Financial Survival Radio Show – The Network You Need in the New Economy Drexler's next book: Radical Abundance, 2012 Eric Drexler (credit: David Orban) This just in from nanotech pioneer Dr. Eric Drexler: “I’m now working on a new book, Radical Abundance, scheduled for publication in 2012 by Public Affairs. The book has a wide scope in both its content and intended audience, addressing scientists, a general reading audience, and thought leaders in the policy arena.” Drexler says Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that he has touched on in his Metamodern blog, but will go much further. The topics include: “These topics interweave to make what will, I think, be a compelling story for readers with diverse interests, backgrounds, and concerns,” he said. Drexler is best known for his 1986 classic book, Engines of Creation, which introduced the term “nanotechnology,” created widespread excitement about the potential of nanotechnology, and provided the initial impetus for today’s growing worldwide investment in nanoscale science and technology.
Aguanomics Uncivilisation 2011 | the sustainability centre, hampshire: 19 - 21 August 2011 | Uncivilisation 2011 thought maybe Money | Ted Howard NZ's Blog Some thoughts on money, and some of the problems within it as a concept. My April 2012 post on the Capital Institute blog encapsulates much of the thinking from an economic perspective, and my June critique of First Draft of Economics, Finance, Governance, and Ethics in the Anthropocene gives a slightly different perspective. My critique of Jan de Dood’s The Future of a truly stable economic order builds on the concepts by directly relating to Jan’s book. Below is some earlier stuff – which contains the same conceptual matter, but from a perspective that may not as available to most as those above. It seems to me that there is a really serious issue with money in that it is a measure of exchange value, and not of “real” value. If money is used only as a token of exchange between producers, then it is fine, it leads to the production of abundance (call this the exchange aspect of money). Let us examine another aspect of money. There is money itself. What is value? Like this: Like Loading...
Observational Epidemiology The Dark Mountain Project Journal of Foreign Relations | The World Around You Neomedievalism While I’m on the subject of Bruce Sterling, here’s a brief piece he flagged up at Foreign Policy – a bleak prediction that the world is reverting to a kind of technology-mediated econo-political feudalism. Call it Neomedievalism: The state isn’t a universally representative phenomenon today, if it ever was. Already, billions of people live in imperial conglomerates such as the European Union, the Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the emerging North American Union, where state capitalism has become the norm. But at least half the United Nations’ membership, about 100 countries, can hardly be considered responsible sovereigns. Well, colour me vindicated – this sounds a lot like the world I’m trying to describe when I batter on about the death of geography, the decline of the nation-state and the rise of the corporate entity as political liege… albeit a more succinct (and distinctly more qualified) version thereof. … those of us who still have any certainty left, that is.
More Than Meets the Eye The current market perception is that the impact of the terrible disaster in Japan on the global economy is likely to be limited to a shave-off of approximately 0.5% of global economic growth. The IMF’s forecast for Japan was lowered from 1.6% prior to the earthquake to 1.4% in 2011. According to the IMF their initial estimates are that the damage could be twice that of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 or up to 5% of GDP. What has transpired so far is that the extent of the damage could be far worse than I (and the market?) Apart from Japan’s manufacturing and services PMIs that plunged in March, the impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis on the other major economies is not visible yet. In the case of China some evidence of the impact has emerged in the March manufacturing PMI indices, though. Sources: CFLP; Li & Fung; Plexus Asset Management. Chinese authorities claim that the impact of the disaster in Japan will not be significant. And ditto the economy as a whole.
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