154-761: The Special Period (Spanish: Período especial ), officially the Special Period in the Time of Peace ( Período especial en tiempos de paz ), was an extended period of economic crisis in Cuba that began in 1991 primarily due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Comecon . The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early to mid-1990s. Things improved towards
308-404: A composting toilet , outhouse or dry bog (rather than a plumbed toilet). Space can be saved in permaculture gardens with techniques such as herb spirals which group plants closely together. A herb spiral, invented by Mollison, is a round cairn of stones packed with earth at the base and sand higher up; sometimes there is a small pond on the south side (in the northern hemisphere). The result
462-449: A currency crisis or balance of payments crisis . When a country fails to pay back its sovereign debt , this is called a sovereign default . While devaluation and default could both be voluntary decisions of the government, they are often perceived to be the involuntary results of a change in investor sentiment that leads to a sudden stop in capital inflows or a sudden increase in capital flight . Several currencies that formed part of
616-847: A kelp forest ecosystem can be established (since kelp needs the cool temperatures and abundant dissolved macronutrients present in such an environment). Microalgae proliferate as well. Marine forest habitat is beneficial for many fish species, and the kelp is a renewable resource for food, animal feed, medicines and various other commercial products. It is also a powerful tool for carbon fixation. The upwelling can be powered by renewable energy on location. Vertical mixing has been reduced due to ocean stratification effects associated with climate change . Reduced vertical mixing and marine heatwaves have decimated seaweed ecosystems in many areas. Marine permaculture mitigates this by restoring some vertical mixing and preserves these important ecosystems. By preserving and regenerating habitat offshore on
770-460: A bank suffers a sudden rush of withdrawals by depositors, this is called a bank run . Since banks lend out most of the cash they receive in deposits (see fractional-reserve banking ), it is difficult for them to quickly pay back all deposits if these are suddenly demanded, so a run renders the bank insolvent, causing customers to lose their deposits, to the extent that they are not covered by deposit insurance. An event in which bank runs are widespread
924-420: A bubble is the presence of buyers who purchase an asset based solely on the expectation that they can later resell it at a higher price, rather than calculating the income it will generate in the future. If there is a bubble, there is also a risk of a crash in asset prices: market participants will go on buying only as long as they expect others to buy, and when many decide to sell the price will fall. However, it
1078-437: A bus could take three hours, power outages could last up to sixteen hours, food consumption was cut back to one-fifth of its previous level and the average Cuban lost about nine kilograms, or 20 pounds. The average daily dietary energy consumption of Cuban citizens during the periods of 1990–92 and 1995–97 were 2720 and 2440 kcal/person/day respectively. By 2003, average caloric intake had risen to 3280 kcal/person/day. According to
1232-513: A challenge to the epistemic norms typically assumed within financial economics and all of empirical finance. The possibility of financial crises being beyond the predictive reach of causality is discussed further within Epistemology of finance . Leverage , which means borrowing to finance investments, is frequently cited as a contributor to financial crises. When a financial institution (or an individual) only invests its own money, it can, in
1386-404: A common building material, emits carbon dioxide and is harmful to the environment while natural building works with the environment, using materials that are biodegradable, such as cob , adobe , rammed earth (unburnt clay), and straw bale (which insulates as well as modern synthetic materials). Trademark and copyright disputes surround the word permaculture. Mollison's books claimed on
1540-517: A consistent feature of both economic (and other applied finance disciplines) is the obvious inability to predict and avert financial crises. This realization raises the question as to what is known and also capable of being known (i.e. the epistemology ) within economics and applied finance. It has been argued that the assumptions of unique, well-defined causal chains being present in economic thinking, models and data, could, in part, explain why financial crises are often inherent and unavoidable. When
1694-399: A few agents encourage others to buy too, not because the true value of the asset increases when many buy (which is called "strategic complementarity"), but because investors come to believe the true asset value is high when they observe others buying. In "herding" models, it is assumed that investors are fully rational, but only have partial information about the economy. In these models, when
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#17327652573921848-445: A few investors buy some type of asset, this reveals that they have some positive information about that asset, which increases the rational incentive of others to buy the asset too. Even though this is a fully rational decision, it may sometimes lead to mistakenly high asset values (implying, eventually, a crash) since the first investors may, by chance, have been mistaken. Herding models, based on Complexity Science , indicate that it
2002-404: A financial crisis. To facilitate his analysis, Minsky defines three approaches that financing firms may choose, according to their tolerance of risk. They are hedge finance, speculative finance, and Ponzi finance. Ponzi finance leads to the most fragility. Financial fragility levels move together with the business cycle . After a recession , firms have lost much financing and choose only hedge,
2156-475: A fixed exchange rate may be stable for a long period of time, but will collapse suddenly in an avalanche of currency sales in response to a sufficient deterioration of government finances or underlying economic conditions. According to some theories, positive feedback implies that the economy can have more than one equilibrium . There may be an equilibrium in which market participants invest heavily in asset markets because they expect assets to be valuable. This
2310-591: A focus on education, healthcare, centralized economic planning, and the mass mobilization of the population. The ideological changes of the Special Period had effects on Cuban society and culture, beyond those on the country. A comprehensive review of these effects concerning ideology, art and popular culture can be found in Ariana Hernandez-Reguant 's Cuba in the Special Period . As a result of increased travel and tourism , popular culture developed in new ways. Lisa Knauer , in that volume, describes
2464-558: A garage into living space, and changing a south side patio into passive solar. Vacant lot farms are community-managed farm sites, but are often seen by authorities as temporary rather than permanent. For example, Los Angeles' South Central Farm (1994–2006), one of the largest urban gardens in the United States, was bulldozed with approval from property owner Ralph Horowitz, despite community protest. The possibilities and challenges for suburban or urban permaculture vary with
2618-402: A general pattern, rather than responding to any local need or desire, many if not most are underutilized, unproductive, and generally maintained as ecologically disastrous lawns by unenthusiastic owners. In this broadest understanding of wasted land, the concept is opened to reveal how our system of urban design gives rise to a ubiquitous pattern of land that, while not usually conceived as vacant,
2772-495: A human environment based on the frequency of human use and plant or animal needs. Frequently manipulated or harvested elements of the design are located close to the house in zones 1 and 2. Manipulated elements located further away are used less frequently. Zones are numbered from 0 to 5 based on positioning. The edge effect in ecology is the increased diversity that results when two habitats meet. Permaculturists argue that these places can be highly productive. An example of this
2926-405: A large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics , and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles , currency crises , and sovereign defaults . Financial crises directly result in
3080-411: A loss of paper wealth but do not necessarily result in significant changes in the real economy (for example, the crisis resulting from the famous tulip mania bubble in the 17th century). Many economists have offered theories about how financial crises develop and how they could be prevented. There is little consensus and financial crises continue to occur from time to time. It is apparent however that
3234-453: A permaculture farm in Cuba began with 9 tiger worms in 2001 and 15 years later had a population of over 500,000. The worm castings are particularly useful as part of a seed starting mix and regular fertilizer. Worm castings are reportedly more successful than conventional compost for seed starting. Sewage or blackwater contains human or animal waste . It can be composted , producing biogas and manure. Human waste can be sourced from
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#17327652573923388-645: A platform, marine permaculture employs natural processes to regenerate marine life. Grazing is blamed for much destruction. However, when grazing is modeled after nature, it can have the opposite effect. Cell grazing is a system of grazing in which herds or flocks are regularly and systematically moved to fresh range with the intent to maximize forage quality and quantity. Sepp Holzer and Joel Salatin have shown how grazing can start ecological succession or prepare ground for planting. Allan Savory 's holistic management technique has been likened to "a permaculture approach to rangeland management ". One variation
3542-469: A poor economy, there were many crumbling buildings that could not be repaired. These were torn down and the empty lots lay idle for years until the food shortages forced Cuban citizens to make use of every piece of land. Initially, this was an ad-hoc process where ordinary Cubans took the initiative to grow their own food in any available piece of land. The government encouraged this practice and later assisted in promoting it. Urban gardens sprang up throughout
3696-455: A result of these transnational exchanges. In recent years, that is, not in the 1990s which is the period identified with the Special Period, reggaeton has replaced timba as the genre of choice among youth, taking on the explicitly sexual dance moves that originated with timba. Whereas timba music was a Cuban genre that evolved out of traditional song and jazz, emphasizing blackness and sexuality through sensual dancing and lyrics that reflected
3850-487: A result, the implementation of permaculture design will vary widely depending on the region of the Earth it is located in. Because permaculture's implementation is so localized and place specific, scientific literature for the field is lacking or not always applicable. Design principles derive from the science of systems ecology and the study of pre-industrial examples of sustainable land use. A core theme of permaculture
4004-701: A risk of sovereign default due to fluctuations in exchange rates. Many analyses of financial crises emphasize the role of investment mistakes caused by lack of knowledge or the imperfections of human reasoning. Behavioural finance studies errors in economic and quantitative reasoning. Psychologist Torbjorn K A Eliazon has also analyzed failures of economic reasoning in his concept of 'œcopathy'. Historians, notably Charles P. Kindleberger , have pointed out that crises often follow soon after major financial or technical innovations that present investors with new types of financial opportunities, which he called "displacements" of investors' expectations. Early examples include
4158-411: A situation when the participants in an exchange market come to recognize that a pegged exchange rate is about to fail, causing speculation against the peg that hastens the failure and forces a devaluation . A speculative bubble (also called a financial bubble or an economic bubble) exists in the event of large, sustained overpricing of some class of assets. One factor that frequently contributes to
4312-428: A small profit could be made with little or no capital. However, when interest rates changed and the incentive for the flow was removed or reversed sudden changes in capital flows could occur. The subjects of investment might be starved of cash possibly becoming insolvent and creating a credit crunch and the loaning banks would be left with defaulting investors leading to a banking crisis. As Charles Read has pointed out,
4466-579: A speech to the Federation of Cuban Women in which he stated that the "special period in times of war" had been studied in the event of a total U.S. blockade of Cuba, and that if serious problems in the Soviet Union led to a disruption of oil supplies, it would lead to a "special period in times of peace". As instability increased in the Soviet Union, later in 1990 Castro stated that Cuba was now entering that special period in time of peace. In 1991,
4620-505: A stoppage in oil exports from the former Eastern Bloc . In response, the Cuban government implemented a series of austerity policies. The Cuban government eliminated 15 ministries, and cut defense spending by 86%. During this time, the government maintained and increased spending on various forms of welfare , such as healthcare and social services. From 1990 to 1994, the share of gross domestic product spent on healthcare increased 13%, and
4774-625: A trademark for the word permaculture . Permaculture has been criticised as being poorly defined and unscientific. Critics have pushed for less reliance on anecdote and extrapolation from ecological first principles, in favor of peer-reviewed research to substantiate productivity claims and to clarify methodology. Peter Harper from the Centre for Alternative Technology suggests that most of what passes for permaculture has no relevance to real problems. Harper notes that British organic farmers are "embarrassed or openly derisive" of permaculture, while
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4928-417: A weighted average of monthly percentage depreciations in the exchange rate and monthly percentage declines in exchange reserves exceeds its mean by more than three standard deviations. Frankel and Rose (1996) define a currency crisis as a nominal depreciation of a currency of at least 25% but it is also defined as at least a 10% increase in the rate of depreciation. In general, a currency crisis can be defined as
5082-597: Is conservation grazing , where the primary purpose of the animals is to benefit the environment and the animals are not necessarily used for meat, milk or fiber. Sheep can replace lawn mowers. Goats and sheep can eat invasive plants. Natural building involves using a range of building systems and materials that apply permaculture principles. The focus is on durability and the use of minimally processed, plentiful, or renewable resources , as well as those that, while recycled or salvaged, produce healthy living environments and maintain indoor air quality. For example, cement,
5236-552: Is "scientific evidence for all twelve [of Holmgren's] principles". In 2017, Ferguson and Lovell presented sociological and demographic data from 36 self-described American permaculture farms. The farms were well diversified, with a median effective number of enterprises per farm of 3.6 (out of a maximum of 6 in the analysis method used). Business strategies included small mixed farms, integrated producers of perennial and animal crops, mixes of production and services, livestock, and service-based businesses. Median household income ($ 38,750)
5390-458: Is a coast. Where land and sea meet is a rich area that meets a disproportionate percentage of human and animal needs. This idea is reflected in permacultural designs by using spirals in herb gardens, or creating ponds that have wavy undulating shorelines rather than a simple circle or oval (thereby increasing the amount of edge for a given area). On the other hand, in a keyhole bed, edges are minimized to avoid wasting space and effort. Hügelkultur
5544-412: Is a common practice in permaculture. The practice involves using earthworms , such as red wigglers , to break down green and brown waste . The worms produce worm castings, which can be used to organically fertilize the garden. Worms are also introduced to garden beds, helping to aerate the soil and improve water retention . Worms may multiply quickly if provided conditions are ideal. For example,
5698-1221: Is a gardening technique that attempts to mimic the leaf cover that is found on forest floors. Edward Faulkner's 1943 book Plowman's Folly , King's 1946 pamphlet "Is Digging Necessary?", A. Guest's 1948 book "Gardening without Digging", and Fukuoka's " Do Nothing Farming " all advocated forms of no-till or no-dig gardening. No-till gardening seeks to minimise disturbance to the soil community so as to maintain soil structure and organic matter. Low-effort permaculture favours perennial crops which do not require tilling and planting every year. Annual crops inevitably require more cultivation. They can be incorporated into permaculture by using traditional techniques such as crop rotation , intercropping , and companion planting so that pests and weeds of individual annual crop species do not build up, and minerals used by specific crop plants do not become successively depleted. Companion planting aims to make use of beneficial interactions between species of cultivated plants. Such interactions include pest control , pollination , providing habitat for beneficial insects , and maximizing use of space; all of these may help to increase productivity. Rainwater harvesting
5852-620: Is a mutually beneficial group of species that form a part of the larger ecosystem. Within a guild each species of insect or plant provides a unique set of diverse services that work in harmony. Plants may be grown for food production, drawing nutrients from deep in the soil through tap roots, balancing nitrogen levels in the soil ( legumes ), for attracting beneficial insects to the garden, and repelling undesirable insects or pests. There are several types of guilds, such as community function guilds, mutual support guilds, and resource partitioning guilds. Zones intelligently organize design elements in
6006-674: Is a series of microclimate zones, wetter at the base, drier at the top, warmer and sunnier on the south side, cooler and drier to the north. Each herb is planted in the zone best suited to it. Domesticated animals are often incorporated into site design. Activities that contribute to the system include: foraging to cycle nutrients, clearing fallen fruit, weed maintenance, spreading seeds, and pest maintenance. Nutrients are cycled by animals, transformed from their less digestible form (such as grass or twigs) into more nutrient-dense manure. Multiple animals can contribute, including cows, goats, chickens, geese, turkey, rabbits, and worms. An example
6160-613: Is based on the work of Thomas Tooke , Thomas Attwood , Henry Thornton , William Jevons and a number of bankers opposed to the Bank Charter Act 1844 . Starting at a time when short-term interest rates are low, frustration builds up among investors who search for a better yield in countries and locations with higher rates, leading to increased capital flows to countries with higher rates. Internally, short-term rates rise above long-term rates causing failures where borrowing at short term rates has been used to invest long-term where
6314-528: Is called a recession . An especially prolonged or severe recession may be called a depression , while a long period of slow but not necessarily negative growth is sometimes called economic stagnation . Some economists argue that many recessions have been caused in large part by financial crises. One important example is the Great Depression , which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. The subprime mortgage crisis and
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6468-513: Is called a systemic banking crisis or banking panic . Examples of bank runs include the run on the Bank of the United States in 1931 and the run on Northern Rock in 2007. Banking crises generally occur after periods of risky lending and resulting loan defaults. A currency crisis, also called a devaluation crisis, is normally considered as part of a financial crisis. Kaminsky et al. (1998), for instance, define currency crises as occurring when
6622-555: Is chickens who can be used to scratch over the soil, thus breaking down the topsoil and using fecal matter as manure. Factors such as timing and habits are critical. For example, animals require much more daily attention than plants. Masanobu Fukuoka experimented with no-pruning methods on his family farm in Japan, finding that trees which were never pruned could grow well, whereas previously-pruned trees often died when allowed to grow without further pruning. He felt that this reflected
6776-485: Is difficult to predict whether an asset's price actually equals its fundamental value, so it is hard to detect bubbles reliably. Some economists insist that bubbles never or almost never occur. Well-known examples of bubbles (or purported bubbles) and crashes in stock prices and other asset prices include the 17th century Dutch tulip mania , the 18th century South Sea Bubble , the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ,
6930-432: Is imported from abroad. Initially, this was a very difficult situation for Cubans to accept; many came home from studying abroad to find that there were no jobs in their fields. It was pure survival that motivated them to continue and contribute to survive through this crisis. The documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil , states that today, farmers make more money than most other occupations. Due to
7084-449: Is in fact largely without ecological or social value. Permaculture derives its origin from agriculture, although the same principles, especially its foundational ethics, can also be applied to mariculture , particularly seaweed farming . In Marine Permaculture , artificial upwelling of cold, deep ocean water is induced. When an attachment substrate is provided in association with such an upwelling, and kelp sporophytes are present,
7238-509: Is making sure institutions have sufficient assets to meet their contractual obligations, through reserve requirements , capital requirements , and other limits on leverage . Some financial crises have been blamed on insufficient regulation, and have led to changes in regulation in order to avoid a repeat. For example, the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund , Dominique Strauss-Kahn , has blamed
7392-477: Is not yet a mainstream scientific tradition and lacks the resources of mainstream industrial agriculture. Rafter Ferguson and Sarah Lovell point out that permaculturalists rarely engage with mainstream research in agroecology , agroforestry , or ecological engineering , and claim that mainstream science has an elitist or pro-corporate bias. Julius Krebs and Sonja Bach argue in Sustainability that there
7546-501: Is scarce, potentially aggravating a financial crisis. International regulatory convergence has been interpreted in terms of regulatory herding, deepening market herding (discussed above) and so increasing systemic risk. From this perspective, maintaining diverse regulatory regimes would be a safeguard. Fraud has played a role in the collapse of some financial institutions, when companies have attracted depositors with misleading claims about their investment strategies, or have embezzled
7700-571: Is taxed by government and returned to the mass of people in the form of welfare, family benefits and health and education spending; and secondly, the proportion of the population who are workers rather than investors/business owners. Given the extraordinary capital expenditure required to enter modern economic sectors like airline transport, the military industry, or chemical production, these sectors are extremely difficult for new businesses to enter and are being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Empirical and econometric research continues especially in
7854-530: Is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves. - Bill Mollison Holmgren articulated twelve permaculture design principles in his Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability : A guild
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#17327652573928008-453: Is the accumulation and storage of rainwater for reuse before it runs off or reaches the aquifer . It has been used to provide drinking water , water for livestock, and water for irrigation , as well as other typical uses. Rainwater collected from the roofs of houses and local institutions can make an important contribution to the availability of drinking water. It can supplement the water table and increase urban greenery. Water collected from
8162-752: Is the efficient utilization of space. Wildfire journal suggests using methods such as the keyhole garden which require little space. Neighbors can collaborate to increase the scale of transformation, using sites such as recreation centers, neighborhood associations, city programs, faith groups, and schools. Columbia, an ecovillage in Portland, Oregon , consisting of 37 apartment condominiums, influenced its neighbors to implement permaculture principles, including in front-yard gardens. Suburban permaculture sites such as one in Eugene, Oregon , include rainwater catchment, edible landscaping, removing paved driveways, turning
8316-404: Is the idea of "people care". Seeking prosperity begins within a local community or culture that can apply the tenets of permaculture to sustain an environment that supports them and vice versa. This is in contrast to typical modern industrialized societies, where locality and generational knowledge is often overlooked in the pursuit of wealth or other forms of societal leverage. The tragic reality
8470-461: Is the internal structure of the market, not external influences, which is primarily responsible for crashes. In "adaptive learning" or "adaptive expectations" models, investors are assumed to be imperfectly rational, basing their reasoning only on recent experience. In such models, if the price of a given asset rises for some period of time, investors may begin to believe that its price always rises, which increases their tendency to buy and thus drives
8624-527: Is the practice of burying wood to increase soil water retention. The porous structure of wood acts like a sponge when decomposing underground. During the rainy season, sufficient buried wood can absorb enough water to sustain crops through the dry season. This technique is a traditional practice that has been developed over centuries in Europe and has been recently adopted by permaculturalists. The Hügelkultur technique can be implemented through building mounds on
8778-658: Is the type of argument underlying Diamond and Dybvig's model of bank runs , in which savers withdraw their assets from the bank because they expect others to withdraw too. Likewise, in Obstfeld's model of currency crises , when economic conditions are neither too bad nor too good, there are two possible outcomes: speculators may or may not decide to attack the currency depending on what they expect other speculators to do. A variety of models have been developed in which asset values may spiral excessively up or down as investors learn from each other. In these models, asset purchases by
8932-487: The Australian government . Downtown Havana kiosks provided advice and resources for individual residents. Widespread farmers' markets gave easy access to locally grown produce; less travel time required less energy use. During the Special Period, Cuba experienced a period of widespread food insecurity . In academic circles, there is debate over whether such insecurity constitutes a famine . The primary cause of this
9086-1074: The Centre for Alternative Technology suggests that most of what passes for permaculture has no relevance to real problems. Defenders of permaculture reply that researchers have concluded it to be a “sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture,” that it “strongly” enhances carbon stocks, soil quality, and biodiversity, making it “an effective tool to promote sustainable agriculture, ensure sustainable production patterns, combat climate change and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss.” They further point out that most of permaculture’s most common methods, such as agroforestry, polycultures, and water harvesting features are also backed by peer-reviewed research. In 1911, Franklin Hiram King wrote Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan , describing farming practices of East Asia designed for "permanent agriculture". In 1929, Joseph Russell Smith appended King's term as
9240-488: The Cuban government . The Cuban government was also forced to contract out more lucrative economic and tourism deals with various Western European and South American nations in an attempt to earn the foreign currency necessary to replace the lost Soviet petroleum via the international markets. Additionally faced with a near-elimination of imported steel and other ore -based supplies, Cuba closed refineries and factories across
9394-626: The European Exchange Rate Mechanism suffered crises in 1992–93 and were forced to devalue or withdraw from the mechanism. Another round of currency crises took place in Asia in 1997–98 . Many Latin American countries defaulted on their debt in the early 1980s. The 1998 Russian financial crisis resulted in a devaluation of the ruble and default on Russian government bonds. Negative GDP growth lasting two or more quarters
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#17327652573929548-516: The Japanese property bubble of the 1980s, and the crash of the United States housing bubble during 2006–2008. The 2000s sparked a real estate bubble where housing prices were increasing significantly as an asset good. When a country that maintains a fixed exchange rate is suddenly forced to devalue its currency due to accruing an unsustainable current account deficit, this is called
9702-519: The South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Bubble of 1720, which occurred when the notion of investment in shares of company stock was itself new and unfamiliar, and the Crash of 1929 , which followed the introduction of new electrical and transportation technologies. More recently, many financial crises followed changes in the investment environment brought about by financial deregulation , and
9856-775: The Tao -philosophy of Wú wéi , meaning no action against nature or "do-nothing" farming. He claimed yields comparable to intensive arboriculture with pruning and chemical fertilisation. Agroforestry uses the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops or livestock. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems. Trees or shrubs are intentionally used within agricultural systems, or non-timber forest products are cultured in forest settings. Forest gardens or food forests are permaculture systems designed to mimic natural forests. Forest gardens incorporate processes and relationships that
10010-487: The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that daily nutritional intake fell from 3,052 calories (12,770 kJ) per day in 1989 to 2,099 calories (8,780 kJ) per day in 1993. Other reports indicate even lower figures, 1,863 calories (7,790 kJ) per day. Some estimates indicate that the very old and children consumed only 1,450 calories (6,100 kJ) per day. FAO statistics show that
10164-577: The copyright page , "The contents of this book and the word PERMACULTURE are copyright." Eventually Mollison acknowledged that he was mistaken and that no copyright protection existed. In 2000, Mollison's U.S.-based Permaculture Institute sought a service mark for the word permaculture when used in educational services such as conducting classes, seminars, or workshops. The service mark would have allowed Mollison and his two institutes to set enforceable guidelines regarding how permaculture could be taught and who could teach it, particularly with relation to
10318-712: The financial crisis of 2007–2008 on 'regulatory failure to guard against excessive risk-taking in the financial system, especially in the US'. Likewise, the New York Times singled out the deregulation of credit default swaps as a cause of the crisis. However, excessive regulation has also been cited as a possible cause of financial crises. In particular, the Basel II Accord has been criticized for requiring banks to increase their capital when risks rise, which might cause them to decrease lending precisely when capital
10472-649: The socialist Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998. From the start of the crisis to 1995, Cuba saw its gross domestic product shrink 35%, and it took another five years for it to reach pre-crisis levels, comparable to the length seen during the Great Recession in the United States , and five years shorter than the time it took in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union . Agricultural production fell 47%, construction fell by 75%, and manufacturing capacity fell 90%. Much of this decline stemmed from
10626-411: The stock market (" margin buying ") became increasingly common prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 . Another factor believed to contribute to financial crises is asset-liability mismatch , a situation in which the risks associated with an institution's debts and assets are not appropriately aligned. For example, commercial banks offer deposit accounts that can be withdrawn at any time, and they use
10780-422: The world systems theory and in the debate about Nikolai Kondratiev and the so-called 50-years Kondratiev waves . Major figures of world systems theory, like Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein , consistently warned about the crash that the world economy is now facing. World systems scholars and Kondratiev cycle researchers always implied that Washington Consensus oriented economists never understood
10934-739: The 1930s. Another pioneer, George Washington Carver , advocated for practices now common in permaculture, including the use of crop rotation to restore nitrogen to the soil and repair damaged farmland, in his work at the Tuskegee Institute between 1896 and his death in 1947. In his 1964 book Water for Every Farm , the Australian agronomist and engineer P. A. Yeomans advanced a definition of permanent agriculture as one that can be sustained indefinitely. Yeomans introduced both an observation-based approach to land use in Australia in
11088-671: The 1940s and in the 1950s the Keyline Design as a way of managing the supply and distribution of water in semi-arid regions. Other early influences include Stewart Brand 's works, Ruth Stout and Esther Deans , who pioneered no-dig gardening , and Masanobu Fukuoka who, in the late 1930s in Japan, began advocating no-till orchards and gardens and natural farming . In the late 1960s, Bill Mollison , senior lecturer in Environmental Psychology at University of Tasmania , and David Holmgren , graduate student at
11242-447: The 1988 publication of his global reference work, Permaculture: A Designers Manual . Mollison encouraged graduates to become teachers and set up their own institutes and demonstration sites. Critics suggest that this success weakened permaculture's social aspirations of moving away from industrial social forms. They argue that the self-help model (akin to franchising ) has had the effect of creating market-focused social relationships that
11396-491: The 2008 subprime mortgage crisis ; government officials stated on 23 September 2008 that the FBI was looking into possible fraud by mortgage financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , Lehman Brothers , and insurer American International Group . Likewise it has been argued that many financial companies failed in the recent crisis because their managers failed to carry out their fiduciary duties. Contagion refers to
11550-479: The 21st century. Power cuts were scheduled evenly during the Special Period, reflecting the Cuban government's view that electricity should be evenly distributed across the population. During the Special Period, indicators of Cuban health showed a mixed impact. The Cuban health system was impaired. However, unlike Russia, which saw a significant drop in life expectancy during the 1990s, Cuba actually saw an increase, from 75.0 years in 1990 to 75.6 years in 1999. During
11704-667: The Cuban diet. In a shift notable for being generally anathema to Latin American food habits, the people of the island by necessity adopted diets higher in fiber , fresh produce, and ultimately more vegan in character. No longer needing sugar as desperately for a cash crop —the oil-for-sugar program the Soviets had contracted with Cuba had, of course, dissipated—Cuba hurriedly diversified its agricultural production, utilizing former cane fields to grow consumables such as oranges and other fruit and vegetables. The Cuban government also focused more intensely on cooperation with Venezuela once
11858-477: The Cuban opposition could come to asserting itself decisively. In response to the Maleconazo, Raúl Castro reinstated farmers markets. In these markets, farmers could sell surplus produce to the state to fulfill quotas. Though farmers were now incentivized to turn a profit on their crops, the markets they participated in were still heavily regulated and taxed. This, along with the price restrictions, ensured that
12012-565: The FAO, the average minimum daily energy requirement is about 1,800 kilocalories (7,500 kJ) per person. Thousands of Cubans protested in Havana on 5 August 1994, some chanting " Libertad! " ("Freedom!"). The protest, in which some protesters threw rocks at police, was dispersed by the police after a few hours. A paper published in the Journal of Democracy argued that this was the closest that
12166-553: The Indian subcontinent and southern Africa. By the early 1980s, the concept had broadened from agricultural systems towards sustainable human habitats and at the 1st Intl. Permaculture Convergence, a gathering of graduates of the PDC held in Australia, the curriculum was formalized and its format shortened to two weeks. After Permaculture One , Mollison further refined and developed the ideas while designing hundreds of properties. This led to
12320-475: The PDC, despite the fact that he had been certifying teachers since 1993. This attempt failed and was abandoned in 2001. Mollison's application for trademarks in Australia for the terms "Permaculture Design Course" and "Permaculture Design" was withdrawn in 2003. In 2009 he sought a trademark for "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual" and "Introduction to Permaculture", the names of two of his books. These applications were withdrawn in 2011. Australia has never authorized
12474-509: The Soviet Union collapsed , resulting in a large-scale economic collapse throughout the newly independent states which once comprised it. During its existence, the Soviet Union provided Cuba with large amounts of oil , food, and machinery. In the years following the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba's gross domestic product shrank 35%, imports and exports both fell over 80%, and many domestic industries shrank considerably. Food and weapon imports stopped or severely slowed. The largest immediate impact
12628-441: The Soviet Union, like Perestroika . The Cuban economy faced a decline in production after the implementation of the reforms. The idea of a "special period" became a concept in Cuban political discourse in the 1980s. It was first used in the context of national defense planning to describe a scenario in which an invasion by the United States might force Cuba into a state of emergency and national siege. In 1990, Fidel Castro delivered
12782-493: The Special Period resulted in increased levels of physical activity and decreased obesity levels. A paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology , says that "during 1997–2002, there were declines in deaths attributed to diabetes (51%), coronary heart disease (35%), stroke (20%), and all causes (18%). An outbreak of neuropathy and a modest increase in the all-cause death rate among the elderly were also observed." This
12936-483: The Special Period, child mortality rates also dropped. One researcher from Johns Hopkins described the Special Period as "the first, and probably the only, natural experiment, born of unfortunate circumstances, where large effects on diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality have been related to sustained population-wide weight loss as a result of increased physical activity and reduced caloric intake". The changes to travel patterns and food consumption during
13090-415: The actual risks in the economy and stop giving credit so easily. Refinancing becomes impossible for many, and more firms default. If no new money comes into the economy to allow the refinancing process, a real economic crisis begins. During the recession, firms start to hedge again, and the cycle is closed. The Banking School theory of crises describes a continuous cycle driven by varying interest rates. It
13244-441: The attention of foreign scholars and journalists. Eventually, rappers were offered a space within state cultural networks. The lack of resources to purchase the electronic equipment to produce beats and tracks gives Cuban rap a raw feel that paralleled that of " old school " music in the US. Economic crisis Heterodox A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose
13398-430: The average daily dietary energy consumption of Cuban citizens during the periods of 1990–92 and 1995–97 were 2720 and 2440 kcal/person/day respectively. By 2003 average caloric intake had risen to 3280 kcal/person/day. According to the United States Department of Agriculture , the recommended minimum ranges from 2,100 to 2,300 kcal/person/day Immediate actions taken by the government included televising an announcement of
13552-413: The beneficial use of water resources. It was developed in Australia by farmer and engineer P. A. Yeomans . Keyline refers to a contour line extending in both directions from a keypoint. Plowing above and below the keyline provides a watercourse that directs water away from a purely downhill course to reduce erosion and encourage infiltration. It is used in designing drainage systems. Vermicomposting
13706-506: The built environment around the world. For example, land is used more ecologically in Jaisalmer , India than in American planned cities such as Los Angeles: the application of universal rules regarding setbacks from roads and property lines systematically creates unused and purposeless space as an integral part of the built landscape, well beyond the classic image of the vacant lot. ... Because these spaces are created in accordance with
13860-468: The bursting of other real estate bubbles around the world also led to recession in the U.S. and a number of other countries in late 2008 and 2009. Some economists argue that financial crises are caused by recessions instead of the other way around, and that even where a financial crisis is the initial shock that sets off a recession, other factors may be more important in prolonging the recession. In particular, Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz argued that
14014-444: The capital of Havana and other urban centers on roof-tops, patios, and unused parking lots in raised beds as well as "squatting" on empty lots. These efforts were furthered by Australian specialists who were invited to the island in 1993 to teach permaculture , a sustainable agricultural system, and to " train the trainers ", establishing a long-running NGO partnerships program of community engagement and capacity building funded by
14168-628: The circular relationships often evident in social systems between cause and effect – and relates to the property of self-referencing in financial markets. George Soros has been a proponent of the reflexivity paradigm surrounding financial crises. Similarly, John Maynard Keynes compared financial markets to a beauty contest game in which each participant tries to predict which model other participants will consider most beautiful. Furthermore, in many cases, investors have incentives to coordinate their choices. For example, someone who thinks other investors want to heavily buy Japanese yen may expect
14322-441: The circulation of rumba between New York and Havana, and their mutual influences. Antonio Eligio Tonel has described the contemporary art networks that shaped the Cuban art market, and Esther Whitfield the channels through which Cuban literature accessed the wider Spanish-speaking world during that period. Elsewhere, Deborah Pacini , Marc Perry , Geoffrey Baker and Sujatha Fernandes extensively wrote about Cuban rap music as
14476-573: The cost of goods would not escalate as it did in the 1980s. During the early years of the crisis, United States law allowed humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicine by private groups. Then in March 1996, the Helms–Burton Act imposed further penalties on foreign companies doing business in Cuba, and allowed U.S. citizens to sue foreign investors who use American-owned property seized by
14630-620: The country, eliminating the country's industrial arm and millions of jobs. The government then proceeded to replace these lost jobs with employment in industrial agriculture and other homegrown initiatives, but these jobs often did not pay as well, and Cubans on the whole became economically poorer. Alternative transport, most notably the Cuban "camels", immense 18-wheeler tractor trailers retrofitted as passenger buses meant to carry hundreds of Cubans each, flourished. Food-wise, meat and dairy products, having been extremely fossil fuel dependent in their former factory farming methods, soon diminished in
14784-416: The crash of the dot com bubble in 2001 arguably began with "irrational exuberance" about Internet technology. Unfamiliarity with recent technical and financial innovations may help explain how investors sometimes grossly overestimate asset values. Also, if the first investors in a new class of assets (for example, stock in "dot com" companies) profit from rising asset values as other investors learn about
14938-415: The current financial system . Permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems . It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking . It applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture , town planning, rewilding , and community resilience . The term
15092-448: The cycle restarts from the beginning. Mathematical approaches to modeling financial crises have emphasized that there is often positive feedback between market participants' decisions (see strategic complementarity ). Positive feedback implies that there may be dramatic changes in asset values in response to small changes in economic fundamentals. For example, some models of currency crises (including that of Paul Krugman ) imply that
15246-413: The dangers and perils, which leading industrial nations will be facing and are now facing at the end of the long economic cycle which began after the oil crisis of 1973. Hyman Minsky has proposed a post-Keynesian explanation that is most applicable to a closed economy. He theorized that financial fragility is a typical feature of any capitalist economy . High fragility leads to a higher risk of
15400-423: The designers understand to be valuable in natural ecosystems. A mature forest ecosystem is organised into layers with constituents such as trees, understory , ground cover , soil , fungi, insects, and other animals. Because plants grow to different heights, a diverse community of organisms can occupy a relatively small space, each at a different layer. The fundamental element of suburban and urban permaculture
15554-458: The development of squatters camps in the city. These squatters, offensively termed "Palestinos" in homage to Palestinian refugees , were officially denied welfare rights because they had no formal home address. Cubans were accustomed to cars as a convenient mode of transport. It was a difficult shift during the Special Period to adjust to a new way of managing the transport of thousands of people to school, to work and to other daily activities. With
15708-530: The economy, as it necessitated the introduction of organic agriculture , decreased use of automobiles, and overhauled industry, health, and diet countrywide. People were forced to live without many goods and services that had been available since the beginning of the 20th century. Beginning in 1986, Cuba underwent a series of economic reforms known as the "Rectification process", that aimed at heavily regulating private businesses, and ending free markets in Cuba. The reforms were conducted in reaction against reforms in
15862-552: The economy. These theoretical ideas include the ' financial accelerator ', ' flight to quality ' and ' flight to liquidity ', and the Kiyotaki-Moore model . Some 'third generation' models of currency crises explore how currency crises and banking crises together can cause recessions. Austrian School economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek discussed the business cycle starting with Mises' Theory of Money and Credit , published in 1912. Recurrent major depressions in
16016-495: The end of the decade once Hugo Chávez 's Venezuela emerged as Cuba's primary trading partner and diplomatic ally, and especially after the year 2000 once Cuba–Russia relations improved under the presidency of Vladimir Putin . Privations during the Special Period included extreme reductions of rationed foods at state-subsidized prices, severe energy shortages, and the shrinking of an economy forcibly overdependent on Soviet imports. The period radically transformed Cuban society and
16170-458: The expected energy crisis a week before the USSR notified the Cuban government that they would not be delivering the expected quota of crude oil . Citizens were asked to reduce their consumption in all areas and to use public transport and carpooling . As time went on, the administration developed more structured strategies to manage the long-term energy/economic crisis as it stretched into
16324-408: The form of wages) than the value of the goods produced by those workers (i.e. the amount of money the products are sold for). This profit first goes towards covering the initial investment in the business. In the long-run, however, when one considers the combined economic activity of all successfully-operating business, it is clear that less money (in the form of wages) is being returned to the mass of
16478-459: The funds cannot be liquidated quickly (a similar mechanism was implicated in the March 2023 failure of SVB Bank ). Internationally, arbitrage and the need to stop capital flows, which caused bullion drains in the gold standard of the nineteenth century and drains of foreign capital later, bring interest rates in the low-rate country up to equal those in the country which is the subject of investment. The capital flows reverse or cease suddenly causing
16632-411: The ground as well as in raised garden beds . In raised beds, the practice "imitates natural nutrient cycling found in wood decomposition and the high water-holding capacities of organic detritus, while also improving bed structure and drainage properties." This is done by placing wood material (e.g. logs and sticks) in the bottom of the bed before piling organic soil and compost on top. A study comparing
16786-422: The ground, sometimes from areas which are specially prepared for this purpose, is called stormwater harvesting . Greywater is wastewater generated from domestic activities such as laundry, dishwashing, and bathing, which can be recycled for uses such as landscape irrigation and constructed wetlands . Greywater is largely sterile, but not potable (drinkable). Keyline design is a technique for maximizing
16940-442: The idea that financial crises may spread from one institution to another, as when a bank run spreads from a few banks to many others, or from one country to another, as when currency crises, sovereign defaults, or stock market crashes spread across countries. When the failure of one particular financial institution threatens the stability of many other institutions, this is called systemic risk . One widely cited example of contagion
17094-506: The initial economic decline associated with the crash of 1929 and the bank panics of the 1930s would not have turned into a prolonged depression if it had not been reinforced by monetary policy mistakes on the part of the Federal Reserve, a position supported by Ben Bernanke . It is often observed that successful investment requires each investor in a financial market to guess what other investors will do. Reflexivity refers to
17248-504: The innovation (in our example, as others learn about the potential of the Internet), then still more others may follow their example, driving the price even higher as they rush to buy in hopes of similar profits. If such " herd behaviour " causes prices to spiral up far above the true value of the assets, a crash may become inevitable. If for any reason the price briefly falls, so that investors realize that further gains are not assured, then
17402-503: The island by the USSR; this resulted in a decrease in Cuban consumption by 20% of its previous level within two years. The effect of this was severe, with many Cuban industries being unable to run without petroleum. Entirely dependent on fossil fuels to operate, the major underpinnings of Cuban society—its transport, industrial and agricultural systems—were paralyzed. There were extensive losses of productivity in both Cuban agriculture , which
17556-575: The local environment. Permaculture maximizes synergy of the final design. The focus of permaculture, therefore, is not on individual elements, but rather on the relationships among them. The aim is for the whole to become greater than the sum of its parts , minimizing waste , human labour, and energy input, and to and maximize benefits through synergy . Permaculture design is founded in replicating or imitating natural patterns found in ecosystems because these solutions have emerged through evolution over thousands of years and have proven to be effective. As
17710-518: The modern equivalent of this process involves the Carry Trade, see Carry (investment) . Some financial crises have little effect outside of the financial sector, like the Wall Street crash of 1987 , but other crises are believed to have played a role in decreasing growth in the rest of the economy. There are many theories why a financial crisis could have a recessionary effect on the rest of
17864-428: The money they lend. Therefore, they are ready to lend to firms without full guarantees of success. Lenders know that such firms will have problems repaying. Still, they believe these firms will refinance from elsewhere as their expected profits rise. This is Ponzi financing. In this way, the economy has taken on much risky credit. Now it is only a question of time before some big firm actually defaults. Lenders understand
18018-532: The ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s because both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed and priority was given to the elite classes and the military." Other reports painted an equally dismal picture, describing Cubans having to resort to eating anything they could find, from Havana Zoo animals to domestic cats. Food rationing
18172-442: The ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military. In North Korea, 3%–5% of the population died; in Cuba the death rate among the elderly increased by 20% from 1982 to 1993". The cost of producing cement and
18326-471: The originators initially opposed. The ethics on which permaculture builds are: Mollison's 1988 formulation of the third ethic was restated by Holmgren in 2002 as "Set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus" and is elsewhere condensed to " share the surplus" . Permaculture emphasizes patterns of landscape , function, and species assemblies. It determines where these elements should be placed so they can provide maximum benefit to
18480-411: The permaculture expert Robert Kourik found the supposed advantages of "less- or no-work gardening, bountiful yields, and the soft fuzzy glow of knowing that the garden will ... live on without you" were often illusory. Harper found "many permacultures" are based on ideas ranging from practical farming techniques to "bullshit ... no more than charming cultural graces." Defenders respond that permaculture
18634-410: The population (the workers) than is available to them to buy all of these goods being produced. Furthermore, the expansion of businesses in the process of competing for markets leads to an abundance of goods and a general fall in their prices, further exacerbating the tendency for the rate of profit to fall . The viability of this theory depends upon two main factors: firstly, the degree to which profit
18788-408: The population's enthusiasm for socialism. The effort for ideological revitalization began after Elián González 's return, because his return was seen as a breakthrough diplomatic success, after years of crisis and internal decline. Castro announced a "Battle of Ideas" that attempted to emphasize human development, deemphasize economic growth, and return to the ideological spirit of the 1960s. This meant
18942-549: The price up further. Likewise, observing a few price decreases may give rise to a downward price spiral, so in models of this type, large fluctuations in asset prices may occur. Agent-based models of financial markets often assume investors act on the basis of adaptive learning or adaptive expectations. As the most recent and most damaging financial crisis event, the Global financial crisis, deserves special attention, as its causes, effects, response, and lessons are most applicable to
19096-402: The proceeds to make long-term loans to businesses and homeowners. The mismatch between the banks' short-term liabilities (its deposits) and its long-term assets (its loans) is seen as one of the reasons bank runs occur (when depositors panic and decide to withdraw their funds more quickly than the bank can get back the proceeds of its loans). Likewise, Bear Stearns failed in 2007–08 because it
19250-414: The realization that food was the key to survival, transport became a secondary worry and walking, hitch-hiking , and carpooling became the norm. Privately owned vehicles are not common; ownership is not seen as a right but as a privilege awarded for performance. Public transport is creative and takes on the following forms: Popular disillusionment in the economy inspired the Cuban government to revitalize
19404-678: The resulting income. Examples include Charles Ponzi 's scam in early 20th century Boston, the collapse of the MMM investment fund in Russia in 1994, the scams that led to the Albanian Lottery Uprising of 1997, and the collapse of Madoff Investment Securities in 2008. Many rogue traders that have caused large losses at financial institutions have been accused of acting fraudulently in order to hide their trades. Fraud in mortgage financing has also been cited as one possible cause of
19558-471: The safest. As the economy grows and expected profits rise, firms tend to believe that they can allow themselves to take on speculative financing. In this case, they know that profits will not cover all the interest all the time. Firms, however, believe that profits will rise and the loans will eventually be repaid without much trouble. More loans lead to more investment, and the economy grows further. Then lenders also start believing that they will get back all
19712-425: The same thing they expect others to do, then self-fulfilling prophecies may occur. For example, if investors expect the value of the yen to rise, this may cause its value to rise; if depositors expect a bank to fail this may cause it to fail. Therefore, financial crises are sometimes viewed as a vicious circle in which investors shun some institution or asset because they expect others to do so. Reflexivity poses
19866-460: The scarcity of tools and of building materials increased the pressure on already overcrowded housing. Even before the energy crisis , extended families lived in small apartments (many of which were in very poor condition) to be closer to an urban area. To help alleviate this situation, the government engaged in land-distribution where they supplemented larger government-owned farms with privately owned ones. Small homes were built in rural areas and land
20020-601: The share spent on welfare increased 29%. Such policy priorities have led to historian Helen Yaffe dubbing them "humanistic austerity". Cuba's history of colonization included deforestation and overuse of its agricultural land. Before the crisis, Cuba used more pesticides than the United States. Lack of fertilizer and agricultural machinery caused a shift towards organic farming and urban farming. Cuba still has food rationing for basic staples. Approximately 69% of these rationed basic staples (wheat, vegetable oils, rice, etc.) are imported. Overall, however, approximately 16% of food
20174-483: The sixties and seventies, as it was often "tainted as music of the enemy and began to disappear from the public view." But all of that changed in the 1990s, when American rappers flocked regularly to Cuba, tourists brought CDs, and North American stations, perfectly audible in Cuba, brought its sounds. Nonetheless, hip hop circulated through informal networks, thus creating a small underground scene of rap enthusiasts located mostly in Havana's Eastern neighborhoods that called
20328-482: The socio-cultural situation of the period with humor [Hernandez-Reguant 2006], Cuban hip hop evolved as a socially conscious movement influenced heavily by its kin genre American hip-hop. Thus it was not so much a product of the Special Period—as timba was—as one of globalization [Fernandes 2004]. The Revolution and the blockage of all imports from the US had made the dissemination of American music difficult during
20482-425: The spiral may go into reverse, with price decreases causing a rush of sales, reinforcing the decrease in prices. Governments have attempted to eliminate or mitigate financial crises by regulating the financial sector. One major goal of regulation is transparency : making institutions' financial situations publicly known by requiring regular reporting under standardized accounting procedures. Another goal of regulation
20636-456: The subject of investment to be starved of funds and the remaining investors (often those who are least knowledgeable) to be left with devalued assets. Bankruptcies, defaults and bank failures follow as rates are pushed high. After the crisis governments push short-term interest rates low again to diminish the cost of servicing government borrowing which has been used to overcome the crisis. Funds build up again looking for investment opportunities and
20790-549: The subtitle for Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture , which he wrote in response to widespread deforestation, plow agriculture, and erosion in the eastern mountains and hill regions of the United States. He proposed the planting of tree fruits and nuts as human and animal food crops that could stabilize watersheds and restore soil health. Smith saw the world as an inter-related whole and suggested mixed systems of trees with understory crops. This book inspired individuals such as Toyohiko Kagawa who pioneered forest farming in Japan in
20944-575: The tendency for the rate of profit to fall borrowed many features of the presentation of John Stuart Mill 's discussion Of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum (Principles of Political Economy Book IV Chapter IV). The theory is a corollary of the Tendency towards the Centralization of Profits . In a capitalist system, successfully-operating businesses return less money to their workers (in
21098-657: The then Tasmanian College of Advanced Education started developing ideas about stable agricultural systems on the southern Australian island of Tasmania . Their recognition of the unsustainable nature of modern industrialized methods and their inspiration from Tasmanian Aboriginal and other traditional practises were critical to their formulation of permaculture. In their view, industrialized methods were highly dependent on non- renewable resources , and were additionally poisoning land and water, reducing biodiversity , and removing billions of tons of topsoil from previously fertile landscapes. They responded with permaculture. This term
21252-410: The time began to distribute aid and taught their techniques to locals, who soon implemented them in fields, raised beds, and urban rooftops across the nation. Organic agriculture soon developed, supplanting the old industrialized form of agriculture Cubans had grown accustomed to. Relocalization , permaculture , and innovative modes of mass transit had to be rapidly developed. For a time, waiting for
21406-515: The very worst case, lose its own money. But when it borrows in order to invest more, it can potentially earn more from its investment, but it can also lose more than all it has. Therefore, leverage magnifies the potential returns from investment, but also creates a risk of bankruptcy . Since bankruptcy means that a firm fails to honor all its promised payments to other firms, it may spread financial troubles from one firm to another (see 'Contagion' below). For example, borrowing to finance investment in
21560-582: The water retention capacities of Hügel raised beds to non-Hügel beds determined that Hügel beds are both lower maintenance and more efficient in the long term by requiring less irrigation. Mulch is a protective cover placed over soil. Mulch material includes leaves, cardboard, and wood chips. These absorb rain, reduce evaporation, provide nutrients, increase soil organic matter, create habitat for soil organisms, suppress weed growth and seed germination, moderate diurnal temperature swings, protect against frost, and reduce erosion. Sheet mulching or lasagna gardening
21714-557: The work by traveling and teaching a three-week program that became known as the Permaculture Design Course. It addressed the application of permaculture design to growing in major climatic and soil conditions, to the use of renewable energy and natural building methods, and to "invisible structures" of human society. He found ready audiences in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Britain, and Europe, and from 1985 also reached
21868-399: The world economy at the pace of 20 and 50 years have been the subject of studies since Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (1773–1842) provided the first theory of crisis in a critique of classical political economy's assumption of equilibrium between supply and demand. Developing an economic crisis theory became the central recurring concept throughout Karl Marx 's mature work. Marx's law of
22022-485: The yen to rise in value, and therefore has an incentive to buy yen, too. Likewise, a depositor in IndyMac Bank who expects other depositors to withdraw their funds may expect the bank to fail, and therefore has an incentive to withdraw, too. Economists call an incentive to mimic the strategies of others strategic complementarity . It has been argued that if people or firms have a sufficiently strong incentive to do
22176-558: Was caused by how the population tried to reduce the energy store without reducing the nutritional value of the food. A letter published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal ( CMAJ ) criticized the American Journal of Epidemiology for not taking all factors into account and says that "the famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to
22330-508: Was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren , who formulated the concept in opposition to modern industrialized methods, instead adopting a more traditional or "natural" approach to agriculture. Permaculture has been criticised as being poorly defined and unscientific. Critics have pushed for less reliance on anecdote and extrapolation from ecological first principles, in favor of peer-reviewed research to substantiate productivity claims and to clarify methodology. Peter Harper from
22484-466: Was dominated by modern industrial tractors , combines , and harvesters , all of which required petroleum to run, and in Cuban industrial capacity. The early stages of the Special Period were defined by a general breakdown in transportation and agricultural sectors, fertilizer and pesticide stocks (both of those being manufactured primarily from petroleum derivatives), and widespread food shortages. Australian and other permaculturists arriving in Cuba at
22638-466: Was first made public with the publication of their 1978 book Permaculture One . Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system . Following the publication of Permaculture One , Mollison responded to widespread enthusiasm for
22792-592: Was intensified. Monthly allocations for families were based under the basic minimum requirements as recommended by the United Nations . Nutrition dropped from 3,052 calories a day in 1989 to 2,099 calories a day in 1993 with some reports even lower, 1,863 calories a day. The recommended minimum is 2100-2300 calories daily. A plethora of research shows that the Special Period resulted in a decrease in caloric intake among Cuban citizens. One study estimates that caloric intake fell by 27% from 1990 to 1996. A report by
22946-446: Was less than either national median household income ($ 51,017) or national median farm household income ($ 68,680). A 2019 study by Hirschfeld and Van Acker found that adopting permaculture consistently encouraged cultivation of perennials, crop diversity, landscape heterogeneity, and nature conservation. They found that grass-roots adopters were "remarkably consistent" in their implementation of permaculture, leading them to conclude that
23100-592: Was provided to encourage families to move, to assist in food production for themselves, and to sell in local farmers' markets. As the film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil discusses, co-ops developed which were owned and managed by groups, as well as creating opportunities for allowing them to form "service co-ops" where credit was exchanged and group purchasing-power was used to buy seeds and other scarce items. Many Cubans from outside Havana began migrating to Havana in search of tourism jobs which provided American dollars. This rush to Havana resulted in
23254-409: Was the collapse of the Soviet Union , who exported large quantities of cheap food to Cuba. In the absence of such food imports, food prices in Cuba increased, while government-run institutions began offering less food, and food of lower quality. A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper claimed, "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to
23408-518: Was the loss of nearly all of the petroleum imports from the Soviet Union; Cuba's oil imports dropped to 10% of pre-1990 amounts. Before this, Cuba had been re-exporting any Soviet petroleum it did not consume to other nations for profit, meaning that petroleum had been Cuba's second largest export product before 1990. Once the restored Russian Federation emerged from the former Soviet Union, its administration immediately made clear that it had no intention of delivering petroleum that had been guaranteed to
23562-734: Was the spread of the Thai crisis in 1997 to other countries like South Korea . However, economists often debate whether observing crises in many countries around the same time is truly caused by contagion from one market to another, or whether it is instead caused by similar underlying problems that would have affected each country individually even in the absence of international linkages. The nineteenth century Banking School theory of crises suggested that crises were caused by flows of investment capital between areas with different rates of interest. Capital could be borrowed in areas with low interest rates and invested in areas of high interest. Using this method
23716-449: Was unable to renew the short-term debt it used to finance long-term investments in mortgage securities. In an international context, many emerging market governments are unable to sell bonds denominated in their own currencies, and therefore sell bonds denominated in US dollars instead. This generates a mismatch between the currency denomination of their liabilities (their bonds) and their assets (their local tax revenues), so that they run
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