Matt Simmons deals with "the notable, compound errors in IEA data" in his
paper I referenced today
[http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/web/downloads/whitepaper.pdf].
I hope that Doug Henwood also takes a less-uncritical attitude to US
government data in his new book than he does on these lists, where the
leitmotif is more often a laboured frivolity accompanied by the uncritical
regurgitating to the last decimal point, of the lies of the imperial
priesthood. Let us also hope that the economists who so signally fail to
respond in any way to the mass of argument and data about the continuing
importance of fundamentals like energy, ecosystem collapse and
anthropological climate-forcing, are silent only because they are redoing
their homework. They need to reconsider the basics, take stock and return to
discussion with a new and different kind of militancy.
In the process let us hope they reflect upon the fact that (as the oil
crises of the 1970s showed) the principal victims of energy shocks are the
multibillioned masses living in the peripheries, in the neocolonial world.
30 years ago rising energy prices led to the collapse of the dream of
development throughout much of Africa, southern Asia and latin America, and
to the imposition of indebtedness equal to feudal servitude, amid the
affliction of voodoo reagonomics. This was swiftly followed by the cruelties
of the SAPs and the hollow triumphalism of hurrah-capitalism's globalist
mantras. This time, as the final energy-shock bites it will be east Asia and
China which suffer the same debacle. That will leave a floodtide of
impoverished humanity outside the few remaining bastions of privilege. I
hope that "The New Economy" *bases itself* on these considerations. The new
economy has been built upon the ruin of many lives and hopes, and is fuelled
by the despair of millions. That ought to be our starting point for
evaluation.
Mark Jones
