politicians, economists, executives - all saying the same thing:

The economy is recovering!

Recovering to what?

To its normal state of constant growth.

In the next five minutes we're going to see why they're wrong,

why economic growth is effectively over,

and what that means for the economy, for you

and for your family.

It started centuries ago. There had been economic expansion before but

it was slow and cyclical.

Empires rose and fell.

But with the industrial revolution

rapid growth became normal.

Economists tell us this was because of innovation,

division of labor and increased trade,

but it was mostly a result of cheap energy.

It takes energy to do things and with cheap coal and oil people could

suddenly do more than ever. First coal then oil sped up trade by fueling

our prized inventions:

Railroads,

automobiles and airplanes.

Economists

assumed that growth could go on forever.

It was an absurd notion.

Nobody stopped to think that all this industrial growth was happening on a

small planet with only so much oil and soil,

only so many forests and fish.

We were growing on borrowed time

and we all got hooked on growth.

Rising GDP numbers became our main measure of success.

More, bigger and faster meant better.

The first warning signs came in the 1970s.

A team of scientists programmed a computer with data about population

growth, rising consumption

and resource depletion.

Their conclusion:

There are limits to growth.

Mainstream economists

attacked those findings using nasty rhetorical tricks, but forty years later

the same conclusion holds.

In fact the industrial economies of the world's wealthiest nations

started stagnating years ago as resources began to run out. Governments,

businesses, and households went into hock up to their eyeballs

gorging on easy credit. The financial system created ever more

complex securities and derivatives schemes to soak up all of that debt

and make perpetually rising imaginary profits on imaginary assets.

But money and debt depend on natural resources piling up debt year after year

doubling it then doubling it again meant piling up claims on resources that were

shrinking as we depleted them.

It was a pyramid scheme,

the mother of all bubbles

and in 2008

it burst.

Governments and central banks tried to reinflate the bubble with bailouts and

stimulus packages funded by public debt.

But there are practical limits to debt

and we're hitting them.

There are practical limits to energy sources

and we're hitting them.

There are real limits to the planet's ability to absorb our wastes

and industrial accidents

and we've hit those too.

We're being told that the economy is recovering

but take away new debt the government has taken on since 2008 to

stimulate the economy

and there's been no economic growth.

There is no recovery

it's all being done with more debt.

We've already mortgaged our grandchildren's future

but to keep the economy from relapsing we'll need to borrow even more.

The game is up.

We've reach the end of economic growth as we've known it.

They're lying to you.

But they can't help it

We're all addicted to growth.

We all want better jobs and higher returns on investments

but we live on a finite planet

The end of growth is not the fault of any one politician or political party

but some people benefited from growth more than others.

We can live without economic growth but we will have to start doing a few things

differently.

We have to measure and aim for improvements in life that don't require

increasing our consumption of fossil fuels and other depleting resources

or piling on more debt.

Freedom. Being with the people we love.

Good health and the time to enjoy it.

A secure happy community.

We have to work together to build local economies where we can live and prosper.

But, and this is a big but...

Without cheap fossil fuels and without borrowing from the future.

The longer we put this off

the harder it will be.

Economic growth. It's over.

LET'S MOVE ON.