Böcker av Tim Watkins

Suppose I told you there was a "pin" which burst every major economic bubble of the industrial age. And suppose that "pin" left a signal in data preceding the ensuing economic crash. Suppose that prior to 1929, 1973, 1980, and 2008, that "pin" appeared months and sometimes years before the crisis went mainstream. In Breakdown: The economic impact of peak oil, Tim Watkins argues that the "pin" was a shortage of the world's primary energy source. In 1927, a global coal shortage caused prices to spike upward, raising costs across the economy and - particularly in the USA - bringing the boom of the "roaring twenties" to an end. The 1929 Wall Street crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s followed. In the late 1960s, as US oil production reached its peak, the Texas Railroad Commission cartel lost its ability to fix world prices. As the oil price rose, inflation hit those western states which had been deficit spending on everything from social programs to wars. The consequence was the end of the post-war currency system and the arrival of the OPEC cartel, whose October 1973 oil embargo gave the west - which was a lot less dependent on oil in those days - a taste of how difficult life would be if the oil stopped flowing. In 1979, it was the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War (not St. Paul Volcker) which drove oil prices up, triggering the depression which brought inflation (but not stagnation) to an end.This time is differentThese crises were each temporary. By 1929, the USA was leading the way to the oil age. The developed world would follow between 1945 and 1973. And even with the arrival of OPEC, there was no appetite for depriving the world economy of oil. Indeed, despite the rate of oil production falling after 1973, the volume continued to grow right up to November 2018. But in 2005, conventional crude had peaked, setting in chain the events leading to the 2008 crash... which inadvertently created the conditions for the brief expansion of the US fracking industry. But by the end of 2018, all oil production - including condensates and natural gas liquids - was in decline. Even without the pandemic lockdowns, we would have had a recession. But with growing evidence that we have passed peak oil production, and with no energy-dense alternative power source, not only is a deep recession inevitable, but - barring an energy miracle - the western way of life is over. A shrinking economy is now inevitable.

We dare not talk about this... Politicians dare not discuss it for fear of causing mass panic... North Sea oil and gas production peaked in 1999. The oil bonanza is over - the oil income spent. Britain is once again an energy importer. Worse still, we are increasingly dependent upon imports from the world's trouble spots and hostile regimes - Libya, Nigeria, several Gulf States and Russia.Even worse, successive governments have failed to invest in new electricity generation; let alone a switch from petroleum-powered vehicles. What they have done is closed most of the coal-fired power stations and destroyed the UK coal industry.Just at the point where we - and our EU partners - need to import growing quantities of oil, we face growing competition from fast developing countries such as China and India.Add to these problems the fact that the oil exporting countries are using a growing proportion of their dwindling oil and gas production to grow their own economies, and you have the end of cheap, fossil fuel-based energy.Nobody can predict with any certainty what the world beyond cheap oil will be like. One of the problems with many of the peak-oilers is that they tend to talk about the consequences in apocalyptic terms, as if the entire world will come crashing down around our ears within months of oil production peaking. This is, perhaps, understandable when we consider that the early peak-oilers were oil industry insiders concerned that the world was sleep-walking to a potential catastrophe.One response to this - one I personally hold to - is that if you want to see what a world without cheap oil looks like, go and look out of your window (or look at a newspaper): * A million families using food banks is what a world without cheap oil looks like* The replacement of high-paid/high-skilled employment with low-paid/low-skilled jobs is what a world without cheap oil looks like* The inability of the developed economies to stimulate economic growth is what a world without cheap oil looks like* Governments' (including those pursuing austerity policies) failure to avoid running up massive government debts is what a world without cheap oil looks like * The dramatic slowdown in the Chinese economy (which was meant to be the engine for global growth) is what a world without cheap oil looks like* The multi-trillion pound misallocation of funds to inflate asset bubbles and property speculation (because the real economy has gone into reverse) is what a world without cheap oil looks like.This is, of course, just the beginning. As supplies of cheap fossil fuels dwindle even as humanity's insatiable demand increases exponentially, our life-support systems will begin to fall apart, causing the biggest disaster to hit the UK since the Black Death!

Over the last decade, Tim Watkins has raised more than £600,000 for small charities. He has helped them to develop systems for running their charity effectively. And helped them to win awards in recognition of the work they do.In Smart Fundraising, Tim Watkins shows you the most cost-effective fundraising methods. You will also see how to harness the energy of your supporter, donor and beneficiary networks to develop multiple low-input/high-return funding streams.If you want your charity to survive and thrive, Smart Fundraising is essential reading. (Includes an A to Z of 342 fundraising ideas).

Sheep must think - if they think at all - that the farmer works for them. He feeds them, shears them, protects them. All seems well, now and forever. Until that day when most of the lambs are herded into trucks and driven away..."Only at this point of real and immediate crisis does the consciousness of sheep expand to contemplate the wider picture. Nevertheless, there is no serious resistance. They are now so conditioned that, despite their fears, the sheep walk meekly to their deaths....Of course, we humans are more sophisticated than sheep are we not?"The Western world stands at a crossroads. Threatened by the impacts of overpopulation, climate change, environmental damage, impending energy shortages and the collapse of the global economy, we face some hard choices. Unfortunately, human psychology and neurobiology predispose us to denial where we desperately need clear, rational thought. We need to pull our heads out of the sand and take a long hard look at the looming crises that await us, together with our in-built tendency to trade our future safety for peace of mind.In The Consciousness of Sheep, sociologist Tim Watkins provides a detailed and thoroughly researched explanation of the current predicament of Western civilisation; the ways in which the crises are likely to unfold; and the progressive responses that are beginning to emerge. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in economics, the environment, and the future of the human race. The message is stark but ultimately positive - it is time for us to develop a sustainable way of life for all of humanity.

What is the basis of all of the wealth in our modern global economy?For some it is merely the product of trade in a free market. The followers of Karl Marx, however, have enshrined the belief that all value, wealth and profit is generated by the working class and then stolen by the capitalist elites. The Marxist "Labour Theory of Value" lay at the heart of the communist revolutions that led to conflict and division throughout the twentieth century.Marx was 90 percent correct when he reasoned that one or more of the inputs into production must be paid far less than the value it generates in order to produce profit or "surplus value" at the end. Marx arrived at the bindingly obvious - and entirely wrong - conclusion that this input was labour.What Marx began to see toward the end of his life was that while labour could be exploited, automation meant that something else must be generating surplus value. In The Energy Theory of Value sociologist Tim Watkins argues that the "something else" that Marx missed was energy - in particular the one-time gift (and curse) of fossil carbon fuels.This understanding leads to a very different - and far more urgent - politics for the twenty-first century.

When the Mafia make money they use the same plates, paper and ink as the government. The include the same security features and use the same serial numbers. Even to the most trained eyes this counterfeit currency is physically indistinguishable from the real thing.This being the case, why - exactly - is this Mafia money a crime? Who are its victims? Why should we care?The answers to these questions draw us into the fraud at the heart of our contemporary financial system; a fraud so vast in its scope yet so cleverly disguised that almost all of us treat it as normal while less than one in a million ever sees it. It is the fraud of debt-based money.In The Root of all Evil, social scientist Tim Watkins walks us through the way the debt-based money system operates, and explains the dire consequences that await us if we refuse to change the way our money works.