While global financial markets are still levitating somewhere between the stratosphere and the Kingdom of Asgard, by 60°24′31″ North and 172°43′12″ West, in the middle of nowhere, an isolated island of 137.857 sq-mi holds the key of three major economic developments and risks: November 2013, Lawrence Summers raised the question whether the “secular stagnation” and the impossibility for the US and other major economies to grow without the help of recurring bubbles was not doomed to become the “new normal”. March 2014, the Conference Board released a study (figure 1) showing the falling trend in global total factor productivity, i.e. in the share of output not explained by the “accumulation of factors” (more on this economic jargon below). March 2014 again, the NASA published a research paper answering to “widespread concerns that current trends in resource-used are unsustainable, but possibilities of overshoot/collapse remain controversial”. This study tells us that, […]