Third, and most importantly, Steve highlights the centrality of energy and material inputs. Production is not an abstract function of labour and capital; it is physically grounded. Cut the energy supply, and Steve suggests, based on economic modelling using his Ravel model, that output falls more or less proportionately. In that case, cut fertiliser supply and food production collapses. And because fertiliser is time-critical, missed planting cycles cannot be recovered later.
Fourth, this leads to his most alarming claim: the greatest risk from this war is not battlefield casualties but famine. Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and chemically produced fertilisers. If these inputs are disrupted, global food output could fall below subsistence requirements. In that case, the crisis becomes one of mass starvation, potentially affecting even high-income countries that have allowed their strategic reserves to be depleted.
Raising energy prices and stopping fertiliser production in the UK by not fracking for gas might be a bad idea then?
But of course Spud never does manage to actually think, does he?
Unless the consequences of failing global supply chains for oil, gas, fertiliser, helium, other raw materials, and consequent second-order products such as food, medical supplies, technology and other items are managed effectively by international agreement to ensure that hardship is limited to the greatest possible degree, and that rationing is not imposed by price alone, then the risk that there will be very large numbers of casualties, particularly from famine, is incredibly high, and Steve is entirely right to draw attention to this.
Ahhh, that’s why he’s not thinking. There’s a job opportunity for a Fat Controller….
“Global communism is the answer.”
“What was the question?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
The money obsessive suddenly realises that production and consumption depend on actual stuff?
I would have thought it to be obvious that war means that there is no international agreement.
Sounds like the equivalent of Zil lanes for food are in the works.
“… and that rationing is not imposed by price alone …”
I wonder who he thinks should be in charge of this?
This guy appears to know what he’s talking about, but it is from X:
https://x.com/MDC12345678/status/2038560057785217205?s=20
Just how does Spud think we are going to get “effective agreement” with Iran and the Houtis
They’ll respect him as the world’s leading authority on MMT. He’s looking for a sinecure
Lets ignore substitution.
Is this the string quartet mentioned in another thread?
I saw a pierce online bemoaning the fact that the US suffer dearth because the absence of fertiliser will just add to the problem of drought over much of the continent. Clearly the writer didn’t understand the 4D chess champion that is Trump. If much of the west won’t be able to grow crops because there will be no water then it doesn’t matter that there is no fertiliser since the ruddy crops wouldn’t grow anyway. So this was a good year in which to launch his war because the fertiliser problem won’t be a big deal for the US.
However a 5D chess champion might think (i) why on earth should I believe the weather-guessers?, and (ii) if there’s going to be a poor harvest in the US shouldn’t I want good harvests elsewhere so the US can buy food abroad?
Tricky biz, this n-dimensional chess. Far over the head of the potato. But then everything else is too.
I swear it was here where I was told that wartime rationing instantly produced a rich black market.
Its a lesson to be learned for the ‘globalization is always and everywhere a total good’.
Globalization is useful as a risk-management tool – you can lesson the impact of local disasters if you have built-up sources outside your area.
But if you are *too* globalized, *too* much ‘just in time’ – then you are subject to disaster yourself if something happens on the other side of the world.