It does matter who's in government, not so much in the short-term, but if Americans can consistently elect people who are financially responsible and not corrupt, then we can turn this trend around. It will take a long time and Americans aren't known for electing financially educated people into office so it's more likely America will simply collapse under the weight of the stupidity of its people while politicians launder all the money they can through pet projects and wars.
We are debt slaves. We are paying debts from borrowing done in our names, without our consent for the most part. But rather than get a bill in the mail, the interest is built into every good and service we buy. We are the embodiment of debt because the cost is paid by the very lifeblood of the consumer, earned over a strictly limited time called a life. We live on a prison planet.
Inflation is gradually going to become part of us and due to that fact any money you keep in cash or in a low-interest account declines in value each year. Investing is the only way to make your money grow and unless you have an exceptionally high income, investing is the only way most people will ever have enough money to retire.
45% of Americans do not invest in the stock market because of lack of guidance. Every year you don't invest, you are falling behind. I’m hitting numbers in the stock market I used to dream of… Going from $50k to $600k in my portfolio is surreal all thanks to insights from my financial advisor.
The US doesn’t just operate in a vacuum. It’s still one of the largest economies, and its policy decisions ripple outward. If we look at Kamala Harris, she might push for more progressive fiscal spending, investments in healthcare, infrastructure, and climate change initiatives
On the other hand, Trump’s policies lean toward tax cuts and deregulation, which traditionally favor businesses but might increase debt. We’re talking about two very different strategies here
And when we talk about fiscal and monetary policies, there’s always the Federal Reserve's role to consider too. No matter who takes office, they will have to navigate the balance between inflation control, interest rates, and fiscal spending.
Inflation is already a global concern, especially after the pandemic disruptions and rising energy costs. If energy prices keep rising, how they handle that will directly impact the global supply chain and cost of goods
I think the energy sector is one of the most critical factors influencing the next U.S administration's actions. The push for renewable energy, which Harris is likely to accelerate, could create long term benefits but also short term shocks
The fossil fuel industry, which Trump has historically supported, would maintain its grip on the economy under his administration, at least in the near term. But here’s the thing, energy trends are global. The US might influence prices, but they can’t control geopolitical tensions, especially in places like the Middle East or Russia
As the election gets closer it is important to examine the potential impacts of policy modifications on market expansion. Election results can impact the performance of industries, create market volatility, and necessitate adjusting your investment strategy in light of potential constitutional amendments.
Additionally, while unemployment may increase and the economy could face challenges, there are still solid investment opportunities available. My $120k portfolio has grown by 55% over the past four months by focusing on volatile sectors.
I leverage market research tools, keep current with financial news, and engage with my financial advisor daily. Her guidance helps me effectively navigate the market.
Lovely to hear such an intelligent conversation between three people behaving like gentlemen. A refreshing break from the ever present scream fest in other, bigger outlets.
From Bill Plotkin's humility and ecological wisdom to status quo economists narcissism and delusions of granduer - though I do appreciate your willingness to entertain two things that will never be reconciled under global capitalism - ecology vs economics.... physics vs capitalism I wonder which will eventually win out??
Gromen’s assertion that the US would be militarily less engaged may have been just a half sentence, but it sounded like plain speculation and sycophancy in my ears.
Exactly. Some of Mr. Hagens' conversations are disturbing in that they introduce information or analysis that makes us realize our geophysical, biological, and socioeconomic situation is bad. This one is very disturbing because it reminds us that people in power, people with the ability to manipulate words and money, may be profoundly evil and destructive. The guy with the nasty accent is very disturbing. He spoke philosophically about "why GDP", but then made his priorities clear: GDP, wealth, and his beloved Military Industrial Complex are here to allow people like him to remain the most powerful, and most capable of stealing from the global majority. If I ever hear his voice again, my stomach will turn in disgust.
@@arp0ad0r Yes, the support for military build up is very disturbing. It's like the world's nuclear arsenal invented to keep us safe. Militaries have to exercise and test so even if there are no wars the energy consumption is still there.
When he talks about people in Europe not agreeing with the politicians he is hitting on a bigger trend. The neoliberal politicians globally are out of touch with the majority of people in every country
Yes, and nothing was said about global digital democracy that would actually be based on the will of the people, reinforced by real time fact checking of things people say.
We are all products of the system, most of us wouldn't be here without US hegemony, especially oil and nothing now being said is any different to the 60's and 70's, the system that the majority depend on is very nice to say it's not what we want but they are in the same boat, what next, except collapse, and then what does that mean. We all know we could go to a system of food. shelter and medical, along with just essential services and emissions would reduce, some people are still trying to get that as basics, will the majority lose all their perceived value so that they can, by choice?
I don't think they're out of touch. That would imply that it's just a big misunderstanding, and if they actually knew what the regular folks wanted and prioritized, because they were in intimate and regular contact and rapport with them, that they would do an about face and begin ushering in a new era of genuine democracy, and equity and sustainability. Which definitely they would never do, and very deliberately have no plans on doing. Precisely because they are very much in touch, or try to be, only it's they have markedly different priorities and agendas. Namely world omination. Or whatever you want to call it. Intransigent maintenance of the status quo by any means necessary.
You are a gracious host Nate. This discussion quickly devolved from the topic of the roundtable title. Despite your effort to bring it back in line with your work concerning how to move toward and deal with less throughput, energy consumption, etc., the discussion soon returned to matters of monetary dynamics, economic viability, and international market strength, none of which will matter much in a +3°C world suffering from massive storms, intense fires, and record food shortages. Without waxing on (which could be easy here), either I really don't understand our real predicament, or this discussion outlines how we got here in the first place, rather than any meaningful prescription for a planet in the ER that's on life support. From that standpoint, it could be informative.
We are more concerned about 10,000 degree increases in the temperature of our cities than this left wing panic over a one degree increase over 100 years.
@@13MAM13 are you out of your mind? Canada has been burning up at over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the last two summers, so whatever 1 degree increase is absolute poppycock. Most winter average temperatures are over 20 degrees warmer than historic averages across the globe.
Exactly, his points are clear cut and easy to follow. I couldn't follow the other guy, what exactly was is his assertion. I would love to understand so I can re-listen
I don't understand anything about this. Guests speak this financial jargon like we're all on the same page. If the finance system is a part of the superorganism that it's leading us to extinction, how does this episode help us to understand and FIGHT this financial system?
@@williamturner-v1s I was a fan of this podcast and I understood the "first we need to fully understand our predicament before thinking about our response" approach. But then the lack of talking about societal responses just creates a covert doomerism that is just what the ruling classes need so they can implement THEIR societal responses.
I would love to hear this again with explanatory interruptions for "economics for dummies". As a Therapist I get only a brief understanding, yet, a strong sense that these topics are truly important.
maria - i hear you - but don't know what we can do - we have small team and its just not feasible to do what you suggest. Best i can offer is we are creating a 'course' of lectures that'll be online in coming months that explain the basics underpinning this discussion. thank you. Nate
Richard J Murphy on youtube has a channel around how all money is debt, economics professor in the UK, short and sharp but he's been doing it awhile I think. When we get our heads around all money that exists is just banker debt and that they work on a basis of negative zero and that all that debt must return to zero, it makes me think what has it all been for. A lot of people think money builds up in the system and we should all just get some, like gold or any product, I think a lot of people would be very surprised to find out that taxes pay for no current spending, that they make money disappear. I think the biggest thing to get through society, is money has been the reason we did things and now we find that taxes make money disappear, then new money must always be coming in through new loans. Who is this interest going to and why and why do they have the right to dictate booms and busts or recessions, wars? We pay this debt issued back full value with our lives efforts and then are told we must have it to survive, we don't have any choice where it's spent, it's slavery by any other name then we think we are free because we hold somebody else's debt. A big issue I see is people still associate money to gold and it hasn't been that way for 50 years, we are a debt based society but we aren't looking at why or who we pay this debt too or for what reasons other than freehold consumption.
@@thegreatsimplificationWe were hoping you were planning some kind of ongoing follow-up, Nate. Because if we’re interpreting this episode correctly, the bend-not-break moment you’ve been predicting is upon us.
@@mariaamparoolivergarza8933 at least we can trust that we're with thinkers who are being as objective about the global predicament as possible. What i find most difficult to bear is how little other creatures figure in these calculations (!)
Thank you so much for a rational, polite and non political discussion of the world economy. Too often these days it's all about one side villainizing the other. Yes, even amongst family and friends it's all about "how much can I accumulate before the SHTF to maintain my artificial lifestyle". Greed will literally kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The discussion on the economy and thinking more than getting the quickest buck are true. Letting everyone loose to earn the easiest dollar results in an economy dominated by crypto, sports betting and ED pills. Those are NOT the foundation of a stable economy. Those seem to be about 75% of adverts online and in real world now.
I agree freehold consumption can lead to problems but as far as an economy goes, it would not matter if we all stood on our heads in the corner, as long as the money leaves again the amount if the amount of money in the system stays stable and nobody saves that would be stable.
Phenomenal discussion; I appreciate these round-tables so much. The ideations produced in this format are far better than debates. Thanks for the 2/3/4th order effects walk-through!
SO you have people questioning what we do and how we do it, what do you think the point of this comment is supposed to mean? You sound wrong to me as far as lacking awareness and wonder why denigrating them has purpose?
@@antonyjh1234 His statement is true. If you deconstruct the phrases, you can see that. These are certainly establishment types, with establishment perspectives. They lack an awareness of ecological economics too.
As most good design engineers know, the best design method is KISS , Keep It Simple Stupid! The global economic system seems to be the most ridiculously complex thing I've ever tried to understand. Thanks for this podcas!. I continue to learn how little I know. The great simplification resonates with me so will continue to absorb content and do what I can to adapt.
Fair point , a wise man once emphasized the KISS principle to me , It often pops into my head when listening to any conversations about the economy also.
I will have to try again because alarm bells started ringing immediately with these guests. These are classical economists whose theories are disconnected from the earth and its limits in every single way except that they share Nate's obsession with debt and Nate's claim that debt involves future claims in resources. I have never understood that claim as debt involves repayment of past claims and future debt can be redirected. Steve Keen should have been part of this panel to provide some balance
They have to work with in the Current Debt Based Monetary Ponzi scheme system we currently have. The whole system, all money is debt in our system which forces over production and over consumption to pay DEBT!
Is it not a "curious" thing that such in-depth, relevant conversations such as this one are absent on the mainstream? These are the types of discussions that should be available to everyone, all the time. Their absence is disturbingly "telling".
It's not at all "curious"... very few people would have any interest in the subject or have the time or patience to listen. If it doesn't grab enough views or generate click though for mainstream outlets to make money on it isn't going to get the airtime, no matter how relevant the content. I don't think it's anymore complicated or "telling" than that.
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t People here in the US are "busy" accumulating more, of everything and when they have time to do something else consume adult beverages and watch sporting events. They wouldn't be able to handle "the truth" and would switch to something more palatable. "Bread and circus...divide and rule" still works to control the masses.
The disturbing aspect of this conversation is that it evolves around the manipulation of commodities and "stuff" rather than the well-being of human beings. The motivational instigation is not the well-being of the planet and its 8 billion human inhabitants, but of abstract, narrow-minded, materialistic enclaves. Granted, there IS a global "metabolism" but it seems like that organic process has become overwhelmed by parasites who are so enamored with their own self-righteousness, that nothing else matters.
The moral basis of GDP could be expressed as the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Earth Charter. The challenge is to align the economy with those principles.
I don't understand where you are coming from, the question raised is what is GDP for and why isn't it a moral reason instead. You seem to be missing what was said in my opinion, I know you like to have a little thing said each video but I think you are guilty of what you are accusing here. The conversation revolved around how to limit consumption and how printing money with very little cost has problems. I don't think anything of what you said applies to the video I watched and find your last sentence more appropriate for yourself. The US is 4% of the world, has 51% of the worlds currency that got printed at 4 cents per hundred dollars, everybody around the world pays that back full value, if Pakistan has 15 k ton of lentils to sell, it used to have to receive US dollars if that's what the purchaser has, then it has to buy something with this cash, now they can receive 15 k ton of potatoes from Russia, that means no-one needs US dollars, but they exist, so where do they go, back to USA so inflation continues? Africa is supposed to be half the world in 80 years so that is a lot of trade in that time, the amount of US dollars could shrink to their population size and all very well to talk about the well being of the planet but these people are trying to find a way through this mess too, do you think the people of Africa are going to refuse a house with a roof that doesn't leak or maybe energy so they can have a fridge? I've had a fridge running 24-7 my entire life, some people not one day, this is talking about if everything you've known because of trade stopping and going to them because 75% of the world is against the 25% and the 75% want better, and you call this narrow minded? I'm watching it again it was so good, am absolutely gob smacked on what you are saying, these people are explaining the problem, your last sentence has honestly got me so confused I've checked three times it's to the same video.
@@antonyjh1234Sometimes things are said that don't make sense. One clear comment from the video is that you can print the interest, but you can't print commodities. One questionable comment was about the peak in cheap oil. The price of oil has never included the environmental and social costs of burning it. The market has lied to us.
It’s a worthwhile goal to strive for a more balanced, holistic, non-partisan, wide-boundary, accurate view. But the arguments presented in this episode fall very short of actually achieving that. Even if you believe Trump’s foreign and economic policies alone will be better than Harris’, the leap of faith you’re taking and assumptions you’re making regarding whether/how those will be successfully implemented, and in a manner that satisfies the goals you’re stating, defy logic. All evidence points to a second Trump administration as being LESS competent in every domain. Largely because of the huge shift in his staff (I.e. the long list of smart people that will NOT be returning with him). You’re also discounting the likelihood that any potentially good policy shifts his administration would implement will be largely - if not completely - negated by the huge toll a second Trump term will take on not just the U.S., but also the world, in other crucial socio-cultural regards. I’m disappointed and alarmed that the huge risks posed by the political and cultural movement that is currently embodied in Trump’s ascendency are being downplayed, if not completely written-off, as inconsequential. You are grossly mistaken in understanding the net damage that will occur under a second Trump administration compared to any potential damage you foresee from a Harris administration. The End does NOT justify the Means. Listeners of this episode should also listen to the following: “Beyond Deregulation: The Existential Threat of ‘Ungoverning’” whowhatwhy.org/podcast/beyond-deregulation-the-existential-threat-of-ungoverning/). The authors of “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos” discuss how “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 is designed to destroy US Government agencies.”
This conversation reminded me of the Economists that were all for opening borders during COVID because closing was bad for the economy. In their world ( and maybe the actual world ) we all spin around growth driven financial markets rather than putting financial markets back where they belong as minor servants of our planet. How quickly they both declared Trump as a better option for change. In what world would that man be a better option for anything. Sick.
@@kevinmckay1955 Their rationalizations are divorced from reality. I’m in the middle of “The Twilight Before the Storm: From the Fractured 1930s to Today's Crisis Culture” by Viktor Shvets. Unlike the myopic viewpoints presented here by these two, he presents a much better, interdisciplinary analysis, grounded in reality, which includes what appears to be the most robust refutation of the push for more neoliberalism I’ve seen (I just started that chapter).
Trump administration. Is this more palatable? I don’t know. Neither candidate or their future administrations is palatable to me. Solutions are beyond politics as currently practiced.
Some "right wing" ideas do make sense, overall balanced budgets (if they actually ever did this) and common sense immigration. The fact that they usually come wrapped up in religious and nationalist dogma makes their platform wholly unappealing to me. But yeah people capitalizing from neo liberal economics are likely to pick the side that favors those policies and these two guests seem no different.
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t It’s funny how the Republicans scream for balanced budgets but have never ever achieved it. They consistently raise the national debt. How many trillion$ did Trump add to our deficit?
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t And yet the Republicans in the modern era have never balanced the budget. Trump added trillion$ with his giveaways to the already obscenely wealthy.
I really don't understand why Nate is talking to these guys. Their economic framework seems antithetical to his biophysical insights. I don't think Donella & Dennis Meadows would have spent 5 minutes with these guys.
They are outlining the current problems from a game theory perspective, into the great power games that are at play. By giving us predictions, we can better prepare ourselves for the greating simplification.
@@ninjasonfire0 I think that could have been made clearer in the introduction to the video. In fact, the introduction seemed to suggest the exact opposite to the subsequent conversation. It's certainly an outlier when compared to the other videos on this podcast, and I'd argue it conforms to the narrow boundary of discussion lamented in many of the other conversations. Had Nate returned to the "why GDP?" question in an attempt to garner an answer, then that would have been more applicable to this channel. There was little mention of any ecological boundaries for example, the entire discussion took place in the abstract game of the growth based economic system. It wasn't uninteresting, or uninformative, simply a little misplaced here I think.
See my main comment. Along with reinforcing his main theme of "energy trumps finance," Nate's podcasts have a secondary affect of showing us exactly how our financial overlords think. Their ability to make scads of money which they then pay to get their car fixed by you (for a pittance compared to their income) or buy groceries which you grow for a pittance puts the inequality of the current Superorganism into sharp contrast. [And on that note, the Superorganism has got to go, doesn't it?]
@wvhaugen the prices you pay for goods are a pittance compared to what the people in Africa and China are making to mine the materials and assemble the parts. You have privileges as well.
Luke Gromen is a genius without a doubt. The other worthy guest was still not sure who is currently winning the Russia-Ukraine War and was suggesting some Lasser Weapons to be used by Israel in near future. Probably, bankers don't have time for Geopolitics.. Luke have been suggesting since years that US can't afford to have higher interest rates (say 8%) for longer and now majority of commentators follow Luke in that thing, while the other worthy guest suggested that such interest rates will bring Saudi Arabia money back to US and do other good things..
If the US steals foreign assets whenever it is on the outs with that country, it doesn't matter how high the interest rate or the yield on bonds or T-bills. Central banks are getting better returns on gold too.
Lotsa cognitive dissonance for me with this one., I'll start by saying I don't understand economics. But. The bit pasted in the front where Michael talks about morality and GDP--but later says he wishes he was religious because moral questions, questions of value matter, well you don't have to be religious to focus on moral questions, you just have to be an adult, you just need to not be a sociopath. Then seemingly Luke and Michael agree that it's necessary and morally right for the EU to ramp up their military spending. And the talk is all immersed in the assumption that national borders and identities are real and important, that WE need to overcome and triumph over THEM. Then we're told that the EU must not dictate things like eating less meat, we'll just get it from Brazil where it's cheaper--yeah, because they're razing the forests of South America to raise cattle for a few years, accepting this is accepting the path to our own extinction. And do we have no choice because "this is what the people want" just like Like's wife with the 8000 # vehicle (hopefully hypothetical)? No, governments, in conjunction with their extremely good friends in the media, could just as easily persuade the public that the whole world is joining in a desperate but cooperative path to rescuing ecosystems by changing the way we do everything, and it's exciting, and we'll mostly be healthier and happier and governments are facilitating matters, and largely dismantling the militaries which are enormously wasteful and destructive, and cooperating instead...as they have been in persuading people that spurring Russia to invade Ukraine was a good idea, that the military is good for the US, that rich people are hard-working geniuses, that risking nuclear war with China/Russia/Iran is worth it because, um, uh, whatever. Then one commenter here talks about how moral bitcoin is. Bitcoin seems an absurdity to me but my understanding is that one doesn't earn this "money" one "mines" it by wasting huge amounts of energy answering equations that don't need to be answered, I live in West Virginia, where the energy costs of this are very obvious--where how long fracking can go on or how problematic high interest rates can go is not the question but rather how much more of it we can tolerate to support stupid garbage like AI and data centers and cryptocurrency and 8000# trucks. Then there are the references to the Middle East and the pragmatic notions about putative laser shields--no need to mention, in this interview or any other, or anywhere on resilience.org, the reality that there is a genocide happening livestreamed, within Israel, supported enthusiastically by "the West" right now; with horrific scenes of egregious abuse and war crimes daily; and now Israel announcing that they're going to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza, and one of their people stating that actually Israel should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates...would you have felt it was too political to raise a voice against the Third Reich? Israel is the Fourth Reich. And all of this follows a couple rather "woo" interviews where you talking about the sanctity of all life, and I'm relegated to the status of early adolescent at 68 years, because i haven't had the experience of suddenly feeling an invisible wall between me and the natural world drop away and felt it as a coming home...but yet you accept that we "can't' do anything real to reduce our own footprints, renounce stupid wars (all of them) and must keep an enormous world economy going until it all collapses. Or did I completely misunderstand?
Why anybody would call something cognitive dissonance who then says they don't understand the topic...should I continue reading? I agree with the point that you don't have to be religious to be moral but you then call what you do by default adult, while we all use oil foreign people are killed over. We are the customers of the MIC. I don't think cost was the mantra of less meat or if he said that regarding the vehicle, he was talking about what choice's it means are available because of money. Without paragraphs hard to dissect but nothing that I saw meant you understood what was being said, we all use oil those wars are about, hard to claim cognitive dissonance then.
I got much the same impression as you did. It disturbed me to hear Nate agreeing with his guests. They seemed to be advocating for military build-up, cheap Russian gas, more cattle grazing what was once the Amazon, and generally everything that will kill the global ecosystem dead dead dead. I have to listen to this again to more carefully parse out Nate's response.
@@robinschaufler444 Nowhere in this video can you point me to where this was said about what they were advocating for these things. Maybe this is peoples bias or not understanding what was being said is causing them to say this. Just because they mention something doesn't mean they support it.
most of this conversation went way over my head, is there a good resource for the basics of past ~100 years of economic history, the functions of debt/treasury bonds, how gold and oil come into play, etc. Thanks!
At the beginning of the video one of the guests said “you can’t raise taxes”. It’s that kind of ideological “thinking” that is the cause of all our problems. 👎
Thank you! These financial "experts" are more propagandized than normal people, but they are unaware of their own misconstrued viewpoints being a product of the bubbles they exist in.
@@dameongeppetto Yes, they have narrow mind$ and atrophied heart$. And they are resentful and/or envious of those who don’t have those same afflictions.
He is wrong by our standard of biocentric (or, at least, human-adjacent biocentric) thinking. He is right, however, under the standard of economic theory, which actually has an influence on the system by which we exist.
Yes I was thinking Richard Wolff would have a field day with that statement. He would explain that the wealthy choose to loan money to the government rather than pay it in taxes. I also was thinking of the Davos video from a few years back where Gates learned about the history of taxes in the US.
It's only been 44 years since tax rates were slashed so drastically and already economics has been rewritten so that tax raising is "impossible" according to the main ideologues propagating the ideology of the billionaire class that taxes "naturally" fall to zero on billionaire wealth
I agree - and he'll be back (am thinking w Josh Farley and eg Jeremy Grantham but we'll see - he understands the financial constraints but is also really wants to help humanity find a way through...)
@@thegreatsimplification This was a fascinating conversation Nate. Would be awesome to have Farley and Grantham weigh in. Geopolitics and finance are confusing and unsettling,, but without conversations like this one it will be impossible to come up with better alternatives. Keep up the good work.
@@thegreatsimplification Yeah, the voice of utterly clueless, defeated European imperialism from the Asian city-state of Singapore no less lmao. Recall that "pivot to Asia" Obama tried to crown his Presidency with the TPP? That 'PIVOT TO ASIA" really did occur (unlike Obama's TPP that went down with Clinton's campaign); however, that pivot was the global economy shifting to its new epicenter - Asia - not Obama''s vision of the declining US empire shifting its imperial focus from the "Middle West" to China. The sun already set on the British empire decades back, now it's the EU's turn as it bleeds out from having committed economic suicide covering for the Yanks blowing up of Nordstream pipelines fatally cratering the EU's vanguard economic engine of Germany that has resulted in not only arresting Germany's creeping decoupling from under the boot of the US empire from its natural geographical trade partner - Russia - that was occurring through energy integration which now followed by the US imposing a new Monroe Doctrine dictating the truncating of Germany's economic partnership with China too. Micheal's new mercantilism as a cure for what ails Europe deserves the Don Quixote prize in the economic category for nostalgic white man's empire fantasizing. The cherry on top of course is Iran''s easy penetration of Israel's vaunted "Iron Dome" with ballistic missiles not drones you wanker. So your laser fantasy has already been mooted. Borrell's European "garden" will increasing be needed for it's people's subsistence as the US empire deepens its imperial blockade over the EU's trade with Asia.
@@thegreatsimplification He understands financial constraints and wants to help humanity? Really? by printing 3-5 years to get everything sorted? Or using trade embargos and military blockades? Maybe he read too much all the talks about how to use the Strait of Malacca ..
This was a very frustrating conversation. Nate raised numerous interesting points and both guests seemed to completely not comprehend what he was saying.
At 51:20 Nate explains some of his reasons for this podcast. To your point, I agree with you. At 56:10 Nate states that we will have to use less.... Both guests did not address this important statement. Nate has stated many times that we in the West will have to use less. Do you think it is possible for us in the west to use less?
@@daytime12 Exactly. I feel like this conversation revealed some of the cult like insanity of economists. He mentioned numerous times the factors of ecological destruction, the idea that military might could be the determining factor in economic policy, and the fact that you could simply run out of resources- you cannot print a commodity. Both of these were disregarded as if it was some incomprehensible language that couldn't even be heard. It reminds me of West World where the Robot is shown diagrams of himself but has been programmed not to see it.
Talking as if Trump has any position on anything that he is knowledgeable about and can speak coherently on is a non starter. He's an ignorant criminal being normaized by almost all talking heads. Disappointed and gone.
True, but there still is a chance he could be president again. If asked to predict how trends would be affected by having an idiotic psychopath as president, you suggest the only reasonable answer is that it's impossible to speculate, but I suggest that you are shooting messengers if you dismiss anyone who tries.
Please don’t go. I’m still listening, but so far what I’ve heard is not Trump himself but a Trump administration- the diverse combination of people with different agendas he will surround himself with and who will drive decisions. Personally I’m not on board with this - I see his potential admin as for the most part enabling a dangerous and immature narcissist - but I’m striving to be open-minded.
DJT has already blurted out his "master plan." It begins with maniacal retribution for all his delusional persecutions and will continue to manifest until deposed. Stop the squeal!
Lifestyle question, planetary question, what do we all have in common, breath, heart beat, digestion. What are our differences? Intellect, words, pictures, videos, intellects, education. This is the conflict, our similarities and differences. Thank Nate.
You aren't powerless. You can completely de-register as a voter. You can publish, *MONOPOLY = SLAVERY,* on your monopoly money. You can spend or even auction your _'newspaper '_ at the sovereign's tax collection food outlets and restaurants. Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular. Remember too that militarily enforced Exclusive Economic Zones make a free-market for bankers.
Damn these guys are smart. Individually it's hard to follow their high intellect arguments but together how the add and breakdown each other's comments brings much better clarity to more lay people. well done
This was a really fascinating conversation and i fully support the final sentiment, that we all have to talk across our silos and ask what the GDP is for....
This episode likely emulated the sort of conversations being had by the actual changemakers in the world with more accuracy than almost any other conversation on this channel. Anyone who recognizes this ought to also recognize the logical conclusion; that the changemakers of the world are hopelessly stuck within a system that ignores or devalues the metacrisis, limits to growth, and the biosphere in favor of retaining the status quo.
Guests who talk about the metacrisis aren't in touch with people on the ground, instincts, and nationalism. So I think this conversation provides some grounded info about where people are at rather than just focusing on where they should be.
I think this was an excellent episode. Just because the result of the analysis doesn't resonate with what most people would like to hear, it is still the reality we live in. And the questions of how to deal with this reality needs to be asked. And answered. Europeans have shied away from this questions for fossil-fuelled decades, and now the awakening comes. It goes to show what happens when policies are driven by reality and energy blindness.
In the VP debate Vance was asked about climate change. This was his answer. The reshoring of manufacturing, a priority for Trump, will reduce carbon emissions because China mainly powers its factories by burning coal. Of course, shipping all that stuff across the Pacific also increases CO2 emissions.
He was mostly correct in stating that. However, the fundamental problem is that Vance (or, the political character of J.D. Vance) does not care in the slightest about the environmental implications of any manufacturing processes; only the political implications therein. If the “better” option for them was worse for the environment, they’d have chosen it in a heartbeat. He (and his political allies) will never make a choice because it is better for the biosphere, except on accident.
Tariffs only raise costs for the customers who are in the country applying the tariffs. Trump as talking about using them as a sales tax to replace a income tax. That is regressive taxation that helps the wealthy push taxes onto the working class.
Universal tariffs would raise costs for consumers until production is on-shored. One can also set tariffs selectively, as in, "China, we don't like you, so we're setting a high tariff on your goods, but Australia, we like you so no tariff on you." Then the Australian product is cheaper in the US than the Chinese product, so hopefully the Americans buy the Australian one and not the Chinese one. That was the point they were making.
@@robinschaufler444 This only works if the competing country has those goods, iron ore going to china to be made into goods so that Americans can buy them and 1000 percent tariff still won't bring back steel making to USA. Raising the costs for Americans so the goods can be made onshore won't pay for onshoring depending on the costs. All goods coming into USA can't be made by Americans so while everybody understands the point, in economics its not usually about who you like or don't like to replace income tax or is raising costs by going to a country with the highest minimum wage going to be the answert.
Great high quality "Real" conversation - im going to think & re-think whats been said here...a lot! Thanks Nate, Luke & Michael, scary & real . Were going to get weird either good weird or bad.... buts weirds coming, while most conventional things decline.
Repeat guests are the best, an hour is never enough time. Our dept has turned into a dept of life. Our planets life our own our children’s, unfortunately I don’t think tiny shifts are goi g to do anything at this point. As horrible a situation as it will be; think the only way to actually do the things we say we want for our future is a collapse of our human systems before the collapse of the planet. If we are thrown into a crisis where you have no electricity or money or food…the solution for the survivors will be the more agro-eco- nature respecting people who will hopefully remember the lessons for the fallen past & not do it again. Though our track record of not repeating mistakes is shady at best
Unfortunately I don’t think we do learn lessons from the past. For example, we are less than 100 years away from a fascist experiment and about to repeat it all over again
I think Luke has his finger on the pulse... but Michael is all over the place, arrogant and trying to lecture others on his bs. Nate is gracious to keep the conversation on point. Thank you.
I gave up after 20 mins have these guys heard of planetary boundaries, climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity crisis, =the collapse of the life supporting capacity of the planet? i hope Nate jumped in at some stage i couldn't handle anymore of this delusional chatter
While Nate does make a statement about limits to growth towards the end (which they wave off), he allows them to speak uninterrupted for most of the conversation.
You're missing the point, they are explaining a problem, that is all. It's the discussion on how you trade and what you buy and how, the problem is calling any of this delusional chatter. Turn on captions and maybe you can read it to understand it better, it was a great talk imo.
Ocean acidifiication is true but it heal itself over time, Planetary boundaries is true we do not have couple of earths you cannot equate the emission nonsense with the actual facts about the planet and its ecological processes.
An absolutely excellent discussion - which I will listen to again. Especially if a person takes into account the consequences of the BRICS Kazan meeting that has just finished (which they didn't know about when the conversation was recorded). Thank you.
Climate changes have already moved insurance companies out of state. The realization is now. There is no future to invest in, soon there will be a rapid collapse of prior values, those expected returns. Who can afford to insure crops? It looks to me, as if human extinction is within a decade. It looks as if a collapse of global economic activity will hasten extinction because of the aerosol masking effect. It is impressive to see the economic strength of America, the stock market, put on a pedestal, while knowing the entire structure is controlled by oligarchs using fossil fuels.
"within a decade" How'd you manage that number? What about folks deep in the interior of the Amazon? If civ collapsed it would behoove them. Do you mean civilization will collapse within a decade? (p.s. not trying to be a troll, jus askin)
Civilization could collapse causing a significant population contraction but the species would struggle on for a few centuries before going extinct, humans are just too adaptable.
@ecognitio9605 humans being too numerous or too adaptable to go extinct reads like hubris to me. Climate change induced mass extinctions are like the worst things imaginable for us. Our bodies are massive warm and energy hungry, we reproduce and mature slower than I believe every other animal, and our ability to adapt is predicated on the availability of cheap energy. I’m not saying we did not invent technologies prior to the industrial revolution but the overwhelming majority of all inventions came in the last 250 years. Things like squirrels and rats will get through the mass extinction most likely. I don’t think we’ll go extinct in a decade, probably in a time period longer than a century seems plausible. It’s not guaranteed but given how bad we’ve handled basically every modern crisis I have serious doubts about how we could keep ourselves in homeostasis indefinitely. If something like the rocky mountain locust could go extinct in short order I think we could too
@@anthonytroia1 It’s getting way too hot in the Amazon and more and more of it is catching on fire. The drought of ‘24 is terrible and I don’t think it’s a one off.
The fact that in a lead up to the American election you're putting out a podcast with these two saying trump would be better for international politics without an explanation is a real choice. Go listen to trump's views on Isreal or look at the decisions he made the last time that helped lead to current destabilization... Downplaying the concerns of the far right parties in Europe is also pretty telling of where the weights fall on the scales of economic interests. This was sad and gross.
Just an added thought for people curious about the 'interesting economic ideas' surrounding Trump, I'd recommend the article " Elon Musk Incorporates “United States of America Inc” by Sam Butler. A trump presidency is a Musk presidency is a Thiel presidency...
@@4evvegI think the consensus is that out of the two options, Trump is the option that has more possibilities for us to manoeuvre out of the status quo of the American empire as it stands today. A vote for Kamala is like voting for Bush twenty years ago. Trump will be a navigable hell if we are strong and organised. Harris will be a world where anti establishment organisation is totally impossible.
@@andywilliams7989 I totally get the need for strong directional change I just think any big ideas that a billionaire surrounded by billionaires come up with will only immiserate the currently disenfranchised further.
nate be good to see you do an updated show with steve keen and simon michxau to see where youre all at on money economics and resources since your last show ..
Out of all of these podcasts (and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard most of them) this has to rank up there as one of the most terrifying and depressing ones to date. Couldn’t understand about 95% of it and pity there wasn’t a woman at the table for balance / clarity. I thought these guys were on 2X speed for most of the conversation and despite how much Nate tried to bring them back to the ecological crisis & consequences, they were too obsessed with fossil energy, money & weapons of war to consider the “externalities”. Seemed like the physical embodiment of Moloch, unstoppable in its thirst for more & screw the consequences. Never felt more despondent, powerless and hopeless. I never thought these conversations were happening by the people we allowed get into power 😢
@@newwhitecrow the whole vid was almost strictly geopolitics and global monetary policy. Obviously a deviation of Nates usual content it seems. That doesn't mean they are omitting anything. They just don't drone on about the doomer stuff that people apparently love to hear on repeat.
I respect yourself and guests , wish more people could take notice of these views, to remove extremes without panicking , and without making enemies of the richest and poorest , peace and love. I,d like to hear you including Yuval Noah Harari among speakers
As many others commented in various ways these guys talk about the global economic and financial system in where it may head in current scenarios, aka business as usual. And of course that is the core problem that BAU is untenable and driving us further down the collapse pathway we are already on. In the end many discussion points let my blood freeze over and obvious that people, planet and also history doesn't matter at all. I certainly do not wish to be part of any of these futures and will fight like hell against it, no matter what it costs. And in relation to statements about Europe they are uniformed about the reality that fascists and neonazis are taking over, playing exactly with neoliberal and neofeudal politics as they discuss here and what also Trump stands for (and Harris at best the lesser evil), not least to say that they are climate change deniers and promote neo-Darwinian social policies (survival of the fittest be it nationally or internationally, abolishment of human rights and authoritarian rule (a la Orban or much worse). After all as some suggested and referred to Donella Meadows, its needs paradigm shifts and transcending paradigms and in that sense a radical transformation of worldviews (ecocentric or symbiocentric and certainly worldcentric), belief systems, values, mind sets and attitudes towards an ecological civilisation. Come to mind that the Earth Charter is a good framework document in that space, but of course I guess in these spheres might at beast create a yawn.
I appreciated this conversation for the sake of diversity, but a lot of their thinking does not glue together. The constraints which would hold together their logic are being hollowed out as we speak. Nate tried to remind them of that but they just went back to their spreadsheets.
I agree with your statement. Nate states at 56:10 based on his calculations that we will have to use less. We in the West will either have to comply with this statement or disobey it. If we comply we can heal our world. If we disobey we can expect more fighting and war. Like the umpire that calls it at home plate either we are Safe! or we are Out!. There is no middle ground.
@@daytime12 agreed. The problem is self-correcting. We have the possibility of preserving some of our way of life in a way we somewhat control. But if we don’t, nature and physics will overwhelm and collapse our excessive “pulse” until maybe a small fraction of humanity survives and the planet keeps hurting through space like the iron ball it is.
Watch Lyn Alden's Broken Money video and listen to Saifedean Ammous's Bitcoin Standard book narration both here on TH-cam and you will have a good foundation with which to build economic understanding.
Richard J murphy on this platform is better imo All very easy, people used to use gold, now we use money, which is just banker debt, all money is one side of a ledger so it doesn't build up, all debt returns to zero, dollars cost 3-5 cents per hundred dollars to create, the US gets goods back full value for this, now people are saying we might stop using them as much and exchange something that is real, like 15 thousand ton of potatoes for 15 thousand of lentils between Russia and Pakistan, then the us dollar which is 51% of all currency and USA being 4% of the world, not so much is needed. If it all comes homes and stays there, inflation shoots through the roof unless taxed out. The US prints this money and then put it through the military which has peeved off around 75% of the world, at least, these dollars might stop being received by 75% of the world, so the US which uses around 25% of the worlds energy, this would drop, then what does that mean for American society? A mass exodus and internal war?
It's a meaningless discussion about how to keep milking the cow with clever financial engineering. The reality is that energy is fundamentally the limiting factor in all economic activity and the cheap energy (fossil fuel) is running out. Everything else is downstream of that. No amount of clever financial engineering can create materials and energy necessary for running the economy out of thin air and clever incentive schemes.
Trump might be better. The current policy is just supporting continued fighting based on some old Cold War thinking. Trump might get the sides together and make a deal. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's possible.
@@martingifford5415 There is no way to know what Trump will do. He has made some pretty drastic claims about what he would do. I think it's weird to attribute "old cold war thinking" to Europe and the United States when Putin's attack on Ukraine was plain old imperialism.
If there is no way to know what trump will do then you have no right to be thinking that the guy has no idea what he is talking about. I think Trump is a product and not a cause, but the other side of the coin has been responsible for how many million deaths over the last 30 years?
Excellent discussion with two very clearly really sharp people. However, and there always is a however these days, they danced around the finite world problem. I had the sense that they both have this idea (hope maybe) that if we can tweak the status quo, maybe step back a bit from globalization, maybe swap some oil energy out for nuclear or renewable energies and then just keep growing while we figure out how to live on the moon or Mars or…. They are bright enough to know the math doesn’t work but I expect, like the rest of us are hard pressed to come up with a solution that does not get very ugly quite fast for a good chunk of the world. When the house of cards is built on the deluded premise that perpetual compounding growth is possible there is no easy renovation that does not entail collapse and start over. The point about needing a shared morality to make real change work is key. Religion has been tried and is clearly not the answer. As the framers of the US constitution were clear to point out, mixing religion and government is and always has been a bad idea for all but those in power (and even they usually get bit in the ass by it eventually). I expect we could get a basic consensus from most humans (if you talk to each in a context outside of their tribe -religious or otherwise) on what it means to be a decent human being. Start with that and weigh policy choices against that measure and you are off to a good start. Doesn’t mean you won’t have to make hard choices but unless and until we really challenge ourselves see each other as part of a single world tribe and act accordingly as decent human beings we will continue on the repeating loop road to hell that every civilization (I use that word reluctantly as I am hard pressed to describe us a civil at the moment) before has crashed and burned on.
I am bemused with this fascination with gold. All the gold ever mined comprises a cube estimated to be at most 111 yards on a side. Think about that for a moment. Crude oil, an 58:42 exponentially more valuable commodity, is often quantified in cubic miles. Tell me how that makes any sense. My experience in the utility scale wind energy industry provides a metaphor that describes the stupidity of the “magic hand of the marketplace.” Without diesel fuel there is no wind energy industry. Today I can buy a gallon of not - from - concentrate orange juice for $9.00. At the fuel pump at the same grocery store I can buy a gallon of diesel fuel, depending on my fuel perks, for as little as $3.50. Because price reflects value - according to capitalism - orange juice is at least twice as “valuable” as diesel fuel. If I pour a gallon of diesel, the less valuable commodity,into a Manitowoc 16000 crane it can lift a 170000 pound nacelle to the top if a 95 meter tower. If I poured a gallon of the more “valuable” orange juice into the same crane I’ve just disabled a $6MM crane. ( it’s a metaphor). As Mike Ruppert incessantly averred, “until the way money works is changed, nothing will change”. We need to follow M. King Hubbard’s advice of issuing a BTU -backed currency because, as you all know, ENERGY is the economy.
How much diesel went into producing the unit of OJ you are talking about? All the gold you are talking about came into possession b/c of diesel as well. Civilization it's self is orthogonal to the physics of Nature (physics is ancient Greek meaning "Nature"). The only future the hairless-talking monkey has is 1,000' king tides and storm surge. Physics
Bitcoin? Bitcoin is even dumber than gold. Bitcoin uses insane amounts of electricity, rendering it worse than useless. Blockchain exists at the LARGESSE of our planet’s rapidly depleting fossil fuels.
@@anabolicamaranth7140 Local nodes and miners can go down and the network does not suffer any loss of security because it is a worldwide network. I live in Colombia and we use bitcoin here within the FEDI structure and we don't even need to be online or have a smartphone. Dumb offline phones work fine. The privileged 1st world has no clue how quickly widespread bitcoin adoption is happening in the under-developed world. The overall amounts of dollar value may be low, but that is because of local poverty. Bitcoin systems in the 3rd world typically allow use of USDT (USD stablecoin and bitcoin). Poor people can't save much so they tend to use the USDT for ongoing expenses and Bitcoin for savings. At least they are no longer "unbanked" and subject to severe inflation of their local national currency or periodic national currency rug-pull of 20-40% over the weekend.
MANY thanks for SUCH a valuable episode! I follow both Michael and Luke on other channels so have not missed a beat in following the content of this SUPER interview. I have subscribed to this channel and hope to see more of this kind of material!
Would Jesus save in gold? Saving souls and saving gold seem at odds with each other. Come on people. There’s enough to go around if we just do a little caregiving to the Living Planet that’s our Mother and Sustainer.
There's not enough to go around any more. We survive by drawdown and in a few remaining cases, like Fort Israel's land grabbing for example, the takeover method of carrying capacity enlargement.
Im going to do a big piece on this. So many people misunderstand MMT. It's horribly complex and important to get this correct. MMT does some things brilliantly (money creation and extinction) -but on the risks we all face, it does some things terribly as well (the triple and quadruple entry accounting of non-renewable resources and ecosystem services). Im crafting a video on it -will be this calendar year.🙏❤🌍
@@thegreatsimplification *THEN YOU MUST HAVE STEVE KEEN BACK ON* and as a counterpoint MARK BLYTH who's (as he says) MMT sympathetic but not yet convinced. If you go back a couple of weeks I'm the engineer who was on Steve Keen & Friends. I'd love to do a podcast with you on the ENGINEERING SIDE of what the human race needs to do RIGHT NOW. In fact we are a long way behind where we need to be and a lot of people need to shut up and start listening to the engineers because there's a lot of stuff that TAKES TIME and too many people just DO NOT GET that they can't click their fingers and things can happen. My degree is in Aerospace but I have spent over 35 years in industrial control systems which are the sensor & computer systems that run things like factories, power stations, water treatment plants, mine sites, gas plants,......... and I have worked in all those industries. In 2016 I had this odd little project into Australia's (my country's) future energy requirements. I was shocked at Australia's situation. NOT ONLY was there no plan in 2016 there still is no plan 8 years later. We actually do not have an energy infrastructure plan that looks forward to our needs and please don't tell me about the AEMO reports that have been published they are so bad they are not worth using as toilet paper. *MORE STARTLING was when I looked around I found NOBODY had a clear plan.* France NOW has a clear plan and its called screw the Brits. The rest of Europe is a disaster except for Finland which gave itself breathing room by finally finishing Olkiluoto 3 an EPR 2 reactor. The Brits are trying but stumbling because of insanely stupid economic policies. That's where I got another shock when I heard Steve Keen one day howl that classical and neo-classical economists don't even put energy into their models. s AND that's the real problem. ECONOMISTS have interfered with things they DO NOT UNDERSTAND like energy grids, water systems and infrastructure. Your great simplification isn't just going to happen its going to collapse upon nation after nation as their older power stations FAIL THROUGH AGE. Ask any engineer nothing lasts forever. It all wears out eventually. Power stations are no different and economists think of them like a commodity like they are taught about everything. The problem is you can't order a power station on Amazon and its magically delivered by one of Jeff's mega-drones within 48 hours. Economists (classical & neo-classical as Steve calls them) have made a fatal flaw in their assumptions. They believe the free market can solve any problem. *They never asked what would happen if there was no free market solution to something and there is no free market solution to energy production.* By energy production I mean what we produce from converting energy resources and reserves into energy forms our societies can use like electricity. If you want to talk about this let me know.
@@thegreatsimplification Nate you should see if you can get Richard Duncan on to talk MMT. He was big on Keynesian economics back in the 1990 when he wrote the Dollar Crisis and Two other books I forgot the tittle of but all 3 are great reading. But he since switch to more of an MMT investment approach. I think he could give a great talk on both systems and the currency Crisis in general terms
@@thegreatsimplification Oh yeah in future when it comes to technology PLEASE and I will say PLEASE don't have IDl0Ts with economics backgrounds harping on about technologies they have ZERO (and I mean ZERO) understanding of. This is the 3rd time in a couple of days I have seen a really intelligent person with a business/economics background ridiculously stupid making idiotic claims about tech they understand nothing about. I did my AEROSPACE DEGREE during the Reagan Star Wars program and almost all of the post graduate students were funded by DARPA and were working on one or more aspects of that technology. They were solving all the basic math needed to make that stuff work and a couple of them were among the most intelligent people I have ever encountered. *AND THEY WORKED OUT IT WONT WORK* That was 37 years ago. A lot of tech might have changed in 37 years but basic physics is basic physics and that's where the problem lies. Its got nothing to do with technology or some magical Star Trek thing or AI *its just plain simple physics.* To knock something out of the sky you have to hit it with enough energy to do enough damage that it breaks up, blows up, falls apart, spirals out of control,....... whatever. Its that simple you have to impart energy onto the target. Bullets work because they keep all their kinetic energy in a very compact volume that does NOT disperse over time or distance. It dissipates a bit but not that much and they work because when they hit something their kinetic energy is IMPARTED onto the target and that energy does damage. For a laser to do damage the laser light has to be absorbed into the structure to such an extent the structure fails from the induced stresses. That's the simple reality of it and its called physics. When the very first lasers for shooting down cruise missiles and drones were made in the 1970s *(YES IT WAS THAT LONG AGO)* they worked great against drones painted in the right paint color because it helped absorb the laser energy. When they had bright and shiny and reflective surfaces it didn't work. There's an urban myth that in the early 90s the Russians released a photo of their latest missile and the warhead was NOT painted the standard military green but a was a highly polished surface. NOW that is an urban myth but its told because a mirror finished surface is actually a practical way to counter a laser. Other than the colossal spending spree Reagan's Star Wars was doomed long before it got dumped on George H. Bush's desk in the early 90s and there's been sound reasons why NOBODY has bothered to reignite that flame until enough people had forgotten the 90s and 80s and 70s. *You see there's always people in government willing to spend big $$$ on stupid stuff. Especially if they saw it in a Hollywood movie.*
It does matter who's in government, not so much in the short-term, but if Americans can consistently elect people who are financially responsible and not corrupt, then we can turn this trend around. It will take a long time and Americans aren't known for electing financially educated people into office so it's more likely America will simply collapse under the weight of the stupidity of its people while politicians launder all the money they can through pet projects and wars.
We are debt slaves. We are paying debts from borrowing done in our names, without our consent for the most part. But rather than get a bill in the mail, the interest is built into every good and service we buy. We are the embodiment of debt because the cost is paid by the very lifeblood of the consumer, earned over a strictly limited time called a life. We live on a prison planet.
Inflation is gradually going to become part of us and due to that fact any money you keep in cash or in a low-interest account declines in value each year. Investing is the only way to make your money grow and unless you have an exceptionally high income, investing is the only way most people will ever have enough money to retire.
45% of Americans do not invest in the stock market because of lack of guidance. Every year you don't invest, you are falling behind. I’m hitting numbers in the stock market I used to dream of… Going from $50k to $600k in my portfolio is surreal all thanks to insights from my financial advisor.
@@derrickholfman2 Please can you leave the info of your invstment analyst here? I need such luck
Annette Christine Conte is the licensed advisor I use. Just search the name. You’d find necessary details to work with to set up an appointment.
In my opinion
She's mostly on Telegrams, using the user name
LeasieAiken
Leasie Aiken is among the best traders on the internet and I'll keep saying it every time.
Thank you. I have searched her up her telegram I think I am satisfied with her experience.
This is why it is advisable to connect with a true market strategist in order to avoid missing such opportunity and maintain steady gains.
The US doesn’t just operate in a vacuum. It’s still one of the largest economies, and its policy decisions ripple outward. If we look at Kamala Harris, she might push for more progressive fiscal spending, investments in healthcare, infrastructure, and climate change initiatives
On the other hand, Trump’s policies lean toward tax cuts and deregulation, which traditionally favor businesses but might increase debt. We’re talking about two very different strategies here
And when we talk about fiscal and monetary policies, there’s always the Federal Reserve's role to consider too. No matter who takes office, they will have to navigate the balance between inflation control, interest rates, and fiscal spending.
Inflation is already a global concern, especially after the pandemic disruptions and rising energy costs. If energy prices keep rising, how they handle that will directly impact the global supply chain and cost of goods
I think the energy sector is one of the most critical factors influencing the next U.S administration's actions. The push for renewable energy, which Harris is likely to accelerate, could create long term benefits but also short term shocks
The fossil fuel industry, which Trump has historically supported, would maintain its grip on the economy under his administration, at least in the near term. But here’s the thing, energy trends are global. The US might influence prices, but they can’t control geopolitical tensions, especially in places like the Middle East or Russia
As the election gets closer it is important to examine the potential impacts of policy modifications on market expansion. Election results can impact the performance of industries, create market volatility, and necessitate adjusting your investment strategy in light of potential constitutional amendments.
Additionally, while unemployment may increase and the economy could face challenges, there are still solid investment opportunities available. My $120k portfolio has grown by 55% over the past four months by focusing on volatile sectors.
How do you go about investing? I'm having difficulties thinking of a plan.
I leverage market research tools, keep current with financial news, and engage with my financial advisor daily. Her guidance helps me effectively navigate the market.
@@hasede-lg9hj How do one go about an advisor?
How do one go about an advisor?
Lovely to hear such an intelligent conversation between three people behaving like gentlemen. A refreshing break from the ever present scream fest in other, bigger outlets.
From Bill Plotkin's humility and ecological wisdom to status quo economists narcissism and delusions of granduer - though I do appreciate your willingness to entertain two things that will never be reconciled under global capitalism - ecology vs economics.... physics vs capitalism I wonder which will eventually win out??
Sounds to me like a discussion on how to keep our status in quo while the planet is dying.
Gromen’s assertion that the US would be militarily less engaged may have been just a half sentence, but it sounded like plain speculation and sycophancy in my ears.
Especially as our capitalist economy is at the very base of the upcoming crisis.
Yes, I am totally confused and equally disturbed by this conversation.
Exactly. Some of Mr. Hagens' conversations are disturbing in that they introduce information or analysis that makes us realize our geophysical, biological, and socioeconomic situation is bad. This one is very disturbing because it reminds us that people in power, people with the ability to manipulate words and money, may be profoundly evil and destructive.
The guy with the nasty accent is very disturbing. He spoke philosophically about "why GDP", but then made his priorities clear: GDP, wealth, and his beloved Military Industrial Complex are here to allow people like him to remain the most powerful, and most capable of stealing from the global majority. If I ever hear his voice again, my stomach will turn in disgust.
@@arp0ad0r Yes, the support for military build up is very disturbing. It's like the world's nuclear arsenal invented to keep us safe. Militaries have to exercise and test so even if there are no wars the energy consumption is still there.
When he talks about people in Europe not agreeing with the politicians he is hitting on a bigger trend. The neoliberal politicians globally are out of touch with the majority of people in every country
Yes, and nothing was said about global digital democracy that would actually be based on the will of the people, reinforced by real time fact checking of things people say.
We are all products of the system, most of us wouldn't be here without US hegemony, especially oil and nothing now being said is any different to the 60's and 70's, the system that the majority depend on is very nice to say it's not what we want but they are in the same boat, what next, except collapse, and then what does that mean. We all know we could go to a system of food. shelter and medical, along with just essential services and emissions would reduce, some people are still trying to get that as basics, will the majority lose all their perceived value so that they can, by choice?
Exactly, We are literally living in the real life version of the Hunger Games
I don't think they're out of touch. That would imply that it's just a big misunderstanding, and if they actually knew what the regular folks wanted and prioritized, because they were in intimate and regular contact and rapport with them, that they would do an about face and begin ushering in a new era of genuine democracy, and equity and sustainability. Which definitely they would never do, and very deliberately have no plans on doing. Precisely because they are very much in touch, or try to be, only it's they have markedly different priorities and agendas. Namely world omination. Or whatever you want to call it. Intransigent maintenance of the status quo by any means necessary.
@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo They want one world government and they don't care how rough they have to get to achieve that. Things are going to get brutal.
You are a gracious host Nate. This discussion quickly devolved from the topic of the roundtable title. Despite your effort to bring it back in line with your work concerning how to move toward and deal with less throughput, energy consumption, etc., the discussion soon returned to matters of monetary dynamics, economic viability, and international market strength, none of which will matter much in a +3°C world suffering from massive storms, intense fires, and record food shortages.
Without waxing on (which could be easy here), either I really don't understand our real predicament, or this discussion outlines how we got here in the first place, rather than any meaningful prescription for a planet in the ER that's on life support.
From that standpoint, it could be informative.
We are more concerned about 10,000 degree increases in the temperature of our cities than this left wing panic over a one degree increase over 100 years.
WELL SAID!!!
@13MAM13
What do you even mean? Is this code for something racist? Can you decrypt your insane paranoia for normal people to understand?
@valeriesummers8100 He's from Florida, bit too sweaty to make any sense 😂
@@13MAM13 are you out of your mind? Canada has been burning up at over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the last two summers, so whatever 1 degree increase is absolute poppycock. Most winter average temperatures are over 20 degrees warmer than historic averages across the globe.
Luke Gromen is the best explainer.
Exactly, his points are clear cut and easy to follow. I couldn't follow the other guy, what exactly was is his assertion. I would love to understand so I can re-listen
I don't understand anything about this. Guests speak this financial jargon like we're all on the same page. If the finance system is a part of the superorganism that it's leading us to extinction, how does this episode help us to understand and FIGHT this financial system?
@@williamturner-v1s I was a fan of this podcast and I understood the "first we need to fully understand our predicament before thinking about our response" approach. But then the lack of talking about societal responses just creates a covert doomerism that is just what the ruling classes need so they can implement THEIR societal responses.
@@williamturner-v1s Astute comment.
Michael and Luke are two of the best macro minds in the world. They helped one another express their subtler insights.
In a narrow siloed view
Can we have Bill Rees and Steve Keen in a roundtable with Luke and Michael?
I would love to hear this again with explanatory interruptions for "economics for dummies". As a Therapist I get only a brief understanding, yet, a strong sense that these topics are truly important.
maria - i hear you - but don't know what we can do - we have small team and its just not feasible to do what you suggest. Best i can offer is we are creating a 'course' of lectures that'll be online in coming months that explain the basics underpinning this discussion. thank you. Nate
I Am always very, very grateful for all your devoted work. I was just a confesional comment 😉
Richard J Murphy on youtube has a channel around how all money is debt, economics professor in the UK, short and sharp but he's been doing it awhile I think. When we get our heads around all money that exists is just banker debt and that they work on a basis of negative zero and that all that debt must return to zero, it makes me think what has it all been for.
A lot of people think money builds up in the system and we should all just get some, like gold or any product, I think a lot of people would be very surprised to find out that taxes pay for no current spending, that they make money disappear.
I think the biggest thing to get through society, is money has been the reason we did things and now we find that taxes make money disappear, then new money must always be coming in through new loans. Who is this interest going to and why and why do they have the right to dictate booms and busts or recessions, wars? We pay this debt issued back full value with our lives efforts and then are told we must have it to survive, we don't have any choice where it's spent, it's slavery by any other name then we think we are free because we hold somebody else's debt.
A big issue I see is people still associate money to gold and it hasn't been that way for 50 years, we are a debt based society but we aren't looking at why or who we pay this debt too or for what reasons other than freehold consumption.
@@thegreatsimplificationWe were hoping you were planning some kind of ongoing follow-up, Nate. Because if we’re interpreting this episode correctly, the bend-not-break moment you’ve been predicting is upon us.
@@mariaamparoolivergarza8933 at least we can trust that we're with thinkers who are being as objective about the global predicament as possible. What i find most difficult to bear is how little other creatures figure in these calculations (!)
Thank you so much for a rational, polite and non political discussion of the world economy. Too often these days it's all about one side villainizing the other. Yes, even amongst family and friends it's all about "how much can I accumulate before the SHTF to maintain my artificial lifestyle". Greed will literally kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Excellent amazing conversation. Post marking it for eternity. Would like to see continuation of the last arguement. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
The discussion on the economy and thinking more than getting the quickest buck are true. Letting everyone loose to earn the easiest dollar results in an economy dominated by crypto, sports betting and ED pills. Those are NOT the foundation of a stable economy. Those seem to be about 75% of adverts online and in real world now.
I agree freehold consumption can lead to problems but as far as an economy goes, it would not matter if we all stood on our heads in the corner, as long as the money leaves again the amount if the amount of money in the system stays stable and nobody saves that would be stable.
Phenomenal discussion; I appreciate these round-tables so much. The ideations produced in this format are far better than debates. Thanks for the 2/3/4th order effects walk-through!
Both guests voiced establishment perspectives, lacking in ecological economics awareness.
SO you have people questioning what we do and how we do it, what do you think the point of this comment is supposed to mean? You sound wrong to me as far as lacking awareness and wonder why denigrating them has purpose?
@@antonyjh1234 he doesnt understand yet - be gentle !
Maybe you should re-listen to the explanation of reshaping the function of the dollar as a reserve status (which has ecological impact)
@@julianholman7379 His assumptions incorrect as they are deserve forthrightness and gentleness you are right.
@@antonyjh1234 His statement is true. If you deconstruct the phrases, you can see that. These are certainly establishment types, with establishment perspectives. They lack an awareness of ecological economics too.
Great roundtable Nate. Very informative, practical
Luke is the only guy that is rational and he stayed rational and said the truth straight with very few words.
As most good design engineers know, the best design method is KISS , Keep It Simple Stupid! The global economic system seems to be the most ridiculously complex thing I've ever tried to understand. Thanks for this podcas!. I continue to learn how little I know. The great simplification resonates with me so will continue to absorb content and do what I can to adapt.
Fair point , a wise man once emphasized the KISS principle to me , It often pops into my head when listening to any conversations about the economy also.
really love 2 guests at the same time format, especially if the views are differing or if there are nuances as was the case with this one
Luke Gromen nailed it. The difference between being self-employed and working for a bank.😊
I will have to try again because alarm bells started ringing immediately with these guests.
These are classical economists whose theories are disconnected from the earth and its limits in every single way except that they share Nate's obsession with debt and Nate's claim that debt involves future claims in resources. I have never understood that claim as debt involves repayment of past claims and future debt can be redirected.
Steve Keen should have been part of this panel to provide some balance
A comment that makes one think ,thanks for that.
They have to work with in the Current Debt Based Monetary Ponzi scheme system we currently have. The whole system, all money is debt in our system which forces over production and over consumption to pay DEBT!
@@Michael-qy1jz You have hit on a major driver for overconsumption and the hypercomplex society. Good show!
Im glad Steve Keen wasnt on the podcast. The MMT he spouts really is just economic apologetics for Marxism.
But are their views disconnected from the reality of how humans actually exist as a society? Families live pay check to pay check - not tree to tree.
Is it not a "curious" thing that such in-depth, relevant conversations such as this one are absent on the mainstream? These are the types of discussions that should be available to everyone, all the time. Their absence is disturbingly "telling".
It's not at all "curious"... very few people would have any interest in the subject or have the time or patience to listen. If it doesn't grab enough views or generate click though for mainstream outlets to make money on it isn't going to get the airtime, no matter how relevant the content. I don't think it's anymore complicated or "telling" than that.
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t People here in the US are "busy" accumulating more, of everything and when they have time to do something else consume adult beverages and watch sporting events. They wouldn't be able to handle "the truth" and would switch to something more palatable. "Bread and circus...divide and rule" still works to control the masses.
Maybe have Taylor Swift do a promo then America might listen.
Excellent!!! A pleasure to listen to the 3 of you. Gracias from Panama 🇵🇦 🙏
The disturbing aspect of this conversation is that it evolves around the manipulation of commodities and "stuff" rather than the well-being of human beings. The motivational instigation is not the well-being of the planet and its 8 billion human inhabitants, but of abstract, narrow-minded, materialistic enclaves. Granted, there IS a global "metabolism" but it seems like that organic process has become overwhelmed by parasites who are so enamored with their own self-righteousness, that nothing else matters.
May l copy and share this?
The moral basis of GDP could be expressed as the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Earth Charter. The challenge is to align the economy with those principles.
I don't understand where you are coming from, the question raised is what is GDP for and why isn't it a moral reason instead.
You seem to be missing what was said in my opinion, I know you like to have a little thing said each video but I think you are guilty of what you are accusing here. The conversation revolved around how to limit consumption and how printing money with very little cost has problems. I don't think anything of what you said applies to the video I watched and find your last sentence more appropriate for yourself.
The US is 4% of the world, has 51% of the worlds currency that got printed at 4 cents per hundred dollars, everybody around the world pays that back full value, if Pakistan has 15 k ton of lentils to sell, it used to have to receive US dollars if that's what the purchaser has, then it has to buy something with this cash, now they can receive 15 k ton of potatoes from Russia, that means no-one needs US dollars, but they exist, so where do they go, back to USA so inflation continues?
Africa is supposed to be half the world in 80 years so that is a lot of trade in that time, the amount of US dollars could shrink to their population size and all very well to talk about the well being of the planet but these people are trying to find a way through this mess too, do you think the people of Africa are going to refuse a house with a roof that doesn't leak or maybe energy so they can have a fridge? I've had a fridge running 24-7 my entire life, some people not one day, this is talking about if everything you've known because of trade stopping and going to them because 75% of the world is against the 25% and the 75% want better, and you call this narrow minded?
I'm watching it again it was so good, am absolutely gob smacked on what you are saying, these people are explaining the problem, your last sentence has honestly got me so confused I've checked three times it's to the same video.
@@antonyjh1234Sometimes things are said that don't make sense. One clear comment from the video is that you can print the interest, but you can't print commodities.
One questionable comment was about the peak in cheap oil. The price of oil has never included the environmental and social costs of burning it. The market has lied to us.
@@johnkintree763 The market has never said they were paying the external costs of pollution, you never believed it when you purchased the goods.
It’s a worthwhile goal to strive for a more balanced, holistic, non-partisan, wide-boundary, accurate view. But the arguments presented in this episode fall very short of actually achieving that. Even if you believe Trump’s foreign and economic policies alone will be better than Harris’, the leap of faith you’re taking and assumptions you’re making regarding whether/how those will be successfully implemented, and in a manner that satisfies the goals you’re stating, defy logic. All evidence points to a second Trump administration as being LESS competent in every domain. Largely because of the huge shift in his staff (I.e. the long list of smart people that will NOT be returning with him). You’re also discounting the likelihood that any potentially good policy shifts his administration would implement will be largely - if not completely - negated by the huge toll a second Trump term will take on not just the U.S., but also the world, in other crucial socio-cultural regards. I’m disappointed and alarmed that the huge risks posed by the political and cultural movement that is currently embodied in Trump’s ascendency are being downplayed, if not completely written-off, as inconsequential. You are grossly mistaken in understanding the net damage that will occur under a second Trump administration compared to any potential damage you foresee from a Harris administration. The End does NOT justify the Means. Listeners of this episode should also listen to the following: “Beyond Deregulation: The Existential Threat of ‘Ungoverning’”
whowhatwhy.org/podcast/beyond-deregulation-the-existential-threat-of-ungoverning/). The authors of “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos” discuss how “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 is designed to destroy US Government agencies.”
This conversation reminded me of the Economists that were all for opening borders during COVID because closing was bad for the economy. In their world ( and maybe the actual world ) we all spin around growth driven financial markets rather than putting financial markets back where they belong as minor servants of our planet. How quickly they both declared Trump as a better option for change. In what world would that man be a better option for anything. Sick.
@@kevinmckay1955 Their rationalizations are divorced from reality. I’m in the middle of “The Twilight Before the Storm: From the Fractured 1930s to Today's Crisis Culture” by Viktor Shvets. Unlike the myopic viewpoints presented here by these two, he presents a much better, interdisciplinary analysis, grounded in reality, which includes what appears to be the most robust refutation of the push for more neoliberalism I’ve seen (I just started that chapter).
The concept of a superorganism is a good one. It conveys the message that We are One.
Lo and behold, a bunch of financial experts are rooting for Trump.
Ideology always trumps (no pun intended) rational broad based thinking.
Trump administration. Is this more palatable? I don’t know. Neither candidate or their future administrations is palatable to me.
Solutions are beyond politics as currently practiced.
Some "right wing" ideas do make sense, overall balanced budgets (if they actually ever did this) and common sense immigration. The fact that they usually come wrapped up in religious and nationalist dogma makes their platform wholly unappealing to me. But yeah people capitalizing from neo liberal economics are likely to pick the side that favors those policies and these two guests seem no different.
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t It’s funny how the Republicans scream for balanced budgets but have never ever achieved it. They consistently raise the national debt. How many trillion$ did Trump add to our deficit?
@@MiS_4n_THr0_pic_NiH_il.i5t And yet the Republicans in the modern era have never balanced the budget. Trump added trillion$ with his giveaways to the already obscenely wealthy.
I really don't understand why Nate is talking to these guys. Their economic framework seems antithetical to his biophysical insights. I don't think Donella & Dennis Meadows would have spent 5 minutes with these guys.
They are outlining the current problems from a game theory perspective, into the great power games that are at play.
By giving us predictions, we can better prepare ourselves for the greating simplification.
@@ninjasonfire0 I think that could have been made clearer in the introduction to the video. In fact, the introduction seemed to suggest the exact opposite to the subsequent conversation. It's certainly an outlier when compared to the other videos on this podcast, and I'd argue it conforms to the narrow boundary of discussion lamented in many of the other conversations. Had Nate returned to the "why GDP?" question in an attempt to garner an answer, then that would have been more applicable to this channel.
There was little mention of any ecological boundaries for example, the entire discussion took place in the abstract game of the growth based economic system.
It wasn't uninteresting, or uninformative, simply a little misplaced here I think.
See my main comment. Along with reinforcing his main theme of "energy trumps finance," Nate's podcasts have a secondary affect of showing us exactly how our financial overlords think. Their ability to make scads of money which they then pay to get their car fixed by you (for a pittance compared to their income) or buy groceries which you grow for a pittance puts the inequality of the current Superorganism into sharp contrast. [And on that note, the Superorganism has got to go, doesn't it?]
Need to understand political and economic realities when considering other biophysics insights
@wvhaugen the prices you pay for goods are a pittance compared to what the people in Africa and China are making to mine the materials and assemble the parts. You have privileges as well.
Luke Gromen is a genius without a doubt. The other worthy guest was still not sure who is currently winning the Russia-Ukraine War and was suggesting some Lasser Weapons to be used by Israel in near future. Probably, bankers don't have time for Geopolitics..
Luke have been suggesting since years that US can't afford to have higher interest rates (say 8%) for longer and now majority of commentators follow Luke in that thing, while the other worthy guest suggested that such interest rates will bring Saudi Arabia money back to US and do other good things..
If the US steals foreign assets whenever it is on the outs with that country, it doesn't matter how high the interest rate or the yield on bonds or T-bills. Central banks are getting better returns on gold too.
the laser comment gave me tumor, wunderwaffen mentality is never wise
this is so incredible, I think i need to rewatch this at least several times before I can understand everything that's been said!
Lotsa cognitive dissonance for me with this one., I'll start by saying I don't understand economics. But. The bit pasted in the front where Michael talks about morality and GDP--but later says he wishes he was religious because moral questions, questions of value matter, well you don't have to be religious to focus on moral questions, you just have to be an adult, you just need to not be a sociopath. Then seemingly Luke and Michael agree that it's necessary and morally right for the EU to ramp up their military spending. And the talk is all immersed in the assumption that national borders and identities are real and important, that WE need to overcome and triumph over THEM. Then we're told that the EU must not dictate things like eating less meat, we'll just get it from Brazil where it's cheaper--yeah, because they're razing the forests of South America to raise cattle for a few years, accepting this is accepting the path to our own extinction. And do we have no choice because "this is what the people want" just like Like's wife with the 8000 # vehicle (hopefully hypothetical)? No, governments, in conjunction with their extremely good friends in the media, could just as easily persuade the public that the whole world is joining in a desperate but cooperative path to rescuing ecosystems by changing the way we do everything, and it's exciting, and we'll mostly be healthier and happier and governments are facilitating matters, and largely dismantling the militaries which are enormously wasteful and destructive, and cooperating instead...as they have been in persuading people that spurring Russia to invade Ukraine was a good idea, that the military is good for the US, that rich people are hard-working geniuses, that risking nuclear war with China/Russia/Iran is worth it because, um, uh, whatever. Then one commenter here talks about how moral bitcoin is. Bitcoin seems an absurdity to me but my understanding is that one doesn't earn this "money" one "mines" it by wasting huge amounts of energy answering equations that don't need to be answered, I live in West Virginia, where the energy costs of this are very obvious--where how long fracking can go on or how problematic high interest rates can go is not the question but rather how much more of it we can tolerate to support stupid garbage like AI and data centers and cryptocurrency and 8000# trucks. Then there are the references to the Middle East and the pragmatic notions about putative laser shields--no need to mention, in this interview or any other, or anywhere on resilience.org, the reality that there is a genocide happening livestreamed, within Israel, supported enthusiastically by "the West" right now; with horrific scenes of egregious abuse and war crimes daily; and now Israel announcing that they're going to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza, and one of their people stating that actually Israel should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates...would you have felt it was too political to raise a voice against the Third Reich? Israel is the Fourth Reich. And all of this follows a couple rather "woo" interviews where you talking about the sanctity of all life, and I'm relegated to the status of early adolescent at 68 years, because i haven't had the experience of suddenly feeling an invisible wall between me and the natural world drop away and felt it as a coming home...but yet you accept that we "can't' do anything real to reduce our own footprints, renounce stupid wars (all of them) and must keep an enormous world economy going until it all collapses.
Or did I completely misunderstand?
Quite accurate. People can’t accept reality and want others to pay for it.
@@beefandbarleyif we can't live without belief, we continue to live by superstition.
Why anybody would call something cognitive dissonance who then says they don't understand the topic...should I continue reading?
I agree with the point that you don't have to be religious to be moral but you then call what you do by default adult, while we all use oil foreign people are killed over. We are the customers of the MIC.
I don't think cost was the mantra of less meat or if he said that regarding the vehicle, he was talking about what choice's it means are available because of money.
Without paragraphs hard to dissect but nothing that I saw meant you understood what was being said, we all use oil those wars are about, hard to claim cognitive dissonance then.
I got much the same impression as you did. It disturbed me to hear Nate agreeing with his guests. They seemed to be advocating for military build-up, cheap Russian gas, more cattle grazing what was once the Amazon, and generally everything that will kill the global ecosystem dead dead dead. I have to listen to this again to more carefully parse out Nate's response.
@@robinschaufler444 Nowhere in this video can you point me to where this was said about what they were advocating for these things. Maybe this is peoples bias or not understanding what was being said is causing them to say this. Just because they mention something doesn't mean they support it.
most of this conversation went way over my head, is there a good resource for the basics of past ~100 years of economic history, the functions of debt/treasury bonds, how gold and oil come into play, etc. Thanks!
Nate and team, please create a TGS-themed T-shirt with the term "I Have So Many Questions" emblazoned on the front. :)
I have never bought a t shirt that says something. I'll buy this one.
This was great stuff. Keep pushing for the finance-environment connection.
44:45 every episode with Luke somehow becomes one of my favorites
At the beginning of the video one of the guests said “you can’t raise taxes”. It’s that kind of ideological “thinking” that is the cause of all our problems. 👎
Thank you! These financial "experts" are more propagandized than normal people, but they are unaware of their own misconstrued viewpoints being a product of the bubbles they exist in.
@@dameongeppetto Yes, they have narrow mind$ and atrophied heart$. And they are resentful and/or envious of those who don’t have those same afflictions.
He is wrong by our standard of biocentric (or, at least, human-adjacent biocentric) thinking. He is right, however, under the standard of economic theory, which actually has an influence on the system by which we exist.
Yes I was thinking Richard Wolff would have a field day with that statement. He would explain that the wealthy choose to loan money to the government rather than pay it in taxes. I also was thinking of the Davos video from a few years back where Gates learned about the history of taxes in the US.
It's only been 44 years since tax rates were slashed so drastically and already economics has been rewritten so that tax raising is "impossible" according to the main ideologues propagating the ideology of the billionaire class that taxes "naturally" fall to zero on billionaire wealth
Michael is such an important voice 👏
I agree - and he'll be back (am thinking w Josh Farley and eg Jeremy Grantham but we'll see - he understands the financial constraints but is also really wants to help humanity find a way through...)
@@thegreatsimplification This was a fascinating conversation Nate. Would be awesome to have Farley and Grantham weigh in. Geopolitics and finance are confusing and unsettling,, but without conversations like this one it will be impossible to come up with better alternatives. Keep up the good work.
@@thegreatsimplification Yeah, the voice of utterly clueless, defeated European imperialism from the Asian city-state of Singapore no less lmao. Recall that "pivot to Asia" Obama tried to crown his Presidency with the TPP? That 'PIVOT TO ASIA" really did occur (unlike Obama's TPP that went down with Clinton's campaign); however, that pivot was the global economy shifting to its new epicenter - Asia - not Obama''s vision of the declining US empire shifting its imperial focus from the "Middle West" to China. The sun already set on the British empire decades back, now it's the EU's turn as it bleeds out from having committed economic suicide covering for the Yanks blowing up of Nordstream pipelines fatally cratering the EU's vanguard economic engine of Germany that has resulted in not only arresting Germany's creeping decoupling from under the boot of the US empire from its natural geographical trade partner - Russia - that was occurring through energy integration which now followed by the US imposing a new Monroe Doctrine dictating the truncating of Germany's economic partnership with China too. Micheal's new mercantilism as a cure for what ails Europe deserves the Don Quixote prize in the economic category for nostalgic white man's empire fantasizing. The cherry on top of course is Iran''s easy penetration of Israel's vaunted "Iron Dome" with ballistic missiles not drones you wanker. So your laser fantasy has already been mooted. Borrell's European "garden" will increasing be needed for it's people's subsistence as the US empire deepens its imperial blockade over the EU's trade with Asia.
@@thegreatsimplification He understands financial constraints and wants to help humanity? Really? by printing 3-5 years to get everything sorted? Or using trade embargos and military blockades? Maybe he read too much all the talks about how to use the Strait of Malacca ..
This was a very frustrating conversation. Nate raised numerous interesting points and both guests seemed to completely not comprehend what he was saying.
At 51:20 Nate explains some of his reasons for this podcast.
To your point, I agree with you. At 56:10 Nate states that we will have to use less.... Both guests did not address this important statement. Nate has stated many times that we in the West will have to use less. Do you think it is possible for us in the west to use less?
@@daytime12 Exactly. I feel like this conversation revealed some of the cult like insanity of economists. He mentioned numerous times the factors of ecological destruction, the idea that military might could be the determining factor in economic policy, and the fact that you could simply run out of resources- you cannot print a commodity. Both of these were disregarded as if it was some incomprehensible language that couldn't even be heard. It reminds me of West World where the Robot is shown diagrams of himself but has been programmed not to see it.
Talking as if Trump has any position on anything that he is knowledgeable about and can speak coherently on is a non starter. He's an ignorant criminal being normaized by almost all talking heads. Disappointed and gone.
True, but there still is a chance he could be president again. If asked to predict how trends would be affected by having an idiotic psychopath as president, you suggest the only reasonable answer is that it's impossible to speculate, but I suggest that you are shooting messengers if you dismiss anyone who tries.
Please don’t go. I’m still listening, but so far what I’ve heard is not Trump himself but a Trump administration- the diverse combination of people with different agendas he will surround himself with and who will drive decisions. Personally I’m not on board with this - I see his potential admin as for the most part enabling a dangerous and immature narcissist - but I’m striving to be open-minded.
You have TDS, get a grip and ask yourself if you could be wrong about why you think what you think about anything.
@@what.if.youre.wrong... Sounds like you suffer from Trump Contagion. I hope you get better.
DJT has already blurted out his "master plan." It begins with maniacal retribution for all his delusional persecutions and will continue to manifest until deposed. Stop the squeal!
probably the last people I want to learn about anything are investors
Absolutely superb discussion - thanks to all of you!
Now listened to this. So riveting it's now 02.00. Thank you soooo much. Overton window duly opened
Lifestyle question, planetary question, what do we all have in common, breath, heart beat, digestion. What are our differences? Intellect, words, pictures, videos, intellects, education. This is the conflict, our similarities and differences. Thank Nate.
Elections are going to save us! Lmao😂
You aren't powerless. You can completely de-register as a voter.
You can publish, *MONOPOLY = SLAVERY,* on your monopoly money. You can spend or even auction your _'newspaper '_ at the sovereign's tax collection food outlets and restaurants.
Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular. Remember too that militarily enforced Exclusive Economic Zones make a free-market for bankers.
Detective of Money Politics is following this very informative content cheers from VK3GFS and 73s from Frank from Melbourne Australia
Best macroeconomic discussion on this platform right now
Brilliant conversation
Damn these guys are smart. Individually it's hard to follow their high intellect arguments but together how the add and breakdown each other's comments brings much better clarity to more lay people. well done
This was a really fascinating conversation and i fully support the final sentiment, that we all have to talk across our silos and ask what the GDP is for....
Love this sooooooo much, thank you guys!
I’ve got alot of time for Luke 👍🏻
Fabulous discussion. Thanks Nate
The conversation was fascinating, but the comments are moreso!
This episode likely emulated the sort of conversations being had by the actual changemakers in the world with more accuracy than almost any other conversation on this channel.
Anyone who recognizes this ought to also recognize the logical conclusion; that the changemakers of the world are hopelessly stuck within a system that ignores or devalues the metacrisis, limits to growth, and the biosphere in favor of retaining the status quo.
Guests who talk about the metacrisis aren't in touch with people on the ground, instincts, and nationalism. So I think this conversation provides some grounded info about where people are at rather than just focusing on where they should be.
Really smart alt scenario discussion but hard to see the relevance of digital tokens when half the globe is hungry.
This discussion is SO important I know you will share it with the incoming administration, if you haven’t already.
I think this was an excellent episode. Just because the result of the analysis doesn't resonate with what most people would like to hear, it is still the reality we live in. And the questions of how to deal with this reality needs to be asked. And answered. Europeans have shied away from this questions for fossil-fuelled decades, and now the awakening comes. It goes to show what happens when policies are driven by reality and energy blindness.
In the VP debate Vance was asked about climate change. This was his answer. The reshoring of manufacturing, a priority for Trump, will reduce carbon emissions because China mainly powers its factories by burning coal. Of course, shipping all that stuff across the Pacific also increases CO2 emissions.
It's cheaper from China.
. So we kill ourselves cheaper and faster
Enjoy your distorted info
But isn't China leading in renewable?
They are using fossil fuels to bypass everyone else in the build up of renewables.
He was mostly correct in stating that. However, the fundamental problem is that Vance (or, the political character of J.D. Vance) does not care in the slightest about the environmental implications of any manufacturing processes; only the political implications therein.
If the “better” option for them was worse for the environment, they’d have chosen it in a heartbeat. He (and his political allies) will never make a choice because it is better for the biosphere, except on accident.
Super interesting! These are some top tier guests.
Thanks, Nate for these wonderful conversations you offer to us alll❤❤
Tariffs only raise costs for the customers who are in the country applying the tariffs. Trump as talking about using them as a sales tax to replace a income tax. That is regressive taxation that helps the wealthy push taxes onto the working class.
Universal tariffs would raise costs for consumers until production is on-shored. One can also set tariffs selectively, as in, "China, we don't like you, so we're setting a high tariff on your goods, but Australia, we like you so no tariff on you." Then the Australian product is cheaper in the US than the Chinese product, so hopefully the Americans buy the Australian one and not the Chinese one. That was the point they were making.
@@robinschaufler444 This only works if the competing country has those goods, iron ore going to china to be made into goods so that Americans can buy them and 1000 percent tariff still won't bring back steel making to USA. Raising the costs for Americans so the goods can be made onshore won't pay for onshoring depending on the costs.
All goods coming into USA can't be made by Americans so while everybody understands the point, in economics its not usually about who you like or don't like to replace income tax or is raising costs by going to a country with the highest minimum wage going to be the answert.
Great high quality "Real" conversation - im going to think & re-think whats been said here...a lot! Thanks Nate, Luke & Michael, scary & real . Were going to get weird either good weird or bad.... buts weirds coming, while most conventional things decline.
Excellent discussion.
Repeat guests are the best, an hour is never enough time. Our dept has turned into a dept of life. Our planets life our own our children’s, unfortunately I don’t think tiny shifts are goi g to do anything at this point.
As horrible a situation as it will be; think the only way to actually do the things we say we want for our future is a collapse of our human systems before the collapse of the planet. If we are thrown into a crisis where you have no electricity or money or food…the solution for the survivors will be the more agro-eco- nature respecting people who will hopefully remember the lessons for the fallen past & not do it again. Though our track record of not repeating mistakes is shady at best
Unfortunately I don’t think we do learn lessons from the past. For example, we are less than 100 years away from a fascist experiment and about to repeat it all over again
Very enlightening video
Thanks
I think Luke has his finger on the pulse... but Michael is all over the place, arrogant and trying to lecture others on his bs. Nate is gracious to keep the conversation on point. Thank you.
I gave up after 20 mins have these guys heard of planetary boundaries, climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity crisis, =the collapse of the life supporting capacity of the planet? i hope Nate jumped in at some stage i couldn't handle anymore of this delusional chatter
While Nate does make a statement about limits to growth towards the end (which they wave off), he allows them to speak uninterrupted for most of the conversation.
Perhaps an educational exposé? It surprises me that Marx's book was called Kapital, not Commune.😅
You're missing the point, they are explaining a problem, that is all. It's the discussion on how you trade and what you buy and how, the problem is calling any of this delusional chatter. Turn on captions and maybe you can read it to understand it better, it was a great talk imo.
Ocean acidifiication is true but it heal itself over time, Planetary boundaries is true we do not have couple of earths you cannot equate the emission nonsense with the actual facts about the planet and its ecological processes.
They were expressing their opinions like trump being better, Poland being smart and good for investing a lot into military etc.etc.etc.etc.
An absolutely excellent discussion - which I will listen to again.
Especially if a person takes into account the consequences of the BRICS Kazan meeting that has just finished (which they didn't know about when the conversation was recorded).
Thank you.
One of the best conservations for a while. More please!
This was fantastic. Thank you.
Climate changes have already moved insurance companies out of state. The realization is now. There is no future to invest in, soon there will be a rapid collapse of prior values, those expected returns. Who can afford to insure crops? It looks to me, as if human extinction is within a decade. It looks as if a collapse of global economic activity will hasten extinction because of the aerosol masking effect.
It is impressive to see the economic strength of America, the stock market, put on a pedestal, while knowing the entire structure is controlled by oligarchs using fossil fuels.
"within a decade" How'd you manage that number? What about folks deep in the interior of the Amazon? If civ collapsed it would behoove them. Do you mean civilization will collapse within a decade? (p.s. not trying to be a troll, jus askin)
Civilization could collapse causing a significant population contraction but the species would struggle on for a few centuries before going extinct, humans are just too adaptable.
@ecognitio9605 humans being too numerous or too adaptable to go extinct reads like hubris to me. Climate change induced mass extinctions are like the worst things imaginable for us. Our bodies are massive warm and energy hungry, we reproduce and mature slower than I believe every other animal, and our ability to adapt is predicated on the availability of cheap energy. I’m not saying we did not invent technologies prior to the industrial revolution but the overwhelming majority of all inventions came in the last 250 years. Things like squirrels and rats will get through the mass extinction most likely. I don’t think we’ll go extinct in a decade, probably in a time period longer than a century seems plausible. It’s not guaranteed but given how bad we’ve handled basically every modern crisis I have serious doubts about how we could keep ourselves in homeostasis indefinitely. If something like the rocky mountain locust could go extinct in short order I think we could too
@@ecognitio9605 nope
@@anthonytroia1 It’s getting way too hot in the Amazon and more and more of it is catching on fire. The drought of ‘24 is terrible and I don’t think it’s a one off.
1:12:40 - Thank you Michael Every & Luke Gromen & Nate
The fact that in a lead up to the American election you're putting out a podcast with these two saying trump would be better for international politics without an explanation is a real choice. Go listen to trump's views on Isreal or look at the decisions he made the last time that helped lead to current destabilization... Downplaying the concerns of the far right parties in Europe is also pretty telling of where the weights fall on the scales of economic interests. This was sad and gross.
Just an added thought for people curious about the 'interesting economic ideas' surrounding Trump, I'd recommend the article " Elon Musk Incorporates “United States of America Inc” by Sam Butler. A trump presidency is a Musk presidency is a Thiel presidency...
@@4evvegI think the consensus is that out of the two options, Trump is the option that has more possibilities for us to manoeuvre out of the status quo of the American empire as it stands today. A vote for Kamala is like voting for Bush twenty years ago. Trump will be a navigable hell if we are strong and organised. Harris will be a world where anti establishment organisation is totally impossible.
@@andywilliams7989 I totally get the need for strong directional change I just think any big ideas that a billionaire surrounded by billionaires come up with will only immiserate the currently disenfranchised further.
And that is where we need to go so that we learn to self organise locally and in coherence with our territories.
@@andywilliams7989 I hope you enjoy the fruits of living under a violent Fascist dictatorship. How myopic can people get?
nate be good to see you do an updated show with steve keen and simon michxau to see where youre all at on money economics and resources since your last show ..
Out of all of these podcasts (and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard most of them) this has to rank up there as one of the most terrifying and depressing ones to date. Couldn’t understand about 95% of it and pity there wasn’t a woman at the table for balance / clarity. I thought these guys were on 2X speed for most of the conversation and despite how much Nate tried to bring them back to the ecological crisis & consequences, they were too obsessed with fossil energy, money & weapons of war to consider the “externalities”. Seemed like the physical embodiment of Moloch, unstoppable in its thirst for more & screw the consequences. Never felt more despondent, powerless and hopeless. I never thought these conversations were happening by the people we allowed get into power 😢
This podcast was a window into how our political and financial overlords think.
So you couldn’t understand any of it but you came to all these conclusions? Lmao gotta be a boomer
@@louiec1848 It's seeing their omissions that constitute an "understanding:" they are ignoring all the issues Nate tries to make evident.
@@newwhitecrow the whole vid was almost strictly geopolitics and global monetary policy. Obviously a deviation of Nates usual content it seems. That doesn't mean they are omitting anything. They just don't drone on about the doomer stuff that people apparently love to hear on repeat.
I respect yourself and guests , wish more people could take notice of these views, to remove extremes without panicking , and without making enemies of the richest and poorest , peace and love. I,d like to hear you including Yuval Noah Harari among speakers
Invited
Both your guests are realists.
Taxes can be raised in all kinds of direct and indirect ways, as with value added taxes.
As many others commented in various ways these guys talk about the global economic and financial system in where it may head in current scenarios, aka business as usual. And of course that is the core problem that BAU is untenable and driving us further down the collapse pathway we are already on. In the end many discussion points let my blood freeze over and obvious that people, planet and also history doesn't matter at all. I certainly do not wish to be part of any of these futures and will fight like hell against it, no matter what it costs.
And in relation to statements about Europe they are uniformed about the reality that fascists and neonazis are taking over, playing exactly with neoliberal and neofeudal politics as they discuss here and what also Trump stands for (and Harris at best the lesser evil), not least to say that they are climate change deniers and promote neo-Darwinian social policies (survival of the fittest be it nationally or internationally, abolishment of human rights and authoritarian rule (a la Orban or much worse).
After all as some suggested and referred to Donella Meadows, its needs paradigm shifts and transcending paradigms and in that sense a radical transformation of worldviews (ecocentric or symbiocentric and certainly worldcentric), belief systems, values, mind sets and attitudes towards an ecological civilisation. Come to mind that the Earth Charter is a good framework document in that space, but of course I guess in these spheres might at beast create a yawn.
I appreciated this conversation for the sake of diversity, but a lot of their thinking does not glue together. The constraints which would hold together their logic are being hollowed out as we speak. Nate tried to remind them of that but they just went back to their spreadsheets.
I agree with your statement. Nate states at 56:10 based on his calculations that we will have to use less. We in the West will either have to comply with this statement or disobey it. If we comply we can heal our world. If we disobey we can expect more fighting and war. Like the umpire that calls it at home plate either we are Safe! or we are Out!. There is no middle ground.
@@daytime12 agreed. The problem is self-correcting. We have the possibility of preserving some of our way of life in a way we somewhat control. But if we don’t, nature and physics will overwhelm and collapse our excessive “pulse” until maybe a small fraction of humanity survives and the planet keeps hurting through space like the iron ball it is.
Me listening to people discuss economics > 😵💫 "...Me no understand." 🥴 (I'm legit frustrated by how inaccessible economics is to me)
Watch Lyn Alden's Broken Money video and listen to Saifedean Ammous's Bitcoin Standard book narration both here on TH-cam and you will have a good foundation with which to build economic understanding.
Theres nothing to get, its just bamboozling and bullshitting
Watch Richard Wolff
Richard J murphy on this platform is better imo
All very easy, people used to use gold, now we use money, which is just banker debt, all money is one side of a ledger so it doesn't build up, all debt returns to zero, dollars cost 3-5 cents per hundred dollars to create, the US gets goods back full value for this, now people are saying we might stop using them as much and exchange something that is real, like 15 thousand ton of potatoes for 15 thousand of lentils between Russia and Pakistan, then the us dollar which is 51% of all currency and USA being 4% of the world, not so much is needed. If it all comes homes and stays there, inflation shoots through the roof unless taxed out.
The US prints this money and then put it through the military which has peeved off around 75% of the world, at least, these dollars might stop being received by 75% of the world, so the US which uses around 25% of the worlds energy, this would drop, then what does that mean for American society? A mass exodus and internal war?
It's a meaningless discussion about how to keep milking the cow with clever financial engineering. The reality is that energy is fundamentally the limiting factor in all economic activity and the cheap energy (fossil fuel) is running out. Everything else is downstream of that. No amount of clever financial engineering can create materials and energy necessary for running the economy out of thin air and clever incentive schemes.
"Foreign policy will be better under Trump.." I quit watching right there. That guy has no idea what he is talking about.
Trump might be better. The current policy is just supporting continued fighting based on some old Cold War thinking. Trump might get the sides together and make a deal. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's possible.
@@martingifford5415 There is no way to know what Trump will do. He has made some pretty drastic claims about what he would do. I think it's weird to attribute "old cold war thinking" to Europe and the United States when Putin's attack on Ukraine was plain old imperialism.
If there is no way to know what trump will do then you have no right to be thinking that the guy has no idea what he is talking about.
I think Trump is a product and not a cause, but the other side of the coin has been responsible for how many million deaths over the last 30 years?
@@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672 Triggered by floating Ukraine as a NATO member, which is old cold war thinking.
@@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672we know? He was president for 4 years
Nate.
You Da’ Bomb.
🇺🇸
Mister in the middle was excellent. Especially about Europe.
Excellent discussion with two very clearly really sharp people. However, and there always is a however these days, they danced around the finite world problem. I had the sense that they both have this idea (hope maybe) that if we can tweak the status quo, maybe step back a bit from globalization, maybe swap some oil energy out for nuclear or renewable energies and then just keep growing while we figure out how to live on the moon or Mars or…. They are bright enough to know the math doesn’t work but I expect, like the rest of us are hard pressed to come up with a solution that does not get very ugly quite fast for a good chunk of the world. When the house of cards is built on the deluded premise that perpetual compounding growth is possible there is no easy renovation that does not entail collapse and start over.
The point about needing a shared morality to make real change work is key. Religion has been tried and is clearly not the answer. As the framers of the US constitution were clear to point out, mixing religion and government is and always has been a bad idea for all but those in power (and even they usually get bit in the ass by it eventually). I expect we could get a basic consensus from most humans (if you talk to each in a context outside of their tribe -religious or otherwise) on what it means to be a decent human being. Start with that and weigh policy choices against that measure and you are off to a good start. Doesn’t mean you won’t have to make hard choices but unless and until we really challenge ourselves see each other as part of a single world tribe and act accordingly as decent human beings we will continue on the repeating loop road to hell that every civilization (I use that word reluctantly as I am hard pressed to describe us a civil at the moment) before has crashed and burned on.
Brilliant episode.
Nate could you do a one-hour on the oil, gold and a few other selected commodity bit, pretty much what BRICS is doing.
I am bemused with this fascination with gold. All the gold ever mined comprises a cube estimated to be at most 111 yards on a side. Think about that for a moment. Crude oil, an 58:42 exponentially more valuable commodity, is often quantified in cubic miles. Tell me how that makes any sense.
My experience in the utility scale wind energy industry provides a metaphor that describes the stupidity of the “magic hand of the marketplace.” Without diesel fuel there is no wind energy industry. Today I can buy a gallon of not - from - concentrate orange juice for $9.00. At the fuel pump at the same grocery store I can buy a gallon of diesel fuel, depending on my fuel perks, for as little as $3.50. Because price reflects value - according to capitalism - orange juice is at least twice as “valuable” as diesel fuel. If I pour a gallon of diesel, the less valuable commodity,into a Manitowoc 16000 crane it can lift a 170000 pound nacelle to the top if a 95 meter tower. If I poured a gallon of the more “valuable” orange juice into the same crane I’ve just disabled a $6MM crane. ( it’s a metaphor). As Mike Ruppert incessantly averred, “until the way money works is changed, nothing will change”.
We need to follow M. King Hubbard’s advice of issuing a BTU -backed currency because, as you all know, ENERGY is the economy.
That's why the Bitcoin network is secured with proof of work using the most efficient energy sources.
How much diesel went into producing the unit of OJ you are talking about?
All the gold you are talking about came into possession b/c of diesel as well.
Civilization it's self is orthogonal to the physics of Nature (physics is ancient Greek meaning "Nature").
The only future the hairless-talking monkey has is 1,000' king tides and storm surge.
Physics
Bitcoin? Bitcoin is even dumber than gold. Bitcoin uses insane amounts of electricity, rendering it worse than useless. Blockchain exists at the LARGESSE of our planet’s rapidly depleting fossil fuels.
@@casamurphy Bitcoin is just a secure as the grid.
@@anabolicamaranth7140 Local nodes and miners can go down and the network does not suffer any loss of security because it is a worldwide network. I live in Colombia and we use bitcoin here within the FEDI structure and we don't even need to be online or have a smartphone. Dumb offline phones work fine. The privileged 1st world has no clue how quickly widespread bitcoin adoption is happening in the under-developed world. The overall amounts of dollar value may be low, but that is because of local poverty. Bitcoin systems in the 3rd world typically allow use of USDT (USD stablecoin and bitcoin). Poor people can't save much so they tend to use the USDT for ongoing expenses and Bitcoin for savings. At least they are no longer "unbanked" and subject to severe inflation of their local national currency or periodic national currency rug-pull of 20-40% over the weekend.
Great convo - very informative. Thanks guys
MANY thanks for SUCH a valuable episode! I follow both Michael and Luke on other channels so have not missed a beat in following the content of this SUPER interview. I have subscribed to this channel and hope to see more of this kind of material!
More of this conversation please
Please add these chapter timestamps within podcast description of RSS episode so that we can jump around chapters in Apple Podcasts.
I hate the warmongering. No we don't support wasting money on military. Life is hard, stop trying to make it harder. Use tax money wisely.
Would Jesus save in gold? Saving souls and saving gold seem at odds with each other. Come on people. There’s enough to go around if we just do a little caregiving to the Living Planet that’s our Mother and Sustainer.
There's not enough to go around any more. We survive by drawdown and in a few remaining cases, like Fort Israel's land grabbing for example, the takeover method of carrying capacity enlargement.
How is this conversation on the same channel as interviews with Casey Camp-Horinek or even Schmachtenberger ?
Easily the worst conversation I've seen Nate in....
Nate, a personal comment. The beard really, really suits you!
Mmt is post Keynesian Nate ...and we’ve been using mmt since Nixon shock ..just not for the majority population.
Im going to do a big piece on this. So many people misunderstand MMT. It's horribly complex and important to get this correct. MMT does some things brilliantly (money creation and extinction) -but on the risks we all face, it does some things terribly as well (the triple and quadruple entry accounting of non-renewable resources and ecosystem services). Im crafting a video on it -will be this calendar year.🙏❤🌍
@@thegreatsimplification *THEN YOU MUST HAVE STEVE KEEN BACK ON* and as a counterpoint MARK BLYTH who's (as he says) MMT sympathetic but not yet convinced.
If you go back a couple of weeks I'm the engineer who was on Steve Keen & Friends. I'd love to do a podcast with you on the ENGINEERING SIDE of what the human race needs to do RIGHT NOW. In fact we are a long way behind where we need to be and a lot of people need to shut up and start listening to the engineers because there's a lot of stuff that TAKES TIME and too many people just DO NOT GET that they can't click their fingers and things can happen.
My degree is in Aerospace but I have spent over 35 years in industrial control systems which are the sensor & computer systems that run things like factories, power stations, water treatment plants, mine sites, gas plants,......... and I have worked in all those industries.
In 2016 I had this odd little project into Australia's (my country's) future energy requirements. I was shocked at Australia's situation. NOT ONLY was there no plan in 2016 there still is no plan 8 years later. We actually do not have an energy infrastructure plan that looks forward to our needs and please don't tell me about the AEMO reports that have been published they are so bad they are not worth using as toilet paper.
*MORE STARTLING was when I looked around I found NOBODY had a clear plan.*
France NOW has a clear plan and its called screw the Brits.
The rest of Europe is a disaster except for Finland which gave itself breathing room by finally finishing Olkiluoto 3 an EPR 2 reactor.
The Brits are trying but stumbling because of insanely stupid economic policies.
That's where I got another shock when I heard Steve Keen one day howl that classical and neo-classical economists don't even put energy into their models.
s AND that's the real problem. ECONOMISTS have interfered with things they DO NOT UNDERSTAND like energy grids, water systems and infrastructure.
Your great simplification isn't just going to happen its going to collapse upon nation after nation as their older power stations FAIL THROUGH AGE. Ask any engineer nothing lasts forever. It all wears out eventually.
Power stations are no different and economists think of them like a commodity like they are taught about everything. The problem is you can't order a power station on Amazon and its magically delivered by one of Jeff's mega-drones within 48 hours.
Economists (classical & neo-classical as Steve calls them) have made a fatal flaw in their assumptions. They believe the free market can solve any problem. *They never asked what would happen if there was no free market solution to something and there is no free market solution to energy production.* By energy production I mean what we produce from converting energy resources and reserves into energy forms our societies can use like electricity.
If you want to talk about this let me know.
@@thegreatsimplification Nate you should see if you can get Richard Duncan on to talk MMT. He was big on Keynesian economics back in the 1990 when he wrote the Dollar Crisis and Two other books I forgot the tittle of but all 3 are great reading. But he since switch to more of an MMT investment approach. I think he could give a great talk on both systems and the currency Crisis in general terms
@@thegreatsimplification Oh yeah in future when it comes to technology PLEASE and I will say PLEASE don't have IDl0Ts with economics backgrounds harping on about technologies they have ZERO (and I mean ZERO) understanding of.
This is the 3rd time in a couple of days I have seen a really intelligent person with a business/economics background ridiculously stupid making idiotic claims about tech they understand nothing about.
I did my AEROSPACE DEGREE during the Reagan Star Wars program and almost all of the post graduate students were funded by DARPA and were working on one or more aspects of that technology. They were solving all the basic math needed to make that stuff work and a couple of them were among the most intelligent people I have ever encountered. *AND THEY WORKED OUT IT WONT WORK*
That was 37 years ago. A lot of tech might have changed in 37 years but basic physics is basic physics and that's where the problem lies.
Its got nothing to do with technology or some magical Star Trek thing or AI *its just plain simple physics.* To knock something out of the sky you have to hit it with enough energy to do enough damage that it breaks up, blows up, falls apart, spirals out of control,....... whatever. Its that simple you have to impart energy onto the target.
Bullets work because they keep all their kinetic energy in a very compact volume that does NOT disperse over time or distance. It dissipates a bit but not that much and they work because when they hit something their kinetic energy is IMPARTED onto the target and that energy does damage. For a laser to do damage the laser light has to be absorbed into the structure to such an extent the structure fails from the induced stresses.
That's the simple reality of it and its called physics.
When the very first lasers for shooting down cruise missiles and drones were made in the 1970s *(YES IT WAS THAT LONG AGO)* they worked great against drones painted in the right paint color because it helped absorb the laser energy. When they had bright and shiny and reflective surfaces it didn't work.
There's an urban myth that in the early 90s the Russians released a photo of their latest missile and the warhead was NOT painted the standard military green but a was a highly polished surface. NOW that is an urban myth but its told because a mirror finished surface is actually a practical way to counter a laser.
Other than the colossal spending spree Reagan's Star Wars was doomed long before it got dumped on George H. Bush's desk in the early 90s and there's been sound reasons why NOBODY has bothered to reignite that flame until enough people had forgotten the 90s and 80s and 70s. *You see there's always people in government willing to spend big $$$ on stupid stuff. Especially if they saw it in a Hollywood movie.*
MMT doesnt " do " anything; it posits a view of how the macro system functions