Here For a Good Time, Not a Long Time

I've been reading all the way back through this blog, Some Assembly Required. It's basically one post every day with a series of links with brief commentary. The themes and point of view are pretty similar to my own - we need to put the financial system on more stable footing, and not through government bailouts of wealthy corporations and shareholders - we need to start taking peak oil seriously - we need to start taking global warming seriously. But reading all the posts, and a number of the links, going back through the site day after day after day, it gave me a feeling of being almost overwhelmed by how fast (in historical terms) our society is heading towards a wall.

With a world population above 6.5 billion and climbing, almost every last one aspiring to a life with more material wealth, the analogy it brings to my mind is of the most popular bloggers, who find that as their site grows in readership, they have to be careful who they link to, lest they overwhelm somebody's server by directing a heavy flow of traffic there. As a site grows in readership (as humanity grows in population and power) it gets easier and easier to overwhelm the other parts of the ecosystem. Want to build electric cars or solar cells for 1 million people and there are plenty of resources - try to do it for 6.5 billion and everywhere you turn you wind up running into constraints. Try to feed 1 million people with fish and there's no problem. Try to feed billions and you find yourself eating your way down the food chain, depleting one formerly rich feeding ground after another. Can 7,8,9+ billion people live on this planet in affluence? I guess we, or the next generation will find out.

But on the plus side, life is looking up on a more personal level, so I can extend a little optimism that we'll be able to deal with enough of our problems well enough to avoid bringing the whole thing down, at least not until after I've passed on.

Deficit Watch

I don't post too much to the blog these days, and even back when I posted more often, I tried to avoid making predictions. One exception to this rule came a little over two years ago when I wrote a post entitled, "Good Bye Budget Surplus, We Hardly Knew Ya" in which, after detailing the history of Conservative economic mismanagement and explaining why so-called Conservative parties always end up running deficits, I wrote,

"I can't say for sure what will happen under a Conservative government. Maybe enough of that old Reform small c-conservatism remains and they will keep us in the black, but if I was betting man, I'd bet that a Conservative government which lasts more than 2 years will put us in deficit sooner or later.

Then we will see whether our hard-learned lesson about deficits (manifested as a fear of turning into pumpkins if we run a deficit) is still remembered, or if the deficit apologists will come out in force and we will begin the slide down the slippery slope into large Bush-style, day-of-reckoning-is-coming deficits."

Sure enough, right on schedule, "Federal government runs $517M deficit in April, May"

Yeah, we might not end up in a deficit this year (especially if asset sales help cover operating losses - as happened in part last year as the 'Conservatives' sold off Canada's legacy of prime real estate around the world to help make the books look better in the short term), but they're working on it.

Best of Both Worlds

If you look back at the last century, the two most noticeable negative economic episodes were the great depression of the 30's, when the popping of a large credit bubble led to deflation and massive unemployment and idle resources, and the oil shocks of the 70's, when sudden increases in the price of basic resources that society is built on led to rampant inflation combined with lacklustre economic conditions - stagflation in a word.

Currently, we are seeing both the deflation of a global credit bubble AND sudden increases in the price of oil and other resources. It's no wonder that people who pay attention to these things can't seem to agree on whether we should be worried about deflation or inflation - but do agree that we ought to be worried.

It Begins

Every 4 years, an intrepid and little known bunch of Canadians begins a quest to obtain, against overwhelming odds and the opposition of the entire world, the greatest prize in the sporting world, the world cup of soccer.

Canada's first test in qualifying is a home and home series with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (population ~120,000), with the away leg today and the home leg on the 20th.

Should Canada survive this test, we'll move on to a 4 team group, including Mexico, Honduras and likely Jamaica, out of which 2 will move on the final round of regional qualifying, a 6 team group from which the top 3 will automatically qualify, with the 4th place team facing a playoff with the 5th place team from South America. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, last time Canada went out feebly at the 4 team group stage, and we first need to beat St.V&G to even get that far.

Wikipedia article on the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) qualifying group for the 2010 world cup.

Good luck team Canada - sooner or later (hopefully later), you're going to need it!

Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade

If you're interested in the relative merits of carbon taxes vs. cap and trade systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you could do worse than go read this post at Economist's View, and follow the links and read the comments.

Short version (my opinion): Both are better than the status quo or most other regulatory approaches. From an economic point of view, there is little to choose between the two approaches in terms of efficiency. Cap and Trade is more complicated to set up (especially if yo want it to apply beyond large industrial emitters) but has the advantage of making it easier to target the level of emissions you want, while the carbon tax is simpler to get going but likely will need constant adjustment (upward, if B.C.'s small carbon tax is a sign of things to come) in order for it to have the required impact in terms of reduced emissions.

Come For His Award

Maybe I just can't take the news seriously these days, but this story about a Laurier student who won an award for entrepreneurial activity despite being wanted in the U.S. as a suspected terrorist fundraiser didn't really provoke any deep thoughts other than to remind me of the classic song, "I've Come for My Award" by The Beautiful South - suggesting that crime and capitalism weren't so different really:

"This is the Awards for Industry and Free Enterprise
So let me sit you down and tell you how I won first prize
I took on your free enterprise and your pretty little shops
Walked in with empty bags and walked out with the lot

So I've come for my award, I've come for my award
I thought I'd come in person that's the least I can afford
Let hands be shook
Champagne poured
Sentence ignored
Yes. I've come for my award"

Prices Matter

Back when the B.C. government brought in it's carbon tax, there were a lot of comments along the lines that when it comes to gas, higher prices won't reduce consumption.

Meanwhile, here's some a post over at Calculated Risk linking to the headline, "Eleven Billion Fewer Vehicle Miles Traveled in March 2008 Over Previous March" the sharpest decline in the U.S. since they started tracking miles travelled in 1942.