Yes, over here our media also, mostly blames the Greek Debt Crisis on public service unions or early retirement plans.
And I have no doubt that the Greek have a problem there, but is it the main problem?
The clip I posted claims otherwise.
The people who made the clip are campainng for the financial tranaction tax. They are arguing that this is the best way to make the financial sector pay back some of the money they have recieved due to the crises.
I've heard about this idea of a transaction tax, and it's concept that cannot even be discussed in North American mainstream media...let alone be taken up by any legislative body to debate or vote on. I have only heard a little bit about the transaction tax in alternative media, and from what I've heard, it could help society in two ways:
1. direct taxation towards the presently low taxed (and even untaxed) income enjoyed by so many investors and market speculators, and away from taxes on earned income and purchases, which have the greatest impact on middle and lower income groups than they do on the rich.
2. provide a dampening effect on stock and bond market players who, with the help of programmed trades, are constantly moving money around and rewarding speculation, rather than real investment.
I can't see a downside to a market transaction tax, and many positive benefits. Yet, it will never see the light of day in the U.S., nor in Canada unless an NDP federal government is formed which has not completely sold out their principles if they win the next federal election.
Someone once told me that the rate of growth is the speed at wich we are heading for the edge of the cliff
I agree that the capitalist system is flawed. It doesn't really work well in aclosed system does it.
I am not so worried about the decline of the natural economy as you call it. Not that it is not a problem, just that it is not an unsolvable problem.
I am a great beliver in pulling rabbits out of the hat.
It seems that regardless of whatever claims that conservative, liberal and libertarian economists want to make about the benefits of capitalism, it is fatally flawed to require continuous, endless economic growth. The problems of capitalism go beyond its tendency to increase income and wealth gaps over time...which liberal Keynsians claim to have the prescription for fixing...the fundamental problem is that capitalism and modern economic theory no longer recognizes its dependency on nature. This wasn't the case back in the time of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, when they were first trying to create a science of understanding economies. They recognized that all of their theories about money first depended on available land and the available natural resources that could be used. Since their time, economics has become unhinged from nature, and consigned nature to being just a list of resources, not essentially different than human capital or investment capital...and no economic theory I am aware of is able to effectively apply the costs of ecological degradation and their impacts of future resource availability.
And capitalism is more likely to reward environmental destruction than to even remain neutral! Consider the BP Gulf Oil Disaster that will leave long-lasting effects to the Gulf and surrounding communities for years to come. The costs of cleanup show up on the balance sheet as an economic stimulus to businesses and workers directly involved in the cleanup. And even in the long term, BP's limited financial liability...which will reduce the likelihood that Gulf residents, cleanup workers impacted by the Blowout, and consumers of Gulf fish and shellfish with high toxin levels who develop cancers over the coming years and decades, will not be able to receive a fraction of the compensation that they should be entitled to.
And I don't believe we can keep on pulling rabbits out of a hat, when it comes to gains from technological innovations and substitutions as a workaround strategy in the case of real physical limits to growth being applied by our environment. I've heard the slogan from the futurists that "the stone age didn't end because of a shortage of stone." But that slogan ignores the fact that our long historical search for cheaper sources of energy ended with oil. And even though oil burns cleaner, and provides more btu's per volume than coal, the coal age didn't end either! Today, because of the size of our present global population, and it's growing demands for energy and new consumer products, coal consumption is as high as it was 100 years ago, before oil became the major player on the energy market. Back then, there was still a lot of high grade - Anthracite available for burning. Over the decades, coal users have used up the higher grades and have had to depend more and more on lower grade dirty coal to keep the power stations and the steel mills going (among other users). Just as the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) has declined over time, so the same thing has happened with oil, as the developers have to go after deeper and dirtier supplies to keep the machines of civilization functioning....worth noting that even in Western Canada, where their going hog wild forcing bitumen to the surface from tar sands, they are going after deeper, more energy-intensive deposits now than when they started the started these operations 40 years ago with a small Shell Oil operation digging up surface deposits of bitumen.
And with all this, if capitalism is such a great incentive and motivator to move to the next level of energy supply -- where is the NEW supply of abundant energy? Windmills? Seriously! They don't supply power when the wind isn't blowing, and they are becoming extremely costly as they become more high tech and require rare exotic metals to build. Without generous government subsidies, there wouldn't be an industry building windmills today! I've even heard recently that, according to geothermal boosters, England could supply 30% of its electrical needs through geothermal power. I haven't verified the claim, but I suspect that they are talking about some major drilling, which could be costly...but if it is true, it would be a lot better use of alternative energy subsidies than building more windmills along the coasts!
And, for what it's worth, I've learned a little, but don't have expert knowledge about nuclear power...something we thought would be that "rabbit" back when I was young. But unfortunately most of the green movements since the 70's has lumped nuclear in the same basket as fossil fuels, and won't even consider any nuclear design. Banning The Bomb turned into a blanket banning of all things nuclear, so It's hard to get clear, unbiased information on nuclear, when most of the pro-nuclear info comes from the industry, and the anti-nuclear messaging comes from opponents who ramp up the fear card.
I posted a few things I read previously from a blogger (I'll look it up if necessary) who is a nuclear engineer and U.S. Naval officer, and who's main job is looking after the array of small reactors that power ships and submarines in the U.S. Navy. These small reactors are simpler and apparently much safer than the large, complicated reactors...like the ones that will be an ever-present threat in Japan for years to come. According to this expert, it would be easily possible to produce safe, small modular reactors (SMR's) that don't even require pressurized cooling systems to maintain proper core temperatures; but the main roadblocks in front of them are bureaucratic -- namely that, at least in the U.S., the licensing of every new reactor by the Atomic Energy Commission applies the same price tag to each and every reactor, regardless of its size and energy output. This is an obvious incentive for the nuclear industry to go big or don't go at all. And it's apparently the same problem with insurance costs, that don't seem to be capable of assessing the actual risks of the design, and just apply a blanket risk assessment. So, the end result has been that the U.S. Navy and NASA have been the only institutions willing to pay the high costs for small reactors.
One thing is clear -- we are running out of time to fritter away chances to restructure our economies to function without cars and to keep supplying cheap abundant electricity to keep the lights on. Fusion power is always 10 or 20 years away from practicality....I've been hearing this song and dance for over 30 years, and alternatives like SMR's and Geothermal are going to have high startup costs. I don't see how the numbers add up for replacing everything with wind and solar, and I suspect that the boosters are either in position to benefit personally, or just using windmills and solar panels as a wave-of-the-hand dismissal of future energy shortages.
