Continued.

But how to fix it? Truth is it is probably too late. How the hell do you stop a leach sucking, before it's full? Our academia is so bloated, & incompetent it probably not worth saving, but watch out it spits if disturbed. One day a week of effort is too much for most of them.

A point of interest, just watch how many lefty politicians, chucked out come election time, find a home & pay packet, in academia somewhere.

The bureaucracy is probably even worse, if that's possible, some of them would die of fatigue if asked to do a day’s work a week. They spit too, just look at the rabble Newman chucked out, & the noise they make. Probably the first time some of them have woken up in years.

Then the bludgers. The bleeding hearts hate the idea of asking them to sing for their supper, but I love it. Let’s scrap all street sweepers, & roadside slashes. When the bludgers want a quid, show them a broom, or a scythe. Tell them to come back after a couple of miles work. Hell even single mums should be able to do that with a baby on their back, Indian women did.

So again bury your gold, because if our pollies don't cut all three leach classes by at least 50% we are done for.

It is only a matter of time, & the mobs of Rome will trample us in the rush for whatever they can grab. Just like those Tuna, they will wipe us out, & only shed a tear when they get hungry, & we are nowhere to be found.

Will it be the Chinese, or the Muslims? I hate to think of this as the future for my kids, & their kids, but I doubt we will find politicians with the guts to do what’s necessary. Even as we sink they’ll be too dumb, & the leaches too lazy to bail.

You started to get there Saltpetre, then you got lost. The problem is of elites & bludgers.

At the start of civilisation we have a village chief & a few courtiers, the village idiot, & perhaps a cripple.

Add some decades & you have a king, with many courtiers, village chiefs become noblemen with courtiers & bureaucrats, but they do supply defence, & there are still only a few idiots & cripples.

Add a century & you have a President/PM, with thousands of courtiers & bureaucrats, there are mayors everywhere, with more attendant bureaucrats, a standing defence force, & higher education, serving only the elites. Some how the idiots & cripples have multiplied.

Another century & you have a top & bottom heavy country. A huge proliferating self serving bureaucracy & higher education system crushing the productive sector, but now with a huge useless mass of bludgers who can never be sated, no matter how much they are given.

It is stuff all to do with the cost or availability of energy, it is the sheer weight of numbers dragging on the coat tails of an ever shrinking productive sector.

It is like watching a bunch of tuna rip into a school of bait fish. They rip in, grabbing everything they can get right now. Bugger tomorrow, they want it now. Suddenly the bait fish are gone, no more to rip off. The elites & the bludgers have got it all, tomorrow is eaten, & the civilisation collapse. Nothing to do with hydrocarbons.

Continued

Hasbeen, what you say is correct, but the reason we can no longer
support the hangers on is because we no longer have the spare energy.

It was loverly on the ride up the production curve, there was all that
spare cheap energy, but all good things come to an end.
We can no longer support them in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Both China and India are aiming for growth that will double their
economies in less than nine years.
Does anyone believe that can be done and we still maintain our standard of living ?

Something has got to give !

Bazz
"At this stage it does not matter a tinkers damn what you do with the money."

So will you give me all of yours?

Saltpetre
It should be obvious from reading your post that you are involved in a tangle of self-contradictions. For starters, where did you get the idea that banking is "unregulated"? The very fact that government regulates the price of it, is telling you all you need to know. And where did you get the presumption that government represents the wise and fair overseeing of banking or anything else. Not even you agree with this - just look at your past posts in this thread.

Bazz
Also, the fact that energy becomes more scarce doesn't make people magically cease to value money as a medium of exchange; and doesn't mean that money's performance of that function is jeopardised.

Bazz, Saltpetre

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
Murray Rothbard

JKJ,

We seem to be at cross-purposes. Do you really think we are talking about economics here, economics in a vacuum, rather than the blatant manipulation of the world's banking and economic systems by totally unscrupulous ego-maniacal vested interests?
Libor ring a bell, GFC, sub-prime loans, worthless derivatives and synthetic derivatives, synthesized massive real estate bubbles, 'buddy' loans, political donations and lobbying to engineer de-regulation of banking, investment and fiscal management systems and to foster militarisation and exponential growth in defense industries?
There is a poison afoot, and it is entirely the love-child of the minds of pathetic, egotistical and entirely unscrupulous MEN (and some pathetic political ignoramuses).

When we talk economic theory we are talking about how to reverse and get out of this intolerable and unconscionable mess. Oz applied a theory, and got out of the immediate priority mess, but it is by no means end of story. There is much work to be done, and it involves some of the most powerful and most influential people on the planet.

We need a revolutionary change in mind-set, not a bandaid, not a tweek here or there. So, who and how to do this? There are currently no better theories than Democracy, Capitalism and Economic Prudence, but all have been corrupted and diverted away from 'best practice' principles. Is less government intervention a solution, or better government intervention? Please, don't say NO intervention.

We need a change in Democratic and Capitalist endeavour, away from growth for its own sake, and towards inclusive sustainable resilience.
Quarks and iPads, or Bread? Money is a means, how to use it is a choice.
Terrorism - a prime growth opportunity, or a self-inflicted disease? Treatment - war, or constructive amelioration?
A world for all, or only for the 'survivors'?