like this ..and its pretty fuckin spacey man….

its
by the late MS MEADOWS

the limits to growth lady

12 leverage points

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards)
Parameters are points of lowest leverage effects. Though they are the most clearly perceived among all leverages, they rarely change behaviors and therefore have little long-term effect.

.
11. The size of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows

A buffer's ability to stabilize a system is important when the stock amount is much higher than the potential amount of inflows or outflows. In the lake, the water is the buffer: if there's a lot more of it than inflow/outflow, the system stays stable.

10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport network, population age structures)
A system's structure may have enormous effect on operations, but may be difficult or prohibitively expensive to change. Fluctuations, limitations, and bottlenecks may be easier to address.

9. The length of delays, relative to the rate of system changes
Information received too quickly or too late can cause over- or underreaction, even oscillations.

8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the effect they are trying to correct against
A negative feedback loop slows down a process, tending to promote stability (stagnation). The loop will keep the stock near the goal, thanks to parameters, accuracy and speed of information feedback, and size of correcting flows.

7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops

A positive feedback loop speeds up a process. Meadows indicates that in most cases, it is preferable to slow down a positive loop, rather than speeding up a negative one.

6. The structure of information flow (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information)
Information flow is neither a parameter, nor a reinforcing or slowing loop, but a loop that delivers new information. It is cheaper and easier than changing structure.

5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishment, constraints)
Pay attention to rules, and to who makes them.

4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure

Self-organization describes a system's ability to change itself by creating new structures, adding new negative and positive feedback loops, promoting new information flows, or making new rules.

3. The goal of the system
Changes every item listed above: parameters, feedback loops, information and self-organisation.

2. The mindset or paradigm that the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises out of
A society paradigm is an idea, an unstated assumption that everyone shares, thoughts, or states of thoughts that are sources of systems. Paradigms are very hard to change, but there are no limits to paradigm change. Meadows indicates paradigms might be changed by repeatedly and consistently pointing out anomalies and failures to those with open minds.

1. The power to transcend paradigms

Transcending paradigms may go beyond challenging fundamental assumptions, into the realm of changing the values and priorities that lead to the assumptions, and being able to choose among value sets at will.

Posted by js paine at 06:46 PM

why look at pappy mccain's “plan” ????
like the latest

“i'll make u a starlet “

a pols budget plan

is meant to be traduced

…

plans for closing
broadening the revenue base

by closing “tax loopholes”

are the biggest loop holes of all

…
“McCain is doing nothing more than

pandering to the wealthy special interests

that give him donations”

what in hell do u expect him to do ???

they aren't donating enough to him …yet

Posted by js paine at 05:28 PM

this quadrant
of the house of paine's

theory of everthing 

remains
under construction

Posted by js paine at 05:25 PM

if the spot market
for something as pervasive and basic and

for most markets

foreign sourced

has as few producers of international signifigance as most commodities have

and if not a cartel to boot at least very few serious wholesalers

and if the price above some level
is nearly all profit

and there are fewer still

buyers/ refiners/middle processors

then we have policy pricing

not competitive pricing

a strategy not a contest

the pure specs
the futures market makers

are ultimately

thrall to the big corporate middle men

and the trick pony of spot pricing

—-off spot contracting

is another kettle of fish of course —-

who dares gainsay this:

the big trans nat boys
can easily manipulate

the futures markets

in any commodity

the paradox

in times of unusually great profit opportunity

for middle players

most raw commodity markets

look more like the gold market in the 70's

then like themselves at most other times

yes cereal markets
have supply elasticity …

next few seasonal cycles can see

supply increase greatly

but now !!!! rice immitates gold

Posted by js paine at 05:21 PM

anne i love your grit and bite

but the partisanship
is miss placed

the dembots are little better
then robin

to the repugs batman

even the best of donkeys

like say ….the 70 odd party prog wing
in the house of reps

well…

my blog mission 2 years back
or so …used to be :

track the progress
of the congressional progressive caucus

even as the mighty dems
retake control of the people's House ….

turns out now after a year and a half

since they got clout (rangel frank etc)

they're DBA-ing as

” the well intended goons show “

Posted by js paine at 05:19 PM

“it is not inevitable that growth will drive child labour to the economic margins “

this is a key insight

the child labor expoloitation issue
is too complex for foolish well meaning chatter

about darkest “feudal” china and india

as if the intensification
of cross border marauding

by the globe's ultra modern

multi national corporations

could suddenly and for real

play “white ” knight roles here

what a savage charade

especially
in areas where up till now

by their willful ignorance

if not overt connivence

they have ultimately

accelerated this evil process

with their huge “buying power”
they have only intensified

this out of sight out of mind off the books

super duper form of exploitation

a few nuts too hard to crack
make for our only hope…

something there is that don't love a hierarchy eh ???

most national educational ….”requirements”

and standards

are in the end nothin but

expensive extrinsic job filters

spencian signals at best

why do we need those 4 high school years
to prove who among the mob of

future job applicants

has a true blue proper job-itude

ahh yes
the great american schoolag arch-e-peligo

ie

is our sacred deweyland
the high school

a better gauntlet

then a 30 hour per week job

starting at 14 ???

—————
what a travesty of justice

all these grade 9 thru 12
incubator organizations

producing ever fewer but more jobble ready

cubicle draft animals

and then there's our ultimo gift to the masses ….

the “u must have a BA to play a professional role “
gimmick

well all this higher schoolin
is mostly just a nasty molding

of raw youth into

cooked employees

my nagging nite thought:

is it really only out there
to feed

our highly hide bound self justifying

liberal meritocrats ???

you know the guys and gals with the advanced degrees
the self righteous secular symp-sob squad

that share

as juniour partners

the august tasks

of holding “state ” power

with their

spirited but crude

corporate babbitoid

brothers and sisters

Posted by js paine at 05:10 PM

this cone head's
Rx

for europe's gathering

wage class-tas-trophe 

is a brutal

trap filled

fantasy binge

after all the nice bits
about job outflow and inflow rates

he gives us these wonder weapons

tenure tracks instead of
the two tiered system

of casual and secured employment ?

decentralization of wage setting
instead of national multi sector wage concertaion?

its a dismal path
he wants to guide les geefs along

one that will doubtless prove to be
strewn with broken board room promises

promises of reciprocity
as in

“give us the flexibility
and

we'll increase your productivity

and …..your wages “

haven't the jobbled vanguard
of this good earth…

the wagery of north america

already traversed these very same

highways to the stars over the past 30 years ????

simple sum up:

along the way
the social win win link gets busted

just as concertation led
to reduced union powerby

swamping the militant minority

by milding out thru melding in

the wage bargaining system

so

this apparently opposite move

leading back from concertation

to localized atomization

baragaining

is a logical

utterly coherent follow up step

in a process

toward ever higher corporate returns

both directions
were ultimately politically certified

because

they had profit plus potential outcomes

for the MNC 's

hey !
why assume any other intended outcome

when the faustian insatiability

of the corporate profit max quest

trumps all else

…

“the means of production are just too efficient, there aren't enough decent jobs to go around”

mark II
after writing up so much sense

to end with such utter nonsense

why baby why ???

as time passes
the growth in productivity

in one household product sector

leads on to increased final demand

for the next higher wish sector

in an unending

spiral up

of wants and desires

the socialization of consumption is barely under way
we still can eat out

the the second half of our meals

farm out the rest of our routine

care giving

btw at first
these may prove quite hard to mechanize

——-

“in case you were wondering
my ambition is to be a reality tv star”

talk about
the growing relative scarcity

of positional jobs

as society gets bigger and more consolidated

is not new at all now is it …

and
hardly the real issue either

a plentiful supply
of decent paying

decent houring

low skill requiring wage jobs

is not limited by

technical progress

its created by

technical progress

Posted by js paine at 05:02 PM

an ancient new england class war
right inside calvin's playroom

circa 17th century

baptists vs independents

where you don't make enough distinctions
and parse your data accordingly

you won't make enough sense

here just
three income classes ???

finding a delicate truth
while limiting

yourself

to one dimension

and only three boxes

that's like doing
surgery with a hatchet

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | April 21, 2008 at 05:05 PM

paine says…

the elite the real elite
the one in a thousand sort of elite

at least those considered elite

for their thinking feeling and creating

—- ie the cultural vanguard

of the modernizing parts of the globe—-

are moving away from organized religion

and have been so moving by zigs and zags

for 300 years

———
this over broad use

of the word elite

to include millions

is silly in the extreme

Posted by js paine at 03:00 AM

recall

malthus was squelching godwin

peak nonsense is near good people of earth

an intellectual three winters in a row

the global economy is growing like may weeds

wild free and toxic
but the transformation is staggering

enter parson malthus….

limits limits limits

natural limits
and natural scarcity

and natural hierarchy

look up the facts as my positivist friends might suggest
trends in resource intensivity

shift back and forth now

in this 3 century old age of

resource use and productivity innovation

——what's three centuries out of 50 ???
enough to define a qualitative change

in the joint human project ———-

seems to be cyclical ?????

its certainly re active
todays pinch is not about to become a strangle

watch the vast raw imput economizing
china and india lead

over the next twenty years…

a global contraction ???

sure why not
knock yourself out thinking over that one …

but but but
from systemic not natural limits

as to the krug krieg on the spec explanation

i submit
he only reveals the paucity of formal

realizations of price makers behaviour

his simple simon model
yields only two supply side explanations

hoarding
or

production constraint

if its hoarding
then as the late m pillor might say

“where's the hoard “

if its production constraint

“where's the slack “

but what if commodity price making
has no simple smoothly operating

pseudo mechanical

balance beam operating at its heart ???

what if the trans nat oligogues
are posting up prices ..cause they both can

and want to

what if its all a levitation

a defiance of models

a playing hob with sectoral prices

because demand re actions are short run helpless

what if periodically
for reasons obscure even to themselves as individual deciders

the sector by sector hand full

of trans nat whole sale spot price makers

are flocking into flight

boldly as in the 70's

daring the earth's credit policy lords

to come on make our day

volckerize us ..

and samson like the policy types

collapse the whole global gig ????

tell me i can rely on marshall and walras
to prevent this from happening

before my very eyes

“What can't go on, won't.”

both prophecy and answer

fish gone..
we eat slime ..i guess

substitution effects are strong

when it comes to starvation threats

suffering ahead massive hideous avoidable suffering ??

yes ..these are human class socities
we're talking about

they have a solid reliable
50 century plus history

of fucking themselves brutally…

in the lower quarters

from time to time

…

reason:

the rise of commodity prices
if it actually produces a period of relative prosperity

for households stuck in traditional agrarian production hoorah

but if its merely a pass back or pass forward
to the rent suckers

well positioned

at both ends of that traditional system then

“paine…
I would like you to be more precise on this one”

i'm too old and lazy
to be precise

let alone quantitative

besides
the social contract unfolding today

is like a will

with too many undisclosed codicils

Speculation driving up the price will be visible in terms of rising stock levels”

if demand and supply are both
inelastic …enough

this may not happen

“the user ” just pays
“the higher” price

and “the supplier “

pockets the additional revenue

as he would any ” extra rent payments “

the paradox is how can a supplier
suddenly induce a spot market price shift

without any supply side quantity changes

on that market

and if she can induce
this miraculous spot market price increase

and by voluntary act alone

and this means more rent

then why now

and not yesterday ???

what in hell mystical monads
not dreamed of

in adam S's philosphy

are at play here ??

anne save your index finger

rg
is really mark T

trying to spice up his site

with a few masked BIG FOOT piltdown type folks

he's no more a real person
then

my hero daffy duck

…
“an Edgeworth box the size of a football field “

ahhh bw
my secret bourg idol's best trick

his magic box

good for sawing the arch of any robust contract curve
in half

feng

mildly teasing anne ???

the light touch isn't your best style

i suggest
u stick to being

a dutiful ox

pulling the ” ..its still morning in reagan america… “

agitprop cart

“Exactly what facts … have changed in
…(the last )… 3 year period?

… why is oil 3 times more expensive

than …. in 2005?”

good point
obviously something

more complex then PK's

simple supply and demand spot market seesaw

is operating here

but of course
it is

pk's assumptions in his implied model
are if not cartoons

either fool hardy or more sinisterly ..

mis directing our gaze from

the sundry commodity markets'

“middle men”

mashall law operating here
—even if far more hallowed —-

leads to as absurd a string of conjectures

as those that follow …

say the assumption

of

perfect capital markets

yes robin commodity markets are as nasty to model
as …. maybe even ….equity markets ….alas alas

“Would you want to live in the conditions of London circa 1780? Or even a pristine environment such as, oh, Central Africa circa 500,000 B.C.?”
hell i did live back then bothwise

btw circa 500k b.p.e.
shirley McC was married to my half brother joga oop

i was a gay fire starter

Posted by js paine at 02:51 AM

How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers.

But, quoth Pantagruel, when will you be out of debt? At the next ensuing term of the Greek kalends, answered Panurge, when all the world shall be content, and that it be your fate to become your own heir. The Lord forbid that I should be out of debt, as if, indeed, I could not be trusted. Who leaves not some leaven over night, will hardly have paste the next morning.

Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody always to pray for you, that the giver of all good things may grant unto you a blessed, long, and prosperous life; fearing, if fortune should deal crossly with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being paid by you, he will always speak good of you in every company, ever and anon purchase new creditors unto you; to the end, that through their means you may make a shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and with other folk’s earth fill up his ditch. When of old, in the region of the Gauls, by the institution of the Druids, and servants, slaves, and bondmen were burnt quick at the funerals and obsequies of their lords and masters, had not they fear enough, think you, that their lords and masters should die? For, perforce, they were to die with them for company. Did not they incessantly send up their supplications to their great god Mercury, as likewise unto Dis, the father of wealth, to lengthen out their days, and to preserve them long in health? Were not they very careful to entertain them well, punctually to look unto them, and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly? For by those means were they to live together at least until the hour of death. Believe me, your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech Almighty God to prolong your life, they being of nothing more afraid than that you should die; for that they are more concerned for the sleeve than the arm, and love silver better than their own lives. As it evidently appeareth by the usurers of Landerousse, who not long since hanged themselves because the price of the corn and wines was fallen by the return of a gracious season. To this Pantagruel answering nothing, Panurge went on in his discourse, saying, Truly and in good sooth, sir, when I ponder my destiny aright, and think well upon it, you put me shrewdly to my plunges, and have me at a bay in twitting me with the reproach of my debts and creditors. And yet did I, in this only respect and consideration of being a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable. For against the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the First Matter, did I out of nothing become such (a) maker and creator, that I have created—what?—a gay number of fair and jolly creditors. Nay, creditors, I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself exclusively, are fair and goodly creatures. Who lendeth nothing is an ugly and wicked creature, and an accursed imp of the infernal Old Nick. And there is made—what? Debts. A thing most precious and dainty, of great use and antiquity. Debts, I say, surmounting the number of syllables which may result from the combinations of all the consonants, with each of the vowels heretofore projected, reckoned, and calculated by the noble Xenocrates. To judge of the perfection of debtors by the numerosity of their creditors is the readiest way for entering into the mysteries of practical arithmetic.

You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive myself environed and surrounded with brigades of creditors—humble, fawning, and full of their reverences. And whilst I remark that, as I look more favourably upon and give a cheerfuller countenance to one than to another, the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be the first despatched and the foremost in the date of payment, and he valueth my smiles at the rate of ready money, it seemeth unto me that I then act and personate the god of the passion of Saumure, accompanied with his angels and cherubims.

These are my flatterers, my soothers, my clawbacks, my smoothers, my parasites, my saluters, my givers of good-morrows, and perpetual orators; which makes me verily think that the supremest height of heroic virtue described by Hesiod consisteth in being a debtor, wherein I held the first degree in my commencement. Which dignity, though all human creatures seem to aim at and aspire thereto, few nevertheless, because of the difficulties in the way and encumbrances of hard passages, are able to reach it, as is easily perceivable by the ardent desire and vehement longing harboured in the breast of everyone to be still creating more debts and new creditors.

Yet doth it not lie in the power of everyone to be a debtor. To acquire creditors is not at the disposure of each man’s arbitrament. You nevertheless would deprive me of this sublime felicity. You ask me when I will be out of debt. Well, to go yet further on, and possibly worse in your conceit, may Saint Bablin, the good saint, snatch me, if I have not all my lifetime held debt to be as a union or conjunction of the heavens with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kept together; yea, of such virtue and efficacy that, I say, the whole progeny of Adam would very suddenly perish without it. Therefore, perhaps, I do not think amiss, when I repute it to be the great soul of the universe, which, according to the opinion of the Academics, vivifieth all manner of things. In confirmation whereof, that you may the better believe it to be so, represent unto yourself, without any prejudicacy of spirit, in a clear and serene fancy, the idea and form of some other world than this; take, if you please, and lay hold on the thirtieth of those which the philosopher Metrodorus did enumerate, wherein it is to be supposed there is no debtor or creditor, that is to say, a world without debts.

There amongst the planets will be no regular course, all will be in disorder. Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted unto Saturn, will go near to detrude him out of his sphere, and with the Homeric chain will be like to hang up the intelligences, gods, heavens, demons, heroes, devils, earth and sea, together with the other elements. Saturn, no doubt, combining with Mars will reduce that so disturbed world into a chaos of confusion.

Mercury then would be no more subjected to the other planets; he would scorn to be any longer their Camillus, as he was of old termed in the Etrurian tongue. For it is to be imagined that he is no way a debtor to them.

Venus will be no more venerable, because she shall have lent nothing. The moon will remain bloody and obscure. For to what end should the sun impart unto her any of his light? He owed her nothing. Nor yet will the sun shine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good influence, because the terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up their wonted nourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith Heraclitus said, the Stoics proved, Cicero maintained, they were cherished and alimented. There would likewise be in such a world no manner of symbolization, alteration, nor transmutation amongst the elements; for the one will not esteem itself obliged to the other, as having borrowed nothing at all from it. Earth then will not become water, water will not be changed into air, of air will be made no fire, and fire will afford no heat unto the earth; the earth will produce nothing but monsters, Titans, giants; no rain will descend upon it, nor light shine thereon; no wind will blow there, nor will there be in it any summer or harvest. Lucifer will break loose, and issuing forth of the depth of hell, accompanied with his furies, fiends, and horned devils, will go about to unnestle and drive out of heaven all the gods, as well of the greater as of the lesser nations. Such a world without lending will be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling, more unruly and irregular than that of the rector of Paris; a devil of an hurlyburly, and more disordered confusion than that of the plagues of Douay. Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour to expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murder, for none will put to their helping hand. Why? He lent no money, there is nothing due to him. Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his shipwreck, in his ruin, or in his death; and that because he hitherto had lent nothing, and would never thereafter have lent anything. In short, Faith, Hope, and Charity would be quite banished from such a world—for men are born to relieve and assist one another; and in their stead should succeed and be introduced Defiance, Disdain, and Rancour, with the most execrable troop of all evils, all imprecations, and all miseries. Whereupon you will think, and that not amiss, that Pandora had there spilt her unlucky bottle. Men unto men will be wolves, hobthrushers, and goblins (as were Lycaon, Bellerophon, Nebuchodonosor), plunderers, highway robbers, cutthroats, rapparees, murderers, poisoners, assassinators, lewd, wicked, malevolent, pernicious haters, set against everybody, like to Ishmael, Metabus, or Timon the Athenian, who for that cause was named Misanthropos, in such short that it would prove much more easy in nature to have fish entertained in the air and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than to support or tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend. These fellows, I vow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to the pattern of this grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth nothing, you figure and liken the little world, which is man, you will find in him a terrible justling coil and clutter. The head will not lend the sight of his eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear up the body; the hands will leave off working any more for the rest of the members; the heart will be weary of its continual motion for the beating of the pulse, and will no longer lend his assistance; the lungs will withdraw the use of their bellows; the liver will desist from convoying any more blood through the veins for the good of the whole; the bladder will not be indebted to the kidneys, so that the urine thereby will be totally stopped. The brains, in the interim, considering this unnatural course, will fall into a raving dotage, and withhold all feeling from the sinews and motion from the muscles. Briefly, in such a world without order and array, owing nothing, lending nothing, and borrowing nothing, you would see a more dangerous conspiration than that which Aesop exposed in his Apologue. Such a world will perish undoubtedly; and not only perish, but perish very quickly. Were it Aesculapius himself, his body would immediately rot, and the chafing soul, full of indignation, take its flight to all the devils of hell after my money.

Posted by js paine at 02:48 AM