
The Sorry State of the World Economy - elorant
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-economic-prospects-bleak-in-2019-by-kaushik-basu-2019-01
======
moltar
Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on growth and start thinking of other
measurements. Maybe happiness, health, personal prosperity and other factors.

------
patientplatypus
What worries me is the effect economic growth has had on the environment. Over
the last 50 years we've killed most of the vertebrata animals on the planet
and most of the fish in the oceans, plastic particles are in the water and
food supply and cause serious harm to human and animal health, and global
climate change is looking serious in the next 10 years. We have no real basis
or knowledge of how to maintain a global economy without poisoning the planet.
To fix it will take global cooperation on a scale that's never been shown to
be possible.

On the upside I don't worry about saving for retirement because I don't think
that I (or a great many many people) will live through the coming cataclysm to
see it.

~~~
LifeLiverTransp
Well genengineered counter measures for the rescue. We allready have invasive,
hardened species gaining foothold. Bamboo has survived 4000 years of boom and
bust chinese civilisation. Ambrosia and other "dangerous" plants are dangerous
enough to make a whole forrest uninhabitable for unprotected humans. Lots of
weeds are 100 % resistant to multiple herbizides. Several species could very
soon discover, that carrying infected material from plantation to plantation
is a pretty good attack vector on our monocultures. Nature is not weak, and
sitting there and just taking the hits. We going to get some hits back, very
soon.

------
grandinj
This seems a little alarmist. We still have growth, it's just not high enough
for some people, it seems. But then, it never is :-)

It important to note, that, averaged over multiple decades, it only takes a
growth rate of about 1% to lift a country out of poverty.

We would probably do better to focus on fixing the political logjams,
corruption, small-scale conflicts, etc, that act as a brake on growth, rather
than financial market tweaking.

~~~
cheez
The reason growth is important is tax revenue and debt payments depend on it.

~~~
YjSe2GMQ
This is crucial. The current way of governing the world depends on the pie of
prosperity getting bigger and bigger each year, which allows the government to
cut more and more pieces out of it. Without growth every policy that requires
more spending must be countered by a policy that requires less spending.

Then there's the problem of governments debt, which historically has been
reduced much more by growth than by imposing austerity.

------
lbacaj
It’s funny that all of these academic, government types seem to be signaling
the end of the world. This, at least of late, has been reinforcing for me
personally much of Nicholas Nassim Taleb has been saying about these guys;
that in effect they don’t know shit. That many of these academic types have
not actually worked in the real world and instead are directing policy from an
ivory tower.

The world is doing better than it ever has, innovation has been steadily
picking up, especially in the United States and in China. Just look at the
amount of disruption in so many industries e.g. Taxis, Hotels, Office space,
on and on. Even if Chinas economy isn’t doing great right now these things
move in cycles. Poverty is significantly dropping across the whole globe and
ultimately I think the future is much brighter than it is being painted by
these pessimistic academic types that have suddenly lost their clout as people
start to value real experience more.

~~~
ksec
Inequality, and not from a World level where all analyst and many others likes
to put in the 3 Billion people lifted from poverty in China , India and SEA.

Individually Inequality are at their highest point in recent history across
many nations. You say many of them are from an ivory tower, while others would
argue you view the world from an ivory tower as well. Their lives are not
better, not even back to pre 2008 level, while many would say the "world as a
whole" are better off, do those people at the bottom or disappearing Middle
Class actually cares if you lift poverty from the rest of the world? Well
actually they do if you ask them, just not at the expense of their quality of
life.

And the current economy barely holds itself together with low interest rate.
But what happen when something breaks again? You are right they really don't
know shit, because when it breaks they know they have limited tools to combat
whatever that is left over.

~~~
malvosenior
Wait, if inequality is bad, then isn't it a good thing that the rest of the
world is being lifted out of poverty? When in all of human history has this
ever happened before? Seems like we're actually at a high point in time for
most of the world's population.

Also, 2008 is a ridiculiously short time period to be looking back on and
saying things are going down hill. For all intents and purposes we're still in
the same time window we were in 2008. World history happens over decades and
centuries, not 11 years.

~~~
petermcneeley
> Wait, if inequality is bad, then isn't it a good thing that the rest of the
> world is being lifted out of poverty?

If the middle classes of the western countries are destroyed in order to make
this happen then no this is not a good thing at all. The result of that is
effectively feudalism.

~~~
malvosenior
Do you think the billions of people lifted out of poverty would feel the same
way?

~~~
scottLobster
They would after a generation or two when they discovered just how low their
ceiling is, along with the rest of of the destroyed middle class

