Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On Mon, 20 May 2024, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> writes:

On 5/19/2024 4:03 AM, D wrote:

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On Sat, 18 May 2024, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
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On 5/18/2024 5:56 PM, Titus G wrote:

On 19/05/24 01:34, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

On 17/05/2024 15.31, D wrote:
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I was unaware

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Ignorance is bliss.
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?? we have anything resembling capitalism. What we have

today is a plan economy with government calling the shots, which is
far from capitalism. Many billionaires are the ones who are the most
cosy with politicians.
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As for who the wealth belongs to and the benefits for the population
at large, note that we are living at a high peak of civilization
compared with 100 years ago on all scales, infant mortality, wealth,
quality of life etc.

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The implication of what you're saying is that living at the peak of
civilization is strongly correlated with having a planned economy
rather than capitalism.
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Be careful. You might smear his rose tinted spectacles.

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One suspects that D is of the opinion that any kind of regulation or
legal restraint immediately makes a given economy "non-capitalist" and
a "planned economy".

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Yep, or if not, at least reduces the efficiency and produces worse
results. On the other hand, I live in europe, so I get the "benefit" of
studying socialism up close every day. I imagine living in the US or a
more free country, that it is easier to come to the belief that
government "fixes" all the problems of the market when you have not seen
the horrors of socialism up close as in europe.
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On that theme, I recommend this article in FT where B??rje Ekholm, CEO of
Ericsson says that overregulation is driving the EU to irrelevance
(https://archive.is/XAISI).
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I agree completely with him.

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The problem with your "definition" of a capitalist economy is that it
doesn't exist.  Never has.  There has ALWAYS been some kind of
regulation and laws about how commerce is transacted.  When you start
stripping away all the propaganda and unfounded beliefs you find that
you can't _HAVE_ capitalism without rules and regulations.  Can't have a
marketplace if there is nothing preventing someone from whacking someone
else over the head and taking their things.

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Modern capitalism has been predicated on infinite growth.  That
infinite growth, has in turn been predicated on infinite supplies of
cheap energy.
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The availability of cheap energy was the result of several hundred
million years of stored solar (in the form of fossil fuels), the bulk
of which has been consumed.  With deleterious side effects that may
not be reversable in any human timescale.
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What system will replace capitalism is not clear, but it will likely not
be pleasant.
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https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/

I disagree. I think we'll continue to grow when we start with asteroid mining, deep sea mining etc. We're not even close to the end. Eventually we'll colonize other planets.
In terms of energy, this is a solved problem which is only being stopped or slowed down by politicians and over regulation.
Last but not least, with increased automation, there's also the aspect of doing more with less.
In terms of what eventually will replace capitalism, I imagine some kind of post-scarcity society á la Star trek with nano-technology, ubiquitous solar power, 3d-printing and so on. But that is of course today just science fiction and speculation.
But you can tell that I am short term negative, but long term extremely optimistic about the human race and its future. =)