In various rich versus poor discussions I wonder why no one ever
mentions Malthus?
His /An Essay on the Principle of Population
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population>/
observed that sooner or later population will be checked by famine
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine> and disease
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease>, leading to what is known as a
Malthusian catastrophe
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe>. He wrote in
opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society
as improving and in principle as perfectible.^[4]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus#cite_note-4> He
thought that the dangers of population growth
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth> precluded progress
towards a utopian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia> society: "The
power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth
to produce subsistence for man."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus
Since the 1960s when the world was still seeing famines, and new types
of rice and corn were developed that were primarily responsible for
ending those famines, the population of the world has approximately
doubled to roughly 7 billion. At the current rate of population growth,
the world will have approximate half again as many people; roughly 10
billion; by 2050. Historically, the rate of population growth never
slows down except with the help of the four horsemen; war, famine,
disease, and I forget the fourth one. Why do people seldom address the
ominous facts of population growth and cling to the popular view of
18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as
perfectible?
Gerry.....realist
.................................
On 1/22/2014 10:26 AM, M. Mitchell Marmel wrote:
Mmmmm...no.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/369141/poor-down-l-times-kevin-d-williamson
*The Los Angeles Times is one of the great scandals in American life — that
the nation’s second-largest city should have such an inept newspaper is an
indictment of American journalism.*
*A particularly good example of that is the newspaper’s just-retracted
claim
<http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-oxfam-world-economic-forum-income-inequality-20140120,0,7080817.story#axzz2r85pXFNf>
that 85 individuals own nearly half of the world’s wealth, suspicious even
to those of us with only English-major math to work with. The claim is — or
should have been — rejected out of hand: One-half of the world’s wealth
amounts to more than $100 trillion, which would mean that we would have to
have 85 trillionaires walking the Earth, when in reality there are none. In
fact, there is no one who is even one-tenth of the way there: Neither Bill
Gates nor Carlos Slim has crossed the $100 billion mark, though it seems
likely that somebody will, someday.*
*What is really lost in the Times’s report, and in the Oxfam study
<http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/working-for-the-few-economic-inequality>
upon which it is based, is the complete lack of appreciation for the fact
that the lives of the world’s poor have in material terms seen radical
improvement over the past 40 years. The very fact that we’re talking about
the asset holdings of the world’s poor is an indicator that bears some
contemplation. As recently as the 1980s, the conversation about global
poverty was not very much focused on net worth — it was focused on famine.
(On that subject, it is worth considering the extent to which modern
famines have been caused by political actions
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines> rather than by economic
conditions or drought.)*
*What can we do about the situation of the global poor? We could seize all
of the wealth of those 85 super-rich people whose portfolios so fascinate
the Los Angeles Times, which would have the effect of raising the average
wealth of the world’s poor from about $485 to about $970 — not exactly a
solution.*
*The only way to help the world’s poor to a position of relative prosperity
and economic independence is to help them to participate in the global
economy, and here our progressive friends take a
damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t approach. They’re scandalized by the
scanty assets of the world’s poor, and they’re even more scandalized when
rich countries open their markets to the global poor, or when companies
from rich countries invest in poor countries and employ the poor people
residing therein. The Democrats refer to Americans who do business with the
global poor as “economic traitors
<http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332249/ted-strickland-s-revenge-rich-lowry>,”
and their most recent national convention was an energetic pageant of
xenophobia, replete with ritualistic denunciations of the Yellow Peril come
to steal our jobs.*
*You can have one or the other. If you’re opposed to free trade, overseas
investment, and global supply chains, fine — but don’t pretend like you
give a rodential hind-eighth about the world’s poor when you’re blocking
their only avenue toward relative prosperity and economic independence. And
don’t pretend like you care about the American poor, either: The same
system that scandalizes Democrats by allowing poor Chinese and Indians to
eat also provides low-income Americans with lower prices on essential
goods, one important reason why our poor people are no longer shoeless,
which was the case within living memory.*
*It is unhappily the case that a fictitious newspaper statistic can sprint
halfway ’round the world while the correction is still lacing up its
sneakers, so expect that Los Angeles Times account to live a long and
active life.*
On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 9:05 AM, Andrew Strasfogel <astrasfo...@gmail.com>wrote:
tax rate.
On Jan 22, 2014 6:05 AM, "Tim Crone" <bb...@crone.us> wrote:
On Jan 21, 2014 10:50 PM, "Andrew Strasfogel" <astrasfo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I wonder whether it's 1 or 2 percent...
There you go, confusing income and wealth.
Best,
Tim
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