page-loading-spinner

growth

by John Michael Greer

Executive Summary

  • Escalating costs of resource extraction and associated pollution are key headwinds on future economic growth
  • For the first time in generations, the same limits to growth that handicapped pre-industrial society are reasserting themselves
  • Our economic and political leaders are misdiagnosing the root problem, and therefore prescribing the wrong treatments
  • Remember stagflation? Get ready to experience it again – with a vengeance

If you have not yet read The Tangled Relationship between Wealth & Money available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

The forces driving today’s ongoing economic crisis were sketched out decades ago in the pages of the Club of Rome’s epochal 1973 study, The Limits to Growth.  Mention that book to most people nowadays, and those who admit they’ve heard of it at all routinely insist that it made false claims about the future.

The irony – and it’s not a small one – is that this simply isn’t true…

A society in this situation can expand its production of goods and services – its 'wealth economy,' in the terms used in Part I – up to the limits of the environment’s ability to provide resources and absorb waste. Once those limits appear in the rearview mirror, though, any further expansion of the wealth economy runs into two insurmountable difficulties…

Slamming Face-First into the Limits to Growth
PREVIEW by John Michael Greer

Executive Summary

  • Escalating costs of resource extraction and associated pollution are key headwinds on future economic growth
  • For the first time in generations, the same limits to growth that handicapped pre-industrial society are reasserting themselves
  • Our economic and political leaders are misdiagnosing the root problem, and therefore prescribing the wrong treatments
  • Remember stagflation? Get ready to experience it again – with a vengeance

If you have not yet read The Tangled Relationship between Wealth & Money available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

The forces driving today’s ongoing economic crisis were sketched out decades ago in the pages of the Club of Rome’s epochal 1973 study, The Limits to Growth.  Mention that book to most people nowadays, and those who admit they’ve heard of it at all routinely insist that it made false claims about the future.

The irony – and it’s not a small one – is that this simply isn’t true…

A society in this situation can expand its production of goods and services – its 'wealth economy,' in the terms used in Part I – up to the limits of the environment’s ability to provide resources and absorb waste. Once those limits appear in the rearview mirror, though, any further expansion of the wealth economy runs into two insurmountable difficulties…

by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Adapting our behavior is a must at this point. We really don't have the option not to.
  • The number of claims on real wealth is increasing. How much of the "real wealth" do you own?
  • Our economy is now truly a confidence-based system. What will be the fallout when that confidence falters?
  • What are the key knowns & unknowns we need to be addressing now?

If you have not yet read Part I: In a Bad Spot, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What is completely unknown at this point is what will happen to our very complex and interwoven financial system when it finally comes to grips with the idea that old-style growth is never coming back.  One worrisome idea is that it will experience something akin to cardiac arrest and simply break down one day. 

Maybe this will happen, maybe not.  I will note that the degree to which the central banks have set themselves up as the ultimate saviors of the system has both an upside and a downside, and it is the downside that worries me the most at this point.

While all the trillions of dollars of intervention have stabilized the system, which I consider to be a good thing, the downside is that the central banks have placed themselves in a position where they had better succeed.  If not?  Then we discover just how important confidence is to a monetary system built, owned, and operated on trust.  My guess is "very."

If We’re Ever Going to Take Control of Our Destiny, the Time is Now
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Adapting our behavior is a must at this point. We really don't have the option not to.
  • The number of claims on real wealth is increasing. How much of the "real wealth" do you own?
  • Our economy is now truly a confidence-based system. What will be the fallout when that confidence falters?
  • What are the key knowns & unknowns we need to be addressing now?

If you have not yet read Part I: In a Bad Spot, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What is completely unknown at this point is what will happen to our very complex and interwoven financial system when it finally comes to grips with the idea that old-style growth is never coming back.  One worrisome idea is that it will experience something akin to cardiac arrest and simply break down one day. 

Maybe this will happen, maybe not.  I will note that the degree to which the central banks have set themselves up as the ultimate saviors of the system has both an upside and a downside, and it is the downside that worries me the most at this point.

While all the trillions of dollars of intervention have stabilized the system, which I consider to be a good thing, the downside is that the central banks have placed themselves in a position where they had better succeed.  If not?  Then we discover just how important confidence is to a monetary system built, owned, and operated on trust.  My guess is "very."

by Chris Martenson

With a new site and a number of new irons in the fire, Adam and I thought it a good time to revisit and renew the mission behind this movement.

Simply put, our mission is to create a world worth inheriting.  By this we mean a clean, healthy living environment, a durable economy, and prosperous opportunities for all who participate with us. That's our big, lofty aim. 

At heart, our view is that our policies, uses, and practices in all of the Three “E”s are unsustainable.  One cannot forever grow non-renewable resource use in a finite world.  The exponential nature of that growth just hastens things along.

Because of hard constraints, our exponential money and debt systems are on a collision course with reality.  We will first and most immediately — and personally — experience the deleterious effects of this in what we call 'the economy' in the form of stagnant growth, rising unemployment, and various ills and maladies within the financial markets. 

This is just another way of saying that very big changes are coming our way.  In fact, they are here already.

The simple conclusion is that we must either change our habits and ways on our own terms — or on Nature's.  We face a future that will be shaped either by disaster or design.

Here at Peak Prosperity, we are solidly behind the idea of positive change made on our own terms and that we are each responsible for whatever future is created. 

There are a number of things that we absolutely have to do in order to achieve our mission. And at the top of the list is reaching and influencing a lot of people (millions upon millions) and doing so effectively.

Creating a World Worth Inheriting
by Chris Martenson

With a new site and a number of new irons in the fire, Adam and I thought it a good time to revisit and renew the mission behind this movement.

Simply put, our mission is to create a world worth inheriting.  By this we mean a clean, healthy living environment, a durable economy, and prosperous opportunities for all who participate with us. That's our big, lofty aim. 

At heart, our view is that our policies, uses, and practices in all of the Three “E”s are unsustainable.  One cannot forever grow non-renewable resource use in a finite world.  The exponential nature of that growth just hastens things along.

Because of hard constraints, our exponential money and debt systems are on a collision course with reality.  We will first and most immediately — and personally — experience the deleterious effects of this in what we call 'the economy' in the form of stagnant growth, rising unemployment, and various ills and maladies within the financial markets. 

This is just another way of saying that very big changes are coming our way.  In fact, they are here already.

The simple conclusion is that we must either change our habits and ways on our own terms — or on Nature's.  We face a future that will be shaped either by disaster or design.

Here at Peak Prosperity, we are solidly behind the idea of positive change made on our own terms and that we are each responsible for whatever future is created. 

There are a number of things that we absolutely have to do in order to achieve our mission. And at the top of the list is reaching and influencing a lot of people (millions upon millions) and doing so effectively.

Total 49 items