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| Feb 26, 2009 8:33 am |
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re: Economic Depression 2009? |
John Stephen Veitch
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This is from the Open Future Blog.
"20 years ago I was very impressed by the concept of tapping an unlimited resource as we became a knowledge society. The human brain was a mine that would produce unlimited richness, we were told. I believed that message. But I misunderstood it. I was thinking in terms of money and the things money can buy. I was thinking about physical assets.
The human brain is a source of unlimited richness, but it's a richness of ideas, of imagination, and there are limits to our ability to make any of that available as a real object.
When I try to find the cause of the 2009 Depression, I list as the first cause the unsuccessful attempt to get rich by deregulation and by excessive focus on financial transactions. The main result was concentrate "wealth" more and more, while 90% of the population quietly got poorer and poorer. The expectation of "high returns" led people to over-promise and to take exceptional risks in order to make the promise seem to be achievable. Many people became involved in magical thinking, believing that by belief and willpower, any chosen objective was achievable. Those same people are now saying, "there is no depression". When too much money is in too few hands, there is not enough spending power in the economy to keep it running. Pouring in more money into the market doesn't work, because very quickly it accumulates again in those same few pockets.
The 2009 Depression is being driven by two or three other forces besides an unequal distribution of wealth. One of those is an over built housing sector that now can't be paid for. There is the problem of over dependence on oil as a transport fuel, and the exponential growth of that demand if Brazil, China and India were to experience economic development using the American model of "development". Economic development for really large populations based on petrol powered cars, isn't possible. Added to that, there is the very serious background problem of global warming. People are not stupid, they do understand that the climate is changing, and that we MUST, change the way we live in two ways. First we have to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses we ourselves produce. Secondly, since climate change damage affecting the next 50 years has already been done, we have to live with the changes that brings.
I'm picking that the 2009 Depression will continue for at least 10 years. It will take two years to fix the financial problems. Banks will be nationalized, but the most important thing will be a International Financial Agreement, coming out of the G20 Summit meetings and the UNited Nations. World finance can't be under the control of any one nation, as it has been for the last 70 years.
It will take at least five years for the problem of excess demand for oil to decline in importance. And at least 10 years before we can be sure that progress on global warming is really being made. Then perhaps people will be able to imagine a better future or their children and grandchildren. That will give them a reason for living and a propper purpose in investing."
John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - http://www.openfuture.biz/
Innovation Network - http://veech-network.ryze.com/
Building an Open Future - http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/Private Reply to John Stephen Veitch (new win) |
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