We are hitting something similar to “Peak Oil” right now, but the major symptoms are unexpected. There is a glut of supply, and prices are far below the cost of production. Perhaps we should call it “Limits to Growth,” rather than “Peak Oil,” because it is a different type of problem than most people expected….
Read More about Gail Tverberg: We are at Peak Oil now; we need very low-cost energy to fix itKeith Dicker writes: Why is the world in an economic funk? The answer is quite simple: Private Capital does not like the actions by central banks and governments, and is withdrawing their money from the global economy. And it is heading towards the center of the earth. Yes, it really is as simple as that….
Read More about ‘Journey to the center of the Earth’: Private capital is running away from trouble
Sukumar Muralidharan reports on Catch News: This year’s economic survey is a catalogue of crises. For one thing, it records that the situation in agriculture has been dismal on account of two successive years of poor monsoons. This is only the fourth time in 115 years that such a misfortune has hit the Indian economy….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #85
T Sabri Öncü writes: Some insist that the global economy is in “secular stagnation,” but the facts suggest we may be entering the “worst” depression in history. Global markets have been on a slippery slope since 2007, and things have only been getting worse. The picture looks dismal, no matter which theoretical lens one uses….
Read More about Has the crash of the global financial markets begun?
Shanker Chakravarty/The Hindu
The Union Budget 2015-2016 will be presented in amid dwindling fortunes of the NDA government. Agriculture is already on a downswing while the economic slowdown is perceptible – all this when nine states are going to polls in 2016-17. Down to Earth presents a series of analyses of the Union Budget from the environment and development perspectives….
Read More about Make (Or Break) In India: Down to Earth special issue ahead of the Union Budget
Financial bubbles arise when asset prices inflate above what incomes can sustain. The mathematical reality is that the current over $200 trillion in debt and perhaps another $500 trillion of un(der)funded liabilities really cannot ever be paid back under current terms. In order for these obligations to be reset to a reality-based level, something has to give….
Read More about Chris Martenson: Explaining the chaos in global financial markets
Common Dreams reports: A new analysis, published in Science Advances journal, reveals that global water scarcity is a far greater problem than previously thought, affecting 4 billion people—two-thirds of the world’s population. Previous analyses looked at water scarcity at an annual scale, and had found that water scarcity affected between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #83Colin Todhunter writes: There is a notion that we can just continue as we are, with an endless supply of oil, endless supplies of meat and endless assault on soil, human and environmental well-being that intensive petrochemical agriculture entails. Given the statistics, this is unsustainable, unrealistic and a recipe for continued resource-driven conflicts and devastation….
Read More about Arms, Agribusiness, Finance and Fossil Fuels: The Four Horsemen of the Neoliberal Apocalypse
Gail Tverberg writes: We are about to see a substantial disruption to the economy, as oil limits, as well as other energy limits, cause the economic supercycle to contract. Whether its Peak Oil, the Limits to Growth, or the Debt Supercycle, the underlying problem is the same – we’re reaching the limits of a finite world….
Read More about Tverberg: A market collapse is on the horizon
Oil prices drive not just economics, but geopolitics. Alliances rise and fall over petroleum. For these reasons and more, the collapsing value of oil will have profound consequences, with the potential to destabilize regimes, remake regions and alter the global economy in lasting and unforeseen ways. Fifteen experts tell Politico what that means for the world….
Read More about Fifteen experts on the hidden consequences of the oil crash
A depiction of the 'Pralaya' or Great Flood, from the Matsya Purana
It’s indeed possible to wrap your head around the new emerging reality. It doesn’t take a financial maverick to foresee collapse and it’s by no means my discovery. I just saw the patterns emerging before most people simply because I was paying attention to facts and trends – all in public domain, some for decades….
Read More about Economic collapse: How to face it without fear
Gail Tverberg explains the correlation between rates of GDP growth and growth in energy supply. For decades, energy has been becoming more costly to obtain, but instead of accepting lower GDP growth, we have been using debt to fund further energy extraction. That strategy has diminishing returns, and we are close to the moment of reckoning….
Read More about Tverberg: Something Has Got To Break
Reuters
The Guardian reports: Investors face a “cataclysmic year” where stock markets could fall by up to 20% and oil could slump to $16 a barrel, the Royal Bank of Scotland have warned. In a note to clients, it said: “Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital.”…
Read More about Alert: Global financial crash ahead?
Cagle.com
Satyajit Das writes in The Times of India: Policy makers have sold the future for a precarious, short-lived stability. There is a striking similarity between the problems of the financial system, irreversible climate change and shortages of vital resources like oil, food and water… The world is remarkably unprepared for the crisis that is unfolding….
Read More about Hopium economics and the madness of infinite growth on a finite planetWith the United States’ household debt burden at $11.85 trillion, even the most modest challenges to its legitimacy have revolutionary implications. Charles Eisenstein, Yes! Magazine The legitimacy of a given social order rests on the legitimacy of its debts. Even in ancient times this was so. In traditional cultures, debt in a broad sense—gifts to…
Read More about Charles Eisenstein: Everything You’ve Been Told About Debt Is WrongSajai Jose Alexis Tsipras, the first Left Greek Prime Minister. Credit: SpaceShoe/Flickr, CC 2.0. Cover image of old woman in Athens is also by Spaceshoe Greece has become the first developed country to default on an International Monetary Fund loan, itself a fraction of a €323 billion national debt – equivalent to more than 175% of the country’s…
Read More about Why the Greek Tragedy is Just the Opening Act(Note: As the world watches the unfolding crisis in Greece with bated breath, here’s a look at other, perhaps lesser known trends that indicate a global financial crash is in the offing. Here’s a collection of articles by prominent economists and analysts that make that case. Some pieces are dated, but have been included here…
Read More about Special: Financial crash alert!The Encyclical by Pope Francis is being hailed by environmentalists as the second coming. It’s hardly that, in my view. Nonetheless, I was struck within minutes of starting it, by the incisive and accurate commentary it offers on our true predicament. Here are some passages that resonated with me and that I found highly insightful. Manu…
Read More about Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change – Selected Excerpts
