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Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere, As Far As the Eye Can See

Mother Jones

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One of the fundamental causes of the housing bubble of the aughts was a global glut of investment money with nowhere productive to go. So instead it went into housing, causing bubbles in the U.S. and several other countries. When the bubble burst, the economy tanked. And since the United States is so big, the Great Recession affected the whole world.

Here in America, we’d like to believe that we learned our lesson. And maybe we did. But there’s still a global glut of investment money around, and there still aren’t enough productive uses for it. So where’s it going? Neil Irwin reports that Nouriel Roubini thinks it’s still going into housing:

Roubini doesn’t see bubbles in the places where they were most severe in the pre-2008 period. He doesn’t mention the United States or Spain or Ireland. Rather, Roubini sees housing prices getting out of whack in quite a few small and mid-sized nations that are well-governed and managed to avoid the worst economic effects of the financial crisis: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the London metropolitan area in the U.K.

….Roubini’s argument boils down to this: The major economies have been growing only slowly. Yet with low interest rates and aggressive central bank action across the globe, there is a giant pool of money that has to go somewhere. That somewhere has not been productive new investments, like companies building new factories. Rather, it has come in the form of people taking advantage of cheap credit to bid up the price of existing real estate in cities from Stockholm to Sydney.

The key problem, as it’s been for over a decade, is why investors can’t find enough productive uses for their money. Weak economic growth due to rising income inequality is one possibility. Another is the rise of cheap entertainment—Facebook, Xbox, World of Warcraft—which portends lower demand for physical goods and services in the future. Or maybe it’s because of steadily rising unemployment thanks to the growth of automation.

Whatever the reason, if this imbalance continues, it’s hard to see things turning out well in the medium term. We need either less capital formation or else more consumer demand—or both. The alternative is bubble after bubble. They may come in different places and different things, but what other alternative is there?

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Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere, As Far As the Eye Can See

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Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

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Europe, as viewed from a greenhouse gas.

There isn’t a country in the world that’s on track to reduce emissions to the extent needed to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit). But for a glimpse of something resembling climate leadership, peer across the pond.

The Climate Change Performance Index [PDF], produced by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe, ranks countries based on their greenhouse gas emissions, emissions-reduction efforts, energy efficiency, renewable energy portfolios, and policies aimed at slowing climate change. Here’s the top-10 list from this year. Every country is in Europe:

  1. Denmark
  2. United Kingdom
  3. Portugal
  4. Sweden
  5. Switzerland
  6. Malta
  7. France
  8. Hungary
  9. Ireland
  10. Iceland

Eight of those 10 countries are part of the European Union, which is also taking action — and even committing real money — to fight climate change. The European Parliament just adopted a seven-year budget that includes an unprecedented $243 billion for climate projects. Most of that will be spent within the E.U.’s 28 states, but some of it is earmarked as climate aid for developing countries.

E.U. climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard discussed the budget during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, where U.N. climate negotiations are underway. She said that for the world to successfully tackle climate change, “one of the things we need … to change is the whole economic paradigm, including the way we construct our budgets.”

Beyond Europe, it’s not looking so good. The U.S. ranked 40th out the 58 countries on the Climate Change Performance Index, just three spots above China. The report notes that the U.S. did reduce greenhouse gas emissions 8 percent over the last five years, thanks in part to Obama administration regulations covering transportation and coal.

At the bottom of the list are Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Those are the only three countries that rank worse than Australia and Canada — two of the four countries behaving badly that we told you about on Monday.

Australia’s delegates have been accused of particularly boorish behavior during the Warsaw talks. “They wore T-shirts and gorged on snacks throughout the negotiation,” a Climate Action Network spokesperson complained to The Guardian. Worse, Australia has blocked progress toward a treaty. Along with the U.S. and E.U., Australia refused to discuss developing countries’ demands for climate-change compensation, leading to 132 countries walking out of negotiations. 

“There is a sense that Australia was being horrible and the U.S. wasn’t moving toward accepting the creation of a new body to address loss and damage,” Jake Schmidt, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international climate policy director, told Grist from Warsaw. “It was also 4:00 in the morning.”


Source
Climate Change Performance Index, Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

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World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Greenpeace Members Held at Arctic Oil Rig

Russian border guards detained two activists from the environmentalist group Wednesday morning after they boarded an oil rig to protest drilling in the Arctic. Originally from –  World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Greenpeace Members Held at Arctic Oil Rig ; ;Related ArticlesEnvironment Groups Set for New Fight Over Drilling on U.S.-Managed Utah LandDot Earth Blog: The Vital Long View in Tracking Diminishing Arctic Sea IceNational Briefing | West: California Court Upholds Emissions Curbs ;

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World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Greenpeace Members Held at Arctic Oil Rig

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The Art of Loving – Erich Fromm

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The Art of Loving

Erich Fromm

Genre: Psychology

Price: $3.99

Publish Date: February 26, 2013

Publisher: Open Road

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


The international bestseller that launched a movement with its powerful insight: “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” The Art of Loving is a rich and detailed guide to love—an achievement reached through maturity, practice, concentration, and courage. In the decades since the book’s release, its words and lessons continue to resonate. Erich Fromm, a celebrated psychoanalyst and social psychologist, clearly and sincerely encourages the development of our capacity for and understanding of love in all of its facets. He discusses the familiar yet misunderstood romantic love, the all-encompassing brotherly love, spiritual love, and many more. A challenge to traditional Western notions of love, The Art of Loving is a modern classic about taking care of ourselves through relationships with others. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate. “Erich Fromm is both a psychologist of penetration and a writer of ability. His book is one of dignity and candor, of practicality and precision.” — Chicago Tribune “Every line is packed with common sense, compassion, and realism.” — Fortune Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was a bestselling psychoanalyst and social philosopher whose views about alienation, love, and sanity in society—discussed in his books such as Escape from Freedom , The Art of Loving , The Sane Society ,and To Have or To Be? —helped shape the landscape of psychology in the mid-twentieth century. Fromm was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to Jewish parents, and studied at the universities of Frankfurt, Heidelberg (where in 1922 he earned his doctorate in sociology), and Munich. In the 1930s he was one of the most influential figures at the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. In 1934, as the Nazis rose to power, he moved to the United States. He practiced psychoanalysis in both New York and Mexico City before moving to Switzerland in 1974, where he continued his work until his death.

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The Art of Loving – Erich Fromm

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Grindelwald Journal: In Swiss Alps, Glacial Melting Unglues Mountains

In a stark example of what’s happening to Switzerland’s glaciers, global warming is melting the ice that buttresses the mountains around Grindelwald, menacing the region with rock slides and flood threats. Link: Grindelwald Journal: In Swiss Alps, Glacial Melting Unglues Mountains ; ;Related ArticlesOp-Ed Contributor: Ecology Lessons From the Cold WarPollution Concerns Could Douse California Beach FiresEuropean Officials Move To Curb Overfishing ;

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Grindelwald Journal: In Swiss Alps, Glacial Melting Unglues Mountains

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