The economy and geopolitics through energy - Nicolas Meilhan -

[Kokopelli seeds]

it is indeed a very good conference,
thanks to Sen Non Sen for this link

Hmm ...

"No, the pollution peak did not come from German coal-fired power stations (...)
The expert in "energy and transport" (Nicolas Meilhan editor's note) had already been annoyed a few days earlier on Twitter that German pollution was passed over in silence (...) "
http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/art ... 55770.html

#Toxic

[Ahmed]

Oil is indeed an indicator of economic intensity: these flows overlap, however bringing these two phenomena together leads to depriving ourselves of other explanatory factors; moreover, how to distinguish causality and correlation?

I take as proof the analysis of the oil shocks of the 70s: we can effectively limit ourselves to arguing that the sudden increase in the price of crude in 73, then in 79, were the cause of an economic recession in France, but it remains a superficial vision. For my part, I think that the increase in oil prices only brought about these consequences because the bases of the valuation of the value had gradually eroded and they were no longer able to absorb a cost. additional production. As it turns out, the stumbling block was that price of oil, but anyway the structural contradictions (the ones that "policymakers" want to ignore [or probably superbly ignore]) would have arisen quickly.

PS: I saw in another video of Nicolas Meilhan that China bought oil from Russia in early 2016, oil now paid in yuan! It's a cobblestone in the US pond!

[sen-no-sen]

A video of the econoclasts with Olivier Delamarche,Pierre Sabatier et Nicolas Meilhan at the war school, the subjects covered: future economic development and of course energy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2044&v=2ZYs-AVZSPQ

[Ahmed]

Demography is an important explanatory factor and its considerable inertia leaves little room for maneuver, however this mainly sheds light on the differential evolution of countries, not the behavior linked to the content of production and consumption and therefore, not the collapse. of the rate of profit which implies massive recourse to monetary devices. The fact of emphasizing these and their importance is a very positive point of the presentation, but without it being related to the right factor ... I am also not these speakers when they say that China would be in crisis of adolescence: my opinion being that this country traversed at full speed the slow evolution of the European countries and is in a state close to these as for the accumulation of the internal contradictions and the stagnation of the rate of profit. A point that remains obscure is that the impossibility of growth in a system based on it, does not seem to bother the second speaker too much, which can (perhaps) be understood since he does not. big case (he presents the desire to expand for a business as "natural").

The last speaker takes up his theme of energy by presenting it as causal, which it certainly is, but he presents this in an all too exclusive way. For my part, I would see it much more as a correlation to crises, rather than a strict causation. Indeed, oil represents above all a rent because of its very low cost; this implies that a stagnant and even recessive economy (if we include monetary expedients) is very sensitive to variations in its purchase cost (given the multiplicity of uses resulting from this rent).
Good analysis of the intellectual and economic dead end represented by the electric car to replace thermal ...

I noted, in the "remedies", the need to relaunch demography in our old countries: it would first be an additional immediate burden and then, in the long term, it would amplify the problem ... proposals, nothing that goes beyond the established framework, despite, often, a great relevance of analysis.

[sen-no-sen]

I am not either these speakers when they declare that China would be in adolescence crisis: my opinion being that this country has traversed at high speed the slow evolution of the European countries and is in a state close to these as for the accumulation of internal contradictions and the stagnation of the rate of profit.

Completely agree, China has simply benefited from contemporary technical means to go from feudalism to the industrial era via the communist phase.
China is like the cloned sheepDolly, although young (I speak of the economic and not historical entity of course) this one ages prematurely and risks disappearing even before its American-European models.

I noted, in the "remedies", the need to relaunch demography in our old countries: it would first be an additional immediate burden and then, in the long term, it would amplify the problem ...

Boosting the birth rate hardly makes sense, given that the family ratio is the consequence of the cultural processes themselves induced by the dissipation of energy: typically families in K that is to say little offspring but with a high life expectancy and a strong access to education.
The aging of the population in France is not worrying, it is a fair return of the baby boom, all of this should rebalance in the coming decades.
Another fundamental point: the aging of the population and the possible non-renewal of populations (as in Japan) is only a problem for economists.
It should be understood that the use of the birth rate or immigration has only one purpose:produce future consumers.
Well, a Japan with 80 million inhabitants instead of 126 million seems to me to be going rather in the good direction for the "other observers" (the fauna and the flora I mean).

[Ahmed]

Sen-no-sen, you write:

Another fundamental point: the aging of the population and its possible non-renewal (as in Japan) is only a problem for economists.

On many points, these "econoclasts" are very little ... The decrease in a population is not serious, but when the age pyramid is reversed, like that of Japan, it poses some practical difficulties, when we are dependent on the economy as the basis of the social bond ...

The unexpected connection that you establish between China and the sheep "Dolly" is very relevant.

Further;

It should be understood that the use of the birth rate or immigration has only one purpose: to produce future consumers.

... which is unwise in the future with a cake format "skin of grief", but these speakers do not manage to avoid a very traditional vision. Contrary to what has been asserted here by some (a fairly widespread opinion, moreover), the production of goods by robots cannot generate a value exceeding their intrinsic value (except for a possible rent effect, at the start of commissioning) and therefore cannot compensate (in one form or another) those whose usefulness it disqualifies and condemns to unemployment.

[sen-no-sen]

The unexpected connection that you establish between China and the sheep "Dolly" is very relevant.

The comparison is all found in the sense that it is an identical process, it suffices just to replace genetic cloning by memetic cloning.

... which is unwise in the future with a cake format "skin of grief", but these speakers do not manage to avoid a very traditional vision.

It is fair but it should be stressed that the presentation was made at the very institutional war school, so it is difficult to keep a discourse that is too avant garde.
However, I find that the reasoning goes in the right direction and that the speakers explain - without saying it directly - that the current system is doomed to collapse.
In fact, only the themes of the economy and energy supply were addressed, so there is a lack of ecological issues and future (bio) terrorist risks, but hey, you shouldn't be scared either because it's fast counter productive.

[Ahmed]

It is true that the place is not fundamentally suitable for an overly radical presentation! However, I strongly doubt that the speakers really go to the end of their analyzes in their heart (?).
I do not criticize them for having circumscribed their remarks, given the time allotted, but even within this framework it is easy to perceive the impossibility of a continuation in the state. I wonder if the self-limitation which they impose on themselves would not rather be due to the function which they respectively occupy and which restricts their field of vision to what is only admissible to envisage. For example, the nationalist withdrawal to a refocused economy remains typical of a retrograde vision which sees salvation in an earlier phase of the economy, a phase which has become anachronistic (we had abandoned it since it was no longer likely to generate enough abstract value). Self-sufficiency (even partial) at the level of a country can only be conceived in terms of use value, whereas, since the deliberate choice to stay within the framework of the economy supposes the finality of the valuation of abstract value, which is radically different: the economy advances by destroying the road behind it, possible point of return. The only way out of this impasse is to step aside, but can you ask an economist to kill himself?

[sen-no-sen]

The only way out of this impasse is to step aside, but can you ask an economist to kill himself?

If you allow me a new analogy, we can compare the economy to a religion, which is more than a simple figure of style since religion comes from religare* which means to connect, outside this is precisely what the economy does: to connect individuals and more broadly entities with one another in order to create a totalizing structure.
Economics is the new religion, in the strict sense, and god is the production of abstract value (the exponential function of economism).
Therefore and as for religions deists, if we understand that God does not exist (at least not in the strict sense) then the so-called religions and their panels of clergymen are no longer necessary ...
For the economy it is the same thing, reducing exchanges to simple thermodynamic functions and admitting the limitation of these is to end the cult of a demiurgic economy and its irrational fantasies, therefore our oracles. . sorry economists would lose their grandeur and especially their jobs!






* To be exact there would be two etymological sources for the word "religion": relegate (pick, collect) and religare (link, link), the overall idea being that of coalescence.

[Ahmed]

I forgot a minor remark: the last speaker seems to be surprised at the lack of efficiency, especially of our individual means of transport, but at the stage of consumption, it makes sense that it is so: waste is a component essential "work" * of consumption **. To hope to build on the possible gains (admittedly immense) to overcome the constraints of tomorrow, is to ignore the central dogma of the economy ...

Regarding your message, I can only agree with you: the economy replaces the links between people in a social relationship mediated by commodities (and its "general substitute" which is money).

* The more waste there is, the more consumption is important, therefore efficient with regard to the energy flow expended.
** Which is therefore symmetrically opposed to production work.