to build a pipeline through Canada, will effect Transcanada's planning, forecasting and bottom line (negatively) and will send a message regarding environmentally risky projects- not just from the vantage point of leaks- but also climate change, indigenous rights, species preservation, etc.
Also-if it wasn't important-they wouldn't be fighting it so hard. Thanks to our bought and sold Congress-Obama has been forced to make a decision in less than 60 days. They wouldn't be doing this if it didn't hurt.
@billmckibben Now it's out on the table. Oil industry explicitly threatens Obama if he doesn't approve Keystone http://t.co/LH4P9TQg #nokxl
Mr. Baker
Rather than worry about which countries have economic or military hegemony, why not consider how we can maintain cultural diversity while at the same time insuring a responsible web of economic interdependency. If corporations benefit more from selling sensible products in this web than from conflict perhaps we have a chance. People should have at least as much freedom of movement as products.
Scarcity is a myth.
As to Patriarchy a tongue in cheek verse:
The YMCA to the make wavy Navy today ePie
Black Magic pussy cats delight in the sight
of millions of kitties saying: “I am the prettiest one”
Pretty pick pockets of purse
Pretty pink pick pockets pursuing careers of curse
Pretty White plinking the pick pockets with terse pick up lines
now having historic kiss me times
from the YMCA to the make wavy Navy today
The stuff of generations of Revved up Revolutions
Revolutions of the end o names (endonymn)
Revolutions of the Ex o names (exonymn)
That’s why:
I’m a tar Czech Slovak
and I’m here to take my stuff back
Also those of family blamin games
holding up my pink cross with the broken
chain of eight
My sand castle cliff clinger
"Climate Change" always sounds so benign, like a gentle breeze. Let's start calling it what it really is: Catastrophic Climate Chaos (CCC).
Any and all presidential candidates who deny it or refuse to consider it as a top priority should be humiliated and defeated as irresponsible and dangerous to our children's future, as should all politicians.
Demand that the Fawning Corporate Media start covering CCC.
A year or so ago I saw a comment that relates to your designation (CCC). The fellow said that the debate is not between those who say climate change is occurring and those who deny it. And it is not between those who say human activities are causing it and those who deny that. The real debate is between those who think that climate change will be a disaster and those who think it will be a catastrophe.
I would go with most of the species on earth becoming extinct. No, not the humans. They adapt to almost anything, although carcinogens, brain-deadeners and sex-change chemicals are really giving the humans a run for their money. I recommend a wall-e style program to save many of the earth's species from extinction.
Global Warming is happening now -- it's not some distant threat to "future
generations."
Even to suggest a comparison between Global Warming and the debt is
inane -- one is an artificial pile of dollar bills used for political power and
economic manipulation -- and the other is about our physical and spiritual
connection to nature and the universe.
Had there never been an Industrial Revolution -- or build-ups for wars and execution of them -- we'd still have nature, our planet and our futures.
We need to univent the dollar bill as quickly as possible and throw capitalism
into Boston Harbor.
Global warming is happening now. It's also going to be exponentially worse for future generations. The former does not negate the latter.
While Dean Baker is spot on in decrying the poisoned legacy that global warming leaves to future generations, there is also another legacy equally as dangerous...nukes. The debris of nuclear power and weapons (decommissioned plants, spent fuel rods, radiation, etc.) is so toxic and long-lasting that the following will be said by future generations of this time, 'How our ancestors be so narcissistic as to let a tiny minority reap the windfall and leave us with a poisoned legacy that has a half-life of 625,000 years?' Just as this generation tut-tuts past ones for the slave trade, so future ones will for nukes & global warming.
You make it sound like nuclear waste will be spread all over in everyone's back yard. The volume of waste generated by nuclear electric generation is tiny, and would be tinier still with reprocessing. If it weren't for the same NIMBYism that is also halting a lot of renewable energy projects, centuries worth of waste (until fusion energy is developed) could easily be stored away safely for millions of years in one or two remote underground sites on each continent. Future generations will not be angry at us, they won't even notice it.
They WILL despise us for the inhospitable hot climate we wil be leaving them, however.
Yeah, right. The Three Mile Islands, Chernobyls and Fukishimas aren't/haven't spread nuclear poison into almost everyone's backyard? They will despise us (I despise those who support the use of nuclear power over far more economical/renewable sources of energy) for poisoning the planet. Get a clue.
How can we make survival profitable?
Easy Maplefudge... Hire a really good five piece band with a pretty singer, buy some $1,000 suits and a real good hair piece, start a new church and pass the collection plates.
Baker's final sentence certainly misses the mark.
Good to see an economist even dealing with the intergenerational legacy of climate change. Admittedly, Baker is not a typical economist.
Economics, in general, is one of the most ideologically corrupt disciplines on earth.
Absurd assumptions, fraudulent accountings, epicycles built on epicycles -- all to get results that are pleasing to the ears of bankers & plutocrats.
http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1581
Steve Keen:
"After the Great Recession II: Neoclassical Responses
One would hope that the complete failure of neoclassical models to anticipate the Great Recession might lead to some soul-searching by neoclassical economists: was there not something fundamentally wrong in their modeling that they could be blindsided by such a huge event?
Unfortunately, they are so wedded to their vision of the economy that even an event like the Great Recession can’t shake them. Their near-universal reaction has been that it was simply an extreme event—like a sequence of a dozen coin-tosses that all resulted in “Heads”, which is a feasible though very rare outcome.[10] Though such a thing is possible, when it will happen can’t be predicted."
http://debunkingeconomics.com/samples/misunderstanding-the-crisis/
http://debunkingeconomics.com/
Most likely future generations will look back at us with all the warm fuzzy feelings that ethical people hold for Nazis and antebellum slave owners.
Or perhaps they will be too distracted by global chaos to think of us at all.
Economics, in general, is one of the most ideologically corrupt disciplines on earth.
-----------------------------
I wish I could recall who said (I'm probably paraphrasing): "Certain economists stay up all night worrying about whether something that works in practice could ever work in theory".
RANDY: I think we're living in a phase of such a notable truth deficit that it doesn't matter if these economists believe their failed theory, or otherwise. The point is, they use it as their cloak the way the CIA uses plausible deniability.
When the media is owned by the same elites running the fiscal AND war scams, all they need to do is repeat the same lies: that some mistakes were made, no one could have predicted any of this, that everything is peachy keen right now, that all the experts agree, etc. Heck, they can even take a travesty like what was done to Iraq, down to its inception as a WAR CRIME, and turn it into an alleged military victory?
Remember that line (I still attribute it to Rumsfeld) that said something in the order of "We'll be creating the terms of reality now." Well, damn it, the neocons and their New World Order partners in crime have come very far in the way of making that so.
My point is, I don't think any of those economists believe the things they say. They are merely pleasing the faction that has made a fiscal killing on a series of Deceptions that have been well & widely marketed.
Period.
Without some fast action, future and generations could be mutually exclusive terms.
Fusion doesn't work.
To the vast majority of economists (Dean Baker being one of the few exceptions) that's a minor detail.
Mainstream economics is not based on reality but on perception.
Baker states that "Far more seriously, we face the likelihood of handing them a planet in which hundreds of millions of people risk death by starvation due to drought in central Africa, or through flooding in Bangladesh and other densely populated low-lying areas in Asia, as a result of human caused global warming."
This suggests that the effects of global warming will be felt only in Africa and Asia, and that "hundreds of millions" will be potentially affected. However, British scientist James Lovelock predicts that the world's population in 2100 CE will be only about 7% of what it is now--i.e., will be BILLIONS less. If this prediction turns out tto be correct, the implication is that the U. S. and other countries will be severely affected, not just Africa. I have high regard for Baker, but he has not given the threat of global warming the attention that it deserves.