This meme doesn’t work because a conservative literally bought me a copy of that book and it’s infantile.
This book is titled “Basic Economics” because Sowel is a troll, and the economics in his book are largely correct but incomplete to the point of misinforming people. This is an incredibly “conservative” book through-and-through.
Again, I think the effect you’re describing is real, but it’s also pretty gated in a lot of ways.
We have a lot of treatments first, but also widespread medical bankruptcy. A lot of people lack access to basic necessities.
I’m other words, I don’t think someone running out of insulin gives as Schitt’s Creek…
I get the sentiment, but I think it’s possible we might miss the benefits you’re describing less than you think.
For the average American, the biggest manifestation of what you’re describing was cheap electronics, trucks, and suburban developments. These kinds of benefits are a poor salve for the alienation and atomization that now besets us. We have been trained to try and fill the holes in our lives with crap while losing more and more of the time and security that affords actual contentedness.
I think a generation raised knowing and trusting their neighbors, able to walk to school and bike to work and possibly go home for lunch, where they can eat some veggies grown in a community garden on an apartment roof might not feel like they’ve lost all that much just because they can’t buy an exercise machine they never use for $99 at a Black Friday sale.
There’s a reason a lot of “poorer” countries greatly outpace is in satisfaction and quality of life surveys.
I agree with most of this. However I think there are additional elements that make prediction challenging.
First, if the US undergoes any kind of revolution in the next five years, the cultural effects you mentioned could by overwritten by more recent events. I realize this sounds improbable, but the transition from the New Deal era to global neolibralism was a revolution. “The Reagan Revolution” was an actual economic and social revolution. And we’re overdue for another.
Second, both the markets and the real economy were in an unsustainable condition before Trump. The pursuit of endless growth, the disruption of climate breakdown, the end of the US’ monopolar hegemony, and the return of extreme wealth inequality in the US made the status quo impossible to simply maintain. Big changes were coming even without Trump.
I maintain some optimism. I think anti trust regulation, climate-based financial regulation, and an embrace of market socialism could render the last three months to be the last gasps of the old order instead of another point in what has been a decline decades in the making. But it depends what happens next.
I’m not an expert, but I’m an index fund/mutual fund guy. I’m not looking for a lottery ticket, I just want to keep up with the market.
They’re basically the new savings account, right? If they don’t do well, chances are nothing really is, so your money is stagnating to the same degree as everyone else. No real loss.
This is what I was going to say.
Falling apart at 28 isn’t normal, but what is normal at 28 is having your body suddenly stop giving you a hall pass. That’s very relatable.
Get 8 hours of sleep a night, walk and bike when you can, eat your greens, etc. and you might notice a difference.
Check this out:
https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html
As others have pointed out, this is an industrial-scale problem that can’t be solved through individual consumer choices, but if I understand your post, you’re asking more genuinely how we are ever supposed to make the math work.
This is a simple, user-friendly research-grade tool for analyzing the projected effects of various interventions. The answer to your question is:
Doing all of these will stop the increase of heating, which will keep us to around 1.5 degrees of warming. The last step required would be industrial direct-air carbon capture.
That’s currently the best plan that physics and engineering offer us.
He is a former Marxist?? I find that bewildering, hilarious, and doubtful.
I think it’s great when people have open enough minds to radically rethink their beliefs, but I hope I’m never so brainrotted as to somehow strawman my own former beliefs.