
This is the most depressing chart in the world - timmilton
http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-global-economic-revisions-2016-2
======
coldtea
Why should we expect or even want constant growth?

Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle
issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to
adapt to new paradigms, etc)?

How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat
racing?

~~~
dmm
In the absence of growth the only way for an individual to get more resources
is to take it from someone else. Life becomes a zero-sum game. This is a
qualitative change. The game stops being who can make the most pie to who can
take the most.

~~~
coldtea
> _In the absence of growth the only way for an individual to get more
> resources is to take it from someone else._

Part of my point is that there are more than enough resources, what's needed
is better distribution. Plus some scaling down the over-consumption of crap.

Besides this "taking it from someone else" is already the case with the growth
model, were not only a tiny fraction of the population has a huge percentage
of the world's wealth (debt aside, I know those arguments too), but people can
be making $1000 Armani suits for 12 hours a day in the third world just to
have the same, or even worse, quality of life as they did before their country
was forced into globalization.

For centuries the growth depended on plundering the third world, as
colonialists, neo-colonialists, slave owners, democrary-bringers etc, plus
heavy internal forcing of people (e.g. the rural population) to become factory
workers.

Now we've come to the point technologically that we don't need all those
people anyway -- not even the service industry which we invented as a stop gap
to have people employed.

~~~
dmm
In Egypt 75% of the population is under the age of 25. These people want
opportunities, jobs, apartments, cars, consumer goods, and escape from the
daily struggle of poverty. Per capita GDP in Egypt is about $1575. For
comparison in the US it's about $54 000. Blame inequality all you want but
even with perfect equality the pie in Egypt is not big enough to provide all
of its people with the western standard of life that the people want.

> For centuries the growth depended on plundering the third world,

Really? You think colonialism is the main driver of economics growth?

~~~
coldtea
> _Really? You think colonialism is the main driver of economics growth?_

Yeah, really. It was the big enabler for all the growth that later turned into
the "industrial revolution", and continued to provide a huge percentage of
western GDP well into the 20th century, directly (as exploited and plundered
places) and indirectly (as markets for example).

Cheap oil, for one, is always good to ensure for one's country.

At some point it became economically inefficient to enslave countries with
close to 2-3 billions of inhabitants, and the cold war had changed the
political climate anyway, but not so much that countries won't participate in
post-colonial power games.

It's no accident that it's exactly the countries that did the plundering (the
colonial powers) that rose up into prominence, and the ones that were
plundered that got the short end of the stick.

------
cel1ne
THIS is the most depressing chart in the world:

[https://stormglas.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/20131116-00180...](https://stormglas.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/20131116-001801.jpg)

~~~
dozzie
This of course boldly assumes that human kind is the main source of carbon
emissions, and as boldly assumes that Earth can't really have all this carbon
in atmosphere.

~~~
coldtea
Yeah, damn that scientific consensus.

~~~
dozzie
This scientific consensus already made several heavily wrong estimates. And
mind you, we don't have a working, _proven_ model of climate change. We only
have some speculations based on some proxy variables, and those speculations
tend to ignore most basic physics or statistics (e.g. discussing changes of
temperature that are way below observational errors currently possible, or
focus on marginal CO2 concentration, while H2O concentration is larger of
orders of magnitude, and H2O has, for instance, much higher thermal capacity).

~~~
cel1ne
So there are thousands of climate scientists which came, over and over again,
to the same conclusion: that the extent of current heating is caused by co2
release, which is caused by coal-burning by mankind.

Those have all made several mistakes and continue to make them and the 15
scientists or so who are of a different opinion are probably right?

Is that what you are saying?

~~~
dozzie
We had thousands of astrology and magic practicioners. It didn't make
astrology or magic true in any way.

You know what makes modern physics true? Falsifiability and verifiability. You
build a theory, make predictions, develop an experiment, and then conduct the
experiment, multiple times. Climatology stops after the first two.

Granted, astronomy and cosmology operate in similar way to climatology, but we
don't establish world-scale policies based on astronomy.

~~~
Aeolos
> You know what makes modern physics true? Falsifiability and verifiability.
> You build a theory, make predictions, develop an experiment, and then
> conduct the experiment, multiple times. Climatology stops after the first
> two.

This is, obviously and demonstrably, wrong. The data is out there, the
methodologies are out there, and there is tons of related open-source
software. You can conduct your own experiments and come to your own
conclusions.

This guy [1][2], for example, did, and imagine what: he independently verified
what 99% of climate scientists have been saying.

Why don't you give it a go? Put your money where your mouth is and see for
yourself what is true and what isn't.

Edit: to the poster below, the data is public, just a quick google search
away. For example [3].

[1]
[http://forums.sandiegouniontribune.com/showpost.php?p=533737...](http://forums.sandiegouniontribune.com/showpost.php?p=5337377&postcount=222)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-
thorough...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-
fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/?comments=1&post=30509481#)

[3] ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/

~~~
dozzie
I don't think we're on the same page.

First, we seem to call different things an _experiment_. The guy didn't made
any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration
in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect
the resulting temperature.

Next, he only charted temperatures. This doesn't prove anything related to
carbon concentration by itself, and we don't have _proven_ models to have a
causality implied one way or another. (Proven with analogous strictness and
confidence as the theory of gravity.)

And finally, I don't claim there is _no change to the climate whatsoever_.
Quite the contrary; humanity has _seen_ the climate to change over its recent
history (few hundred years). I just doubt highly that the change is caused by
human carbon emissions.

And personally, I think it's really arrogant to assume that humanity is
powerful enough to change the climate of the whole planet at this point.

~~~
Aeolos
> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made
> any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2
> concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if
> it would affect the resulting temperature.

Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity
waves, but measure gravity waves it did.

"To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical
or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." [1]

> And personally, I think it's really arrogant to assume that humanity is
> powerful enough to change the climate of the whole planet at this point.

So your disagreement is based on superstitious beliefs, not the scientific
method. Exactly as predicted in my previous post.

[1] "Rules for the study of natural philosophy", Newton transl 1999, pp.
794–6, after Book 3, The System of the World.

~~~
dozzie
>> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made
any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration
in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect
the resulting temperature.

> Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure
> gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did.

You think that some guy that merely charted some data is equivalent to some
guy that developed a model, predicted what should be seen when some event Q
happens, patiently waited for Q to happen, and then observed if his
predictions matched what was measured while Q was happening?

> So your disagreement is based on superstitious beliefs, not the scientific
> method. Exactly as predicted in my previous post.

No, it's not based on superstitions. It's based on climatology's inability to
deliver any explaination that actually make sense when one starts estimating
how big values are in play (those that don't make sense ignore one of the
basic principles, like only accounting the signal that exceeds measurement
errors, or laws of thermodynamics).

~~~
Aeolos
> No, it's not based on superstitions. It's based on climatology's inability
> to deliver any explaination [...]

You have already established that you don't believe humans are (or even could
be) causing global warming. You are not seeking any scientific proof for that
- it is merely a superstitious belief that you are holding. A personal bias,
if you will.

The rest of your posts are merely rationalizations for this bias. The problem
is not that the science is not explaining climate change enough. The problem
is that no possible explanation will penetrate your mind's defenses against
the terrifying notion that _you might be wrong_.

Think of this: if thousands upon thousands of scientists, using hundreds of
different methodologies and dozens of different datasets to arrive at the same
conclusion, can't convince you; if the fact that, since the industrial
revolution, humanity released into the environment energy equivalent to 50%
the Triasic-Jurassic extinction event can't convince you; then nothing ever
will.

At this point, there's only one thing left: grab one of those datasets and run
any sort of analysis you wish. See for yourself what kind of results you come
up with. Unless you are willing to walk the walk, there is no point in
continuing this discussion.

------
Kristine1975
I can think of a lot of depressing charts. One showing the IMF's "five year
plan" failed is not among them.

------
eCa
It is depressing due to the Y-axis not starting on zero.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _It is depressing due to the Y-axis not starting on zero_

It depends on what the focus of the data is. In this case the emphasis is on
the difference between the series', not their relative distance from zero. So
there's nothing wrong with truncating the axis, particularly on a line chart;
why have a bunch of white-space at the bottom?

Context is everything.

~~~
btrask
Putting too much "emphasis" on certain parts of the graph is precisely what
starting the axis at zero is supposed to protect readers from. Context is what
we're trying to see!

Edit: And in this case it wouldn't have hurt readability at all. Their point
still would've come across just fine.

------
baldfat
I have very little understanding about economics but I always am scared of
large GDP growth because it seems like that is when we go into recession due
to bubbles. 1980s led to the recession of the early 1990s. The mid 1990s
growth became the 2007-2009 "Great Recession." So this shows growth and it is
steady so I don't find this depressing.

edited one word

~~~
drjesusphd
The problem is that slow, steady growth cannot support capitalism. In order to
convince investors to risk their money, the economy must promise a more
handsome return on their investment. That's why it's "bad news" when the
economy "only" grows by 1-2% per year.

~~~
coldtea
> _The problem is that slow, steady growth cannot support capitalism._

That sounds more like a solution.

------
npalli
If you look at the underlying table [1], it looks like they will miss it
again. Most importantly they keep forecasting China to grow at >6% in the
short term. China is in a deep transition right now, 50% of their economy is
in investment (building stuff mostly). This was fine in 2008-2011, but right
now that has to stop, very quickly. They have run out of productive
investments that make sense. Even if they grow at 0% they still need to find
$6 Trillion of investment every year!, that's how lopsided their economy is.
The transition to consumer and services will take time only because the hole
from investment is so large ($6 Trillion/year). The fallout is that other
economies that depend on Chinese investment will suffer lower growth as well.
China and rest of world dependent on china make maybe 1/2 of the forecasted
growth. I question how much will materialize.

[1]
[http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/update/01/pdf/0...](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/update/01/pdf/0116.pdf)

~~~
VLM
"They have run out of productive investments that make sense."

This used to be the definition and justification of recessions. Liquidate
recent bad investments so we can start over on a stronger more stable base. At
least in the old days.

Now we do coverups and bailouts to delay and increase the inevitable. That's
not going to end well.

------
dschiptsov
Which proves that GDP forecasts especially on a global scale is bullshit.

Continuous growth is another idiotic concept with contradicts with
fluctuating, co-evolutionary nature of vastly complex competitive ecosystems
(multi-level host-parasite co-evolution).

The difficulty is the same as with forecasting weather in areas with unique
microclimates - each tiny valley in Himalaya has its own. One has to monitor
its unique conditions to find recurring patterns and constraints.

Global forecasts of wastly complex processes are bullshit and attempts to use
avarages is bullshit too.

There are thousands niche microeconomies witchin every region in the wirld,
each controlled by its own unique constraints and variables and influenced by
some variables of neighborhooring and related niches, etc. There are also
climate, sociological, political, cultural factors, etc.

All such complicated models are wrong. They, like myths and religions, have no
connection to actual reality while being taken on faith by corresponding
sectarians.

~~~
mikebelanger
GDP isn't bullshit, but it doesn't necessarily matter as much as other
macroeconomic measures. For instance, some other commenters here have
mentioned demographics, our projected carbon footprint, or levels of extreme
poverty as being a more important focus.

~~~
dschiptsov
Forecasting is.

------
wimagguc
Why did the IMF predict in each and every year that the downturn is over and
the economy is going to grow in the next year? Is this perhaps a positive
psychology thing?

Or is it only IMF? I've tried to find other predictions, and for example, the
World Bank seems to be counting with a less rosy 2.9%:
[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-bank-downgrades-global-
eco...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-bank-downgrades-global-economic-
forecast-for-2016/)

------
decasteve
Troubling, but a positive sign is that extreme poverty is below 10%:
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-
ex...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-extreme-
poverty-to-fall-below-10-of-world-population-for-first-time)

There are fewer hungry people in the world today compared to 20 years ago, in
spite adding 1 billion people to the planet.

------
physicality
I love how every forecast is all like:

    
    
      > HEY KIDS! THIS TIME WE'RE REALLY GONNA BOUNCE RIGHT BACK! WHEEEE!
    

...and then it never does.

------
jessaustin
Wat? Lower growth than expected by some organization to whom nobody looks for
accurate growth forecasts? That's depressing?

------
smackay
Seems to me from my naive viewpoint that efficiency also needs to be taken
into account. If my disposable incomes is fixed but each year we get better at
making all the things I need so they cost less then, yes, growth in GDP will
be stagnant or even declining but every year I will be better off (more stuff)
than the year before.

------
porkradish
This "growth rate" measured in percent has always concerned me. It looks to be
unsustainable. Interesting video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY)

------
guard-of-terra
For me, post-demographic transition population pyramids are much more
depressing. We can live without growth. Can we live without us?

Something like [https://alfinnextlevel.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/736px-
pop...](https://alfinnextlevel.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/736px-
population_pyramid_of_russia_2009_wikipedia.png)

------
slantaclaus
I've always been a cannibal strategy investor when it comes to my AMZN
holdings

------
xlm1717
That doesn't look depressing. That looks unreservedly optimistic.

------
chad_strategic
Businessinsider = clickbait

