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Really? Is it really that hard for you to wrap your brain around the concept that supply and demand dictate living standards along with everything else?
Secrets Of The Plunge Protection Team Not with the Fed actively manipulating the market the way it currently is. We live in a manipulated market economy not a free market economy.
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Originally Posted by jimhcom
That when you have an oversupply of labor it effects the supply of jobs?
It is the ratio of supply of labor to supply of money. That you have areas of the world that have very limited access to money and people there will work for very close to nothing is an artifact of market manipulation not over population. You could just as easily manipulate the market so there is a high demand for labor everywhere.
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Originally Posted by jimhcom
That when you have more people to feed than farmland to grow crops that the result is going to be higher costs and imported food? That when you run out of land that people will crowd together in unsanitary conditions? That overpopulation overtaxes all public services?
Lack of money not over population, the ratio of money to people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
No, you guys are right, I see it now, just build some sewers and the whole world will be just fine!
Really? Is it really that hard for you to wrap your brain around the concept that supply and demand dictate living standards along with everything else?
Define demand. Is thirst demand for water?
Quote:
That when you have an oversupply of labor it effects the supply of jobs? That when you have more people to feed than farmland to grow crops that the result is going to be higher costs and imported food? That when you run out of land that people will crowd together in unsanitary conditions? That overpopulation overtaxes all public services?
That hasn't happened yet unless that is unless you have a peculiar definition.
No, you guys are right, I see it now, just build some sewers and the whole world will be just fine!
I quickly loss patience with idiotic straw man arguments Why do you people get off on it? Only an idiot falls for them and they never convince anyone. Its adolescent crap. Clean it up.
Think about this: as the world increases in population, the resources must be divided into smaller segments for each additional person. On the other hand, each additional person adds more capability to advance technology as they are another brain to invent something. So, as long as the world population is kept in reason, the two effects should cancel out. However, if you have a very small world population (10,000,000), then technology will rarely improve and probably degrade, so the world GDP per person would diminish despite the overabundance of resources. Conversely, if we had a world population of 50 billion, the sheer lack of resources would definitely outweigh any positive benefit of technology and the world GDP per person would diminish. The ideal world GDP per person lies somewhere in between the two. My best guess is 9 to 11 billion.
Now, that is the ideal world population for maximum GDP per person. As for the habitat loss to animals, that a different story. However, I'm still going to stick 9 to 11 billion people being the ideal number. Animals don't need 61% of the world as habitat. Humans generate much, much more utility (or happiness and satisfaction) per square foot than animals do - in fact, animals are really inefficient in this aspect. Thus, I believe that humans should have a much greater share of the globe.
And, as stated before, a declining population rate is much more stressful on economies than an increasing one is. We need beehive shaped population pyramids, not pyramid or tornado shaped ones. Shortages and surpluses in the population lead to dire consequences, just like they do in markets. Equilibrium is always best.
And, just another thought. If women were raising kids in order to raise birth rates in developed countries, then there would be less people in the labor market and thus less unemployment. However, as stated before (again), women should only have the kids if they or their husband can support them.
Human overpopulation is a given at this point in time. However, I have a feeling that around the end of the century there will be the potential for cybernetic or full on android humans. This will open up the possibility of having beings that can live forever and the world population will rise again. We'll have to mine asteroids and other planets, make full use of the sun's energy coming onto other planets and/or have solar power from space, and eventually have colonies on other planets.
Having beings that could theoretically live forever would also open up the possibility of interstellar travel, but that I think is pretty far off, by the end of next century perhaps.
I mean, when you think about it, we're the only species who has an awareness of our sense of self (and are aware of this awareness, try thinking about that for a sec!). We're also atavistically self-preservationists.
There's an interesting book titled "The End of Work" which was written in the mid-90s. It made predictions which so far have somewhat come true. The thing is though with each technological leap forward we tend to have new frontiers in job creation that were previously unknown to us.
Just thinking of technologies on the horizon ...
Who's going to tend the fish farms growing genetically engineered salmon and tuna, who grow at twice the rate of their natural cousins?
Who's going to tend the machines who will build buckyball construction buildings made out of cellulose and metal?
Who's going to tend to the 3D printers that are churning out everything from use-it-once-and-throw-it-away tools to organs? And who is going to service them, and make the materials for them?
Who's going to build the water desal plants and hydroponic farms and tend those?
Who's going to tend to the 70 million aging boomers in this country?
Insofar as how many is too many, I think with the right regulation and cross-country coordination of resources we can make 30 billion do-able.
The thing is though increasing quality of life inherently means fewer children. It wouldn't be until we started colonization that we'd see a BIG surge up in population, I think.
Secrets Of The Plunge Protection Team Not with the Fed actively manipulating the market the way it currently is. We live in a manipulated market economy not a free market economy.
It is the ratio of supply of labor to supply of money. That you have areas of the world that have very limited access to money and people there will work for very close to nothing is an artifact of market manipulation not over population. You could just as easily manipulate the market so there is a high demand for labor everywhere.
Lack of money not over population, the ratio of money to people.
Very close to the truth.
First off is the economy manipulated? Yes it is.
Does that change the laws of supply and demand? No it does not.
How does big business manipulate wages in the US? It brings in 20 million illegal aliens to suppress wages by increasing labor supply. The same tactic is done in Europe.
An idiot could say that the problem could be solved by just paying everyone more, but that is a complete denial of reality and the entire reason for the manipulation in the first place.
How do you know if a country is overpopulated? You remove millions of people from the workforce and it still has no benificial effect on wages for the remaining workers.
I quickly loss patience with idiotic straw man arguments Why do you people get off on it? Only an idiot falls for them and they never convince anyone. Its adolescent crap. Clean it up.
If you would like a definition of idiot, it is someone who asks if thirst is a demand for water.
Does that change the laws of supply and demand? No it does not.
Again we agree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
How does big business manipulate wages in the US? It brings in 20 million illegal aliens to suppress wages by increasing labor supply. The same tactic is done in Europe.
You also left out the presidentially mandated wage price stability requirement that constrains the Fed's actions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
An idiot could say
Ad hominem?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
that the problem could be solved by just paying everyone more, but that is a complete denial of reality and the entire reason for the manipulation in the first place.
Not just paying them more but counter manipulation. If the floor is set at $30 an hour it doesn't matter how many illegal aliens you bring in you will get wage price inflation. That, with effective economic stimulus to get full employment and the effects of the dilution of the workforce are mitigated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
How do you know if a country is overpopulated? You remove millions of people from the workforce and it still has no beneficial effect on wages for the remaining workers.
According to your argument overpopulation is a symptom of economic depression, the cure for economic depression is to kill off a large part of the potential workforce. That is what you are saying isn't it?
On the other hand if you remove the economic depression the over population goes away.
Again if you remove economic depression then the constraints on the infrastructure go away as well. As there is plenty of revenue to build infrastructure with.
Your argument is that poverty proves over population. This premise is false. Poverty can be eliminated almost entirely by increasing the demand for labor.
If you would like a definition of idiot, it is someone who asks if thirst is a demand for water.
A better definition is someone that says
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom
How do you know if a country is overpopulated? You remove millions of people from the workforce and it still has no beneficial effect on wages for the remaining workers.
Were we overpopulated in The Great Depression? The post WWII economic boom says otherwise.
Relative to the work output? To demand?
Yes. There is no doubt we had more workers available than production needed.
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The post WWII economic boom says otherwise.
You're moving the goal posts again.
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Originally Posted by Post#2
It requires balancing (approximately) the production and consumption needs...
with the capacity to produce. It won't happen by waving a magic wand... but is doable.
It took the US sixty years (including the depression and WW2) for more than a 100%
increase in our population: 123 Million to 226 Million (1920 - 1980).
But it took the US only forty years (another 40%) to increase to 309 Million (1970- 2010).
That's too many too fast... especially at a time when our industrial capacity...
and particularly our need for low/no skilled labor was dropping precipitously.
Adding insult to injury... the greatest population increases came from the least able.
The US at up to 200 or 225 Million will work fine.
The sooner we can get back to that the better.
Now, that is the ideal world population for maximum GDP per person. As for the habitat loss to animals, that a different story. However, I'm still going to stick 9 to 11 billion people being the ideal number. Animals don't need 61% of the world as habitat. Humans generate much, much more utility (or happiness and satisfaction) per square foot than animals do - in fact, animals are really inefficient in this aspect. Thus, I believe that humans should have a much greater share of the globe
Nice quote Phil P.
Something to think about: Animal inefficiency is in the eye of the beholder. Grazing animals appear to use a lot of land; however, they are also working the land via defecating/enriching the soil. Fruit Bats appear to have inefficient digestive systems, until you realize they are spreading seeds.
OT & logical fallacy?: This may be why humans create patronage/driftwood jobs—mitigate overpopulation. It’s inefficient until you realize that the economy/people need jobs to live. Wage inflation—in today’s world—is just fueling inefficiency IMHO. The aggregate population needs some quality time off, instead of unproductive time on the clock. This quality time off can be used to hang out your with children/spouse, or other productive stuff.
Last edited by DSOs; 02-15-2013 at 11:52 AM..
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