Savings Spirits

The Paradox of Thrift, is a concept in John Maynard “Animal Spirits” Keynes’ dumpster fire of a book, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money". It suggests that if too many individuals save money, as opposed to spending it, i.e. consumption, then the entire economy on the collective level can suffer. He wasn’t opposed in general to savings, but cautioned against it when he, uh, felt, the economy as nearing or in a recession.

Keynes wrote word salad such as:

• “The growth in wealth, so far from being dependent on the abstinence [savings] of the rich, as is commonly supposed, is more likely to be impeded by it.”

• “Saving is the act of the individual consumer and consists in the negative act of refraining from spending the whole of his current income on consumption.”

• “The more virtuous we are, the more determinedly thrifty, the more obstinately orthodox in our national and personal finance, the more incomes will have to fall.”

Like many of Keynes’ delusional ideas, The Paradox of Thrift, was resurrected by one of his biggest admirers, Paul “Fax Machine” Krugman during the summer of 2009 when most of the world was still in recession.

Thanks to decades of brain mush from government economists, fiat academics, and the Corporate Press most of whom are Keynesians, the culture of saving and thrift has seen a significant decline in the United States.

It turns out this isn’t just good for the collective in the fantasyland of Keynesians, it’s also not good for the planet. But just as with Keynes’ there’s a catch here, too. Sometimes saving can save the planet provided the bank meets the special criteria of the climate activist organization behind the paper, Project Drawdown.

Project Drawdown’s new paper Saving (for) the Planet: The Climate Power of Personal Banking is annoyingly only accessible once the user gives Project Drawdown their name and email.

Saving For The Planet Drawdown Labs Report

1.56MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Their basic premise is that if you save money in the wrong bank, or in their nomenclature a “Carbon-intensive bank”, said saved money may be given out to fossil fuel companies and other Gaia-haters as loans to finance their projects.

Their definition for carbon-intensive bank is, “a large bank that has been officially designated as either a Global Systemically Important Bank or Domestic Systemically Important Bank which tend to have significant exposure to carbon-intensive sectors.”

The authors of Saving (for) the Planet: The Climate Power of Personal Banking assert that by banking with a Big Evil Bank, “you may be indirectly lending up to 20–30% of your money to the industries most responsible for fueling the climate crisis.” In other words, US Bank’s “recycled ocean plastic” debit cards won’t cut it and neither will Chase despite the fact they finance lots of renewable energy projects and their CEO is even on record saying the government should seize private property for their renewable energy projects.

It’s scary stuff. Here’s even a super serious, Scientific™ chart that plots various Gaia-destroying activities including having $8,000 pent up in a savings or checking account from a carbon-intensive bank. Another way they phrase it is that $1,000 in the bank emits as much carbon as a flight from New York City to Seattle.

The alternative is to instead save money in that they call a climate-responsible bank which they define as, “a bank that does not lend to or underwrite fossil fuel projects and companies (unless direct finance for a green project), has limited exposure to other carbon intensive sectors, and prioritizes lending to climate solutions.” Moving to a noble climate would according to them, “could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions it generates by an average of 76%.”

In the Appendix, they provide a link to Bank for Good, a tool that allows users to not only find a Noble Gaia saving bank but one that is even Black or LatinX owned or led.

One of the banks suggested for California is Atmos Bank who have a blog post lecturing readers about Big Bank’s financing the destruction of the Amazon - which ironically enough California’s war against oil exasperates.

Atmos Bank touts their checking account as “The World's Most Climate-Positive Bank Account” and the accompanying cash back program as “the most inclusive cash back program on earth, for earth.” Customers get cash back of various amounts for spending money at allegedly eco-friendly businesses from bikes and “eco-tourism” to “sustainable clothing” and even “sustainable grocery stores.” (don’t forget to bring your reusable bags!) Even subscribing to Climate Hysteria publications such as

HEATED

gets a cool 5% cash back.

In other words, in the same sense Keynes wanted people to consume their way out of recessions, climate hysterics can consume their way to saving the planet.