GREEN TECHNOLOGY BUBBLE AND BUST

On Jim Bacons post “The Coming Green Boom – and Bubble” EMR noted something like the following (with corrected spelling and clarified intent):

Green Technology and the investment in Green Technology will just be another Bubble and Bust too without:

Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;

Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;

Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.

And THAT means there must be a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth. See THE ESTATES MATRIX

There are a number of good observations following Jim Bacon’s post and they caused EMR to give further thought to the topic:

There MAY be a Green Technology Boom.

There MAY be great future benefits from Green Technology “Breakthroughs” that are not now even imagined.

There is no evidence at this point that there will be any “Breakthroughs” with more substance than cold fusion – or is it fission? Anyway, cold.

What IS known is that whatever form Green Technology takes, is will cost a lot of money, especially in the area of energy generation, transmission and distribution. There is NOTHING as cheap as digging up (and burning up) natural capital – unless nation-states and Regions have to fight wars to get it.

What is also known is that there are already a lot of expensive ways to replace cheap energy and there are millions of things to sell that will consume resources and occupy time – if citizens had time or money.

(For the record: Those things will not solve the Helter Skelter Crisis or the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and even FREE energy for Large, Private Vehicles will not solve the Mobility and Access Crisis.)

The bottom line is that after 35 years of widening the Wealth Gap and the inevitable Global Financial Meltdown (Bust of the Household, Enterprise and Agency deficit spending bubble) there are not a lot of folks who can afford expensive energy or expensive Green Technology.

That means it will not be attractive to invest in Green Technology because the market will be small.

Those at the top of the Ziggurat – those who could afford expensive Green Technology – have demonstrated over and over that they would rather continue to ride on the Tiger because they make more money faster that way.

Over the past 35 years the US of A could have lead the World in creating a lean, educated, happy human population with an ever smaller ecological footprint and thus a sustainable trajectory for civilization.

The US of A has “prospered” by creating an obese, opinionated, antagonistic, human population with huge Mass OverConsumption driven ecological footprints. The growth in consumption, the growth in population and the growth in the Wealth Gap are not sustainable.

The net result of attempting to “enjoy” consumption based “prosperity” within dysfunctional human settlement patterns:

Over half the population is losing ground – economically and socially.

Most of the rest are Running As Hard As They Can and have no time or energy to understand why most of the benefit of increased productivity of the 95 percent is going to the top 5 percent of the Ziggurat.

The US of A ranks at the top in consumption and in an also ran in education, equity, health and happiness.

The Elephant Clan and the Donkey Clan have broken “politics” and gamed the governance structure so that one or the other – but not someone with new ideas – gets 50.5 percent of the vote.

They have done this by promising that a vote for their “principles” will allow everyone to continue to live a life based on Myth – forever.

Both the Clans try to out promise one another. It is all about short-term benefit / immediate gratification and nothing about cost long-term / cumulative cost or a Balance of rights with responsibilities.

Add to this the facts that:

The NRA (aka, gun lobby) and the individual rights advocates have armed and primed the “Deer Hunting with Jesus” crowd.

The alcohol lobby, the NRA and conflict generating agitators have armed and primed bros in the hood.

Let us not spend time creating another bubble to bust over Green Technology. Green Technology would be nice but what has surfaced so far is Green Greed. Even pure Green Technology is not what is needed.

How about creating a sustainable trajectory which requires:

Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;

Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;

Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.

And, of course a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.

EMR


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Comments

21 responses to “GREEN TECHNOLOGY BUBBLE AND BUST”

  1. Anonymous Avatar

    “Over half the population is losing ground – economically and socially.

    “Most of the rest are Running As Hard As They Can and have no time or energy to understand why most of the benefit of increased productivity of the 95 percent is going to the top 5 percent of the Ziggurat.”

    And that was before the Meltdown.

  2. Anonymous Avatar

    When your only choice is to vote for one moron in indentured servitude vs another there are no INTELLIGENT decisions to be made in the voting booth.

    We just elected Barack Obama, which may hav been a good thing or not. But none of us got to vote on the huge spending package that will affect our lives for decades, one way or another.

    Now that we have nearly instantaneous communication, blogs and what not, I think it is time to drop all this political crap whichis designed to keep parties in power and not to enhance people lives. Instead we can go to direct electronic democracy.

    With the caveat that the takings clause of the fifth amendment applies to all property expropriated in the name of public benefit.

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar

    If you have a race, one guy is going to win and everyone else is losing ground compared to him.

    What is the point of stating the obvious and the necessary as if it was some kind of crisis?

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar

    “There is NOTHING as cheap as digging up (and burning up) natural capital – unless nation-states and Regions have to fight wars to get it.”

    Well, OK. But there is nothing as wasteful as letting natural capital rot in the bank forever. The trick is to find the correct rate of withdrawal, so yo don’t run out of cpital before you run out of time to use it, or vice versa.

    Either case is possible, and each reperesents a different kind of waste.

    We are all opposed to waste, right? So it doesn’t matter how cheap natural capital is, it matters how valuable it is – for each possible case.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar

    “How about creating a sustainable trajectory which requires….”

    We can have all three of those things and still not have a sustainable trajectory.

    To have that we need to use mainly the energy that falls on the planet, plus a reasonable withdrawal against natural capital.

    After you figure out what that is, it will pretty much define what else you can and can’t do, because energy is the true basis of economic laws.

    It doesn’t even matter what the structue of governance is as long as it is not doing the one thing it must: protect people and property. If that is not happening you might as well be robbed blind by a theocracy, or plutocracy as by seven levels of organic bureaucratic layer cake.

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar

    “Over the past 35 years the US of A could have lead the World in creating a lean, educated, happy human population with an ever smaller ecological footprint “

    And we have.

    The U.S. produces more stuff with less energy than every other countryin the world, except four. We have among the highest productivity in the world, and it is going up, in spite fo the current problems.

    Now you want to see a lean (as in starving) unhappy human population with an enormous ecological footprint, then go visit Haiti or some other subsistence level country.

    Try to imagine how many Americans would be dead, if we lived that way. it is easy to imagine that less is more and subsistence living is green living, but it is not.

    It isnt a matter of riding the Tiger, it is a matter of not being eaten by the Tiger.

    RH

  7. MIGHTYBIGMEDIA Avatar
    MIGHTYBIGMEDIA

    It’s all about the transfer of wealth. If we continue to condone, not to mention applaud, the transfer of massive amounts of money to the richest top two percent of the population… no trajectory is sustainable.

    Why don’t some of the Buffets, Gates, Adelsons and Ellisons of the world break open their piggy banks and invest a couple of billion dollars to fund a few thousand start-ups. That would jump-start tens of thousands of personal economies. Well, don’t hold your breath. Because, as I’m sure someone will point out here on this blog, “They earned it! This is America man, not Russia! They can do what ever they want with their money!

    Even capitalism has a tipping point… you know… that moment when it morphs from beauty to beast. Capitalism minus responsibility equals evil. But hey, life isn’t fair… go get your own!

  8. I guess I woulda thought that if there was ever going to be a good shot at Fundamental Transformation – change that was going to happen – no matter the politicians nor the interest groups – that the current housing meltdown would have a pretty good run at it.

    there is no way to hide from a 20% loss in value… for most people and most banks.

    Sooner or later, someone is going to eat the loss.

    but here’s the deal.

    What will likely happen to a $300K wrong-sized house in the wrong-location?

    Will it be abandoned? Torn Down? Converted to a 4-unit apartment?

    Nope. It will sell …AND be occupied by someone happy to get such a deal… on a ‘wrong-sized home in the wrong location’ (not that he would recognize the phrase much less think it would apply to his home).

    So… we probably know right now that even something as disastrous as the current housing conflagration …out of the hands of anyone who might try to avoid it…

    does not appear to foster Fundamental Transformation…

    not even a whiff of it?
    (that’s a question).

    Now the part that is really amusing is that according to the thesis espoused – people will, as the result of crisis, rise up and demand a change in governance…

    Was that the election of Obama?

  9. Best term Avatar

    This is quite a post, I just loved reading it, Must admit that your readers are very loyal to your blog, I am really impressed! you can consider me one of the followers from now on, thanks and keep posting:)

  10. Anonymous Avatar

    “Even capitalism has a tipping point”

    Well said.

    Imbalance in wealth is a tough subject, I think. If you tax something, you get less of it, so confiscatory taxes on the rich will resultin less wealth. Still, they have more to protect, so they should expect to pay more. And, even after paying more they still have several times as much left as the average Joe: it’s hard to feel sorry for them. Michal Vick, for example is under house arrest in a fine home most non-criminals could never hope to afford.

    On the other hand, all we have to do is look at some South American countries to see where extreme imbalance leads.

    It is hard to imagine that you can earn more tna 95% of the population and yet 95% of the wealth resides with the four percent above you.

    And yet, we have the Rpublicans, claiming to be champions of the working class raising cain over letting previous tax cuts for the wealth expire as planned.

    Last night I heard a conservative commentator or republican offical (I don;t know who) talkng about the Obama budget. His point was that Obama was simultaneously taking on a bunch of spending cuts which have historically been defeated: Military, Agriculture, Health Care etc. He said there would be fights over these and Obama’s half trillion dollar deficit would be a trillion dollars by the time the Republicans got through with him.

    This is what they think is a winning strategy, force Obama to fail and tke the country down with you? There are people out there still quibbling over whether Obama is a citizen. Surely the Republicans can do better thn that for an issue.

    RH

  11. Anonymous Avatar

    “Once castigated as people in pajamas, the broad wave of bloggers has disrupted print media and even—perhaps ironically—the art and science of economics itself.

    In the span of a few years, a rich and incredibly timely discussion, debate, even tutorial about the economy has emerged through blogging techniques that were unknown a decade ago and probably unimaginable by almost everyone two decades ago. Opinions and advice are available from the brightest minds—available to schoolchildren of today in ways that would have been the envy of Presidents and Kings of generations past.”

    Kauffman foundation

    One thing that makes markets inefficient is assymetric information. Blogging is obliterating that.

    Much to EMRs consternation.

    RH

  12. Anonymous Avatar

    I think EMR would like twitter

    On twitter you basically expose a single point of view or brand and then attract followers who are interested in that point of view.

    Blogging on the other hand provides more opportunity for debate and discussion

    Twitter does help organize thoughts because you can only write 140 charachters at a time which would help many of us :-p.

    NMM

  13. Anonymous Avatar

    Ouch.

    RH

  14. Anonymous Avatar

    How about we divide responses up into three columns: Pro or Liberal on the left, con or conservative on the right, and column in the middle for new or previuosly unstated ideas.

    Then you need a polling plan wherein all the readers, lurkers, and other noncontributors can vote onthe ideas presented.

  15. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    “blogging techniques that were unknown a decade ago and probably unimaginable by almost everyone two decades ago. “

    Academics, late to the party as usual. Guess they never heard of Usenet or Fidonet? The common man has been b*tching for decades, nobody cared.

    Now the elites think they are Al Gore because they ‘invented’ blogs.

  16. re: “Twitter does help organize thoughts because you can only write 140 charachters at a time which would help many of us :-p.”

    yes… agree…

    I’d love to see both EMR and RH be limited to 140 characters per post….

    of course, then we’d probably get even more multiple posts…

    at some point.. others might rightly claim that they are doing more talking to themselves than others…

    of course, I’m never guilty of these transgressions…

    😉

  17. Anonymous Avatar

    You cannot transmit complex ideas in 140 characters.

  18. nor can you transmit the gross amount of blathering hot air that often appears masquerading as complex ideas – either.

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The ideas are not mine. I’m just the messenger.

    Take it up with the PhD’s and Nobel Prize winners if you think the ideas are too long winded.

    RH

  20. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “This lowering of expectations seems to be part of the Obama administration’s message on climate change right now. High-ranking officials are saying – expect change, just don’t expect the sun and the moon. White House budget director Peter Orszag in testimony before Congress this week said the administration would work on an economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, but would only shoot for a 14% cut by 2020. “

    In other words, the price is too high.

    RH

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “We look at emissions from driving, public transit, home heating, and household electricity usage. We find that the lowest emissions areas are generally in California and that the highest emissions areas are in Texas and Oklahoma. There is a strong negative association between emissions and land use regulations. By restricting new development, the cleanest areas of the country would seem to be pushing new development towards places with higher emissions.

    Edward L. Glaeser
    Department of Economics
    315A Littauer Center
    Harvard University”

    That is all well and good but he is only considering household type usage. If we consider the total energy use in cities, is it stillless than the suburbs?

    RH

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