Bazz, the problem at the moment is a shortage of money, not a shortage of energy. If there were a shortage of energy, energy prices would be much higher.

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Producer, fractional reserve banking isn't a ponzi scheme. The amount banks lend is limited by the Basel requirements and what they're able to lend profitably; totally unrelated to the amount of reserves they hold.

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Shadow, Greece's problem is that it can't get credit. Many were keen to lend to it before 2008, but afterwards the supply of willing lenders dried up. Iceland doesn't have that problem because it prints its own money.

Producer, this article may help to explain most of what I have been
saying.

http://tinyurl.com/qggtswm

Aiden, the economy can not afford the higher prices, that is why demand
has fallen and produced the glut.
However things are changing as tight shale oil production has now
started its decline. It is expected that US domestic production will
fall to 8mbd about the first half of next year.

As I said there is no just right price;
Goldilocks is dead !

Bazz, if there were a shortage of energy there would not be a glut.
The economy not being able to afford things is a sign of a shortage of money.

These discussions get so convoluted as they progress. As contributors introduce different arguments and philosophies I find that sub categories dominate and the big picture is lost, forgotten or buried.

Endless growth is not possible if there are finite resources. Bazz illustrates this when he discusses energy, but this is only one example. The big resource and only resource we have is spaceship earth itself.

It matters not what any individual’s anything, thoughts or philosophies are, if we destroy it, or change it in a way where we can’t live, we destroy ourselves.

If we have a desire or if those in power say we need more, bigger or growth and it involves a finite or non-renewable resource this is wrong.

If globally everyone had enough and nobody had too much, it wouldn’t be so bad would it? If the productive cake was divided up proportionally, and were income rose and fell with sustainable productivity. Where the productive elements, that are the wealth creators are rewarded more than the non-productive elements. Where there is a minimum income providing an individual participates in meaningful community enterprise designed and run by individual communities within broad parameters. No sit down money!

One could argue that this would stifle growth, eliminate, unemployment, poverty and wealth. It would establish equity and at the same time acknowledge that we are not equal, nor want or desire the same things. This wouldn’t be so bad would it?

(Continued)

I argue that money is the driver of inequity and disproportionality because it enables non-productive individuals to accrue a disproportionate share of productive wealth. A barter system which is based on productivity could not do this.

Susan George said in an article titled “Down the Financial Drain” published in the 2007 Society for International Development.

"One no longer needs to produce anything tangible in order to make huge amounts of money. It is, in fact, distinctly unadvisable to involve oneself in anything so crude as actual things. Serious wealth comes from financial manipulation and for the manipulators, nothing is ever enough."

I put it to you that the reason Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are gaining popularity is that they are moving in the direction described above, and the mug punter is slowly waking up to what has been going on globally.

Ultimately this is not my problem as I have had the good fortune to be born over three score years ago in this country and have enjoyed its abundance. I will be shuffled off the planet well before the faeces hit the fan.

I still say “It’s the money stupid”

Producer,

Money was invented thousands of years ago to overcome the serious deficiencies of the barter system. Getting rid of money is simply the stupidest idea I have ever heard, and would reduce everyone to penury.