Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by stevensuf

. . . 0.1% having 99.9% of the wealth, do they really deserve it? . . .

What planet does this stat pertain to?

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by tp12

Exactly. I'm sick of seeing the 'socialise the losses and privatise the profits' being played out everywhere.


We're being played for suckers.

The profits are also socialized. Which is why western countries have the highest living standards in the world.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Not true at all. What do resources have to do with it? What "closed system"? Wealth is not based on material things comprised of resources. The system is not closed at all; it is limited only by our imagination. Eternal growth is absolutely possible, and necessary -- economic growth is what makes the world go round. How you distribute it is irrelevant if you don't create it in the first place.

What will they all eat....... We'll have burnt all the dug up free energy in the blink of an eye. Resoures have everything to do with it. Forget next year and think a thousand years from now in a closed system like the relationships between living organisms on one little planet....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Not true at all. What do resources have to do with it? What "closed system"? Wealth is not based on material things comprised of resources. The system is not closed at all; it is limited only by our imagination. Eternal growth is absolutely possible, and necessary -- economic growth is what makes the world go round. How you distribute it is irrelevant if you don't create it in the first place.

Eternal (I prefer 'sustainable') growth is absolutely possible, if we decouple "growth" from the pursuit of material things, and unsustainable resource consumption, and harmful pollution.
It's clear that we cannot continue to consume more water, burn more fuel, and spew out more and more carbon dioxide at ever increasing rates. We are at a point in history, where separating economic growth from physical growth, has to become a reality, or economic growth will begin to reduce human well-being. We must shift to another way of understanding economics, that comes under the general title of sustainable prosperity.

In the influential book “Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow”, Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, in England, calls on Western countries to shift their economies from mass-market production to local services—such as nursing, teaching, and handicrafts—that could be less resource-intensive. Jackson doesn’t underestimate the scale of the changes, in social values as well as in production patterns, that such a transformation would entail, but he sounds an optimistic note: “People can flourish without endlessly accumulating more stuff. Another world is possible.”
“Prosperity without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow” ~ by Tim Jackson
➥ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1138935417?...g=tnycanada-20

In “Good Economics for Hard Times”, two winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, point out that a larger G.D.P. doesn’t necessarily mean a rise in human well-being (especially if it isn’t distributed equitably) and the pursuit of it can sometimes be counterproductive. “Nothing in either our theory or the data proves the highest G.D.P. per capita is generally desirable,” they write. Drawing on their findings, the authors argue that, rather than chase “the growth mirage,” governments should concentrate on specific measures with proven benefits, such as helping the poorest members of society get access to health care, education, and social advancement.
“Good Economics for Hard Times” ~ by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo (married couple BTW)
➥ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1610399501?...g=tnycanada-20

The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity
CUSP ➥ https://www.cusp.ac.uk/

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by conachair

What will they all eat....... We'll have burnt all the dug up free energy in the blink of an eye. Resoures have everything to do with it. Forget next year and think a thousand years from now in a closed system like the relationships between living organisms on one little planet....

Really?

Think 1000 years in the past. What they were thinking about the plague and the hunger and small ice age, global cooling, resources...

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Eternal (I prefer 'sustainable') growth is absolutely possible, if we decouple "growth" from the pursuit of material things, and unsustainable resource consumption, and harmful pollution.
It's clear that we cannot continue to consume more water, burn more fuel, and spew out more and more carbon dioxide at ever increasing rates. We are at a point in history, where separating economic growth from physical growth, has to become a reality, or economic growth will begin to reduce human well-being. We must shift to another way of understanding economics, that comes under the general title of sustainable prosperity.

In the influential book “Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow”, Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, in England, calls on Western countries to shift their economies from mass-market production to local services—such as nursing, teaching, and handicrafts—that could be less resource-intensive. Jackson doesn’t underestimate the scale of the changes, in social values as well as in production patterns, that such a transformation would entail, but he sounds an optimistic note: “People can flourish without endlessly accumulating more stuff. Another world is possible.”
“Prosperity without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow” ~ by Tim Jackson
➥ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1138935417?...g=tnycanada-20

In “Good Economics for Hard Times”, two winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, point out that a larger G.D.P. doesn’t necessarily mean a rise in human well-being (especially if it isn’t distributed equitably) and the pursuit of it can sometimes be counterproductive. “Nothing in either our theory or the data proves the highest G.D.P. per capita is generally desirable,” they write. Drawing on their findings, the authors argue that, rather than chase “the growth mirage,” governments should concentrate on specific measures with proven benefits, such as helping the poorest members of society get access to health care, education, and social advancement.
“Good Economics for Hard Times” ~ by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo (married couple BTW)
➥ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1610399501?...g=tnycanada-20

The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity
CUSP ➥ https://www.cusp.ac.uk/

What?

You want to promote humanity over the pursuit of material wealth?

Good luck selling that.

That's right up there with rewarding those who help people, instead of very attractive celebrities and sports figures.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by conachair

What will they all eat....... We'll have burnt all the dug up free energy in the blink of an eye. Resoures have everything to do with it. Forget next year and think a thousand years from now in a closed system like the relationships between living organisms on one little planet....

Food is a tiny part of the world economy; all of agriculture is less than 3% of world GDP and less than 1% in the U.S. and U.K. As the productivity of world agriculture increases and world population peaks, land under cultivation can actually be reduced. If we think 1000 years from now -- which is pretty hard considering how fast technology changes everything, so why don't we talk about 100 years from now -- I expect to see world population falling, and putting a much lighter footprint on the earth, no pollution according to our 2020 concepts of pollution, a lot of restored wilderness. Technology and wealth makes it possible to do that.


And why would we be "burning or digging up free fuel"? Fossil fuels will be gone even within our lifetimes; our grandchildren will think of them the way we think about whale oil lighting. Finland's electrical power grid is already 90% renewable and nuclear, and Finland has some of the cheapest power in Europe. We will all be there soon enough, and this would be happening even if it were not required to stop climate change. Energy is absolutely not a limited resource, contributing to a "closed system". 100 years from now I guess we will get most of our energy from nuclear fusion, and the "fuel" is basically unlimited, or if not unlimited, would anyway last until the sun is a Red Giant.



Economic development, wealth, and technology makes it possible to move society to cleaner, better technology and leave less of a footprint on earth.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Eternal (I prefer 'sustainable') growth is absolutely possible, if we decouple "growth" from the pursuit of material things, and unsustainable resource consumption, and harmful pollution.. . .

"Decoupling of growth from the pursuit of material things" is something which happens naturally and can be seen vividly in the evolution of different sectors of economies as countries develop -- manufacturing almost withers away as "stuff" becomes an inexorably less and less important part of our consumption, so manufacturing inexorably shrinks and services increases. The wealthier the country, the smaller share "stuff" forms of total consumption. Services themselves are not growing as fast as the newest sector -- the Experience Economy, something known as far back as Alvin Toffler.



It is absolutely natural and requires no particular policy for this to happen, as people and countries get wealthier. Make sensible regulation of pollution and land use, and most material can be sourced from recycling, all these activities can be made quite clean, and technology makes it possible to do this with less and less, and cleaner and cleaner energy.


All this is visibly happening and will continue. The main problem is to create the conditions for continued development and economic growth, so that the process will continue.

[Viking Sailor]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

Doctor answers questions on Monday 4/20:
https://kcbsradio.radio.com/articles...vid-19-testing


Death is not the only significant consequences of this infection:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/enter...ns/5160552002/


Some interesting curves:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...ions-1.4881500

Another significant consequence of this infection:

The novel coronavirus appears to be causing sudden strokes in adults in their 30s and 40s who are not otherwise terribly ill, doctors reported Wednesday.


They said patients may be unwilling to call 911 because they have heard hospitals are overwhelmed by coronavirus cases.


There’s growing evidence that Covid-19 infection can cause the blood to clot unnaturally, and stroke would be an expected consequence of that.


Dr. Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, and colleagues gave details of five people they treated. All were under the age of 50, and all had either mild symptoms of Covid-19 infection or no symptoms at all.


“The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke,” Oxley told CNN.

“Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks. Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid,” he added.

“All tested positive. Two of them delayed calling an ambulance,” Oxley said.


It is not common for people so young to have strokes, especially strokes in the large vessels in the brain.


“For comparison, our service, over the previous 12 months, has treated on average 0.73 patients every 2 weeks under the age of 50 years with large vessel stroke,” the team wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. That’s fewer than two people a month.


A stroke in a large blood vessel causes severe damage if it is not removed right away. At least one patient has died and others are in rehabilitation facilities, intensive care or in the stroke unit. Only one went home but will require intense care, Oxley said.


Oxley said his team wanted to tell people to watch themselves for symptoms of coronavirus infection and to call 911 if they have any evidence of stroke. “Up until now, people have been advised to only call for an ambulance with shortness of breath or high fever,” he wrote.


The easy memory device for stroke, he said, is “FAST”: F for face drooping, A for arm weakness, S for speech difficulty and T for time to call 911.


“The most effective treatment for large vessel stroke is clot retrieval, but this must be performed within 6 hours, and sometimes within 24 hours,” Oxley wrote.

In reality, we know so little about this virus that for now, the best course of action is to limit its spread. Whatever the cost!

[DeepFrz]

Hey, maybe its time for "A Green New Deal"!

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Hey, maybe its time for "A Green New Deal"!

I would think the tree-huggers would be ecstatic by now.

But if you really want to save the planet, don't we just need fewer people? So another approach would be to stop paying people to have children.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

I would think the tree-huggers would be ecstatic by now.

But if you really want to save the planet, don't we just need fewer people? So another approach would be to stop paying people to have children.

Well, but most / more children are born in countries that do not. This is why wiping out whole populations, regardless of their richness / poverty, age, race or country is a far better tool towards this end (limiting the population of the world).

Not to be used for navigation.

This planet is not being saved. It is being consumed. I can't remember the exact term but basically they say we prefer to eat a cake now rather than tomorrow. A human thing, because wild animals eat only when they are hungry. There are not many obese ants, bees nor sharks.

People who take on more debt to buy a sailing boat. Consuming today what they hope to afford tomorrow.

And what does it have to do with "Northern Europe in Summer"?

b.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

"Decoupling of growth from the pursuit of material things" is something which happens naturally and can be seen vividly in the evolution of different sectors of economies as countries develop -- manufacturing almost withers away as "stuff" becomes an inexorably less and less important part of our consumption, so manufacturing inexorably shrinks and services increases. The wealthier the country, the smaller share "stuff" forms of total consumption. Services themselves are not growing as fast as the newest sector -- the Experience Economy, something known as far back as Alvin Toffler.



It is absolutely natural and requires no particular policy for this to happen, as people and countries get wealthier. Make sensible regulation of pollution and land use, and most material can be sourced from recycling, all these activities can be made quite clean, and technology makes it possible to do this with less and less, and cleaner and cleaner energy.


All this is visibly happening and will continue. The main problem is to create the conditions for continued development and economic growth, so that the process will continue.

You paint an interesting picture and a possible future that is better than today yet I can't help thinking there is an apparent and inherent greed (of money or power) in the human condition that precludes this outcome - I love to be wrong though.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Wotname

You paint an interesting picture and a possible future that is better than today yet I can't help thinking there is an apparent and inherent greed (of money or power) in the human condition that precludes this outcome - I love to be wrong though.

Back to the nature/nurture debate - prob some of both. The west is certainly trained to birth to consume, multi trillian dollar advertising industry just doing that. New, better, faster, etc. Then into the landfill. As for pollution, just looking at one thing >
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/m...-trash-crisis/

All in less than a heartbeat in the timescale of even just human evolution. ANd somehow people are so blind despite the evidence that they think everything is just fine, the future is bright...

[tp12]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

The profits are also socialized. Which is why western countries have the highest living standards in the world.

Years of stagnated wage growth, eroding workers rights, less permanent jobs and more zero hours contracts meaning less worker security and a growing gap between the wealthy and the poor prove that statement incorrect.