In its search to reduce debt, Rio Tinto is planning to sell about 20% of its equity to Chinalco - China's nascent TNC and mining giant. This flourish occurs just as Western democracies are dusting themselves down following the failure of free market capitalsim to deliver fairness and security to their citizens and the thumping discrediting of credit.

The whiff of protectionism is in the air as governments bail out the banks and launch stimuli to ‘save' their national economies. How can these new policies which are re-shaping the public interest be reconciled with the private behaviours of the TNC boardrooms which have no interest -public or private- in national boundaries?

If the Australian government allows this acquisition to go through it will invite the Chinese Dragon inside the Australian economy. And when that happens, the writing will truly be on the (great) wall.

Kill it, now, Kevin, or it will kill you.

I recognise that recession causes hardship. Like everyone I am aware that it would cause some people to lose their jobs and homes. I do not dismiss these impacts or the harm they inflict, though I would argue that they are the avoidable results of an economy designed to maximise growth rather than welfare. What I would like you to recognise is something much less discussed: that, beyond a certain point, hardship is also caused by economic growth...

The most obvious way in which further growth will hurt us: Climate change does not lead only to a decline in welfare, beyond a certain point it causes its termination. In other words, it threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people. However hard governments might work to reduce carbon emissions, they are battling the tide of economic growth. While the rate of growth in the use of energy declines as an economy matures, no country has yet managed to reduce energy use while raising gross domestic product. [For more] . . read more

A major flaw of Peak Oil is that it is based on a static, or technology-neutral, assumption: it implicitly assumes that limits to oil are set as natural, innate, and immutable. Yet, limits to oil, like those to most other resources, are determined as much (if not more) socially as they are naturally. Research, development, and technological advances have made (and will continue to make) both the amounts of oil reserves and of oil production much more fluid or elastic than perceived by the champions of Peak Oil.

Another equally-flawed proposition of Peak Oil is that it implicitly views the limits of oil supply independent of substitutes or alternative sources of energy. These include solar, wind, non-food bio-fuel, and nuclear energies. They also include natural gas. Further, they include “unconventional” oil: Tar Sands, Heavy Oils, and Oil Shale. Although, with the exception of natural gas and nuclear technology, the use of these substitutes is sill quite expensive, and therefore, limited, technological advances are bound to reduce their cost and increase their sue. [More] . . read more

With one major exception, can anyone argue that the basic needs of everyone in the rich nations cannot now be met? The exception is housing, and in this case the growth in value is one of the reasons for exclusion. A new analysis by Goldman Sachs shows that current house prices are not just the result of a shortage of supply: if they were, then the rise in prices should have been matched by the rise in rents.

Growth is a political sedative, snuffing out protest, permitting governments to avoid confrontation with the rich, preventing the construction of a just and sustainable economy... The rich are having to spend more and more to distinguish themselves from the herd: to ensure that you cannot be mistaken for a lesser being, you can now buy gold and diamond saucepans from Harrods... Sacrificing your health and happiness to earn the money to buy this junk looks like a sign of advanced mental illness.

Is it not time to recognise that we have reached the promised land, and should seek to stay there? Why would we want to leave this place in order to explore the blackened wastes of consumer frenzy followed by ecological collapse? Surely the rational policy for the governments of the rich world is now to keep growth rates as close to zero as possible? But because political discourse is controlled by people who put the accumulation of money above all other ends, this policy appears to be impossible. Unpleasant as it will be, it is hard to see what except an accidental recession could prevent economic growth from blowing us through Canaan and into the desert on the other side. . . read more

Globalisation as we know it will be transformed by Sinolisation - the process by which Chinese state-owned enterprises become trans-national. Forget about the Mafia - this'll be a godfather beyond anything we can imagine. . . read more

The word ‘consumer’ is first noted in 1535 – just as the religious revolution of Tudor England was being launched. The counterpoint of ‘consumer’ and ‘producer’ is at the heart of the development of capitalism and reflects the dynamic which has got us into such bad strife today.

Economic growth demands increasing consumption but increasing consumption is killing planet earth. There is, however, hope. In the Japanese language, there is no word for ‘user’ that well known recipient of goods and services in a market economy. The Japanese prefer to call consumers ‘the persons who live”. Persons who live cannot also be persons that kill. So let’s get rid of the words ‘users’ and ‘consumers’ as we go about the ethical reconstruction of our world and celebrate a new word to describe our participation in a new political economy.

How about ‘sustainers’?  . . read more

This trend has nothing to do with real supply and demand, since the demand for clean energy technology could not be higher. With oil reaching US$100 a barrel, it is clear that we badly need green alternatives, both as consumers and as a species. So why is "homeland security," not green energy, the hot new sector? Perhaps because there are two distinct business models that can respond to our climate and energy crisis. We can develop policies and technologies to get us off this disastrous course. Or we can develop policies and technologies to protect us from those we have enraged through resource wars and displaced through climate change, while simultaneously shielding ourselves from the worst of both war and weather.

In short, we can choose to fix, or we can choose to fortress. Environmental activists and scientists have been yelling for the fix. The homeland security sector, on the other hand, believes the future lies in fortresses. [More] . . read more

The great, soon to be late, Gore Vidal said there was a moment at which the American century ended. Vidal said that when the US of A became the planet's greatest debtor client - I forget the number of trillions - the game was up. He appeared to take satisfaction from that.

I do not. A stock market "correction" implies a recession, over two quarters, from which comes a slump, from which comes a depression, from which comes mass unemployment, and lost homes, and blighted lives, and endemic misery. We left-wing extremists do not, in fact, take much pleasure in being right about capitalism. [More] . . read more