So the future of success is built on growth. But that includes population growth. So we are destroying the planet. How do we have successful economy with no population growth!
ring in everyone
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So the future of success is built on growth. But that includes population growth. So we are destroying the planet. How do we have successful economy with no population growth!
ring in everyone
Raise everyone's standard of living and consumption levels.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo
Alternately as was suggested heavily tongue in cheek in a footnote by John K Galbraith "of course one could choose any given year as the target "standard of living" and work and invest to reduce the number of hours worked to achieve that standard, but I would never suggest that"
Well, the real problem is: If people are supposed to just "hold station", economically speaking, and that means don't keep buying more stuff and don't keep trying to make more babies, what the f*** are we all supposed to do with our time?
Here in the US we could find jobs for the 50 or so percent that pay no taxes. If the rest of us weren't paying for them we would have more in pocket and could raise our standard of living.
you may be right Air but I am wary that the rich have pissed off the poor and on top of that the republicans and big corporations seem content to rub the tax deal in the faces of the have nots. While many feel Romney is a shoo in I will not be surprised if Obama is re-elected in a landslide. To spurn the economy however, I expect the flood gates to open for immigration. Question is how many people can we adaquately support with resources?Quote:
Originally Posted by airshifter
You are in Barcelona and you are asking me what to do with lots of time??!!!! Dio mio! PRACTISE at making babies more creatively.. learn breath control. Trantric Practice baby making..... I have been friendly with a few nice wimmins from Barcelona and believe me, I had plans for hours and hours of activities we could spend our time doing....Quote:
Originally Posted by fandango
And in between rounds, one could read, learn languages, have a cup of________, relax, live life....maybe follow your interests.
I never understood this stupid economic model that we keep using even though it keeps failing!
IMO economists have the worse imagination out there and none of them has a clue what to do,so they keep re-inventing the wheel.
As well, why do we need growth? To cover the huge debts that politicians and economists managed to create?!
PS: I only buy what I really need, call me a minimalist, and more than 50% of my pay goes into savings, and won't change this just to help some failed system.
PPS: There is no reason to try to produce more every year and to expect it all to be sold/bought. As well there is no reason to produce crap in China when we could produce less and better products in Europe and the US, and in the process we would also use less resources and increase the bloody quality of life that everyone is complaining about. Stuff all those baboons who check the numbers every and of quarter and keep asking for more profits all the time.
That 50% figure is actually an overstatement of the true picture. Think about it: 50% of American households aren't unemployed, so the 50% just being based on households that do not have jobs is mathematically impossible.Quote:
Originally Posted by airshifter
From the Center on Budget and Policy:
But with that said, I do agree that we need meaningful tax reform to make the system more efficient and better balanced. IMO, and probably yours too, the U.S. tax system is seriously out of whack.Quote:
- The 51 percent and 46 percent figures are anomalies that reflect the unique circumstances of the past few years, when the economic downturn greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes. The figures for 2009 are particularly anomalous; in that year, temporary tax cuts that the 2009 Recovery Act created — including the “Making Work Pay” tax credit and an exclusion from tax of the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits — were in effect and removed millions of Americans from the federal income tax rolls. Both of these temporary tax measures have since expired.
In 2007, before the economy turned down, 40 percent of households did not owe federal income tax. This figure more closely reflects the percentage that do not owe income tax in normal economic times.
- These figures cover only the federal income tax and ignore the substantial amounts of other federal taxes — especially the payroll tax — that many of these households pay. As a result, these figures greatly overstate the share of households that do not pay federal taxes. Tax Policy Center data show that only about 17 percent of households did not pay any federal income tax or payroll tax in 2009, despite the high unemployment and temporary tax cuts that marked that year.[5] In 2007, a more typical year, the figure was 14 percent. This percentage would be even lower if it reflected other federal taxes that households pay, including excise taxes on gasoline and other items.
- TPC estimates show that 61 percent of those that owed no federal income tax in a given year are working households.[9] These people do pay payroll taxes as well as federal excise taxes, and, as noted, state and local taxes. Most of these working households also pay federal income tax in other years, when their incomes are higher — which can be seen by looking at the low-income working households that receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
No one wants or likes to pay taxes. But with my tax preparation, my accountant gives me a summary which lists, among other things, my effective tax rate. And what I noticed this year was that my effective tax rate was substantially higher than Mitt Romney's. And yet, my income was substantially less than Mitt Romney's. I don't like the idea of people sponging off the system at my expense either - at the bottom... or the top. A guy, legitimately on disability (maybe a soldier who got a leg blown off in Afghanistan), who receives benefits, yet pays no Federal taxes, doesn't bother me at all. While a guy who makes $20 million+ a year, and pays a lower tax rate than I do (only because the Congress Critters have created special "carried interest" tax breaks for those of his ilk)... now that p!sses me off a lot!
As for the OP, if we're talking about growth in terms of GDP, basically, GDP = C + I + G + (X-M).
C is consumption (not JUST consumer spending). I is private/business investment. G is government spending. X-M is the net of exports minus imports. In the U.S., the biggest driver is C (consumption) - roughly 70% of GDP. So in our case, we must have a scenario which allows people to consume. Our economy tanked, in large part, because wages were unable to keep up with Americans' desire to consume, so we turned to borrowed funds (credit cards, refi mortgages, car loans, etc.). In order to keep borrowing, we had to make believe that the collateralized assets were worth more than they actually were. And then the bubble popped. For sustainable growth, income must be at a level that goods and services can be had without relying too heavily on borrowing.
Oh no, I didn't mean ME. I meant people, them out there...Quote:
Originally Posted by janvanvurpa
We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population... increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roamy
- Thomas Malthus - An essay on the principle of population. (1798)
Malthus also suggested (and this can be proven experimentally) that if a colony of organisms, say bacteria, rats, algae, (Easter Island???) exhausts its supply of resources, then it will experience a collapse in population. If we're going to replicate the experiment with people on the planet, we're doing a fair job, it's just that the time frame is longer.
The problem is that people have a capacity for unlimited wants which can not hope to be supplied with limited resources.
How do we have successful economy with no population growth? We could always limit population growth, or perhaps increase the technological quality of the goods and services being consumed; in that respect I completely echo Ioan's sentiments.
I guess capitalism only works when it keeps expanding. If you try to artificially maintain an economy on the same level of reproduction, it will be immediately destroyed by competitors. Stagnant economies only could exist in a relative isolation, which is no longer the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Yes, this life is rat racing. You have to keep running just to stay where you are.
Is that really true, though? Do you really buy only the very cheapest items that meet your needs? Can any of us really make that claim?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Small Is BeautifulQuote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
As Billy's missus said to Starter... :erm: :andrea:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roamy
What is the problem with Population growth?
The problem is when resource provision does not grow in step. Malthus tells us that it cannot.
There was also Calhoun's "rat utopia" experiment in the late 1960s. Four breeding pairs were given unlimited nesting material, food and water but only given a nine-foot square of space, and within 3 years the rat population in "rat utopia" went from 8 to 600 to zero.
For some reason, rat society in rat utopia eventually broke down completely with social orders being abandoned, children being abandoned, rats attacking each other and males refusing to breed. Even under perfect provisions, when space is an issue, extinction was still the result.
There are 6 billion of us now (7 billion if you're watching the repeat and 16 billion if you're watching the repeats on Dave); eventually the amount of usable arable land necessary to keep human populations adequately fed is going to run out. Experimentally I don't know if humans follow the same social rules as rats, but there's certainly interesting parallels.
Not always the cheapest items, however only the items that I really need.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
I buy stuff based on their price/quality, usually quite expensive stuff but only what is really needed.
For example I have no TV, just a laptop with a USB TV tuner (which might become obsolete now that i do not watch F1 anymore.
Say, if the world economy is kept at the same level, who are the competitors who'd destroy it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Anyway, without a change the future looks bleak, both for capitalism and for us.
Well, you did mention Easter Island, where there is evidence of human cannibalism towards the latter years of their civilization.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
There is still sufficient arable land on our planet to sustain increasing population growth IF we seriously change our eating habits. Red meat, for example, is an entirely nutritionally unnecessary food as the protein it provides is readily available elsewhere with far less impact on the environment.
In terms of land use, the farming of red meats, particularly beef, is both the most nutritionally inefficient and ecologically unfriendly form of food production there is :s
Having said that, I had a BBQ’d rib-eye for dinner last night :erm:
IMO eating meat once a week is not a big issue and it's even healthy.
However eating meat every day or even several times a day is what creates an issue.
For example when I'm having lunch with colleagues in the cafeteria they will usually pick the meat meal over the vegetarian one in 99% of the cases, which means that they eat meat almost daily. And that is an issue which people are not aware of and if aware they don't care about it.
Producing 1 kg of beef needs 7 kg of high quality produce plus a much bigger amount of water. And 1 kg of chicken meat is not that far behind either.
Essentially the amount of food that we use to produce meat would be enough to feed all those people who are starving in Africa and Asia and some more, however this is not the scope of our current economic model.
In the end it all depends on what we think is right. If we want a better world we need to drive the change because one thing is for sure, those managers at the top of those multinational companies will not make the change in better for us unless we force them to change their views by changing their numbers.
In terms of calories produced, the world actually produces a surplus to the requirements of total world human population now. There currently is enough food to feed the world. The reason why this isn't done is because there isn't any economic benefits in doing so. Multinational companies exist to make money; that's all. A starving person in Chad doesn't command very much money if any; if you are Conglomo-Co., what's the point to you to stop them from starving? There isn't one.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
The National Geographic Society produced an article a couple of years ago that reported that beef production requires startling volumes of fresh water annually – far more that what is required for the cultivation of all other crops (corn, beans, etc.) to produce the same caloric output. Pork production was not far behind.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Malthus was narrow minded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
As I have pointed out many times here.,....... Areas that suffer from severe famine are those that suffer from a lack of the rule of law especially in regards to private property and/or Overly regulated, micromanaged economies.
Not Overpopulation.
Ah, good point vop.
Give ‘em all a plot of land, a bag of seed and a Glock 9mm with which to protect it all!
:D
NoQuote:
Originally Posted by schmenke
They need a free and independent Police and judiciary along with a Legitimate Government that respects the rights of the individual. The rest will work itself out swiftly
World economy is not a single entity. It consists of competitors. Each one behaves rationally, but individual rational behavior often produces a general mess. True, you may decide that the market needs an X number of items you produce, but then there are others who also want to make a little money. They start producing same stuff and compete with you. And if you only produce a fixed quantity of items, how do you develop your business, fund marketing, research and development etc.? The good strategy would be to try to occupy as big a part of the market as you can and grab as much profit as you can. And everybody does the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
You cannot ban competition unless you subordinate everybody to a single body of authority and let it do the planning for everybody. Hey, but you and I have been through that in Communist years. Did it work?
Nah... Our socialist economy was a sort of " you take it and then give it to me ", or as we used to say "working in vain cooperative". :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Plans were unrealistic and they but were supposed to be fulfilled and of course, to be excelled. I still have the nostalgy of the years when in the honour of 1 May I reported as done loads of construction tools that weren't even launched in production.
Ironically the socialist agriculture was stronger than the one of today but we were starving.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by gadjo_dilo
Seriously?
Who told you that? Socialism is one of the major cause of starvation.
I think she's talking about the way the numbers were fudged to make it look like the agricultural output was growing.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
I've heard/read this before about the USSR - the guys at the top would demand higher production numbers; the ones in charge of production would say "Can't be done", but the year end numbers would show that production had increased. This would happen year after year. The reality was that production never changed - the books were just fudged to keep heads from rolling.
This is true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Firstgear
However to Gadjo's point, she is right, at least as far as Romania is concerned, we did not need to import food before 1989, now we need to import a lot of it even though there is 10% less population.
Ideally every smart company would produce very few products over what they think they can sell in order to limit loses. Practically this is not true. Why is that? I say there are too many idiots out there in charge of marketing strategies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
What use to throw away 20% of your production just because some might think that there is a small chance to sell those 20%?
I keep watching and the companies who do best are those small companies who only produce to fulfill pre-ordered volumes of their products. They are not reporting billions in profit however they are
reporting healthy growth year after year.
Same goes for retailers, those who keep their expenses in check due to ordering only what they know that they will sell and thus not throwing away expired food are the ones who afford to sell cheaper and thus give the customer better value for their money.
The strategy of getting market share by over-saturating the market is not working as often as it fails.
Really? Do you know why this is happening? Is farmland being left bare because farming is not profitable?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
In the Ukraine the land was divided and people each got 4ha (or something to that effect - I'm not really certain how the proccess worked). This wasn't enough to make farming profitable, so people would have to join a co-op or just leave the land unfarmed.
It is mostly because farming in Romania is not heavily supported with government subventions unlike in other European countries.
As such the import goods will always be slightly cheaper (and way worse in quality) and this is what matters to people who have financial difficulties like most Romanians have.
Sounds reasonable. Most of those small companies, though, work in either highly specialized areas or upscale segments of certain markets. I.e. demand is naturally limited, it is extremely challenging to enter the market and so competition is soft. If you operate on a global market of mass products your only chance of survival is producing and selling craploads of stuff and giving hard time to your competitiors.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
There's no need to be told. I lived a part of my life in the so called "socialist society multilateral developed" and today my work deals with agriculture problems. I'm more than entitled to do a comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
It’s a fact that in socialist agriculture the figures were inflated in order to report record productions. However Romania has a high agriculture potential and could easily feed at least ¼ of Europe.
Socialist agriculture developed in cooperatives and the land was exploited in common. During the 60’s and 70’s food was plenty, good and very cheap despite maybe a rudimentary technology. More than all it HAD TASTE unlike the food from abroad. And I really miss the taste of my childhood. Then in the 80’s Ceausescu had the crazy idea to extinguish the country’s debts. Imports were ceased and since we couldn’t export many items we exported our food. The shelves of our shops were empty and the main alimentary products were rationalized ( 1 kilo of sugar or oil/month/person, you could buy once only 300 g of salami/person or 1 bread/person; bread was bought with the ID card only, etc. ). Now it’s fair to say that nobody died from starvation. We are an innovative nation and developed a parallel black market. But the 80’s were really hard times .
After 1989 the land started to be given back to the owners so it is divided in small properties and a big part of it is not exploited anymore. The population of villages is mostly old and unable to work. Then they can’t afford modern technologies of exploitation. The irrigation system is destroyed ( either left or stolen ). Production is affected by natural calamities and peasants don’t use to insure their crops. Subventions in agriculture are still very low ( despite a substantial increase in latest years )
On the other hand competition made farmers to look for easy ways to gain money. They use seeds and sorts from abroad. They may be more productive but products don’t have taste. In my opinion that’s the real drama. We have food, plenty of it, but the quality sucks. Food is not healthy anymore. Meat is injected with salted water ( to be heavier ), vegetables and fruits are treated with chemicals to grow earlier and bigger.
Market is full of imported products, most of them tasteless, the jovial peasants in the markets are replaced by gypsies who would cheat you with the scale and sell you imported vegetables as romanian.
Etc. etc.
There is a joke explaining a little how things worked in communist Romania. They say at some point they brought a sow that was supposed to have around 20 little baby pigs. So time came and only one little pig popped up. The people directly supervising the situation were pretty worried and decided that they can't report only one piglet, they should say they have at least 4 but their supervisors where not happy either with that number. They couldn't go to their supervisors saying the wonder sow only had 4 piglets when everybody was expecting 20 so why not say there were 10 of them, it's not like someone is going to number them. And by the time the report got to the beloved leader there were 20 pigs. Ceausescu, pretty satisfied, decided we would export two and eat the rest and that's just what we did, sold the sow and the piglet and ate the rest.
Don't think it's a joke. The period was full of absurd facts. But they really had happened.
They are reflected in 2 excellent comedies: Tales from the Golden Age -part1 and 2
Amintiri din Epoca de Aur 1 - Tovar
Amintiri din Epoca de Aur 2 - Dragoste în timpul liber - Trailer - Trailere - Trailere
This is a much more correct statement IMO than Ioan's view of more product creating waste. Consumers will flock to any product most of the time, it just has to be available to them. And a company that always has extra inventory is much less likely to miss out on sales, while the company that lets inventory fall too low watches profits walk away when that product isn't sitting on the shelf.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Product saturation into the market creates both on hand inventory and visual advertising impressions, and both are a good thing.