Chapter 16 (Fuzzy Numbers): Dr. Martenson explores how inflation and GDP are measured, how their measurement has changed over years, and what that means concerning the integrity of these government statistics. Substitution, Weighting, Imputations, and Hedonics and their effects on calculating inflation and GDP are each examined. Dr. Martenson traces the social impact of these [...]

Chapter 13 (A National Failure To Save – Part 2 of 2): “The next twenty years are going to be completely unlike the last twenty years.” — Dr. Martenson. Chapter 13 begins his explanation for this deeply held belief. On every level of our society, there has been a failure to save. Individuals, cities, counties, [...]

Chapter 17c – Energy and the Economy: What if our exponentially-based economic and monetary systems are really just an artifact of oil? What if all of our rich societal complexity and all of our trillions of dollars of wealth and debt simply are the human expression of surplus energy pumped from the ground? In this [...]

Peak Moment 166: “The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty… Well face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity. So opens Chris Martenson’s much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he [...]

Chapter 11 (How Much Is A Trillion?): Recently, we have gotten used to hearing the word “trillion.” From trillions of dollars of government debt to trillion dollar bailout packages, we are spending enormous sums of money. However, most of us dont realize how much a trillion actually is. Dr. Martenson explains how much a trillion [...]

Chapter 13 (A National Failure To Save – Part 1 of 2): “The next twenty years are going to be completely unlike the last twenty years.” — Dr. Martenson. Chapter 13 begins his explanation for this deeply held belief. On every level of our society, there has been a failure to save. Individuals, cities, counties, [...]

Chapter 13 (A National Failure To Save): “The next twenty years are going to be completely unlike the last twenty years.” — Dr. Martenson. Chapter 13 begins his explanation for this deeply held belief. On every level of our society, there has been a failure to save. Individuals, cities, counties, states, and corporations have all [...]

Chapter 5 (Growth Vs. Prosperity): Contrary to what we’ve grown used to, growth is not the same thing as prosperity. In fact, growth and prosperity are both dependent on the same thing: surplus. Dr. Martenson explains how we’ve been conditioned to want, and to take, both growth and prosperity; however, we are approaching the limits [...]

Chapter 12 (Debt – Part 1 of 2): Dr. Martenson explains how, since debt is a claim on future money, it is therefore a claim on future human labor. To put it simply, debt is future consumption taken today. Key Concept 7 is introduced, that “ever-growing debts implicitly assume that the future is going to [...]