Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme, are we all Bernie Madoffs

[NicholeW.]

Note: I understand that as this article doesn't specifically mention "trans" anything at all that it may be seen as being not pertinent. Since it does mention "human beings" as a whole I believe that the "trans" human beings are included.

I found it worth the time I spent reading it. -- Nichole

http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/08/ponzi-scheme-madoff-friedman-natural-capital-renewable-resources/

Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme, are we all Bernie Madoffs, and what comes next?
Joseph Romm. Climate Progress. March 8, 2009.

A few years ago I thought that aggressive action by governments around the world to push clean energy could spare the public dramatic lifestyle changes in the coming decades, but I have been convinced otherwise by


* the failure of U.S. leadership [thank you George W. Bush and the conservative movement stagnation]
* the remarkable shift in our understanding of climate science in the past two years (here, here, and here)
* China's decision to join the Ponzi scheme full throttle and emulate our rapaciousness (see here and here), * and a recent, brilliant talk I heard (a teaser for a future post).

The adults, in short, are not standing up. Sadly, most haven't even taken the time to understand that they should (see "Most opinion leaders just don't get global warming").

And so every generation that comes after the Baby Boomers are poised to experience the dramatic changes in lifestyle that inevitably follow the collapse of any Ponzi scheme.

[lisagurl]

The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834[1]) was an English political economist and demographer.

His main contribution was to draw attention to the potential dangers of population growth: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." [2] For Malthus, a clergyman, this was divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour: optimistic ideas of social reform were doomed to failure.[3] He thus presented to the reader a dystopia, negative, image of the world, in contrast to the eutopias of writers such as Rousseau and William Godwin. A population crash based on this principle, (outlined in Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population), is called a "Malthusian catastrophe".

[Hazumu]

"Sure as ****, they will multiply their [-------] into the polluted seas."
--William S. Burroughs, on what he would say to the Pope on bringing up the topic of birth control.