World Economic Equilibrium: Worth looking at again?

[Toro]

yeah, we might maintain our streak. And we might not. Banking on a never ending stream of increasingly vast resources to extract is a losing proposition long term. You might win for 200 or 400 years, but the odds are against it and ultimately you always lose.

That's a fact, Jack.

That's opinion, not fact.

We're not banking on increasing resources. We're banking on increasing human knowledge. There is no reason to think that we are at the limits of human knowledge.

 

[loosecannon]

Well Toro, we aren't at the limit of population explosion either.

And according to our current metrics and values lotsa human knowledge and no rare earth metals or cheap petro chemicals, amounts to a declining living standard.

Unless we can invent a new energy platform with that knowledge before we run short, and invent a way to maintain agriculture without nitrogen from nat gas and pesticides from oil we won't even be able to feed ourselves in 20-30 more years.

I am not sure we can feed ourselves now, 50,000 die of malnutrition as it is.

Knowledge without resources is like having a doctorate and living in a prison cell.

 

[loosecannon]

Assuming you are correct, how will protectionist policies do anything but slow it down while holding the third world in their state of poverty? Is some temporary comfort of the first world working class worth that? They are relatively affluent compared to even third world middle class. Is propping them up worth keeping so many others in poverty?

That is the essential question. The answer has always been that nation states look out for their own.

As long as we maintain nation states we should continue following those rules imo. Let selection manage population.

If you have an alternative to the nation state model to discuss, please do. But first world nations would be NUTZ to sacrifice our advantages to a third world that is still breeding at a rate that endangers the whole planet.

 

[william the wie]

yeah, we might maintain our streak. And we might not. Banking on a never ending stream of increasingly vast resources to extract is a losing proposition long term. You might win for 200 or 400 years, but the odds are against it and ultimately you always lose.

That's a fact, Jack.

That's opinion, not fact.

We're not banking on increasing resources. We're banking on increasing human knowledge. There is no reason to think that we are at the limits of human knowledge.

However every economic textbook points out the deficiencies in GDP measurement that no one advertises on national media. Making all public domain works available for free on ereader as Google is working on will drop world GDP by a considerable chunk of change.

This was brought home to me when I ran into a Gideon earlier this week and he was talking about how Bible based English Language Training and ever cheaper ereaders as textbooks is starting to replace their current gig of handing out Bibles. Only 2-5% of the people who take such courses actually repent but all of them get a common second language to use as when a Congolese needs to make a deal with an Angolan. When track phone memory reaches the point that ereader software and the Bible on ROM can be added for less than the paper cost of a print Bible not only will the current Gideon's association activities go bye-bye but that will also mean a lot of phones will be handed out in third world countries. That in turn means greater returns on third world agriculture and manufacture. That will also reduce the spoilage and shrinkage costs while funding better infrastructure.

That will also lead to lower measured world GDP. Such dual purpose technologies phone/Bibles are transforming and will covert waste to productivity which lowers measured GDP. (The broken window fallacy of GDP: break a window to improve the economy, which does work in econometrics; will shrink.)

 

[boedicca]

Well, in LC's case, his limit of ingenuity was reached at about the age of three.

I was a certifiable genius at age 3.

Must be sad to have the age of 3 be the peak of one's existence.

 

[loosecannon]

Well, in LC's case, his limit of ingenuity was reached at about the age of three.

I was a certifiable genius at age 3.

Must be sad to have the age of 3 be the peak of one's existence.

I do feel sorry for you.