Japan’s recovery from the devastation of World War II was assisted by another war. Japanese manufacturers and the service industries around military bases received a big lift when they helped U.S. forces during the Korean War. A little over a decade later, South Korea got a similar boost when its manufacturers helped the U.S. military… Continue reading Tariffs on China: Trump Was Dumb, Biden Dumber
At the outset, the United States was blessed with enormous tracts of land (that it stole from the natives) and a considerable labor force (that it enslaved from Africa) to achieve economic success based largely on growing things. The next leap forward—into the industrial era—was facilitated by large deposits of coal and oil. A century… Continue reading The Critical MIssing Piece from the U.S. Energy Transition
In a fit of madness or just plain desperation, you’ve enrolled in a get-rich-quick scheme. All you have to do is sell some products, sign up some friends, make some phone calls. Follow that simple formula and you’ll soon be pulling in tens of thousands of dollars a month — or so you’ve been promised… Continue reading More Butterflies, Fewer Billionaires
Entrepreneurs and adventurers have long traveled the world in search of gold. European empires looted Latin America for its silver and tin. Diamonds attracted the rapacious to Africa. Oil has built enormous empires of wealth in the Gulf states. Today, an entirely different scramble for natural resources is taking place. These “critical raw materials” play… Continue reading The Mineral Rush
The burning of fossil fuels—oil, coal, natural gas—is responsible for nearly 90 percent of global carbon emissions. Despite almost-universal recognition of the need to reduce the use of those fossil fuels, the industrialized world is having the hardest time breaking its addiction. The economic rebound from the COVID-19 shutdowns generated the largest ever increase in… Continue reading How to Rapidly Reduce Fossil Fuel Use
The global economy hit a new milestone in 2022 by surpassing $100 trillion. This expansion, which has experienced only the occasional setback such as the 2020 COVID shutdowns, has been accelerated by trade. The world trade volume experienced 4,300 percent growth from 1950 to 2021, an average 4 percent increase every year. This linked growth… Continue reading Free Trade or Just Green Trade
Lynas bills itself as the only significant producer of separated rare earth oxides outside of China. It mines these minerals at Mt. Weld in Western Australia. From there, it sends the material to a secondary processing facility in Malaysia where it separates and processes the ore. According to its own promotional materials, Lynas is “designed… Continue reading Battling a Mining Giant on Two Continents
It should be obvious to pretty much everyone at this point that anything crypto is an old-fashioned grift, a scam, a Ponzi scheme. Those who got in on the ground floor of crypto-currencies and NFTs and the like—and then left when the going was good—have made out like bandits. The rest of us are left… Continue reading The Crypto-Populist Pyramid Scam
At the end of July, the International Monetary Fund warned of a “gloomy outlook” for the world economy. It was doing so not because of a spike in poverty, a widening of inequality, or a surge in carbon emissions. Quite the contrary: the IMF was making its pessimistic assessment because it was revising down its… Continue reading Isn’t It Time to Challenge the Growth Paradigm
You’ve heard about corporations being treated like people. It’s one of the outrages of the Citizens United decision some years back by the Supreme Court, that corporations have a right to free speech just like individuals and therefore can contribute unlimited money to candidates running for office. Bye-bye, democracy. Now there’s a movement afoot to… Continue reading Turning People into Corporations?!
In the remote rural village of Dauphin, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, economists tried out an unusual experiment. In the 1970s, they persuaded the provincial government to give cash payments to poorer families to see if a guaranteed basic income could improve their outcomes. During the years of this “Mincome” experiment, families received a… Continue reading Is Universal Basic Income Part of a Just Transition?
Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and ecologists have argued that economic growth has long outstripped the capacity of the planetary ecosystem. They have developed numerous sophisticated models to demonstrate their point. They have boiled down the technical information—about the availability of mineral resources, the limits of energy generation, the constraints… Continue reading The “Selling” of Degrowth
Russia is disappearing. So is Japan. Europe is next to go. It’s not the rising waters of global warming that threaten these parts of the world. The problem is more basic. The Russians and Japanese, as well as large numbers of Europeans, are not having enough children to replace themselves. The birth rates across a… Continue reading New Neighbors, New Economy
Social Justice, 2000
Key Problems Structural adjustment has been pitched as the only acceptable economic reform model. This unpopular reform has created political and economic instability. In promoting structural adjustment, the U.S. has concentrated on short-term profits for businesses and narrow diplomatic gain. In 1990, after the collapse of its communist governments, East-Central Europe confronted a daunting challenge:… Continue reading Restructuring East-Central European Economies
Commonweal, October 9, 1992