with #hindsight we should have known better

ht to the perfect storm energy, finance and the end of growth report by dr tim morgan  - global head of research  - which you can find as a pdf on the tullettprebon website - (found via @jamesdelingpole)

and from which I summarised the following ... 

with hindsight we should have known that:

-  the west outsourcing production and so skilled well paid jobs without making corresponding reductions in consumption was madness;

- the accumulation of unprecedented debt over the last 30 years to fill the gap between production and consumption was only viable on the insane assumption that debt could go on increasing indefinitely;

- key economic and fiscal statistics were delusory  and massaged out of all relation to reality;

- the falling ratio of energy extracted to energy used to extract it meant energy would get more expensive which would carry through into the cost of almost everything – including food;

- we were nearing the end of some 250 years in which growth was assumed to be normal and so our culture of instant gratification would have to change - if not willingly then by been enforced upon society by the reversal of economic growth;

- the failure of near zero interest rates, stimulus spend and the printing of money on a gigantic scale told us the tools that worked in the past were not working anymore which should have indicated to us that something profoundly different was going on;

- when we blamed the bankers or the politicians or the corporations or the advertising industry we were really blaming ourselves for falling for the consumerist message of instant gratification, for buying imported goods, for borrowing far more than was healthy, and for electing glib and vacuous political leaders