J G Miller wrote:
On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:13:58 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

The end of growth as we know it, and it nearly crashed the worlds
financial systenm.

No, what crashed the world's financial systems was the selling on of
domestic mortgage debt which had been generated from banks loaning out
money to people who did not and would never have the means to repay
the loan.

Of course they could have repaid the loans if only someone had lent them
more money, or their governments, so they could have created yet more
stupid jobs, and raised the demand for housing even higher, so their
loans became trivial in terms of the house values.

Perpetual growth is an open ended Ponzi scheme, which worked as long a s
populations expanded along with tax takes and GDP. As soon as the growth
faltered - and it was high energy prices that caused that - the
inherent feedback put it into reverse.