Greg Gerritt • If Central Banks are the determiner of economic conditions, which all of the above, and much of what we read elsewhere, seems to suggest, can someone tell me why so many insist that it is a capitalist entrepreneur driven system other than as a tool to steal more from the workers? If we talked about our economies as mixed, as an interplay of the public and private, we would have much more fruitful discussions, and we could get true sustainability on the table rather than lip service.
Monthly Archives: July 2013
Correcting Moshassuck Critters identifications
Now that I know more about what kind of frogs, toads, and tadpoles I am looking at I went back to Moshassuckcritters and updated all of the titles and writeups that needed to be corrected. Moshassuckcritters is available at http://www.youtube.com/user/Moshassuckcritters?view_as=public Thanks to all who helped in the quest. I still have lots of footage to edit and post, so expect more videos over the course of the summer. greg
Creating Prosperity for the 99% in Rhode Island Greg’s 60th Birthday conference
The economic slowdown in china
Comments I made on The Economist website http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-2
I am thinking that maybe the double digit growth machine has run out of steam permanently. No country has been able to maintain the upward trajectory for long, and it appears that each new round ends up with the outcome of less income per capita than the previous round of countries climbing the economic ladder. One of the causes is ecological collapse, especially the destruction of forests. The harder it is to get wood, the harder it is to build cities. The heat is on China to reduce wood imports, and the flooding China is already experiencing, along with the droughts, remind everyone how little of its own forest China has left to protect its watersheds and climate. The smog in Singapore also reminds us.
A second cause is rising inequality, The Koch brothers and their minions tell us economies should only deliver for the 1%, but clearly that is not working too well.
I have always found that when there are fewer truly productive places to invest as modern economies grind down you get asset bubbles. These are not aberrations, they are the only way the 1% can get fast enough returns to slake their greed.
China has as many greedy people as the US, and when combined with the need to create employment to stave off civic unrest they make mistakes that bring the economy into stall faster. They grab more instead of more widely distributing income and building resilience to climate change.
We are looking at the financialization of everything, but it is no way to run an economy. Look for a long term trends towards steady state economies with all countries trending toward the global mean in income.
NBG Frogs July 3, 2013
The Bullfrog and Gray Tree Frog tadpoles have turned to frogs. In the larger pond there are no more jumping tadpoles, now there are hundreds of frogs lining the shores. I collected a bit of video evidence today. It is right on schedule.
Today I found no Gray Tree Frog Tadpoles in the drainage swale/little pond. Yesterday I found only a very few. I did find one last frog and have some nice footage of it. I am in holiday mode and do not feel like editing footage this afternoon, but will put up some preliminary footage in the next few days, and with the changes, it is time to start putting together the developmental sequence of the two frogs. I have only some decent footage, but have learned much about both the frogs and the video process, so while I am looking forward to putting together the developmental sequence videos, I am really looking forward to doing this again next year much better than I did this year.
I expect that I will also write up my observations and put them together on this blog and on the Friends of the Moshassuck website.