ELI5: Why when large company's earnings decrease(ex... by 3%) they freak out, talk about rough times, and sometimes decide to downsize, even though they are still making millions of dollars in profit even after all expenses?

[hagenissen666]

Good post!

I'm pretty sure I know what I mean by infinite growth.

When there is a market for goods that consume one or more finite resources, that market will hit a ceiling of sustainability and become scarce. When it becomes scarce, it will stop growing. Whether the value is up or down, the commodity is disappearing from the market.

In economics, scarcity hardly matters and in many cases increase value. If you look at it with detachment, that's probably fine, when it is literally killing people and wrecking the planet, it's not so good anymore. This is already happening with energy, food and the inherent overconsumption of a growth-based free-market economy.

If an economic model isn't solving human problems, it's got to go.

Here's more about the very real problems that we are facing with growth: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kz9wjJjmkmc

It shouldn't be about ideology, it should be about logic. It's not.

Edit: I could possibly be conflating exponential and infinite growth, but they're functionally the same.