In 1632, Galileo got permission from the Florentine censors (of the infamous Inquisition era) to publish his findings under the pretense of a hypothesis. The form of the book was a three-way dialogue among Salviati (a disguised Galileo), Sagredo (an open-minded layman), and Simplicio (an Aristotelian). The essence of the book was that it brought together all the arguments of the Copernican theory versus the geocentric cosmology.
We fast forward to today and we see Germany, which until recently was considered the paragon of good governance, to be failing economically, politically, and strategically. The graph below might be indicative of the economic situation in Germany.
At the same time, polarization and fragmentation seem to be growing in Europe (Western and Eastern) to the extent that its trajectory may be pointing to an ungovernable continent that has to deal with a war (Ukraine), a migration debate, stagnant economies with questionable productivity growth rates, and debts that could again threaten its cohesiveness.
Then, when we turn to China and take a closer look at its Great Wall of Steroids, we observe (as seen in the following figure) that growth is slowing down. While the central government and the central bank are taking massive measures to revitalize growth, sentiment, and prospects, we understand that the burden of debt may continue slowing down the engine of growth despite bazooka-type stimulus measures.
And to move now to the third base of our first triangle, we contemplate the American deficit and total public debt, which already at 6.3% of and 122% of GDP, respectively, are expected to rise under either candidate’s plans to 133% under Kamala Harris or to 142% under Donald Trump. And does the investment world express any worries about this? Obviously not, as the second graph below shows.
Galileo was not the first to conclude that the Earth was not the center of the known universe and that it was the Earth that orbited the sun and not the other way around. The ancient Greek Pythagoras, Plato, Aristarchus, and Archimedes had long proclaimed this, and in the century before Galileo, Copernicus had shown through his mathematical proof that we live in a heliocentric system. Galileo’s first conclusions can be found in correspondence dated from 1613 until the publication of his book (in 1632) which showed that the triangle of status quo thinking, misconceived religious beliefs, and power dynamics were failing not just science but also the people and were preventing much-needed progress. On June 22, 1633, Galileo was forced by the Catholic Church to recant his heliocentric findings and beliefs. Isn’t it ironic that the then church was fighting against Christ’s own teachings (see Luke, chapter 17, verse 34)? The temporary bust that science experienced by the forced recantation held the promise of a scientific triumph that would become the crown jewel of the Renaissance period, demonstrating that forces that attempt to defy progress, fundamental facts, and truth will ultimately be defeated.
Debt is a global problem that ties the hands of a nation (see the first graph below). It’s one thing to face a debt of $30 trillion at around 2.5%, and another to address the interest challenges of a $60 trillion debt at 4%. Incoherent policies will emerge at a time when demographic pressures are building up (see second graph below on birth rate), and governments, along with the public, will make the wrong choices.
However, we are not dealing with just one up-standing problematic triangle (Europe, China, the US) as described above. We have in our hands another upside-down triangle made up of convoluted geopolitical choices (Middle East, Ukraine, rogue alliances), wrong-headed statecraft policies and choices (which in their dogmatic and ideologue sclerotic thinking cannot distinguish the benefits of cherry-picking among Jeffersonian isolationism, Jacksonian populism, the Hamiltonian embrace of commerce and patriotism, and the international liberal paradigm of statecraft), and a public that is becoming ignorant, semiconscious, anti-rational, illiterate, fed by images/influencers/idiotic videos/unremitting noise/infotainment, all of which lead to the denigration of paideia, thinking, fairness as justice, and produce fragmentation presented by the media as the expression of irreconcilable moral values!
Galileo seems to be telling us nowadays that we live under a vast canopy woven by the aging discoverable truths, where the cathedrals of yesterday with their vaulted ceilings and the rows of pews still inform us of the nexus between inward and outward fulfillment. The photographer Scott Mutter could not have expressed that very idea in any better way than he did in the picture below.
The Triangles of Failure, the Promise of a Bust: Contemplations of Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio
Author : John E. Charalambakis
Date : October 22, 2024
In 1632, Galileo got permission from the Florentine censors (of the infamous Inquisition era) to publish his findings under the pretense of a hypothesis. The form of the book was a three-way dialogue among Salviati (a disguised Galileo), Sagredo (an open-minded layman), and Simplicio (an Aristotelian). The essence of the book was that it brought together all the arguments of the Copernican theory versus the geocentric cosmology.
We fast forward to today and we see Germany, which until recently was considered the paragon of good governance, to be failing economically, politically, and strategically. The graph below might be indicative of the economic situation in Germany.
At the same time, polarization and fragmentation seem to be growing in Europe (Western and Eastern) to the extent that its trajectory may be pointing to an ungovernable continent that has to deal with a war (Ukraine), a migration debate, stagnant economies with questionable productivity growth rates, and debts that could again threaten its cohesiveness.
Then, when we turn to China and take a closer look at its Great Wall of Steroids, we observe (as seen in the following figure) that growth is slowing down. While the central government and the central bank are taking massive measures to revitalize growth, sentiment, and prospects, we understand that the burden of debt may continue slowing down the engine of growth despite bazooka-type stimulus measures.
And to move now to the third base of our first triangle, we contemplate the American deficit and total public debt, which already at 6.3% of and 122% of GDP, respectively, are expected to rise under either candidate’s plans to 133% under Kamala Harris or to 142% under Donald Trump. And does the investment world express any worries about this? Obviously not, as the second graph below shows.
Galileo was not the first to conclude that the Earth was not the center of the known universe and that it was the Earth that orbited the sun and not the other way around. The ancient Greek Pythagoras, Plato, Aristarchus, and Archimedes had long proclaimed this, and in the century before Galileo, Copernicus had shown through his mathematical proof that we live in a heliocentric system. Galileo’s first conclusions can be found in correspondence dated from 1613 until the publication of his book (in 1632) which showed that the triangle of status quo thinking, misconceived religious beliefs, and power dynamics were failing not just science but also the people and were preventing much-needed progress. On June 22, 1633, Galileo was forced by the Catholic Church to recant his heliocentric findings and beliefs. Isn’t it ironic that the then church was fighting against Christ’s own teachings (see Luke, chapter 17, verse 34)? The temporary bust that science experienced by the forced recantation held the promise of a scientific triumph that would become the crown jewel of the Renaissance period, demonstrating that forces that attempt to defy progress, fundamental facts, and truth will ultimately be defeated.
Debt is a global problem that ties the hands of a nation (see the first graph below). It’s one thing to face a debt of $30 trillion at around 2.5%, and another to address the interest challenges of a $60 trillion debt at 4%. Incoherent policies will emerge at a time when demographic pressures are building up (see second graph below on birth rate), and governments, along with the public, will make the wrong choices.
However, we are not dealing with just one up-standing problematic triangle (Europe, China, the US) as described above. We have in our hands another upside-down triangle made up of convoluted geopolitical choices (Middle East, Ukraine, rogue alliances), wrong-headed statecraft policies and choices (which in their dogmatic and ideologue sclerotic thinking cannot distinguish the benefits of cherry-picking among Jeffersonian isolationism, Jacksonian populism, the Hamiltonian embrace of commerce and patriotism, and the international liberal paradigm of statecraft), and a public that is becoming ignorant, semiconscious, anti-rational, illiterate, fed by images/influencers/idiotic videos/unremitting noise/infotainment, all of which lead to the denigration of paideia, thinking, fairness as justice, and produce fragmentation presented by the media as the expression of irreconcilable moral values!
Galileo seems to be telling us nowadays that we live under a vast canopy woven by the aging discoverable truths, where the cathedrals of yesterday with their vaulted ceilings and the rows of pews still inform us of the nexus between inward and outward fulfillment. The photographer Scott Mutter could not have expressed that very idea in any better way than he did in the picture below.