There is so much in the media about about the global economic situation. I am not even going to call it a crisis, it is just something that is happening. Firstly it is not some unforeseen event which has just occurred.
In 1991 we had an economic situation both in the UK and to a certain degree around the rest of the world. Here lies the roots of the present situation. This time of relative chaos and appropriate reorganisation gave us the opportunity to develop an appropriate trajectory of development, which if taken could have avoided what is now going on in the world
My opinion then and still hold today is that it was obvious that future development would be defined by the parameters of what was possible within and by environmental and planetary ecological systems.
There seemed to be no debate or consensus then on how development should proceed. It just shot off willy nilly. If someone was climbing a a cliff or a steep slope and having found the going too difficult or gradient impossible and slide back to the bottom. What would have been the sensible thing to do? Decide on and take another route. A route that offered less resistance to progress.
The economic system did not do this, it made the same mistakes as before, but with renewed vigour digging deeper into its resources, resources which come from the conversion and hence degradation of planetary ecological systems.
Now it has predictably slide back. Imagine reality as a U-shaped channel, a half pipe as the skateboarders would call it. Imagine it covered in grease. Now imagine somebody (the economy) trying to run vertically up the side. They will get so far, once gravity becomes stronger than the increasing gradient, grip of their feet and loss of momentum, they will just slide back to the bottom again.
So why try to do the same thing again? If the U-shaped channel was a section of a a bobsleigh run, the time base, then best progress is made taking the racing line, along it -to the future.
Mistakes were made in 1991 which have lead us to the present situation.
So now global leaders are meeting. Using £ or $ 100s billions to try and force the global economy up the same impossible slope. President Bush says we want a stronger economy. I would suggest we need a more sensible economy.
There has been some knee jerk reaction, if not overnight, certainly over days or a few weeks, without any thought of where we are going, how we will do it or the consequences.
I can only see this borrowing, to sort out the present, as borrowing from the future. Taking stability from the future before we get there. This is borrowing from the future stability of the planetary ecological life support system.
My opinion is that world leaders are creating a very dangerous situation, without thinking through what they are doing.
When an economic system collapses we can still survive. When a planetary ecological system collapses we die.
I do believe there is a better way.
In 1991 we had an economic situation both in the UK and to a certain degree around the rest of the world. Here lies the roots of the present situation. This time of relative chaos and appropriate reorganisation gave us the opportunity to develop an appropriate trajectory of development, which if taken could have avoided what is now going on in the world
My opinion then and still hold today is that it was obvious that future development would be defined by the parameters of what was possible within and by environmental and planetary ecological systems.
There seemed to be no debate or consensus then on how development should proceed. It just shot off willy nilly. If someone was climbing a a cliff or a steep slope and having found the going too difficult or gradient impossible and slide back to the bottom. What would have been the sensible thing to do? Decide on and take another route. A route that offered less resistance to progress.
The economic system did not do this, it made the same mistakes as before, but with renewed vigour digging deeper into its resources, resources which come from the conversion and hence degradation of planetary ecological systems.
Now it has predictably slide back. Imagine reality as a U-shaped channel, a half pipe as the skateboarders would call it. Imagine it covered in grease. Now imagine somebody (the economy) trying to run vertically up the side. They will get so far, once gravity becomes stronger than the increasing gradient, grip of their feet and loss of momentum, they will just slide back to the bottom again.
So why try to do the same thing again? If the U-shaped channel was a section of a a bobsleigh run, the time base, then best progress is made taking the racing line, along it -to the future.
Mistakes were made in 1991 which have lead us to the present situation.
So now global leaders are meeting. Using £ or $ 100s billions to try and force the global economy up the same impossible slope. President Bush says we want a stronger economy. I would suggest we need a more sensible economy.
There has been some knee jerk reaction, if not overnight, certainly over days or a few weeks, without any thought of where we are going, how we will do it or the consequences.
I can only see this borrowing, to sort out the present, as borrowing from the future. Taking stability from the future before we get there. This is borrowing from the future stability of the planetary ecological life support system.
My opinion is that world leaders are creating a very dangerous situation, without thinking through what they are doing.
When an economic system collapses we can still survive. When a planetary ecological system collapses we die.
I do believe there is a better way.
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