evilgenius wrote: Malthus said basically the same thing, and he was never right concerning people. His theory does describe animal populations pretty well, but people do things that the constraints don't address. I like how you seem to recognize this, but then suggest that doom will still come - at a much slower pace. I guess you think the pressures are still on, regardless of what's done to address the problems in the near term? What kinds of pressures persist like that, economic, societal or environmental? I guess all of those, but not all with the same veracity. I don't know, I still think that people have a way of using creativity that will surprise you vis a vis collapse, fast or slow.
KaiserJeep wrote:...
The estimates are grim, within the next decade 60 million jobs will disappear due to automation. That is about half the existing jobs, and even at the peak of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was 25%. In 10 years, it will be 50%, and this will mean that there simply won't be enough consumers with incomes to keep the economy ticking along.
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Climate change could spark the world’s next financial crisis, according to Paul Fisher, who retired this year as deputy head of the Bank of England body which supervises the country’s banks.
“It is potentially a systemic risk,” Fisher said Monday in an interview in Sydney. A sudden repricing of assets as a result of climate change “could be the trigger for the next financial crisis,” he added.
Hawkcreek wrote:evilgenius wrote: Malthus said basically the same thing, and he was never right concerning people. His theory does describe animal populations pretty well, but people do things that the constraints don't address. I like how you seem to recognize this, but then suggest that doom will still come - at a much slower pace. I guess you think the pressures are still on, regardless of what's done to address the problems in the near term? What kinds of pressures persist like that, economic, societal or environmental? I guess all of those, but not all with the same veracity. I don't know, I still think that people have a way of using creativity that will surprise you vis a vis collapse, fast or slow.
Yes, I do think the pressure is still on, mainly because I think human nature is animal nature. I've always thought that we could eventually control our numbers, but so far the best impetus for that seems to be societal depression. Like Russia after the USSR breakup, or Japan now. But as soon as things get good again, breeding starts anew.
So far it looks like our creativity is being used to enrich the privileged few, with very little chance of a new steamboat ever being built.
I think Malthus was right on, about all of us animals.
KaiserJeep wrote:Based on recent TV viewing, I believe that the automation of Middle Class jobs is likely the main catalyst for collapse, and that the process has begun already. Based on income alone, the Middle Class has shrunk by 20% in the last decade. This was a combination of globalization and automation, but the globalization has stopped and even reversed slightly. However, automation has picked up the pace, for example with advances in self-driving vehicles, the 3.6 million truck drivers in the USA are going away soon, and they won't be replaced. Not to mention, the loan on the average heavy truck takes more than a decade to pay off for an independent trucker, the implications are many and will ripple through everything from truck stop hotels to the banking industry.
I find this all too credible, the MidWest is full of people who ended up retiring in poverty while they were waiting for their jobs in the automobile industry to return as the economy recovered, and those jobs never did come back, the assembly line robots do them now.
evilgenius wrote:KaiserJeep wrote:Based on recent TV viewing, I believe that the automation of Middle Class jobs is likely the main catalyst for collapse, and that the process has begun already. Based on income alone, the Middle Class has shrunk by 20% in the last decade. This was a combination of globalization and automation, but the globalization has stopped and even reversed slightly. However, automation has picked up the pace, for example with advances in self-driving vehicles, the 3.6 million truck drivers in the USA are going away soon, and they won't be replaced. Not to mention, the loan on the average heavy truck takes more than a decade to pay off for an independent trucker, the implications are many and will ripple through everything from truck stop hotels to the banking industry.
I find this all too credible, the MidWest is full of people who ended up retiring in poverty while they were waiting for their jobs in the automobile industry to return as the economy recovered, and those jobs never did come back, the assembly line robots do them now.
I've been thinking about this for years. I think the only way it can be addressed is with a change to the way corporations are owned. I won't go into what I've suggested in the past, mostly because it only elicits blank stares, but suffice it to say that money, the system of money doesn't need workers. It tolerates them now, and is always trying to marginalize them. The thing is, while the system of money doesn't need workers it still needs demand. Without workers making paychecks where is that demand going to come from? Under a different way of corporate ownership a whole class of stock can exist that is about the same share that the 99%, or 90%, depending, have now. If it is unattractive enough to the 1%, or 10%, as well, then it can serve to generate demand, from the revenue it receives because of its ownership status. The rich would still be rich, and the poor would still stay poor, but in a way that keeps the ball rolling.
Some countries are net exporters of food (their food exports are larger than their food imports) while others are net importers of food (their food imports are larger than their food exports).
Among the net exporters of food we find the majority of South American countries, with the exception of Venezuela and Suriname, the United States, Canada, Mauritania, Indonesia, Australia, and a few African countries such as Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Ghana. The largest net exporter of food, by far, is Argentina with $23.42 of food exports per every $1.00 of food imports. Argentina is followed by Brazil, New Zealand, Paraguay and Iceland.
Among the net importers of food we find countries such as Russia, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sudan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Japan, etc. The largest net food importer is Eritrea, with $0.01 of food exports per every $1.00 of food imports. Eritrea is closely followed by Venezuela, Turkmenistan, and Algeria.
Data for for both agricultural exports and imports are for 2010.
Source: Slate.com: Maps: Agriculture in the U.S. and Around the World
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