Wealth can be seen as the factories, infrastructure, goods and services the population of a nation dispose of. According to Tim Garrett,  a scientist who looks at the economy from the perspective of physics, it is existing wealth that generates economic activity and growth. This growth demands the use of energy as no activity can take place without its use. He also points out that the use of this energy unavoidably  leads to concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.  All this, Tim Garrett says,  follows from the second law of thermodynamics.  If wealth decreases then so does economic activity and growth. The CLD tries to illustrate how wealth, ironically, now generates the conditions and feedback loops  that  may cause it to decline. The consequences are  inevitably economic  stagnation (or secular recession?). 

You can read about the connection Tim Garrett makes between 'Wealth, Economic Growth, Energy and CO2  Emissions' simply by Googling 'Tim Garrett and Economy'.

The statement that there can be no economic activity without  energy and that fossil fuels are finite contrasts with the fact that money is not finite and can be created by governments via their central banks at zero marginal cost whenever needed.

An important fact about COAL, GAS and OIL (especially when produced via fracking) is that their net energy ratios are falling rapidly. In other words the energy needed to extract a given quantity of fossil fuels is constantly increasing. The falling ratio 'EROI' (Energy Return on Energy Invested ) provides yet another warning that we can no longer rely on fossil fuels to power our economies. In 1940 it took the energy of only one barrel of oil to extract 100. Today the energy of 1 barrel of oil will yield only 15. We cannot wait until the ratio falls to 1/1 before we invest seriously in alternative sources of energy, because by then industrial society as we know it doday will have ceased to exist. An EROI of 1:1 means that it takes the energy of one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil - oil production would simply stop! 

To maintain economic wealth (roads, hospitals, power lines, etc.) power needs to be consumed. The same applies to economic activity, since any activity requires the consumption of energy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the burning of fossil fuels was responsible for 79 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. So whilst economic activity takes place fossil fuels will be burned and CO2 emissions are unavoidable - unless we use exclusively renewable energy resources, which is not likely to occur very soon. However, the increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will have negative consequences, such droughts, floods, crop failures, etc. These effects represent limits to economic growth. The CLD illustrates some of the more prominent negative feedback loops that act as a break on economic growth and wealth.  As the negative feedback loops (B1-B4) get stronger, an interesting question is, 'will a sharp reduction in economic wealth and unavoidable recession lead to wide-spread food riots and disturbances?'

This model is an attempt to understand the interactions within an economy in an attempt to determine where the leverage points are to stimulate an economy.

This is a Virtual Systemic Inquiry (VSI) Project. Please refer to the Stimulating an Economy focus page.

This model which simulates the competition of Logging with Mountain Tourism in Derby, Tasmania.  This main reason of this simulation is to find if logging will affect the mountain tourism and by any chance they can co-exist.

A model to gain understanding of the causes and effects of a population's interest in engineering.

A sample model for class discussion modeling COVID-19 outbreaks and responses from government with the effect on the local economy.  Govt policy is dependent on reported COVID-19 cases, which in turn depend on testing rates less those who recover

Description:

Rich picture trying to explain in detail the economy of Peru.

Neoliberalism uses a deceptive narrative to declare that money the government spends into the economy in excesses of the taxes it collects creates a ‘government debt’. In fact, the money the government spends into the economy in excess of the taxes is an income, a benefit for the private sector. When the government issues bonds, the money the private sector uses to buy them via banks comes from a residual cushion of dollars that the government already spent into the economy but has not yet taxed back.  If this were not the case, if the government had taxed back all the money it spent into the economy, then the economy could not function. There would be no dollars in the economy, since the government is the sole supplier of U.S. dollars! In the doted rectangle in the graph you can see that the dollars paid to the government for bonds sits in a dollar asset account. When the government issues bonds it simply provides the public and institutions with a desirable money substitute that pays interest i.e. Treasury bonds. It is a swap of one kind of financial asset for another. To register this swap the government debits the dollar asset account and credits the bond account.  When the time comes to redeem (take back) the bonds, all the government does is revers the swap, and that’s all!  When you look at the total amount of finacial assets in the private sector,  these remain constant at $ 25 BN  after the payment of $ 5 BN taxes. This implies that  no lending of financial assets of the private sector to the government has taken place during the swap operation. The money was always there. The debt mountain is an illusion!

A sample model for class discussion modeling COVID-19 outbreaks and responses from government with the effect on the local economy.  Govt policy is dependent on reported COVID-19 cases, which in turn depend on testing rates less those who recover

This is a system dynamic model to describe relationship between local logging industry and biking tourism in Tasmanian Derby Mountain.

In the dynamic model, the left-hand side shows how Derby get income from local biking tourism. The biking visitors number are influenced by scenery evaluation which depend on local size of forest and influenced government policy support when Biking Tourism income is over 1000 unit. Biking visitors with good recommendation will also back to Mountain Derby and bring income for local in twice or more times.  In the right-hand side, we found the income of logging industry was influenced by local logging growth rate and government policy if local Biking Tourism income is over 1000 unit. The increase of logging industry will also increase local employment which will influence employee cost. This factor will also affect total logging income in Derby Mountain.

 

The simulation results show, with governments support the Biking tourism will increase sharply in the first few years and finally instead local logging industry, at same time bring good environment and save local forest under local increase logging industry. The recommendation graph shows that, the number of good recommendation & bad recommendation for Derby Mountain biking tourism will also increase in high speed in front of few years with data fluctuation but finally maintain in a stable line. Last simulation graph shows that how policy factor influences logging and biking industry. The Government has strong support in local tourism, however, as number of tourists increase, the positive impact from government support will continue decrease. On the contrary, the government support influence will also decease to local logging industry when logging been instead by tourism. 

Model supporting research of investment vs. austerity implications. Please refer to Modern Money & Public Purpose Video.

@LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube

First Basic Macro economic model