Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Carolyn Baker In the anger phase of societal unraveling, we must not only be aware of its perils but prepare ourselves with great intention to navigate it. One of the first issues we must grapple with is the reality of trauma. Increasing dissolution of the fabric of the culture is by definition traumatic for those who rely on it for basic necessities, identity, lifestyle, distraction, and sense of well being.
Small town Sebastopol residents in Northern California have been waging a fierce David vs. Goliath struggle against the powerful Chase Bank, CVS Pharmacy, and Armstrong Development for over two years. The implications of this struggle extend beyond this one town, as big business continues to seek to expand its wealth.
When you really look at it, America’s agriculture system, with its preference for big centrally managed factory operations over small locally run family farms, looks kind of, well, Communist.
-Near drought conditions impacting Marcellus shale gas drilling
-EPA study on fracking and water questioned
-Gas drilling a boom for drug traffickers, too
-Shale Energy Divides French Government, Putting Ban In Question
By failing to question our money system, we’ve accepted an understanding of finance and fiat that’s showing its flaws greater than ever. This globalized currency system draws money out of localities and into the hands of corrupt financial institutions. Can we start recapturing these flows of money to build resilient communities? If the Federal Reserve can print money, why can’t we?
In his new book, Too Much Magic, Jim attacks the wishful thinking dominant today that with a little more growth, a little more energy, a little more technology — a little more magic — we’ll somehow sail past our current tribulations without having to change our behavior. James Howard Kunstler joins Chris Martenson in conversation.
Oil prices rose this week as geopolitical tensions trumped economic concerns. The Syrian conflict, oil sanctions against Iran, and a suicide bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria, which Israel blamed on Iran, all added to fear of disruption in the region…
The usual assumption that economists, financial planners, and actuaries make is that future real GDP growth can be expected to be fairly similar to the average past growth rate for some historical time period. This assumption can take a number of forms–how much a portfolio can be expected to yield in a future period, or how high real (that is, net of inflation considerations) interest rates can be expected to be in the future, or what percentage of GDP the government of a country can safely borrow. But what if this assumption is wrong, and expected growth in real GDP is really declining over time?
This is exactly the problem, which is that if you try to preserve this austere vision of equality of opportunity, and you don’t worry about the context of inequality in which it is embedded—a city like New York City, which is a vastly unequal place—the inequality of outcomes, the inequality of resources, the actual amount of inequality is going to subvert and corrupt whatever kind of mechanism you come up with in which you’re trying to preserve equality of opportunity.
Some parts of the world pretty much sailed through the 2008-2009 recession, while other parts of the world had huge problems. The part that sailed through the recession is what I call the “Growing Part of the World”. I thought it would be interesting to see how the countries in the “Growing Part of the World” have behaved over the long term with respect to a number of variables (energy, GDP, and population). I compare these countries to two other groups of countries which did not fare as well during the 2008-2009 recession: European Union 27, United States and Japan, and the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
The last six months or so have seen an unprecedented flood of official pronouncements and media stories attempting, with dubious results, to brush aside the reality of peak oil. Those of my readers who know their way around old science fiction serials know what this means: something is about to explode.
Amidst a series of recent scandals that have rocked the global banking system, journalist Chris Hayes joins us to discuss his new book, “Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.” The book examines how Wall Street and other major institutions, from Congress to the Catholic Church to Major League Baseball, have been crippled by corruption and incompetence.
