This has been a summer of bad and even scary economic news. We are finally focusing on the huge percentage of Americans that are out of work. The official number of 9.1% is only the tip of the iceberg -- even government data report a number that tops 16% when you add discouraged and underemployed workers to the mix. The debt disaster, the stock market decline and the potential for European financial collapse are all a backdrop to this summer of discontent. Missing from much of the discussion of causes and impacts is a persuasive presentation of the fundamentals. What is going on here? How much do we really understand? To what extent are we in new, uncharted territory, where we really do not know the answers?
Let's start by reviewing a few new realities that are the reason the old answers may not be sufficient:
In America's classrooms and an increasing number of its corporate boardrooms, "sustainability" is the mantra of the moment. Even the casual observer sees a planet under growing stress. Young people have this nagging sense in the back of their mind that we older folks may have used everything up. Despite the clear sense that new facts require new thinking, the old paradigm dominates Washington and the U.S. national media. We are still fighting the ideological war between communism and capitalism and many continue to believe that we need to trade off economic growth and environmental protection.
The Republican right wing is attacking EPA and federal funding for fundamental earth science. What chance do we have to solve these complex problems when many in our governing elite believe that the science of climate change is a hoax? We also see the Obama Administration giving the Shell Oil Company conditional approval to drill for oil on Alaska's North Slope. Our advancing technology enables us to find and mine fossil fuels from increasingly distant and ecologically fragile places. Has anyone noticed the trend? This stuff is not as easy to get out of the ground as it used to be. These days we find ourselves drilling deeper for oil, removing mountains for coal or just exploding a piece of the planet to release natural gas. No, we are not running out of these resources, yet. We probably won't for a long time, but isn't there a smarter, cleaner and hopefully cheaper way to power our economy? Why aren't we working to develop that technology? That would be something worth going into hock for if we had to.
That is where the idea of sustainability comes in. We may generate short-term solutions to economic needs by drilling in the Arctic. It may help Shell's shareholders in the short term, but in the medium and long term, it seems like a retreat to yesterday's technology. Like a data system using an old computer language. It reminds me of that old video game, Pong. When people talk about sustainable economic development, they are talking about wealth that is generated by renewable resources: the sun, the hydrologic cycle, sustainable systems of food production. The one-time use of a finite resource is by definition not sustainable.
All of which leads to a set of questions that we do not really know how to address:
Eventually, just as cell phones are replacing landlines in America's households, new technology replaces old when it delivers something that is cheaper and better. The problem with waiting for the market to do this on its own is that if it takes too long, climate change will submerge our cities, and the process of extracting fossil fuels from the planet will cause irreversible damage to critical ecosystems. The same ecosystems that provide us with food and water.
As I look on this changing and uncharted economic and environmental landscape, I see more questions than answers. I am amazed when I hear economists, scientists, pundits and politicos arguing with great certainty that they have the answers. Who are they kidding? It is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work transforming our economy from one designed for the 20th century to one capable of thriving in the 21st. It's well past time to admit that there are no easy answers and we really don't know how to do this. Yet.
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During this entire debate on the deficit hardly any mention was made on cutting subsidies to old record profit making industries like fossil fuels. No mention was made about the $300B to $500B annual used to clean the fossil fuel mess. No mention was made on the $100B we need to spend to protect the middle east because of fossil fuel reserves. This needs to be in the conversation, but how? We need to figure out how, because the other options are all deadly and fatal.
congress" or "both party's have failed us". Whenever you see
statements like that run the other way. Mr Cohen actually
comes right out and says the republican right wing is defunding
the EPA (not to mention defunding medicare, Social Security,
the economy.)
The military budget? Now that's another story.
Where would the southern economy be w/o the military
and Gov. contracts? That kind of government good.
Military Good. Government contracts good,
deficits good & don't matter, except when republicans
are out of power then they very much matter.
I hear Rick Perry had a rare stem cell procedure
successfully done on his back that originated from
South Korea. Stem cells? Are they the good stem cells
or the evil ones? He now wants to make Tehas the go-to
place for stem cells which are now OK. It's a miracle. Hell yeah!!
Those who choose to ignore these issues point to the creativeness of humans as an answer to the situation. New resources will be discovered or new technologies will improve food production or resource management. But population continues to grow so these solutions must keep growing and expanding to meet ever-increasing demand.
I am fearful that humans will be managed by their environment similar to rabbits in a non-predator environment. Rabbits multiply quickly until resources are expended and the environment itself causes dramatic reduction in population through under-nourishment. Humans have no predators, except ourselves in an odd fashion. Wars change population so if resources dwindle, and population continues to grow, then there may be defacto population management via warfare for water, food or other resources. Global Darwinism.
I hope we Earth residents might realize that gluttonous lifestyles are unsustainable over the long term. We might utilize improved resource management, energy efficiency, aim for reduced family size (though that strains certain religious doctrines) and other approaches to distance ourselves from future resource wars.
We will learn. The easy or hard way. Many of us, Cohen included, seek the easy path but the hard path remains the option should nah-sayers continue to ignore Cohen's issues.
My 10th grade Biology teacher used to say the same thing. The numbers are there, and the answers aren't complex:
1.) Smaller families. We're not re-populating after the Biblical flood.
2.) Use less gas. Walk. Bike. Use trains where available.
3.) Pick a goal for your life that's not measured in dollars.
Unfortunately, none of these answers work w/o mass participation.
Start with green tariffs - build a green economy protected by tariffs no different from when Senator Daniel Webster proposed to protect American workers at the start of the industrial revolution.
Products sold in America should have a surcharge depending on its fossil fuel usage.
This will stimulate green energy projects here and in the developing world!
I like the idea of bringing back tariffs. But we need a worldwide forum to debate and manage these tariffs.
As transportation fuels become increasingly expensive, globalization may strangle or limit itself by market reaction but that may be too late.
For now we need to ask these difficult questions. And press for credible answers.
Until Americans can find common sources of information not controled by special interests, there is nothing we can do. We have been perfectly split down the middle through propaganda machines that keep us polarized and unwilling to see any other side.
Liberal education is being removed from the people through cost increases. Financial freedom and power is being systematically moved to the top. Our democratic government has been been marginalized and is dysfunctional.
There is a war raging in this country for the minds of the citizens. It has gotten very sophisticated and we are defenseless.
The answers are there. Everytime we find one that works, the special interests turn on the mind control machines and kill it. Health reform? Cap and Trade? Agricultural policy reform? Infrastructure? EPA? Financial regulations?
All are potential solutions to problems destroying this country and all are being demonized and dismantled right in front of us. It goes right up to and includes our very government. A government strong enough to solve problems is a very scary thing to the people who have so much to lose if problems get fixed.
But when the one thing that Americans agree on overwhelmingly is the failure of Congress, we've already lost the war.
Orwellian? What is it the writer advocates, but a "Ministry of Truth"--some state organ of propaganda and enlightenment to get out the 'goodthink," and muzzle the bad?.
Love the oxymoron micro-bio.
The public sector has grown not just in numbers but in pay and benefits. It is a class of people that after working 20 - 25 years will receive lifetime benefits that most citizens can never even dream of. More important these benefits begin at a very young age well below the age when most people retire in private industry.
Our government has always said that growth in our economy comes from small businesses but with increasing taxes and regulations it is more and more difficult for these businesses to stay in business. These taxes, regulations and fines are a cynical way in which government pays for it's workers.
The Obama administration has done nothing to help small businesses to stay in business. And it has done nothing to really help the consumer. Instead this administration has continued a policy that is nothing more than a trickle down economy. Who did the Obama administration help? Banks, insurance companies, auto companies, government contractors and the public sector itself.
It may be time to change policy to a bubble-up economy. Help consumers and retail establishments
and maybe banks by having credit card interest deductible as it was before the Reagan administration. Insist on banks to free up capital to help small businesses get loans. Revise all pension and benefit packages of government workers.
Nice cut and paste! Easier on your heavy mind to post talking points, eh?
If you should question why I would say that federal, state and local governments are primarily broke from the heavy benefits of government workers.
The crux of the issue is how can we ensure that the correct things are supplied and demanded? The American worker used to be the most productive in the world, but the world is quickly catching up. The American educational system used to be the gold standard, and still is, but only at the university level. Public K-12 is a joke, and no one is laughing.
We have lost our comfortable lead, and we may never get it back. We will certainly never get it back without serious structural reforms like campaign finance and tax and public education reforms. There is no natural incentive to hire American workers and the government may no longer be able to afford artificial incentives. The inaction and lack of sobriety about these issues is staggering.
As for productivity, it may be an illusory metric. Research what it means, how it is measured and then consider that it may be an uneccessary variable. People only need be productive in order to match their consumption. And not all professions are equally "productive" from a social gain. So I question the metric.
Less consumption, by individuals and small groups may prove that lifesylte is possible to the free markerteers who seek unregulated business and blind trust in markets. Capitalism is a good system, but it needs to be semi-regulated otherwise bad outcomes, that are preventable or managebale otherwise, result to catastrophically.
Unfortunately there are some in our society who wish to manipulate educational methods and tools to lessen concerns discussed herein. They seek a blinded mass to steer as they see fit for their business or religious benefit. Of course, the same can be said for our green educational approach however, we seek no personal advantage from our educational approach other than sustainability..
Americans also consume more than is necessary. Actually that is the only reason I think the country has survived this long yet it's not sustainable at all. America was ALWAYS doomed to fail for this reason alone. You simply can't have a country with only 300 million people out-consuming the rest of the world for goods they don't even really need and enjoying every luxury at the expense of other people worldwide. It won't work. They think they are "exceptional" because they have unbelievable access to these luxuries, but they are more the benefactors of good timing than anything else. They want to arrogantly claim that god favors their country, that it's *all* due to their hard work, but it's just not. Their time is quickly passing, and many people are getting extremely uncomfortable with that.
The private sectors' income is shrinking, their wealth is shrinking, their competitiveness is being regulated away, the governments costs are destroying America.
There is no such thing. Not one penny of has not been taken from someone who produced it.
How do you think the railroads were built? How about the interstates? How did we get to the moon?
Money is created either by printing it or through the normal fractional banking process. So start thinking for yourself. Lay off the simple answers and use some critical thinking.