Podcast
by
Gregor Macdonald
Executive Summary
- Why many entrepreneurial ventures addressing resource scarcity have less time than they imagine
- Why understanding the unintuitive economics created by resource scarcity is key
- Copper is serving as a case study in how peak supply is putting upward pressure on world prices
- The approaching "dead end" for millionaries
- Why physical networks will trump the importance of digital ones in tomorrow's economy
Part I: 'Cornucopians in Space' Deliver a Dangerously Misguided Message
If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Part II: The Looming Dislocation Risks Posed by Resource Scarcity
One of the most stunning and repeated patterns seen in the 2000-2010 timeframe is that, right as many natural resources experienced phase transition to much higher prices, the production rate of those resources either slowed, stalled out, or in some cases fell.
This is the real reason, in my opinion, why so many writers and thinkers are grappling with the problem of creating future wealth and obtaining (or recapturing, if you will) the kind of abundance we once enjoyed.
It’s positive, actually, that the news story about mineral mining in space has been so popular and covered in just about every major newspaper, because it unintentionally articulates the very long timeline to the solution of resource scarcity now facing human economies. To Peter Thiel’s point, therefore, it would be better to solve our problems in ways that actually serve humanity on relevant timescales, than to delude ourselves into thinking that miracles are just around the corner.
The Looming Dislocation Risks Posed by Resource Scarcity
PREVIEW by Gregor MacdonaldExecutive Summary
- Why many entrepreneurial ventures addressing resource scarcity have less time than they imagine
- Why understanding the unintuitive economics created by resource scarcity is key
- Copper is serving as a case study in how peak supply is putting upward pressure on world prices
- The approaching "dead end" for millionaries
- Why physical networks will trump the importance of digital ones in tomorrow's economy
Part I: 'Cornucopians in Space' Deliver a Dangerously Misguided Message
If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Part II: The Looming Dislocation Risks Posed by Resource Scarcity
One of the most stunning and repeated patterns seen in the 2000-2010 timeframe is that, right as many natural resources experienced phase transition to much higher prices, the production rate of those resources either slowed, stalled out, or in some cases fell.
This is the real reason, in my opinion, why so many writers and thinkers are grappling with the problem of creating future wealth and obtaining (or recapturing, if you will) the kind of abundance we once enjoyed.
It’s positive, actually, that the news story about mineral mining in space has been so popular and covered in just about every major newspaper, because it unintentionally articulates the very long timeline to the solution of resource scarcity now facing human economies. To Peter Thiel’s point, therefore, it would be better to solve our problems in ways that actually serve humanity on relevant timescales, than to delude ourselves into thinking that miracles are just around the corner.
by
Gregor Macdonald
Once a year the very chic and exclusive TED conference takes place in Southern California, bringing together entrepreneurs, inventors, and thought leaders from every corner of the world.
There, gathered around a stage, a kind of hive mind begins to unfold in which the most cutting edge ideas in healthcare, energy, social development, and behavioral psychology are shared from a very plugged-in, big-screen podium. It’s extremely well done.
And despite the reflexive criticism from outside the conference — that the gathering is inward-looking and elitist — TED usually does manage to disturb the zeitgeist, a little, with its unveilings in technology and innovation. It is plainly good that next-step advances in solar technology, data collection, and developing world health initiatives are explained and broadcasted from TED. Especially given that policy makers, or those who have the ear of policy makers, are also often in attendance.
A better charge to level against the TED conference, however, is that it’s routinely, if not unfailingly, optimistic.
‘Cornucopians in Space’ Deliver a Dangerously Misguided Message
by Gregor MacdonaldOnce a year the very chic and exclusive TED conference takes place in Southern California, bringing together entrepreneurs, inventors, and thought leaders from every corner of the world.
There, gathered around a stage, a kind of hive mind begins to unfold in which the most cutting edge ideas in healthcare, energy, social development, and behavioral psychology are shared from a very plugged-in, big-screen podium. It’s extremely well done.
And despite the reflexive criticism from outside the conference — that the gathering is inward-looking and elitist — TED usually does manage to disturb the zeitgeist, a little, with its unveilings in technology and innovation. It is plainly good that next-step advances in solar technology, data collection, and developing world health initiatives are explained and broadcasted from TED. Especially given that policy makers, or those who have the ear of policy makers, are also often in attendance.
A better charge to level against the TED conference, however, is that it’s routinely, if not unfailingly, optimistic.
by
Chris Martenson
In Part II of Chris’ detailed interview with Alasdair Macleod on the inevitable outcome to the European credit crisis (click here for Part I), the discussion deepens, exploring a number of important topics including:
- What the key risks are at this stage
- What the most likely scenarios are
- Gold ownership and captial controls
- What options concerned individuals should consider
Alasdair Macleod (Part II): How a Collapsing Europe will Cause Asset Revaluations Worldwide
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonIn Part II of Chris’ detailed interview with Alasdair Macleod on the inevitable outcome to the European credit crisis (click here for Part I), the discussion deepens, exploring a number of important topics including:
- What the key risks are at this stage
- What the most likely scenarios are
- Gold ownership and captial controls
- What options concerned individuals should consider
by
Chris Martenson
Alasdair Macleod, publisher of Financeandeconomics.org, sees little room for a happy ending to the worsening European credit crisis.
In this interview, he builds on his excellent synopsis from earlier in the week that detailed how the crisis originated, essentially embedding a fundamental structural shortcoming into the entire Eurozone construct starting back in 1997. This flawed monetary model was exploited for temporal gain, and it worked very well, as long as the pie was expanding and nobody was looking too carefully at the mounting imbalances created as it chugged along beautifully. Everybody was getting rich on their Mediterranean villas going up in price almost daily.
This whole thing was bound to work until, mathematically, it couldn’t work.
Alasdair Macleod: Why the Europe Situation is Certain to Get Worse
by Chris MartensonAlasdair Macleod, publisher of Financeandeconomics.org, sees little room for a happy ending to the worsening European credit crisis.
In this interview, he builds on his excellent synopsis from earlier in the week that detailed how the crisis originated, essentially embedding a fundamental structural shortcoming into the entire Eurozone construct starting back in 1997. This flawed monetary model was exploited for temporal gain, and it worked very well, as long as the pie was expanding and nobody was looking too carefully at the mounting imbalances created as it chugged along beautifully. Everybody was getting rich on their Mediterranean villas going up in price almost daily.
This whole thing was bound to work until, mathematically, it couldn’t work.
by
Denis Korn
by
Alasdair Macleod
Executive Summary
- The political and economic reasons why Europe's leaders will not change their behaviour until forced to by further crisis
- The reasons Europe's future is in the hands of Germany and the ECB
- How risk has spread from the periphery: What's next for Spain, Italy, and France
- The sure bet for investors to consider
Part I: The Europe Crisis from a European Perspective
If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Part II: What Lies in Store for Europe
In Part I of this article, we looked at the background to the Eurozone crisis and made the point that there are substantial extra government liabilities that were hidden by most member nations to meet the joining criteria in the target year for proof of convergence, 1997. And the only reason that capital flight from Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy has not led to a banking and economic collapse already is that it has been accommodated by a build-up of imbalances between the accounts of national central banks of the individual Eurozone members.
The End of the Keynesian Experiment
In truth, all advanced Western democracies face the same crisis. It is the end of the Keynesian experiment, marked by the collapse of various credit-fueled bubbles four years ago, mostly involving property. This event threatened a global systemic banking collapse, which was only averted by sovereign nations guaranteeing the solvency of their banks by shifting the risk to government bond markets. The answer for the US, UK, and Japan has been to flood the system with dollars, pounds, and yen respectively, partly to give banks breathing space, and partly so that governments could fund their ballooning deficits.
The individual states in the Eurozone gave away that facility to the ECB, so they are only the first of the advanced nations to face collapse. This is because printing money is the principal means by which governments survive financial crises.
In that sense it is wrong to blame our financial ills on Europe; that would be like sinners casting stones. Like the rest of us, by agreeing to underwrite their banks, Eurozone governments have multiplied their potential debts three, four, or even five-fold (Ireland by eight!). Unfortunately, there is nothing, frankly, that the politicians can do to stop a Eurozone meltdown; they are in a bind of their own making, and they do not understand, nor can they explain to their increasingly angry electorates, how to get out of it.
There is a remedy, and it is deeply un-Keynesian.
What Lies in Store for Europe
PREVIEW by Alasdair MacleodExecutive Summary
- The political and economic reasons why Europe's leaders will not change their behaviour until forced to by further crisis
- The reasons Europe's future is in the hands of Germany and the ECB
- How risk has spread from the periphery: What's next for Spain, Italy, and France
- The sure bet for investors to consider
Part I: The Europe Crisis from a European Perspective
If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Part II: What Lies in Store for Europe
In Part I of this article, we looked at the background to the Eurozone crisis and made the point that there are substantial extra government liabilities that were hidden by most member nations to meet the joining criteria in the target year for proof of convergence, 1997. And the only reason that capital flight from Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy has not led to a banking and economic collapse already is that it has been accommodated by a build-up of imbalances between the accounts of national central banks of the individual Eurozone members.
The End of the Keynesian Experiment
In truth, all advanced Western democracies face the same crisis. It is the end of the Keynesian experiment, marked by the collapse of various credit-fueled bubbles four years ago, mostly involving property. This event threatened a global systemic banking collapse, which was only averted by sovereign nations guaranteeing the solvency of their banks by shifting the risk to government bond markets. The answer for the US, UK, and Japan has been to flood the system with dollars, pounds, and yen respectively, partly to give banks breathing space, and partly so that governments could fund their ballooning deficits.
The individual states in the Eurozone gave away that facility to the ECB, so they are only the first of the advanced nations to face collapse. This is because printing money is the principal means by which governments survive financial crises.
In that sense it is wrong to blame our financial ills on Europe; that would be like sinners casting stones. Like the rest of us, by agreeing to underwrite their banks, Eurozone governments have multiplied their potential debts three, four, or even five-fold (Ireland by eight!). Unfortunately, there is nothing, frankly, that the politicians can do to stop a Eurozone meltdown; they are in a bind of their own making, and they do not understand, nor can they explain to their increasingly angry electorates, how to get out of it.
There is a remedy, and it is deeply un-Keynesian.
by
Alasdair Macleod
[This week, we introduce a new contributing editor to PeakProsperity.com, Alasdair Macleod. He will mostly be contributing commentary focused on the situation in Europe, where he's located. The credit crisis underway there is not Europe's problem alone; it has the potential to send crippling financial shockwaves to the US and elsewhere around the world. Please join us in extending a warm CM.com welcome to Alasdair. — Adam]
The purpose of this report is to give readers the essential background to the economic problems in Europe and to bring you up-to-date in what has become a fast-moving situation. At the time of writing, there has been a lull in the news flow, but that does not mean the problems are under control. Far from it.
Flawed from the Start
When we talk about Europe today in an economic context, we really mean the Eurozone, whose seventeen members are the core of Europe and share a common currency, the euro. The euro first came into existence thirteen years ago, on January 1, 1999, replacing national currencies for eleven states; Greece joined two years later. In theory, the idea of a common currency for European nations with common borders is logical, and it was Canadian economist Robert Mundell's work on optimum currency areas that provided much of the theoretical cover.
However, the concept was flawed from the start.
The Europe Crisis from a European Perspective
by Alasdair Macleod[This week, we introduce a new contributing editor to PeakProsperity.com, Alasdair Macleod. He will mostly be contributing commentary focused on the situation in Europe, where he's located. The credit crisis underway there is not Europe's problem alone; it has the potential to send crippling financial shockwaves to the US and elsewhere around the world. Please join us in extending a warm CM.com welcome to Alasdair. — Adam]
The purpose of this report is to give readers the essential background to the economic problems in Europe and to bring you up-to-date in what has become a fast-moving situation. At the time of writing, there has been a lull in the news flow, but that does not mean the problems are under control. Far from it.
Flawed from the Start
When we talk about Europe today in an economic context, we really mean the Eurozone, whose seventeen members are the core of Europe and share a common currency, the euro. The euro first came into existence thirteen years ago, on January 1, 1999, replacing national currencies for eleven states; Greece joined two years later. In theory, the idea of a common currency for European nations with common borders is logical, and it was Canadian economist Robert Mundell's work on optimum currency areas that provided much of the theoretical cover.
However, the concept was flawed from the start.
by
admin-2
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