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Economy
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 MartensonWith 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.
by
Adam Taggart
by
Adam Taggart
by
Adam Taggart
by
Gregor Macdonald
Executive Summary
- Escalating energy costs (direct and indirect) create a vicious cycle in the economy that further hinders growth/recovery
- Overspending and other poor capital allocation decisions by state governments are compounding the problem
- California spends $1 on public transit vs. $10 on automobile-related investment, a gap that energy costs will soon painfully reverse
- Solutions are hard to come by and harder to fund, but without investment, alternative systems won't ever achieve scale
- California's future is increasingly easy to predict; individuals and other state governments better take notes or suffer the same fate
If you have not yet read Part I: Dawn of the Great California Energy Crash, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
A key feature in the post-war industrial success of countries like South Korea and Japan, given that they had virtually no domestic energy supplies, was the ability to turn a profit from manufacturing powered by imported energy. This favorable equation relied on three key factors:
- That imported energy remained a cheap input cost compared to the high margin value of exported goods
- That energy producing countries had cheap energy to export
- That purchasers of the exported goods were growing, and were running their own economies on cheap energy
These are the exact same assumptions still being made — and extrapolated into infinity — about California's economy.
Are we really to believe that California's GDP can forever deindustrialize, requiring fewer and fewer energy inputs, while growing in profitability, thus providing the capital to access/import energy — at any price?
California: The Bellwether for the Rest of America
PREVIEW by Gregor MacdonaldExecutive Summary
- Escalating energy costs (direct and indirect) create a vicious cycle in the economy that further hinders growth/recovery
- Overspending and other poor capital allocation decisions by state governments are compounding the problem
- California spends $1 on public transit vs. $10 on automobile-related investment, a gap that energy costs will soon painfully reverse
- Solutions are hard to come by and harder to fund, but without investment, alternative systems won't ever achieve scale
- California's future is increasingly easy to predict; individuals and other state governments better take notes or suffer the same fate
If you have not yet read Part I: Dawn of the Great California Energy Crash, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
A key feature in the post-war industrial success of countries like South Korea and Japan, given that they had virtually no domestic energy supplies, was the ability to turn a profit from manufacturing powered by imported energy. This favorable equation relied on three key factors:
- That imported energy remained a cheap input cost compared to the high margin value of exported goods
- That energy producing countries had cheap energy to export
- That purchasers of the exported goods were growing, and were running their own economies on cheap energy
These are the exact same assumptions still being made — and extrapolated into infinity — about California's economy.
Are we really to believe that California's GDP can forever deindustrialize, requiring fewer and fewer energy inputs, while growing in profitability, thus providing the capital to access/import energy — at any price?
by
Adam Taggart
We're very pleased to announce our participation in the Hard Assets Alliance, our newly endorsed solution for purchasing precious metals.
For years, we've received a continuous stream of questions from readers, all essentially asking where's the best place to buy gold and silver?
While we've done our best to review and present an assessed list of the top bullion vendors, the remaining work readers needed to do in comparing each of them was still more challenging and confusing than we were comfortable with. It's been clear that folks are hoping for a single "best of the best" recommendation.
That's why we were so glad when the Hard Assets Alliance was formed, and we had the good fortune to be invited to be a Founding Member. This new platform offers so many clear advantages to customers that we were happy to throw our support behind it.
Our New Endorsed Solution for Purchasing Precious Metals
by Adam TaggartWe're very pleased to announce our participation in the Hard Assets Alliance, our newly endorsed solution for purchasing precious metals.
For years, we've received a continuous stream of questions from readers, all essentially asking where's the best place to buy gold and silver?
While we've done our best to review and present an assessed list of the top bullion vendors, the remaining work readers needed to do in comparing each of them was still more challenging and confusing than we were comfortable with. It's been clear that folks are hoping for a single "best of the best" recommendation.
That's why we were so glad when the Hard Assets Alliance was formed, and we had the good fortune to be invited to be a Founding Member. This new platform offers so many clear advantages to customers that we were happy to throw our support behind it.
by
Alasdair Macleod
There was yet another European Union summit at the end of June, which (like all the others) was little more than bluff. Read the official communiqué and you will discover that there were some fine words and intentions, but not a lot actually happened. However, there are some differences when compared with past meetings that need explaining:
- The European Council is being asked to consider permitting the European Central Bank to have a regulatory role alongside national central banks “as a matter of urgency by the end of 2012.” When this new super-regulator is eventually established, perhaps the ECB might be able to recapitalize banks directly. This was needed three years ago; the Eurozone will be lucky not to have a new banking crisis in the next few months, let alone by the year-end.
- A bail-out for Spain’s banks is agreed in principle, but it is to be funded by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) until the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is up and running. The EFSF has no money and relies on drawing down funds from all member states including Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal, and the chances of the ESM being ratified by the individual Eurozone parliaments is very slim. We are told that Spain’s banks need about €100bn, but how much they really need is not known.
- The ESM will not rank as a prior creditor to the disadvantage of bond holders. This is a positive step, but makes it more difficult for national parliaments to authorize the ESM.
The big news in this is the implication the ECB will, in time, be able to stand behind the Eurozone banks because it will accept responsibility for them. This is probably why the markets rallied on the announcement, but it turned out to be another dead cat lacking the elastic potential energy necessary to bounce.
e another dead cat lacking the elastic potential energy necessary to bounce.
The Growing Pressures Likely to Blow the Eurozone Apart
by Alasdair MacleodThere was yet another European Union summit at the end of June, which (like all the others) was little more than bluff. Read the official communiqué and you will discover that there were some fine words and intentions, but not a lot actually happened. However, there are some differences when compared with past meetings that need explaining:
- The European Council is being asked to consider permitting the European Central Bank to have a regulatory role alongside national central banks “as a matter of urgency by the end of 2012.” When this new super-regulator is eventually established, perhaps the ECB might be able to recapitalize banks directly. This was needed three years ago; the Eurozone will be lucky not to have a new banking crisis in the next few months, let alone by the year-end.
- A bail-out for Spain’s banks is agreed in principle, but it is to be funded by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) until the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is up and running. The EFSF has no money and relies on drawing down funds from all member states including Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal, and the chances of the ESM being ratified by the individual Eurozone parliaments is very slim. We are told that Spain’s banks need about €100bn, but how much they really need is not known.
- The ESM will not rank as a prior creditor to the disadvantage of bond holders. This is a positive step, but makes it more difficult for national parliaments to authorize the ESM.
The big news in this is the implication the ECB will, in time, be able to stand behind the Eurozone banks because it will accept responsibility for them. This is probably why the markets rallied on the announcement, but it turned out to be another dead cat lacking the elastic potential energy necessary to bounce.
e another dead cat lacking the elastic potential energy necessary to bounce.
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