Re: How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn't (by Irwin Schiff)

[Kilooscarromeo]

FROM WHAT I KNOW OF EASTER ISLAND YOUR RIGHT. INTERESTINGLY, THEY APPRANTLY JUST STOPPED WORK ON THE HEADS, LEFT THEIR TOOLS WHERE THEY DROPPED.THEY JUST LEFT,TO WHERE I CAN'T REMEMBER?

I LIKE YOUR EFFORT & I THINK YOUR EFFORTS ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE. YOU DON'T RANT ABOUT VIOLENCE. YOU HAVE TAUGHT ME SOMETHINGS & I APPRECIATE THAT. SO, THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORTS & TIME.

[CytherLynx]

You wear a mask, AND gloves? ... are you a burns victim?

[CytherLynx]

why the mask?

[jjenson2006]

@CytherLynx "why the mask?"

He doesn't want people laughing at him in public.

[omega4chimp]

we have waht we need water food a place to sleep at night i am happy.

[yjfoo81]

Do u understand what the term "trade" means?! U definitely don't need govn't for free trade, and thus don't need govn't to go around the world conquering land and ripping off resources.

[sexdrugsRnR]

the economy is about achieving wants... its kind of risky to claim to know what people want (babies).

[BankRampage]

People are misled into this 'ideal' of a one-man one-woman 'family' goal. This includes the standard 2.5 kids. It's the ideal that is held up to people and is also what is causing the population doubling.

[sexdrugsRnR]

people have been making less babies, not more. once you know that your kids will survive, there is no need to make more kids.

[BankRampage]

We've doubled the population in 40 years from 3 Billion to 6.7 Billion. So the actual overall figure for humans in general is one of explosive growth, not restraint. Most people have this insane 'hope' that things will improve for their kids in a group think.

[sexdrugsRnR]

the question is, where? you cant just generalize statistics. the less developed a country is, the more likely one is going to have more kids because the more likely it is that they will survive into adulthood, do something with their lives and continue the genes.

[BankRampage]

One country that has experienced an explosive population growth is India. What the US does is send food to countries like this is to help them 'develop' into large populations in order to become dependant on agriculture products and trade. The more people, the more production and thus the 'better' it is for the economy in terms of customer growth.

[sexdrugsRnR]

India is hardly developed, especially in the north. Japan also has a population crises, but they are running out of people not over-populating.

[BankRampage]

What is India 'developing' into? A low population country with low productivity, or a large population/production country with a 'developed' economic lifestyle to rival the West?

If Japan is 'running out of people' as you say, then that country would not have any reliance on imported food or materials and be self-sustaining. Is it, though?

[KingLeon1daz]

@BankRampage

/watch?v=zBS6f-JVvTY

[ehswan]

Re. stealth swimmer. "the natural world only has value because we use it". ARE YOU TOTALLY FREAKING INSANE? Oh, oh wait a min. I get it. We are the ones that bestow value. Oh yeah, that's it, without us nothing would have VALUE. for we have created the concept. Were it it not for us everything would be valueless, worthless oh and let me not forget that overriding western European concept, "USELESSS". If I am following your line of reasoning you really are insane!

"

[stealthswimmer]

lol, no my point is that everything has value because you can use it. The environment has value because animals can live in it right? Same goes for us. Something has value for us because we can use it for stuff. The reason the environment has value is cus we need it to live. So it's similar to what you're saying but not quite. We don't have to "bestow" value on anything. They arise out of the natural properties of those things but sometimes we don't know about them.

[BankRampage]

Is it possible to just leave a natural area alone without converting it into materials for product production? It's one thing to convert a chicken into a burger for one person, but to convert everything into chickens for 7 Billion people?

[stealthswimmer]

Sure it's possible. Just like it's possible to let people starve, it's possible to engage in nuclear wars, it's possible to do any number of things. Doesn't mean it's desirable.

btw, chickens happen to be very efficient animals after years of selective breeding and can convert feed into bodyweight quickly. That's why they're not as expensive as beef and stuff. But anyways, point is that people should be free to do as they please as long as they're not directly hurting others.

[BankRampage]

I didn't mean to let people starve, but rather for them not to breed anymore humans in order to increase consumption. It's one thing to have one person driving a car, but 7 Billion people driving? I think we can agree that that is not a stable model to keep building on.

Chickens must follow natural selection as opposed to selective breeding (the fittest, not the fattest are fit to survive) for the long-term existance of that species.

People are hurting others when they do what they do.

[stealthswimmer]

I figured that wasn't what you meant but the point is still there in principle if you were to use force to prevent them from having kids.

As for having 7 billion people driving...why is it not stable? We don't really know if that's stable or not. And no chickens don't have to follow natural selection instead of selective breeding in order for them to keep existing. Natural selection works in nature because of predators. Selective breeding is used for animals that don't need to live in the wild

[BankRampage]

People right not are 'forced' to cut back on breeding. Having children would be the last thing on my mind while being jobless (unless it was an anchor baby or a new nonpaying field hand). Ironically, making food free should reduce the birth rate because production would slow.

7 Billion people driving is not stable because oil and gasoline are not renewable resources. And if those 7 billion drivers become DEPENDANT on oil, it's going to be a hard crash when they run out.

[stealthswimmer]

The price system will regulate if people can actually all afford to drive or not. As it becomes more expensive, the incentive for different fuel sources and for renewable fuel sources increases.

[BankRampage]

Every creature must follow natural selection. Selective breeding makes the chickens very prone to disease because the strongest traits are bred out (fat breasts are more important than the ability to fly). A higher meat content might have implications of making the species more disease prone and could be wiped out (along with their humans), with one avian disease.

[stealthswimmer]

Actually, chickens are pretty resistant to disease and the ones that do get sick are usually quarantined. In certain cases, if a particularly harmful and fast-spreading disease breaks out in a chicken farm, they have to kill all the chickens, so folks go to great lengths to ensure they usually don't get sick.

Chickens in china sometimes get avian flu, but the ones in the US usually don't because of their environment. if i recall correctly, in the US the most common bird to get avian flu is duck

[sujajajjaakakajjs]

good idea, there are too many Chinese anyway

[spol07]

not you again!

[BankRampage]

Oh come on. You like me. Admit it ;)

[stealthswimmer]

as for distinguishing resources and moving on to others, a lot of it happened before people really had trust in markets and many things were redistributed by the government (though often from the poor to the rich via inflation).

When something is privatized, the natural incentive is to preserve it especially when it can generate income. As long as there aren't unequal subsidies or taxes on things, then the market gravitates towards the most efficient way(s) of doing things.

[BankRampage]

Are they developing ways to more efficiently save the resources? Or are they developing more ways to increase the production of those resources into products for profit?

[stealthswimmer]

What do you think happens when they make profit from it? That is the incentive to discover ways to save said resources because if they can renew some of it, that means they can make more money off of it. Again, like with paper, they plant more trees if they own the land the trees are on because it means making more money.

[BankRampage]

I read an article about a metal mine where they made a lot of money. Later on when it was time for someone to pay to cleaup that company was nowhere to be found. And it was determined that the cleanup costs was more than that company was ever worth. So where is the incentive to clean up a mess if there is no profit in it? The solution? Get rid of money.

[stealthswimmer]

There will always be some people that do messed up things, but they're the exception, not the rule.

And no the solution is not to get rid of money. That's ridiculous. Money is simply a medium of exchange. It gets rid of the need for the double coincidence of wants that a barter economy needs to function. Plus, money arises out of barter. The most marketable commodity arises as money and makes transactions more efficient and also acts as a unit of account.

[BankRampage]

The people who are messing thing up are not the exception, but the norm, I'm afraid. I'm looking at my weekly garbage and that of my neighbors. It's part of the problem.

Money gives the human species an unfair advantage, so eventually, it must be discarded unless people somehow will magically become better because of it (haha, right).

[stealthswimmer]

No, they're are the exception, at least the ones directly responsible. Government policies though are often ignored in this area which is a grave mistake, since they often incentivize certain behaviors and cause them to occur more often than they otherwise would. A big part of this is not protecting private property rights.

[BankRampage]

If a person privately buys a forest, there is little incentive to preserve it, especially when he could get as much as $6,000 a tree. With that money he could 'buy' more forests to bulldoze to make even more money, as opposed to the 'apache' culture who do not practice such economics.

[stealthswimmer]

Wrong. If they could get $6,000 a tree there is a high incentive to grow more trees on that land because it means they'll make even MORE money by planting more trees.

Sure they'd buy more land...but again, the incentive would still be there to plant more trees on that extra land to generate more income.

Again, we have real world evidence of this in the US where most of our paper comes from trees specifically planted to make paper.

:-)

[BankRampage]

And how long does it take to grow a $6,000 tree? The attitude of most people is "I won't be here in 500 years, so screw it, I'll take what I can!" In the place of the tree he cuts down, he plants trees that will grow faster, but of not the same quality. The really good trees take a really long time to grow, that's why the mills are not content to cut just within the States, but extend their cutting to the juicy rainforests.

[stealthswimmer]

I dunno wut "really good trees" are and I don't think anyone has the authority to force everyone to choose a specific tree that is "best" lol.

As for how long it takes ,I dunno, but the point is that that's where most of our paper comes from so that means more trees that get to grow naturally since we use privately grown trees for paper.

:-)

It's when people DON'T own trees or land (or when they own it "collectively") that they have an incentive to cut down as many as possible

[BankRampage]

Think about how much the average person 'gives back' in a resource sense. When a person buys a wooden chair, does he plant a tree to make up for that use? Or does he expect the lumberjack to do that act of charity for him? I see an imbalance of consumption by the average person with little or no effort to replace those resources we use in everyday life.

[stealthswimmer]

When a person buys a chair they are voting for more trees to be planted and companies respond to that by buying more wood...and other companies that grow trees get the signal to grow more.

Now if there weren't enough trees to go out or if the number of trees were falling, then the price of the chair wouldn't be so low. It'd be higher because the price would follow the scarcity. Again, the price system adjusts to show the relation between scarcity and demand.

[stealthswimmer]

"at the expense of the natural world"

The natural world only has value because we use it. So there's a natural incentive to preserve it. As well, people with higher real incomes are better equipped to take care of the environment.

[BankRampage]

Well, it's every hard to explain that to the lumberjacks, carpenters, and construction workers whose jobs depend on destroying the forests. Using that income to preserve the forests cuts into profits.

[stealthswimmer]

If they own the forests, they have an incentive to plant more trees because means having a renewable source of income. This is basically what's happened with paper in the US. Most of our paper comes from trees specifically planted to make paper.

[BankRampage]

What kind of trees? It's been argued that the trees that the lumber mills plant do in no way replace what they destroyed. Bulldozing the rainforest and replacing those creatures and trees with chickens and firs are not of equal value.

[stealthswimmer]

For one thing, often times many of the older trees are defined as "old growth" which is arbitrarily defined. Another thing is that some trees DON'T naturally live that long and are there because of anti-forest-fire policies (this is mainly a problem when preventing natural forest fires, which clear up the older/drier wood and let new trees grow).

As for the rainforest, I don't know the details of that particular situation but if i remember correctly, lots is cleared for farmland

[hume12345]

great analysis of the modern world and it's constraints.

[BankRampage]

Thanks, haha. Peter Schiff made me very cynical.