REAL Green wrote:It appears we have entered a new era but what this will be is still uncertain. It is uncertain because it hit so fast. The central banks are going full MMT out of necessity. The risks to liquidity are just to great to allow the markets to sort this one out. Vladimir Lenin said “In Some Decades, Nothing Happens; In Some Weeks, Decades Happen”. I really think this is a defining period with the end of globalism’s assent. Economics defines politics so this will surely alter the way people cooperate and compete. I don’t think the markets will be allowed to crash like they used to but what will change is a decline in real wealth so the markets will be little more than a façade of appearance of wealth when the reality is much less will be there. Global value chains driven by the raw greed for yields can never be matched in regards to production. Value chains will adapt be being smaller and shorter. On the other hand, a world of less could be a world that can scale better actually offering more wealth in well-being. People are going to have to try to do more locally if they want more. Localism is the best system for the public and private good. Globalism will remain but this virus checked its advance. Let’s hope that the level this all settles to offers opportunity for more rational human activity found in localism.
Very well said Green. And welcome to the nuthouse haha. Seriously, we are entering in a myriad of ways a different era for human societies in a holistic sense ie. in all facets. This is the era of contraction. Forced contraction via limits to growth. And if we are smart voluntary contraction or degrowth. So, yes localization is part of that scaling back. We must also implement workable strategies to control and curb our population. Our collectine human impact on the Biosphere and demand on resources simply cannot be sustained much longer.
So, economic throughput MUST decline as well as population growth. No longer can we separate economics from the environment. They must be inextricably linked as a unit in our current and future policies. We must embrace and navigate contraction for the sake of posterity