Pope Francis claims global economy is close to collapse and describes youth unemployment rates as an ‘atrocity’ in damning message

[Bubba_Switzler]

I am referring to this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

My understanding is that it started during the late Middle Ages in England and led to the notion of private property, that is, legally owned land.

This is a problem that occured in many societies and is happening still in some parts of the third world. You have an inherent problem with the establishment of property rights where no previously existed. It was often anything but just, and no doubt we could imagine a better way to do it, but history is filled with human tragedy.

Because what we have are essentially state capitalist systems with fascist regimes. In other cases, we have what are supposed to be democracies but are actually fascist regimes controlled by a financial elite, with voters believing that they are free thanks to consumer spending.

I do not suppose that we should be more democratic but I do agree that what we have today is state capitalism or even fascism. The answer is not more political power but less.

That assumes that we remain in an agricultural system, which is what you describe. That’s not what we have today.

It doesn’t assume that, I merely drew a simple agricultural example.

It should be, as money earned to buy things at the grocery ultimately come form the same consumer spending. But in capitalist system, that also means more consumption each time.

Yes, so?

This can only take place when money supply is increased readily, and that creates more problems.

Well, there is a big debate there. I am familiar with the argument you are making. I don’t buy it but I know what you mean by it. In any case, credit inflation typically crashes back to earth at some point and the system resets.

That is why increased credit leading to more houses bought and heavy reliance on consumer spending is causing problems for the U.S., and in turn creating related problems in Europe.

I think you are too obsessed with one feature and missing the bigger picture. It may happen to be houses, it could be canals, it could be dot-com companies. It’s just human nature to over invest, over leverage, etc. Don’t do it and dont be surprised when your neighbor does.

 

[ralfyman]

“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

And capitalism does better than any other “system” devised.

That there are still problems is not to be denied. But most often the systemic cures that anticapitalist offer are worse than the disease. It was no fluke that communism had a far worse track record on the environment than did capitlaism.

Of course it does, which is why it will be the source of its collapse.

Put simply, we have an economic system that requires continuous economic growth in a world with physical limitations. That’s why people imagined some space age for the present century.

Instead, we have a global economy that, according to the Papacy, is close to collapse, global warming coupled with environmental damage, and peak oil.

 

[ralfyman]

It is an irrelevant scientific reality. If the same land, put to new or better uses, can yield an ever increasing bounty then the acerage limitation is not a limitation on the economic value of the land.

On the contrary, it is a critical scientific reality. Otherwise, there would be no need to find other means to increase production.

The problem is that the means to increase production has limitations.

I’m all for space colonization, but there is no such point as noted above.

This actually contradicts the argument that resource extraction for a piece of land can be increased indefinitely.

It depends entirely on how you measure available resources. If you measure them by static physical metrics you will get one answer. If you measure them by economic value then another. I am arguing for the later measure.

Economic value is illogical because it is based on money. Money can be increased readily, such that one can argue that resources are increasing.

Balooning population is a great and wonderful thing but there will always exist a tension between resources as currently understood and the demand for them. This tension can only be relieved by human ingenuity. The population control alternative is going to wrec havoc.

Demand is not necessarily driven by increasing population. That’s why we have a country like the U.S., which has less than 5 pct of the world’s population, but needs up to a quarter of world oil production to maintain middle class lifestyles. That includes powering up over 200 million passenger vehicles, or around one car or light truck per adult.

For the rest of the world to have similar living standards, we will need more than one planet.

And capitalism is counting on that.

The catch is that the planet won’t allow it.

Human war is nothing new and scholars have actually found that deaths by war have decreased over the ages. War is still a problem but it is not a growing problem in spire of improvements in the technology of warfare.

It’s actually been a growing problem for two centuries, especially the twentieth.

 

[ralfyman]

This is a problem that occured in many societies and is happening still in some parts of the third world. You have an inherent problem with the establishment of property rights where no previously existed. It was often anything but just, and no doubt we could imagine a better way to do it, but history is filled with human tragedy.

What you have shared does not contradict anything that I said. If any, it only reinforces my argument.

I do not suppose that we should be more democratic but I do agree that what we have today is state capitalism or even fascism. The answer is not more political power but less.

I am referring to countries like China. For countries like the U.S., it is fascism from a financial elite that controls the government. In either case, the result is the same: greater concentration of wealth for a financial elite, with governments working for them.

Which is the result of capitalism.

It doesn’t assume that, I merely drew a simple agricultural example.

The point is that in order to move away from that, there should be greater control concentrated on the wealthy, which eventually control the means of production, and with the middle class and the poor ultimately working for them.

Yes, so?

What will happen when an overpriced military can no longer keep the petro-dollar propped up? That consumer spending economy will fall apart.

Well, there is a big debate there. I am familiar with the argument you are making. I don’t buy it but I know what you mean by it. In any case, credit inflation typically crashes back to earth at some point and the system resets.

This is a non-issue. We are talking about trillions of dollars in credit created to bail out businesses which almost fall apart because they created trillions of dollars in credit.

As for a reset, that for me is another word for “collapse.”

I think you are too obsessed with one feature and missing the bigger picture. It may happen to be houses, it could be canals, it could be dot-com companies. It’s just human nature to over invest, over leverage, etc. Don’t do it and dont be surprised when your neighbor does.

On the contrary, I think I am doing the opposite, i.e., I’m looking at the bigger picture.

We are looking at three predicaments: debt leading to financial crises, global warming coupled with environmental damage, and peak oil.

So far, the Papacy has spoken about the first two.

Finally, I do not think the argument that it is part of human nature counters my views.

 

[GEddie]

Can these costs be dealt with, especially given a twentyfold increase in armaments production and sales coupled with more destructive weapons, a financial elite that wants even more wealth, significant environmental damage and the threat of global warming, and more social unrest brought about high food and oil prices, unemployment, and austerity measures?

Once human life “bites the bullet” and institutes global governance, the armaments issue will resolve itself.

Armaments per se are not the problem, costly as they are. They are the symptom of the virus of nationalism, that if untreated, will lead in time to the fever of WW3.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Of course it does, which is why it will be the source of its collapse.

Put simply, we have an economic system that requires continuous economic growth in a world with physical limitations. That’s why people imagined some space age for the present century.

Instead, we have a global economy that, according to the Papacy, is close to collapse, global warming coupled with environmental damage, and peak oil.

Put simply, growth is fundamental to life itself and far from discouraging it, God commanded it of mankind.

It seems that you are not merely anticapitalist but antigrowth but I suggest that such a position is, in fact, antilife.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

On the contrary, it is a critical scientific reality. Otherwise, there would be no need to find other means to increase production.

The problem is that the means to increase production has limitations.

This actually contradicts the argument that resource extraction for a piece of land can be increased indefinitely.
The scientific reality is that physical dimensions are finite (at least on planet earth). Science has nothing whatsoever to say about economic value. The economic value of a finite resources can relize infinite growth through human ingenuity.

Economic value is illogical because it is based on money. Money can be increased readily, such that one can argue that resources are increasing.

Money is just one tool of economics, though a very important one. More fundamental is the concept of economic value which money attempts to measure, and commerce, which money lubricates, and ingenuity, which largely occurs outside of money. Economic value, in turn, is a concept that tries to capture human wellbeing.

Demand is not necessarily driven by increasing population. That’s why we have a country like the U.S., which has less than 5 pct of the world’s population, but needs up to a quarter of world oil production to maintain middle class lifestyles. That includes powering up over 200 million passenger vehicles, or around one car or light truck per adult.

For the rest of the world to have similar living standards, we will need more than one planet.

And capitalism is counting on that.

The catch is that the planet won’t allow it.

It’s actually been a growing problem for two centuries, especially the twentieth.

Indeed, as noted above, economic value can increase infinitely and, so, there is no reason why the whole world cannot attain the living standard of Americans. That doesn’t make it inevitable but it does mean it is possible.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

What you have shared does not contradict anything that I said. If any, it only reinforces my argument.

I am referring to countries like China. For countries like the U.S., it is fascism from a financial elite that controls the government. In either case, the result is the same: greater concentration of wealth for a financial elite, with governments working for them.

Which is the result of capitalism.

You have only to glance at human history to see how absurd this claim is. Firstly, there is no general trend toward a concentration of wealth. One can easliy find periods in history, prior to what is usually refereed to as the era of capitalism, when wealth was far more concentrated. In general, capitalism has resulted in a society with a far greater distribution of wealth than what preceeded it.

The point is that in order to move away from that, there should be greater control concentrated on the wealthy, which eventually control the means of production, and with the middle class and the poor ultimately working for them.

That was not a historical necessity. One can easily imagine a society that compensated peope for traditional rights in a transition to land properties. But there was an asymetry of wealth and power already because such asymetry is ancient, not recent.

What will happen when an overpriced military can no longer keep the petro-dollar propped up? That consumer spending economy will fall apart.

This is a non-issue. We are talking about trillions of dollars in credit created to bail out businesses which almost fall apart because they created trillions of dollars in credit.

As for a reset, that for me is another word for “collapse.”

There is a 100% chance that the stock market will “collapse” some time in the future. The question is whether it will then find a new high. If it does, then the collapse is part of a reset. Same thing with human civilizations. The collapse of the Roman empire took centuries of recovery while the collapse of communism led pretty quickly to higher standards of living.

On the contrary, I think I am doing the opposite, i.e., I’m looking at the bigger picture.

We are looking at three predicaments: debt leading to financial crises, global warming coupled with environmental damage, and peak oil.

So far, the Papacy has spoken about the first two.

Finally, I do not think the argument that it is part of human nature counters my views.

An argument that this is all part of human nature counters the claim that it is unique to any particular debt or environmental situation. That’s the bigger picture.

 

[stinkcat_14]

The economic value of a finite resources can relize infinite growth through human ingenuity.

The key word here being can. We can have increasing returns, that does not mean that we must have increasing returns. And we really don’t know how to generate increasing returns when we really need them. They sometimes occur and when they occur it is a great thing, but it is not something individuals can figure out ahead of time.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The key word here being can. We can have increasing returns, that does not mean that we must have increasing returns. And we really don’t know how to generate increasing returns when we really need them. They sometimes occur and when they occur it is a great thing, but it is not something individuals can figure out ahead of time.

It requires hard work, risk taking, and even then the results are extremely unpredictable and uneven. In short, it requires all the virtues, and has all the vices of capitalism.

 

[Darryl1958]

'We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures - a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done.
‘The economy is moved by the ambition of having more and, paradoxically, it feeds a throwaway culture.’
The pontiff expressed particular concern over the ‘worrisome’ statistics of youth unemployment.

Read more: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2657724/Pope-Francis-claims-global-economy-close-collapse-describes-youth-unemployment-rates-atrocity-damning-message.html#ixzz35JMBFUPd
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Moral outrage ought not be mistaken for dispassionate analysis.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Moral outrage ought not be mistaken for dispassionate analysis.

It’s one thing to complain, or be morally outraged, about particular social problems. Another thing entirely to correctly diagnose the cause and recommend a workable solution. The pope’s bad analysis is all the more scandalous given the gravity of the problem.

 

[WestonGrant]

Anyone taking bets on how long before the stock market tanks again?

The whole thing is a house of cards, if you ask me. Smoke and mirrors. I know the Pope isn’t infallible on matters like this, but I think he’s smack on. This is going to get REALLY ugly, imo.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Anyone taking bets on how long before the stock market tanks again? The whole thing is a house of cards, if you ask me. Smoke and mirrors. I know the Pope isn’t infallible on matters like this, but I think he’s smack on. This is going to get REALLY ugly, imo.

Note, however, that Pope Francis could be 100% correct about an imminent economic collapse, 100% correct that youth unemployment is a human tragedy, and, at the same time, 100% wrong that greed is the cause of youth unemployment. (And you are correct, of course, these are not matters of papal infallibility.)

 

[ralfyman]

Once human life “bites the bullet” and institutes global governance, the armaments issue will resolve itself.

Armaments per se are not the problem, costly as they are. They are the symptom of the virus of nationalism, that if untreated, will lead in time to the fever of WW3.

ICXC NIKA.

Not just nationalism but realpolitik driven by a financial elite and government partners, in a world with limited physical resources, an economic system that requires the opposite, and pollution.

 

[ralfyman]

Put simply, growth is fundamental to life itself and far from discouraging it, God commanded it of mankind.

It seems that you are not merely anticapitalist but antigrowth but I suggest that such a position is, in fact, antilife.

Yes, but He also talked about the importance of salvation, of compassion towards others, and of being stewards of the earth. These are precisely the points raised in the topic of this thread.

And the type of growth that we are now looking at is no longer pro-life. We are looking at species die-offs at unprecedented rates, environmental damage, the financial elite enriching themselves while unemployment remains high, high food and oil prices, and governments spending incredible amounts of public funds for military costs and even policing local populations.

 

[ralfyman]

The scientific reality is that physical dimensions are finite (at least on planet earth). Science has nothing whatsoever to say about economic value. The economic value of a finite resources can relize infinite growth through human ingenuity.

Physical limitations are not about dimensions but about availability of various material resources, such as phosphorus and other substances, needed not just for food production but for mechanized agriculture (oil is needed for that, and even for shipping goods across thousands of kilometers).

Science has nothing to say about the economic value of these resources because the value is driven by money supply, which is essentially composed of promissory notes. Ingenuity is employed to give value to that credit, and to create even more credit.

Money is just one tool of economics, though a very important one. More fundamental is the concept of economic value which money attempts to measure, and commerce, which money lubricates, and ingenuity, which largely occurs outside of money. Economic value, in turn, is a concept that tries to capture human wellbeing.

Money is the essential tool of economics. That’s why GDP and other measurements are given in terms of money units, not tons of minerals extracted, etc.

As for economic value determining well-being,

“World economic system is ‘madness’, puts money ahead of people, Pope Francis says”

abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pope-francis-says-global-economy-discards-young/5523226

Indeed, as noted above, economic value can increase infinitely and, so, there is no reason why the whole world cannot attain the living standard of Americans. That doesn’t make it inevitable but it does mean it is possible.

The problem is that money supply is increasing faster than what is needed, to the point that coupled with the desire to meet the needs of a growing global middle class we have greater inequality, violence, and other problems. In addition,

"‘Not to share wealth with poor is to steal’: Pope slams capitalism as ‘new tyranny’

He goes on to explain that in this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which has become the only rule we live by.

rt.com/news/pope-francis-capitalism-tyranny-324/

 

[ralfyman]

You have only to glance at human history to see how absurd this claim is. Firstly, there is no general trend toward a concentration of wealth. One can easliy find periods in history, prior to what is usually refereed to as the era of capitalism, when wealth was far more concentrated. In general, capitalism has resulted in a society with a far greater distribution of wealth than what preceeded it.

“Global Wealth Inequality - What you never knew you never knew”

youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU

That is, for the last two hundred years, the wealth gap between rich and poor countries increased from three to 35 to 80 times.

That was not a historical necessity. One can easily imagine a society that compensated peope for traditional rights in a transition to land properties. But there was an asymetry of wealth and power already because such asymetry is ancient, not recent.

One can imagine such a society, but that’s not what generally took place worldwide.

And the idea of private property in terms of land did not appear until much later:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property#History

There is a 100% chance that the stock market will “collapse” some time in the future. The question is whether it will then find a new high. If it does, then the collapse is part of a reset. Same thing with human civilizations. The collapse of the Roman empire took centuries of recovery while the collapse of communism led pretty quickly to higher standards of living.

The bad news is that in those high standards of living are dependent on, among other things, the same stock markets. More important are the energy and material resources that are the ultimate drivers of those standards.

An argument that this is all part of human nature counters the claim that it is unique to any particular debt or environmental situation. That’s the bigger picture.

Given that, any problem or even any evil act can be justified because it’s part of human nature.

 

[hazcompat]

“There was a unanimous opinion of our interviewees that wealth didn’t need to be realized for greed to exist, and that high level of wealth was not the same as greed,” said Haynes. “It’s the desire for and active pursuit of extraordinary wealth that is associated with greed.”

sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140620143922.htm

Journal Reference:
1.K. Takacs Haynes, J. T. Campbell, M. A. Hitt. When More Is Not Enough: Executive Greed and Its Influence on Shareholder Wealth. Journal of Management, 2014; DOI: 10.1177/0149206314535444

Peace

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

“There was a unanimous opinion of our interviewees that wealth didn’t need to be realized for greed to exist, and that high level of wealth was not the same as greed,” said Haynes. “It’s the desire for and active pursuit of extraordinary wealth that is associated with greed.”

Note how they define greed:

After two rounds of external validation from interviews with senior business executives and analysts from a variety of industries, the researches arrived at a definition of greed as the desire for and pursuit of extraordinary wealth.

That is a very revealing definition of greed. Earlier in the story the study author is quoted as saying:

“Self-interest is OK but eventually it reaches a tipping point,” said Haynes. “When it is taken to the extreme – when it becomes greed – it is detrimental to firm value.”

Left unanswered is what constitutes “extraordinary” and what defines this “tipping point”.

The CCC (as quoted earlier) is also a bit murky.

2536 The tenth commandment forbids greed and the desire to amass earthly goods without limit.

This appears to define greed in terms of the tenth commandment which forbids coveting:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.