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"Smart people can be wrong when they lack domain knowledge." Do you know her background? "Steady-state economies can exist with debt—it’s how ancient non-imper

"Smart people can be wrong when they lack domain knowledge." Do you know her background? "Steady-state economies can exist with debt—it’s how ancient non-imperial economies worked" Yes sure. An economy like the Amish can. But we talk here not about a market economy but about capitalism that basically starts with the industrial revolution. The giant pre-financing of production. "As for energy, look up energy intensity of GDP. It’s falling." Energy intensity of Which GDP? That of the US? Sure. Do you know why? I actually read an article from a professor from a well known University (might have been MIT) that claimed the same. What he did not take into account is that the US has been outsourcing energy hungry production in the last decades. (The article appeared before the re-shoring of production in the US started). I send him a statistic showing, how the energy intensity of the US sank, while China's increased. I asked him if this contradicts his thesis. Unfortunately he did not reply. Here, Gail also mentions this: Why does world energy intensity remain flat, while energy intensity for many individual countries has been decreasing? We are dealing with a large number of countries with very different energy intensities. The big issue would seem to be outsourcing of heavy manufacturing. This makes the energy intensity of the country losing the manufacturing look better. Outsourcing transfers manufacturing to a country with a much higher energy intensity, so even with the new manufacturing, its ratio can still look better (lower). It is hard to measure the overall impact of outsourcing, except by looking at world total energy intensities rather than individual country amounts. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/11/15/is-it-really-possible-to-decouple-gdp-growth-from-energy-growth/ https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/11/15/is-it-really-possible-...

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> economy like the Amish can. But we talk here not about a market economy but about capitalism that basically starts with the industrial revolution. The giant pre-financing of production. What’s the difference? Steady state is steady state. Debt doesn’t require growth to be sustainable. It does require decay, but jubilees are a crude solution compared with bankruptcy. In any case, you see why the article is riddled with errors. Foundational arguments, like debt is incompatible with steady-state, have exceptions. And that is before we recognise that restructuring exists. > Energy intensity of Which GDP? That of the US? Of the world [1]. > while China's increased It’s been falling since 2006 [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity
- Beijinger 3y ago
  "What’s the difference? Steady state is steady state. " From Gails article, capitalization from me: There is No Steady State Economy (EXCEPT AT A VERY BASIC LEVEL) So sure, a a steady state economy at a pre-industrialization level is no problem. I am not able to spontaneously find data in your link for China, neither do I find my statistic since I am not at my desktop computer. But assuming you are right, what about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > There is No Steady State Economy (EXCEPT AT A VERY BASIC LEVEL) This isn’t qualified for the debt statement. And again, it ignores restructuring. (As well as taxation and central banks’ arsenals for destroying money.) As for Jevon’s paradox, sure. Total energy use is increasing. But it’s increasing alongside efficiency. That makes steady state at a future point more achievable. We are nowhere close to tapping usable energy, so pre-optimising for it is silly. I like Gail’s writing, but this is a particularly bad article of hers. The problems it surfaces were largely addressed in the early 20th century, when the needs of industrialisation prompted monetary experimentation in the 19th century and yielded conclusions in the 20th. We have a debt-based fiat banking system because it works well for a positive-sum economy. There is also nothing inherent to it that requires growth; our need for growth comes from other parts of our economy, e.g. how we finance suburban infrastructure.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> economy like the Amish can. But we talk here not about a market economy but about capitalism that basically starts with the industrial revolution. The giant pre-financing of production. What’s the difference? Steady state is steady state. Debt doesn’t require growth to be sustainable. It does require decay, but jubilees are a crude solution compared with bankruptcy. In any case, you see why the article is riddled with errors. Foundational arguments, like debt is incompatible with steady-state, have exceptions. And that is before we recognise that restructuring exists. > Energy intensity of Which GDP? That of the US? Of the world [1]. > while China's increased It’s been falling since 2006 [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity

Beijinger 3y ago
"What’s the difference? Steady state is steady state. " From Gails article, capitalization from me: There is No Steady State Economy (EXCEPT AT A VERY BASIC LEVEL) So sure, a a steady state economy at a pre-industrialization level is no problem. I am not able to spontaneously find data in your link for China, neither do I find my statistic since I am not at my desktop computer. But assuming you are right, what about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > There is No Steady State Economy (EXCEPT AT A VERY BASIC LEVEL) This isn’t qualified for the debt statement. And again, it ignores restructuring. (As well as taxation and central banks’ arsenals for destroying money.) As for Jevon’s paradox, sure. Total energy use is increasing. But it’s increasing alongside efficiency. That makes steady state at a future point more achievable. We are nowhere close to tapping usable energy, so pre-optimising for it is silly. I like Gail’s writing, but this is a particularly bad article of hers. The problems it surfaces were largely addressed in the early 20th century, when the needs of industrialisation prompted monetary experimentation in the 19th century and yielded conclusions in the 20th. We have a debt-based fiat banking system because it works well for a positive-sum economy. There is also nothing inherent to it that requires growth; our need for growth comes from other parts of our economy, e.g. how we finance suburban infrastructure.