Securing Necessities,
Tim Morgan at Surplus Energy Economics, Robert’s Paradigm: THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC CONTRACTION
The great fact of our times – “everywhere visible, nowhere acknowledged” – is the ending and reversal of economic growth.
In Henry’s paradox, we looked at some of the implications for business of this inflexion from economic expansion into contraction.
Our interest here is in the politics of economic decline. The Robert of our title is Victorian politician Robert Lowe, and his paradigm is that whatever happens in politics is a function of trends in economic conditions...
The Keynesian Consensus of the post-war years was replaced, at the end of the 1970s, with a New Liberal Ascendancy, most closely associated in the public eye with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
This ascendancy then mutated, dating from the 1990s, into a Post-Capitalist Expediency, in which New Liberal economic precepts were abandoned, in all but name, in favour of the preservation, by whatever means, of the post-Keynesian structures of wealth and power.
This transition occurred in conjunction with an economic deceleration identifiable as the precursor stage for the ending of economic growth...
As social complexity contracts, and centralised, top-down systems start to fail, ungovernability – the failure of government to sustain the support of the public – may be more likely...
The rigorously logical Lowe was neither a democrat nor an aristocrat, but a meritocrat, so much so that, according to one contemporary, he was “all for a wise despotism”...
The rapid economic growth enjoyed in the Keynesian consensus era was made possible by favourable changes in the supply of energy to the economy. Just as oil was supplanting coal as the primary source of energy, so the Energy Cost of Energy dropped to levels well below 1%...
..Although all of these adversities were traceable to the oil crisis, New Liberal opponents of the Keynesian ascendancy succeeded in convincing the public that they were caused by “left-wing” governments and “over-mighty” labour unions.The solutions to the hardships of the 1970s lay, they said, in shrinking the state, deregulating the economy and curbing the powers of organized labour...
..A collapse in oil prices at the end of 1985...added to the favourable economic impetus delivered by the reversal of some of the adverse pressures of the 1970s... ..The New Liberal Ascendancy reached its apotheosis in the early 1990s. With the Deng reforms already steering China away from the hard-line orthodoxy of the revolution, the collapse of the USSR symbolized, for many, the final victory of market liberalism over economic collectivism... ..Energy Cost of Energy had started to rise relentlessly as older, low-cost sources of fossil fuel energy were depleted, and replaced by costlier alternatives...Trend ECoE from all sources of energy rose from 2.0% in 1980 to 3.0% in 1990, and 4.3% in 2000. The latter of these moves seems to have been pivotal, since the ‘catch-up’ growth of the 1980s was followed by a marked deceleration which was sometimes labelled “secular stagnation”... ..By the mid-1990s, concerns about sluggish growth were compounded by the emerging need to fill the ‘globalization gap’ between high consumption and comparatively stagnant incomes in the Western economies. The result was the adoption of policies designed to make it easier than ever before for Westerners to access credit. This “credit adventurism” put the system onto an arc of inevitability that led, via the global financial crisis (GFC I) of 2008-09, to the “monetary adventurism” of QE, ZIRP and NIRP... ..Whilst the “credit adventurism” adopted in the 1990s did not, of itself, abrogate these principles, it triggered a series of processes whereby the market capitalist thesis was eviscerated by the events that began in 2008. During and after GFC I, markets were rigged to keep rates low, and asset prices high. Prior commitments to minimal market interference were dropped, and investors could no longer earn satisfactory real returns on capital. This amounted to the replacement, by stealth, of the New Liberal Ascendancy with a Post-Capitalist Expediency. The principles of liberal market economics had quietly been dropped... ..What happens from here is a contest between the beneficiaries and the opponents of the new system of entitled expediency. The outcome of this iteration of Robert’s paradigm will be determined by economic trends that the authorities and the elites are powerless to control... Relentlessly rising ECoEs (see Fig. 1A) will exert tightening pressure on the surplus (ex-ECoE) energy that is the physical corollary of economic prosperity (Fig. 1B)... .."Clean” (credit-adjusted) economic output will follow the curve of gross energy supply (Fig. 1D), whilst rising ECoEs will widen the gap between output and prosperity (Figs. 2A and 2B).
..The economic aim of governments today is to maintain the status quo by combining an acquiescent sufficiency for the majority with the continued exorbitant privilege of a minority (Fig. 2C). The further the economy contracts, the more difficult this balancing-act becomes. This means that questions of redistribution are poised to return to the top of the political agenda. At the same time, wholly unsustainable burdens of debt and quasi-debt (Fig. 2D) are likely to undermine the essentially financial power-base of the Post-Capitalist Expediency... As the economy contracts, governments may find themselves needing to give more to ‘the poor’ than they can possibly take from ‘the rich’... Modern wealth overwhelmingly exists in paper form, and is valued, in the aggregate, by the application of marginal prices to the total stock of assets. If governments tried to expropriate these assets, most of their supposed ‘value’ would evaporate as prices slumped... ..Intensifying competition for dwindling resources is likely to drive a disorderly rather than a structured and organised transition to a post-growth social realignment. https://
..They emphasised the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire, for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid, and for those suffering in Gaza to receive food they so desperately need, the statement said. https://www.euronews.com/
A leading Dutch counterterrorism agency says Israel and the US pose a threat to The Hague, while accusing Tel Aviv of trying to manipulate public opinion and policy in the country
Since the court issued arrest warrants against Israel’s premier and former defense minister last year, Washington has imposed sanctions on the ICC. https://thecradle.co/articles/netherlands-labels-israel-threat-to-national-security-for-first-time
‘The boat will be towed to Ashdod Port by the Navy, and the activists will then be deported from the country,’ says The Times of Israel https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
The president said he has been in current contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza. He said: "We have to get the kids fed." https://www.zerohedge.com/
International companies and governments must pressure Israel to stop the war in Gaza and lift its blockade on the Palestinian territory "if they want to avoid this escalation" - the statement warns further. https://www.zerohedge.com/
The US president previously said he would impose new sanctions against Moscow if no deal was reached before early September https://swentr.site/news/622093-trump-shorten-ukraine-peace-deadline/
Sundance, Devin Nunes Discusses the DNI Revelations Released by Tulsi Gabbard – Draws Attention to the Mar-a-Lago Raid
According to later reports all of the documents were returned to President Trump at the conclusion of the Jack Smith investigation. https://
In return, the EU commits to energy imports worth $750 billion over the next three years—including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petroleum products. And then there’s the MAGA component: investment in the American heartland. A whopping $600 billion is to be mobilized from European industries and invested in the United States, with a strong focus on defense manufacturing. The message from Trump is clear: if Europe wants to keep fighting its proxy war in Ukraine, it will now have to pay for American weapons. https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/how-trump-just-turned-europe-vassal-market
The agreement has dealt a “very hard blow” to a number of business sectors in the bloc, the Russian foreign minister has said https://swentr.site/russia/622090-us-eu-trade-deal-deindustrialization/
Trump managed to "crush" Europe without firing a single shot, Medvedev said: "This isn’t diplomacy. It’s surrender dressed in a suit."
The heavily slanted terms of the deal meant Trump had "wiped the floor with Europe," Medvedev stated further in the Monday social media post. https://www.zerohedge.com/
Yet what’s accelerating now is rather the “fragmentation of the international monetary system”. So we should expect increased use of yuan in payment settlements and as “a store of value”; that’s already happening all across BRICS.
Miao points to the key vector: the yuan is now “a low-interest currency, while the US dollar is high-interest.” Trump 2.0 tariffs “on all countries have contributed to the appreciation” of the yuan.
This high-speed train is now leaving the station: “By leveraging China’s manufacturing strengths in sectors such as machinery, electronics, and new energy equipment”, China is encouraging BRICS nations and partners to use the yuan “for trade settlement, thereby creating a self-sustaining cycle” driven by “real trade demand.” https://strategic-culture.su/
“There's lots of criminals here, and it was a grand conspiracy," Devin Nunes tells Just the News. https://justthenews.com/
James Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence...
James Comey, Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...
Andrew McCabe, Former Acting FBI Director https://jonathanturley.org/
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has teamed up with the Department of Agriculture to formally define ultra-processed foods, a step toward empowering consumers and addressing America’s chronic disease epidemic...
“Dozens of scientific studies have found links between the consumption of foods often considered ultra-processed with numerous adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity and neurological disorders,” HHS said. https://www.dailywire.com/
The Netherlands goes Full Fascist in a Gestapo-reminiscent late night arrest of attorney Arno van Kessel one month before trial against Gates et al. began. https://www.thefocalpoints.
The authors of a recent study of 1.2 million children claimed they found no link between the aluminum in vaccines and autism. However, corrected data now added to the study show the opposite is true, according to scientists with Children’s Health Defense. The authors did not respond to requests by The Defender to explain why they haven’t revised their conclusions based on the release of the corrected data. https://
In May, the FDA moved to ban fluoride supplements after a systematic review of recent science by top government scientists published in JAMA Pediatrics reported that early fluoride exposure was linked to a decrease in children’s IQ scores. But pro-fluoride advocates argued during Wednesday’s public hearing that the supplements are “safe and effective.” https://
Even without symptoms, mRNA boosters trigger immune suppression, systemic inflammation, and coagulation abnormalities. https://www.thefocalpoints.
Elimination of all nonmedical exemptions (religious, philosophical, personal belief).
Universal vaccination for all children except those with legitimate, documented, and regularly reviewed medical contraindications.
This is a tacit admission that vaccines don’t work. If vaccines worked, vaccinated kids would have nothing to fear.
Exempting those with medical exemptions is smoke and mirrors because doctors won’t issue them. https://kirschsubstack.com/p/