I often see statements in the news from economists saying things like “only 0.2% growth reported, which might have bad effects on the economy”. In my eyes infinite growth is simply impossible when we have finite resources, or is that a misconception from my part?
Edit: thank you for all the detailed an in-depth answers! Learned a lot of new things 🙂
In: 96
You are correct that infinite growth seems like a questionable thing to base a society on.
However, huge parts of our society are dependent on this growth. People are really scared of what happens when growth stops.
Think mortgage industry, home construction, real estate agents… That whole industry basically collapses if population growth slows/stops/declines
You also need to think of government budgets. Anytime the government is in a deficit.. they are spending more than they take in. They do this on the assumption the economy will grow so the debt becomes manageable. Stop growth, governments will have a hard time paying for government services. Inflation, worker strikes, cant pay pensions, skilled workers underpaid…
Basically they fear the growth based system we live in will collapse if growth stops. This us not just wall street thing. Most government services are based on the same thing.
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