Business as usual at the banks?

As the banks tell us they are making money again, everyone is wondering if they have really learnt anything. Banks and the whole financial system are the heart of our capitalist economy. One analyst has declared that there is no way forward with the current system.

It is not hard to see that

              - that the world financial system is corrupted by greed

              - this has been a major cause of the credit crunch

              - the general public have ended up funding the rich lifestyles of the financiers.

But it is harder to see the big structural picture about money, the economy and the earth.

Attracting many people’s attention just now is a piece of analysis called The Crash Course by Chris Martenson.

It’s take home message is that there is a big problem that we must face.

The economic system we are working with is fuelled by debt and overall levels of indebtedness by governments and citizens alike are growing at an alarming rate.

All is apparently well in a debt fuelled economy so long as there is enough economic growth to make the interest payments on the debt.

But there are two reasons why this growth cannot continue.

The first is energy. Our increase in GDP has been dependent on the availability of cheap fossil fuel energy. Most of the really big oil fields around the world are now in decline and we are unlikely to be able to go on increasing oil use. Meanwhile climate change makes burning coal problematic. The result is that energy shortages are almost certain in the near future. This will send the debt fuelled economy into serious and prolonged recession.

Secondly, oil is just one of many resources in the world that are now being consumed at a prodigous rate by a burgeoning human population. Resource availability must also limit economic growth on our current model.

Chris Martenson bases his figures on the US but the analysis is certainly also relevant to UK and many others.

You can access the Crash Course for yourself here

No one can really handle the idea that our economic model is now failing.
We prefer to pretend that it is ‘business as usual’.

Yet if we could face the change and begin to live a life more in tune with the earth, then we might find that our new life was much to be preferred.

The prophet Isaiah once spoke these words

Hear and hear but do not understand
See and see but do not perceive.
Make the hearts of these people fat
and their ears heavy
and shut their eyes
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts
and turn and be healed.(Isaiah 6 9-10)

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