Economy

Now a few planners and politicians are starting to try something new: embracing shrinking. Frankly admitting that these cities are not going to return to their former population size anytime soon, planners and activists and officials are starting to talk about what it might mean to shrink well. After decades of worrying about smart growth, they’re starting to think about smart shrinking, about how to create cities that are healthier because they are smaller. Losing size, in this line of thought, isn’t just a byproduct of economic malaise, but a strategy.

By “ungeared,” Power means unleveraged, and is referring to the fact that the Chinese still do not have widely-available credit. Therefore, the typical shopper has precious few financing options available, aside from tapping personal savings, when looking to buy higher-priced durable goods, like cars. When China’s typical wage earner gains access to debt as a form of purchasing power there’s likely to be marked rise in the strength of its domestic consumer base.

The half-life of central bank interventions is getting shorter and shorter. After Shirakawa decided to show the Fed who is boss, only to be met with the biggest beatdown the dollar has experienced since March, tonight the BOJ decided to show Bernanke how it's done. Too bad the idiots at the BOJ have learned nothing from the SNB's Hildebrand, who was last seen cowering in a fetal positions, underneath his desk.

Irish borrowing costs have surged to a post-EMU record after Ireland's recovery buckled over the summer and Dublin said creditors of Anglo Irish Bank may be asked to "share" losses, a warning to bondholders that the dam may at last be breaking on debt restructuring in the eurozone.

Pass along a DVD to your friends and family—the deluxe DVD is available in discount packs of 4 and 10! (NTSC or PAL)

Former Fed Chair, Paul Volcker went way off-script in Chicago yesterday and "moved unsparingly from banks to regulators to business schools to the Fed to money-market funds during his luncheon speech. He praised the new financial overhaul law, but said the system remained at risk because it is subject to future “judgments” of individual regulators, who he said would be relentlessly lobbied by banks and politicians to soften the rules."

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation.

Economists and politicians can’t admit it, but the laws of physics apply, no matter what the latest polls tell us. The Earth has finite resources that will someday limit our economic growth.

The Earth cannot forever support 7 billion people consuming as much as Americans consume. And yet we’ve staked our future — individually, nationally, and maybe even as a species — on that impossible dream.

It is Friday afternoon, and of course the most troubling news come out. Last week it was that the idiots in charge are raising their stake in Ally to 80%; this week also did not disappoint: the WSJ reports what can arguably be the most important story of the week - to wit: the government just seized three wholesale credit unions and has launched an "unusual plan" to manage $50 billion of troubled assets inherited from failed institutions.

Thousands of Indian immigrants are choosing to leave the United States in the midst of the recession and move back to India to find better jobs. While many cite better job opportunities in India as their primary reason, most also feel they are able to have a better quality of life in India.

The past two years have been tough on China-oriented Western economists. China's archaic mercantilism, tight capital controls, over-regulated financial sector, managed exchange rate and, above all, its need to purchase and sterilize massive inflows of foreign exchange were, according the theorists, leading the country to economic calamity

Energy

Until recently, peak oil was mainly seen as a crackpot theory promulgated by doom merchants who hate progress. This probably reflects the influence that corporate publicity strategies and pressure to preserve confidence in global markets have on the mainstream media.10 The Bristol peak oil report and Chris Martenson’s Crash Course are the first steps towards changing this attitude.

Peak oil isn’t the end of oil it is only the point at which production reaches a peak and can’t continue to grow concurrently with demand.

Additionally most people are not aware of what oil really means to our economy beyond the obvious. How oil effects coal extraction, wind power, making plastic, making medicine, transporting our food, etc. Today’s show is more of just me chatting with our than a more conventionally hard outlined show.

With available energy and natural resources depleting in an economy that depends on them to grow, author and speaker Chris Martenson said the next 20 years are going to have to look fundamentally different from the last 20.

And while every decade has been shaped differently from the past, Martenson said the shift that will occur is unlike any other because of the change in economic structure and energy profile that will be forced to occur.

Article suggestions for the Daily Digest can be sent to [email protected]. All suggestions are filtered by the Daily Digest team and preference is given to those that are in alignment with the message of the Crash Course and the "3 Es."