History

Are We At Risk From The Epic Quest?

 

The Prize (Part 1 of 8)

Adapted from Daniel Yergin’s book “The PRIZE: Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power”
& (2011) –  The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World 
Conversations with History
–
Turning a Resource Curse Into a Blessing

Cult of Information – Thinking Allowed

“Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, And bandits and thieves will disappear.” ~ Laozi

Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking.
The Astounding World of the Future
Bad Science
Are All Economic Hypotheses False?

Debt: The First 5,000 Years


“Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter system–to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.”

“Interest rates spiked and the indebted became slaves. And the system perpetuated itself with tremendously violent consequences, with only the rare intervention of kings and churches keeping the system from spiraling out of control.”

Chomsky describes this out of control spiral here and concludes, – ”By shredding the remnants of political democracy, the financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward — as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.”

As we saw from “The Lost Science of Money” most economists steadfastly refuse to learn anything from history, – which is all the more peculiar for a “discipline” claiming to be “scientific” and on the outlook for the optimal truth and not a cult worship.

David Graeber.
Debt The First 5,000 Years
Mad Max
–
9,3% between deposit and lending rates (IMF)
kiva
P2P lending

Defective By Design

Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability?

“Why is the financial crisis of 2008 treated as if it were the first? The World Bank has identified more than 96 previous banking crises and 176 monetary crises since President Nixon introduced the floating exchange regime in the early 1970s (Caprio and Klingebiel, 1996). Even before this period, financial booms and bust cycles were, in Kindleberger’s words, a remarkably “hardy perennial” (Kindleberger, 1978); he inventories no less than 48 massive crashes between the 1637 tulip mania in Holland and the 1929 crash on Wall Street. In short, it may be tempting to consider financial and monetary instability as a given, as part of Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” of
capitalism.” –

320 crashes from 1637 (~ 0.86 p.a.).

For the last 370 years, there has been on average one crash every 14th month, and as recovery usually takes years this has been a history of continuous disaster. No wonder the Economic Priesthood is pleased with it self.

It is difficult to accept Economics as a Scientific Discipline with such a dismal record of “correction”. – “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
–
Bernard Lietaer
The Lost Science of Money
The American Monetary Act (proposed)
Religion, not a science
Barefoot Economics
Surviving without money
The Bank of Happiness
The Shock Doctrine

while on the banks …

In times of turmoil and uncertainty it can be helpful to remember what historians and philosophers have said.

Will Durant wrote. “Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, and even whittle statues.”

And Krishnamurti said “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

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