Coyote, your amazing post clarifies for me the visions I’ve had of our future. This is the second time Eisenstein’s view resonates and explains my visions for me. He ia a brilliant man who understands global economics, environmental reality and includes spiritual and emotional factors in his analyses.
What the corporations are doing is a giant global Ponzi scheme with ever expanding ways to extract from the earth including extracting from the human spirit to make money.
I’ve mentioned The club of Rome’s work here in the past: in the 1970’s a group of economists from MIT built an econometric model of global growth. That means that they added up all of the resources we need to live —minerals, oil, coal, available farmland, water, etc., and how many people would be using those resources, and discovered that some time in the early 2020’s the world economy would plummet. You can look them up on line. They are still publishing.
All of their models came to the same conclusion — spiraling growth, then sudden crash around 2010, give or take a decade or two.
It was a shocking report that was translated into 30 languages. It prompted Earth Days all around the globe during the 1970's.
And President Jimmy Carter put a solar panel on the White House.
But then in came the Rethuglicans. In 1980, every state except Massachusetts voted in Ronald Reagan and he took the solar panels down and began the surge of unsustainable corporate expansion and inhumane policies that culminated in the gig economy we have today where people work harder for less with no benefits.
Corporate moguls have been getting rich off of unsustainable extraction of resources.
Writer Charles Eisenstein takes the Club of Rome model further. He points out that the corporate extraction growth system has also extracted and exhausted human spirit and caring. Like locusts they siphon off our very humanness and make people work like robots.
The Uber strike of yesterday (May 8) that came just as that company was going IPO, is an example. Uber is forcing its drivers into poverty by siphoning off their earnings to the point where they can’t make a living wage, even while working full time. Other companies are doing the same. Walmart's been doing it for decades -- forcing employees to go on welfare to eat even when they work full time.
Eisenstein’s writings have fit my most overriding visions—the ones that sum up the long-term future and the situation we are in. He helps me see what spirit has been telling me.
In his 2012 book The More Beautiful World our Hearts know is Possible, he described the same message I got from spirit back in 1986 when I first started giving readings -- of light workers (all of you who are part of this community!) coming to planet earth to help the human race evolve and climb up that steep 250 foot plateau that I saw in my mind's eye. I had seen the coast lines move inland and we all came to a 250 foot plateau that we had to climb to move forward. I felt that plateau represented two things: (1) the new sea level that will rise when all the glaciers melts and (2) the higher vibration we will have to achieve in our Selves to make it up there.
In his essay you quote here, I see what my 2014 vision of the future means. At first I'd thought it was just economic. Then as time passed I realized it was emotional. Now I see it is both. It is a sum total of our economic, emotional and spiritual well being.
The graph spirit showed me became shaky and volatile in 2017 as the bully Donald Trump took over. The volatility became worse in 2018, then began to slide downwards like a bear market near the end of 2019 or during 2020.
Even if the dems return in 2021, and they probably will return in a blue wave in Congress, the growth model our economy has been following is ending.
That’s because the growth model of extraction we’ve been on since before Columbus has never been sustainable. Like a Ponzi scheme. And we are nearing the end.
Unless the GOP can come up with another way to stall the inevitable slide (at the cost of our humanity), the game of growth is ending.
They came up with fracking and that temporarily staved off the end of oil. Now they are drilling in the Arctic. But the use of oil is killing the planet so even if they can keep finding oil, the resources that keep us alive are running out. And the humane/spiritual resources are also running out.
This model would explain why ive seen us bounce back near the end of the 20’s yet are poorer.
We are happier but without stuff.
If my 2014 vision still holds, then near the end of 2019 or in 2020, regardless of what happens in politics, there will be a bear market. It will cause a profound shift in the global economy.
Around 2025-28 we will rally. The new people in charge will be women, mothers, and the goal will be to clean up the mess and create a sustainable world so we can survive the long term.
Sorry this is so long. A bit of a stream of consciousness.
Glad to be of help, Jeanne. Charles Eisenstein is hardly the only one out there sounding the alarm about the ticking time bomb that is our monetary system, but he definitely does the best job of synthesizing economics, the environment, spirituality, and cultural change.
It's appropriate for you to bring up Uber and fracking in this context. Ride hailing apps and fracking firms are prime examples of the declining returns on investment that increasingly characterize late stage capitalism. That is, they are bottomless money pits, and their business models are based on gleaning as much capital as they can from gullible investors and expendable workers before economic reality kicks in. Fracking companies even had to be bailed out by the GOP's 2017 tax law in order to stay afloat. But I think the biophysical fundamentals of energy extraction (it takes energy to extract more fossil fuel reserves) will ultimately prevent governments and big business from mining the planet to death. Tim Morgan also recently published an illuminating essay that details how the government/business elites' efforts at maintain the status quo (usually in the form of socialism for the rich) is sowing the seeds for popular rebellion (as seen in France with the Gilets Jaunes). So a fed up citizenry could put the breaks on this global Ponzi scheme first. Most likely, though, a confluence of factors will derail the paradigm of exponential growth.
I read the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" report as an undergrad in environmental studies, and the original 1972 text concluded that "collapse" would occur around the year 2030. But in 2014, Dennis Meadows (one of the authors of the report) told a conference that, in light of destructive societal patterns he could not foresee in the 1970s, he's pushed forward that date by a decade. So yes, we are in the "aura" of the crucible. Luckily, we have people like Charles Eisenstein to remind us that the end of growth does not have to be the end of society, full stop.
Am editing this post from what I passed along yesterday when I posted an email from a reader, who later corrected himself that it was foreigners, not specifically the Chinese, who own $6.2 trillion of the U.S. debt; while the Chinese are the largest owner of our treasury bonds - $1.2 trillion.
I don't know how the Chinese ownership of our debt can affect our economy or how it figures in with fighting trade wars with the Chinese. But given that the president is one of the greatest failures in business and lost more money than any other taxpayer in reckless and manic business dealings, it gives me no comfort to see him playing around with something he doesn't understand.
Here's an article that explores the possible impacts that threatening the Chinese can have. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/chinas-self-destructive-nuclear-option-in-trade-war-selling-us-treasury-bonds.html
The following is an article from last night on the subject. Their numbers are a little different from those above but they seem to give a fairly balanced view of the positive and negative effects on both countries if they decide to reduce the amount of US debt that they hold:
Jeanne, I worry about our enormous debt held by the Chinese too. Especially because Trump's tariffs seem to be deliberately intended to harm their economy, and he seems so gleeful about how much they're going to suffer. Good will with the USA is one the key factors that's been keeping the China/USA debt deal together, and Trump is doing his best to damage it. I read or heard some news blurb today about how Chinese media recntly started putting out bad messaging about the USA. This has to negatively influence the sale of Iphones, the purchase of Starbucks products, and other US goods. The Chinese are also developing alternative resources for soybeans and algriculture products that used to come from our breadbasket. US farmers are dealing with unsold soybeans rotting in silos, while Brazil and Russia are pinching themselves because they can't believe their good luck. These kinds of channels aren't easily switched back.
Even more, China could take much more aggressive moves to disengage the $USD as the dominant world currency. They've already started chipping away at this by refusing to purchase oil in $USD. When the $USD is no longer the dominant world currency we'll be in a world of pain and our standard of living will be dramatically, irrevocably changed for the worse. Trump seems so cavalier and reckless about all this. Like we have some kind of immunity, and we don't have to bother being a decent, cooperative or diplomatic world citizen. Instead, Trump thinks he can impose his will by tweeting threats and insults. This whole scene could easily escalate out of control, with one retaliation following another. And where are the legislative checks and balances in all this? Oh, that's right. There aren't any. Bottom line, I don't have a good feeling about how our economic relationship to China is going to play out.
And lastly, as a reference point, the Britannica cites the US's imposition of international tariffs as one of the four biggest contributing factors to the great depression. Recall that Hoover, the only other business man president, took a booming economy and brought it to its knees. It's also the last time the US engaged in tariffs in a major way.
The key word you wrote about DT is "reckless." I keep thinking about the tax news that he lost $1.1 billion in reckless business deals in less than a decade. He lost more than any U.S. taxpayer ever. When will the business community wake up? His business dealings are smoke and mirrors with an undercurrent of crime, and the manic ravings of manic depressive personality.
I have this habit of beating myself up for the financial choices I make.
I have my Master's degree, and my total education costs is over $100,000.
I keep berating myself that I should have simply started working at Walmart after high school, instead of furthering my education. Yes, I would be broke, but I wouldn't have this much student debt.
But I can't do that anymore. I know the economy is going to tank, and if the time comes when I can't pay my bills, I will just be grateful for everything I do have. There are millions of us barely hanging on, when we were told to go to college, don't worry about the loans, you'll be fine.
As a lightworker and empath, I know I will be taken care of by my higher power, as long as I remain in gratitude. But when the economy crashes...I can't imagine how people will react.
I am proud of what I've accomplished, but I don't think that will protect me, or any of us, from what is coming. I think most of us feel so bamboozled by the "experts" who are now telling us we shouldn't have taken out loans for school. We can't win.
Like most of us, I will do the best I can with what I have, and just be grateful for everything I have. Yesterday, I enjoyed watching the birdies play in the puddles made after the rainstorm. I'm also grateful I'm finding more and more gluten-free food I can eat.
I'm grateful I'm able to save about $500 in my retirement a month, but that may not last either. This is truly scary, but when I remain grateful, I feel like I have just enough.
Thank you for this forum. It brings me peace.
When I was just out of HS in the early 1970's I had friends who put themselves through college working part time at some grocery store. They paid their tuition in cash along with their car payment. Times have changed in that regard and not for the better.
At one point in my working career I was in charge of a large corporate tuition reimbursement program that reimbursed employees for their college. When I was there we reimbursed anyone for any college program. Since I retired it has been limited to "high potential" employees which has totally cut out the factory workers who used to be a small but not insignificant part of the program. I see it as just another example of the country splitting into two pieces and it saddens me.
Pacosurfer somehow I feel you will be protected over time. You happen to be entering school at a difficult time when tuition had soared and aid money had dropped. So many young people did exactly what you did and progressives in this world want to help all of you out of this mess. I feel something will change in your favor when the time is right.
Does anyone else on here feel like Trump wants to purposely destroy the U.S. because he just wants to see the world burn?
He strikes me too much like a comic book villain. Just destructive and chaotic for the sake of it.
@Pacosurfer I've been focusing on gratitude as well. It's one of the few ways I can stay free of worry and anger.