Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

On 29/10/2024 20:05, rbowman wrote:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024 18:35:16 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
 

On 2024-10-29, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
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On 29/10/2024 15:18, Scott Lurndal wrote:
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Which attempts fundmentally can be attributed to modern capitalist
theory that requires constant growth.   Without new consumers,
how can the economy expand?
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Is it time for a steady-state economy?

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The problem is that most modern economies have a social care and debt
Ponzi scheme, that relies on more people earning more money to pay for
it.
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Stop the new people and the scheme collapses.

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Don't stop the new people and the scheme collapes a bit later due to
resource exhaustion.  It's no different from any other Ponzi scheme.
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https://steadystate.org/discover/definition-of-steady-state-economy/

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Well it will have to come eventually, but the transition will be
painful

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Perhaps - but it might be less painful than a Malthusian crash.

 I can never remember if high time preference or low time preference is the
one that thinks '$100 today is better than a tomorrow that may never come'
but it does seem to be the dominant philosophy.
 The cornucopians think there will always be a technological fix. Someday
they will reach into the hat to pull out the next rabbit and find out
there ain't no more rabbits.

Well in this case there could be.
It may turn out that everybody owes everybody else more money than they can ever pay back, and galloping inflation devalues all savings and all debts to manageable amounts.
OR Big Money takes a massive 95% haircut, globally, on a preassigned day.
Or the economic system collapses and governments simply stop paying civil servants, public sector workers and pensioners anything at all. along with people on social security.
--
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
  – Will Durant