IKEA made headlines when it openly mused about Western economies "reaching peak stuff", but they are by no means the only folks who think that our seemingly insatiable appetite for more and more stuff might finally be leveling out.
New figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the amount of raw materials consumed by the UK economy fell from 15 tonne per person in 2001 to just over 10 tonnes in 2013.
That's a pretty astounding drop.
True, there was this tiny thing called The Great Recession between then and now. But still, such a huge decrease in everything from steel to plastics to fuel and biomass suggests that something bigger (or maybe smaller?) is going on. Over at The Guardian, Patrick Collinson takes a deeper dive into the numbers, noting among other things that the digitization of industries such as music, movies and more has led to a large decrease in raw materials within those industries. And also that industry has gotten better about using less material for each product created.
Have you reached peak stuff?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @09:55PM
Characteristics of Neoliberalism:
Tax breaks for the rich and powerful
Privatization of public services
Cuts to the social safety net
Attacks on labor unions
Passage of so-called "free trade" agreements allowing unfettered capital investment flows (aka exporting jobs)
Minimal regulation of financial institutions and corporations
Endless marketization of society
Terms identified with Neoliberalism:
Radical deregulation
Globalization
Market fundamentalism
Laissez faire capitalism
Supply-side economics
Thatcherism
Reaganism
Clintonism
.
Robert Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. His latest book is "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few".
This week, Reich wrote
In addition, this week, Reich endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.
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N.B. 23 percent USA unemployment[1] [shadowstats.com] is NOT a "recession".
(Looking at the stock market^W^W speculators' market and seeing how billionaires are doing is NOT a useful measure of an economy--hasn't been for many years.)
Note also that that 23 percent doesn't include another 25 percent who are working for poverty wages and have no discretionary spending.
Most USAians are 1 small negative event away from total financial disaster. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
[1] Not only does the govt's official count not get the numbers correct, they don't even get the trend right.
Thanks for the "improvement" in the counting method, Bill Clinton.
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Regarding a shift away from petroleum-based media substrates and to bit-based media touches on the economy of the present and future: more BitTorrent, DarkNet, et al and fewer middlemen who produce nothing but who expect to be paid anyway.
Getting rid of the parasites is a Good Thing(tm).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]