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Guest Post: The Price of Growth
Submitted by ChrisMartenson.com contributing editor Gregor Macdonald
The Price of Growth
Growth. It's what every economist and politician wants. If we get 'back to growth', servicing debts both private and sovereign become much easier. And life will return to normal (for a few more years).
There is growing evidence that a major US policy shift is underway to boost growth. Growth that will create millions of new jobs and raise real GDP.
While that's welcome news to just about everyone, the story is much less appealing when one understands the cost at which such growth comes. Are we better off if a near-term recovery comes at the expense of our future security? The prudent among us would disagree.
Resurrecting American Export Strength
It’s easy to be skeptical that America could once again be a titan of global exports.
For a very long time, that role has mostly been relegated to countries in the developing world. America as an export economy? Somewhere along the 50-year transition from industrial manufacturer to voracious consumer, Americans have lost touch with such a remote possibility. Indeed, this phase of America's economic history is now quite settled.
A multi-decade outsourcing wave has left US workers to concentrate in the financial sector -- an over-weighting of talent we would come to regret after the crisis year, 2008.
Since 2009, though not well advertised, Washington has been pursuing a quiet policy to boost exports in nearly every sector, throwing investment capital at port and rail infrastructure, and getting the message out to regulators and state government. Now, after some very notable gains in which exports have advanced to nearly 14% of GDP, the President in his State of the Union Speech made it clear: The US would no longer cede a labor and manufacturing advantage to the rest of the world.
With that declaration, notice was served. It was perhaps not a coincidence when, the following day, the Federal Reserve articulated a zero-interest-rate policy that would be sustained for years. The US dollar reacted immediately and promptly returned to its downtrend. Has a new industrial policy now been unveiled?
(Painting: Alfred Bierstadt, 19th Century: Mt St Helens and Columbia River)
Rivers of Coal
The small city of St. Helens, Oregon sits astride the Columbia River, 25 miles closer to the Pacific Ocean than Portland. Over the past two years, a consortium of coal shippers and coal producers has been searching along the Pacific Northwest coast for a place to construct new export terminals. Coal, which is mined in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and which often travels long distances to power stations in the American South, would also find easy rail routes to Asian markets through the ports of the West Coast. Rebuffed already by Bellingham, WA, north of Seattle, and then rebuffed again by Longview, WA, north of Portland, the industry is trying once more -- this time at St. Helens.
To understand this persistence, one has to appreciate the current juncture in world coal markets. Global oil supply has been coming up against a ceiling for seven years now, since 2005. As a result, much of the world is trying to access increasingly more BTUs through natural gas and coal. Asia, which has built tremendous coal capacity, is a relentless user of coal. And US coal mines, older and with much higher extraction costs, are able to take advantage of rising world coal prices.
Moreover, as the US has been transitioning to natural gas for over 30 years to create electricity, that trend is only accelerating as its own coal plants age and retire. (see Regulation and the Decline of Coal, Smart Planet, January 2012, by Chris Nelder). The combined effect has caused a reversal in the long decline of US coal exports, which began to turn higher in 2002:
From a low of 40 million short tons at the start of the last decade, US coal exports have recovered and doubled to 80 million short tons as of 2010. One of the fastest growing subsets of our coal exports has been metallurgical coal, which has soared since 2008, climbing 60% alone in 2011, over the prior year.
More broadly, the US is already in position to become an exporter, not only of refined oil products, but of other energy products, too. For example, much of the additional refining capacity that was added to existing infrastructure last decade now serves as spare industrial capacity to export US oil products, such as gasoline, diesel, and other fuel oil.
The deep and sustained cut that Americans have made to their own oil product consumption is thus being converted to exports. And with such high levels of structural unemployment, it does not appear Americans will account for any new call on their own energy resources anytime soon.
Unless of course, we use those energy resources -- not for idle consumption, but for production.
New Energy Equations
As many are aware, the most gaping, yawning price discount found in the world today is in the comically cheap BTU found in North American natural gas. At less than $3.00 per million BTU, the energy content in natural gas can be purchased now at an 85% discount to the BTU content of oil. That is a value proposition and a pricing vacuum that -- save for the typically long time frame of energy transitions -- simply cannot stand.
Even if it takes 20 years to wean automobile-dependent economies off oil and back to electrified transport, someone, somehow, will find a way to perform physical tasks with natural gas that were previously completed using oil. As we know from history, it took Europe quite some time to transition from the Age of Wood to the Age of Coal, but the first country out of the gate was Britain, and the results were transformative. Something “like” this transition is happening today in the United States, because US demand for electrical power, produced from natural gas, coal, wind, and solar, is rising on a relative basis to our previous oil consumption.
For now, let’s leave aside some of the problems we will eventually run into as we hit the natural gas resource base harder. There will be environmental pressures, and constraints on water usage and water safety. And though it seems unlikely today, with natural gas trading at decade lows of $2.75/million BTU, there will eventually be a move higher in price. After all, North America is also gearing up to export natural gas, with proposed terminals in British Columbia and the US Gulf Coast.
The question is: should the US use this incredibly cheap BTU for export, to catch the much higher world price for LNG -- or should the US use this cheap energy as a competitive advantage, to make cheap electricity as a manufacturing input?
It appears the US is going to do both.
Already a certain virtuous circle is developing. Increased natural gas extraction is driving the need for more drilling equipment and energy infrastructure. This has induced global companies to revive metalcraft and steel operations in the depressed American Midwest. An intriguing story in this regard is the investment Vallourec of France is making in Youngstown, Ohio, which will produce specialized steel tubing for the oil and gas industry. Surely the fact that the US has some of the lowest electricity rates in the developed world is part of the attraction.
Getting the Government on Board
Boosting the extraction of natural resources will not be without deleterious effects.
As I explained in the January 3, 2012 report A Punch to the Mouth: Food Volatility Hits the World, the massive increase in US exports of food is wonderful economic news for the US farmer. But it also means a greatly expanded use of fertilizers, and smooths the delivery of a world price for food -- which American consumers must begin to pay. In food prices, and now in oil prices and coal prices, Americans must now bid for their own natural resources in a booming world market for commodities. Equally, many communities are discovering that natural gas extraction, oil and coal shipments, and the prospect of new export infrastructure are either dangerous to the environment or simply not an industry wanted by local communities.
Despite public perception, Washington is hardly antagonistic towards increased energy production, except in the most superficial, rhetorical way. Meanwhile, many of the agencies in Washington have directed their attention towards a re-industrialization of the US, and exports in particular.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has directed a lot of its spending towards rail and port infrastructure in the past several years. A review of the DOT’s Tiger Grants since 2009 reveals wave after wave of targeted investments in the national ports of Miami, Los Angeles, Providence, Vancouver/Portland, and many others, with special attention to rail connectivity. The upsurge in port infrastructure investment is not lost on the shipping industry either, which began in early 2010 to note the rapid growth from the first round of TIGER grants from the previous year.
When President Obama originally announced the administration’s goal to double exports by 2015, it was not taken very seriously. In a New York Times piece in January 2010, a former head of the Council on Foreign Relations was quoted as saying, "How will he perform this miracle? It really is a mystery." Indeed, if you attended university anytime since 1980, and studied economics while there, you learned that America’s industrial era was mostly over. The 1990s put a fine point on that lesson: The US would create products conceptually at home, and have the products manufactured abroad, pocketing the arbitrage of cheap labor. That equation only accelerated in the past decade as cheap coal powered foreign manufacturing centers, primarily in Shenzhen China, while oil costs rose.
But this past week, President Obama laid bare the country’s new intentions:
We can’t bring every job back that’s left our shore. But right now, it’s getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in 15 years, Master Lock’s unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity. So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed. So my message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away. We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule. And soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago. I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products.
No doubt a good portion of this rhetoric is election-year posturing. That said, the data shows us that exports as a percentage of GDP have soared since Obama came to office. And while part of that ratio is due to punk GDP growth, the US is stepping up its export of industrial machines, medical equipment, telecommunications and transportation equipment, civilian aircraft, and engines.
However, from its current hollowed out position, the US is still seeing its greatest growth in commodity exports. That is, in everything from grains such as corn and wheat, to cotton, and even gold. For example, by value, the petroleum products discussed earlier are now America’s largest export.
This points to a constraint: If the US is going to export mainly commodities during its long road back to the export of finished goods, then it will be even more important to cap any rise in the US dollar.
In Part II: Prepare for the Collapse of the Dollar, we discuss the growing clarity around the big changes that are afoot to create an exports-driving jobs 'recovery'.
But it comes at the cost of drastically weakening our currency and sending increasingly strategic and depleting domestic resources overseas. Essentially, inflation and scarcity will increasingly become the themes of the future.
We address the key questions concerned readers should be asking: is this a price worth paying? What does this future look like and how should I be positioning for it?
Click here to access Part II of this report (free executive summary; enrollment required for full access).
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At this moment in civilization; growth = debt; problem of debt solved with more debt; = cataclysmic result
Where's my Ph.D?
...........Like a cancerous tumor in fact.
these idiots are confusing a sudden production glut in NG with the potential for LONGEVITY of said glut.
Contraction is also a state of nature. To think that we can evade a deep contraction forever is to think we can cheat death. Without a punishing depresion, important (and long lost) lessons are not re-learned. The Japanese live in a perpetual state of economic and demographic decay. Liquidation should be an option. Why would we choose to pass this mess on to our children?
I agree that using our current monetary system, contraction is necessary, but I do not agree that it is a state of nature that has to happen. It is a state of the monetary policy. The business cycle would be very different, with different monetary policy.
Japan is fascinating as it looks like they invented serfdom.
They would not revolt against their own elite even if there was only one job left and Tokyo was filled with corpses and vomiting citizens because of radiation.
Trav I have a question:
If the evidence that blacks have small(er) brains (compared to other humanoids) is that they are poor and end up in jail, would that mean Jews have the biggest brain of all humanoids? I mean, I hear so often around these parts about how Jews run finance, politics, economics, entertainment, and per capita they are wealthy (at least in America).
So do Jews have the biggest brains of all?
We've all read the Bell Curve douchebag. Quit trolling.
We've got some rules here. One is that fights will go on as long as they have to. And another, two guys to a fight.
Get fucked.
Yours Truely,
LH
Size is not the issue but the inner functioning that makes the difference, similar to electronics(bigger is not = better) but yes generally speaking jews are on average equal if not smarter than the Caucasians(if your into comparing Apples to Oranges), it's HOW they use their brain power that matters, while the rest of the Human species generally uses their brain power for constructive purposes of making life better the jews mainly use it to enslave other(races) and ride on the back of their newly acquired slaves
whites' distribution curve has fatter tails. More retards and more geniuses than should be expected, particularly white men. Some aberration of selection in biology for whatever reason.
genius is what produces advancement...high average produces a caste, especially when combined with racist nepotism. Among the giants of science and math, the vast majority were historically white men.
average ashkenazi has a higher IQ yes. like 112 IIRC
Trust me when I say that Oregon will never allow a major coal port in the state no matter how many gay and lesbian awareness centers the industry promises to build in their fair cities and schools. Ain't no how..., ain't no way!
Too sad...
All I can say is that to demonstrate their point, they used a "painting" of Mt. St. Helens...
BEFORE it's fucking top was blown off to smithereens later on...
Aaaah yes.... the "placidity" of hindsight...
Growth is by definition a percentage of what has been achieved earlier (past year or quarter or whatever timeframe). For example 10% more sales for Q4 compared to Q3. Which by definition is an exponential function, which is NOT sustainable on a long enough timeline. Best explained by Albert Bartlett:
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bartlett
Or for the lazy asses, here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqcHG7QUK9k
Zero Hedge's chart of Depression level unemployment in the Eurozone is all the talk in the Fox News Studios tonight, with none other than Joe Wiesenthal (Obama/Lieberman 2012 Propaganda Bundler) reporting on how Rupert Murdoch himself has been so shocked by the raw numbers that he's begun to actively tweet about how bad things are.
EuroContagionRagin.
#LetThemEatCake - Davos 2012
Oh, fuck Rupert.
I personally want to see Rupert Morlock kiss Ron Paul's ass in repentance for the way that Morlock's abomination of a "news" channel, the propagantainment FAUX News, and his trained warmongering neocon attack parrots have treated Paul after he wins the GOP nomination.
... have treated Paul after he wins the GOP nomination.
Not gonna happen.
... and you'll be shocked to hear who does win said nomination.
Hey thanks for the video!
Looks to be hyperinflamatory.
Growth is by definition a percentage of what has been achieved earlier (past year or quarter or whatever timeframe). For example 10% more sales for Q4 compared to Q3.
________________________________________________________
How true.
Plant:
month 1: adds 1 cm
month 2: adds 0.5 cm
month 3: adds 0.1cm
I think that it is another for the math running crowd.
Hey, dont forget, maths never lie.
Make that "Growth in Finance" and you'll get the point... Come on you're almost there!
As for Mother Nature, yeah, she's wise enough to not believe in perpetual growth (as defined in finance) and she perfectly knows it's simply not possible...
Nice observation
I may live in Texas now, but Oregon is my homeland. It has become nothing more than a giant welfare state with everyone waiting for the timber/fishing industries to come back. They won't. Socialism has destroyed these people's minds and souls.
The Government is also trying to achieve "growth" by letting in tens of millions of illegals. All that's doing is growing the Welfare state, however.
Growth Sucks.
What I mean by that is that growth is demanded by the fiat ponzi, right? Compound interest demands rapid growth to sustain the system. Because we live under and have been conditioned by the fiat ponzi system, we have been trained to accept all growth as 'good'. However, I contend that there is nothing inherently good or even decent about growth. To take it further, growth in our current paradigm is the enemy of good.
Let me explain. Take for example the native americans. They lived in perfect harmony with nature. Only grew to the size that their buffalo herd or crops could sustain, and lived (for the most part) as close to optimal a lifestyle as mankind has produced. Growth in its present form has really given us NOTHING of value BESIDES life support to the fiat ponzi. My house doesn't appreciate because they keep building more in my town to accommodate more 'growth', crime is going up because they keep the borders open to help grow and fill all these houses, NY NY is sending their trash to my state because they outgrew their own landfills, etc, etc. I could go on but you get the point. Imagine a world where 'quality' reigned supreme over 'quantity' in all things. Imagine if we were limited by oh, say, a gold standard :) wouldn't that be ideal? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a car but choose a horse because you could? To be surrounded by wonderful art? To have your children educated to respect nature, to honor family, and to stretch themselves to advance the global consciousness instead of playing 'fuck your neighbor' for their shot at the brass ring?I agree and I've posted as much in other threads from time to time, although not nearly as eloquently as you.
Everyone owes it to themselves to question one of the biggest assumptions of our time: that growth always equates to a good thing -- that growth is an end and we must do anything possible to achieve it. Folks, I have bad news for you: there's a fixed amount of energy on the earth (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, etc.) and a fixed amount coming from the sun. No amount of monetary policy or any policy will ever change that. This entire planet works within those limitations. We all must learn to appreciate what we have and not what we want because what we can have is limited.
Ask yourselves why the media and pundits and government are so concerned with maintaining growth. Who benefits from "growth" as is popularly defined (GDP)? Why, those people creating money from thin air and charging interest on it! The people issuing debt and charging you for the privilege are the ones who want growth. Now maybe you can see the insidiousness and pervasiveness of the entire scheme. Now maybe you can comprehend the sheer enormity and scale of the situation.
I am with you, BoNeSxxx, as should all ZH readers be.
Except it's given us healthier lives, longer lifespans, knowledge, security and justice (the ideals, not necessarily the present state of affairs), the ability to travel/communicate over long distances…. Unfortunately it's also given us religion, with its focus on the after-life rather than humanity-on-earth. Do we have a problem of finite resources or overpopulation? The latter causes the greatest stress on our planet: environmental degradation, shrinking diversity of species, poverty, wars (to close the circle with religion again), and we mightn't be able to advance compensating technology fast enough.
It's all part of natural evolution: we might fatten up to the size of orang-utans and shrink back to the size of Macaques; ultimately to wither and/or be replaced by another more advanced (or not) species. But yeah, growth without bounds is unsustainable, otherwise we'd see galactic cultures.
As per the sensible posters above, 'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron (btw - is that the first time 'moron' has appeared on here & not been an insult?) & is only required because USA/The West has pre-consumed too much & run up debts which can't be repaid without implying/needing unlimited exponential growth to 'fix'.
The only solution now is for sustained inflation to pretend-away the debt & for a re-jigging of lifestyles to live within zero or slightly declining GDP. That's not so bad.
Imagine having to live the material life(albeit with more efficient & intelligent machines/processes) as your parents/grandparents did - with efficient use of raw materials & energy that could probably be done on 50% of the raw inputs today.
The big problem is the raping & pillaging being done by the financial classes & their political running dogs - if they can't be persuaded to mend their ways, then all is doomed.
Not all bubbles are bad. The Housing bubble brought no real capital growth, but
the internet and dot-boom created major infrastructure which was well worth it.
It's clear energy, transport, and food and water are going to be the next one.
I think it's clear the new revolution will be a trend toward sustainable growth
and away from extraction. whatever primary extraction is left will itself be
squeezed and dripped for recycling and additional returns. ie methane from
depleted oil wells, fuel from coal flues.
LNG is a great start, as are renewables, as are safe nuclear thorium reactors.
I wish Obama would do more. The US needs high-speed trains and freight rail
needs to be modernized. I would push for the opening of new canals and
sea ways, for transport as well as for hydro power and irrigation management.
The corollary is more grid network and grid storage, with hydro storage reservoirs.
I would also point to a coming revolution in synthetic biology and nanotech as
a potential source of growth where the US has a significant leap start.
The Russians, by comparison, have mega projects planned well into 2050.
Growth is but one vehicle. What is hidden, to a large degree, is the intent. Sure growth makes jobs, which creates personal wealth, buying power, more debt, inflation, then loosing the source or the job and selling things at a loss or shrinkage. The money lenders, through all of this never loose.
So growth is one vehicle while destruction is the other, negative growth or war.
History has shown us that there are a few who make out very well during both these cyclical events. They pass this power on to their direct decendents not the children in general but the blood line. The rest of us are serfs and canon fodder.
Clue (get one): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871651411393887069
Is that what you think they are doing trying to achieve, growth? No, they have achieved another permanent voting bloc for one side of our no difference political spectrum.
Ah, they're all godless commies against strong family values which would have been taught to the couples attending the gay and lesbian centers with the opportunity to listen to folks like Rick Santorum, Oral Roberts (get it, at a gay center, Oral... LOL) and other nice young members of the Multi Denominational Christian and Islamic Homophobic Anti-Gay, Lesbin and Transgendered Peoples Jihad Extinguishment and United Coal Miners and Exporters Collective Committee.
They promise that the coal will not physically bespoil any of the natural beauty of Oregon, detract from the marijuana cash crop nor the pollution generated in China befoul the Pristine Skies of the 33rd state, home of the Western Meadowlark, the Oregon grape (berberis aquafolium) the Douglas Fir (pseudotsuga menziesil), nor displace the state capital, Salem Tidbit, promise every day to sing "Oregon, My Oregon" 3 times in multi-part harmony, to which only four living individuals know the words, whilst forcing small children to memorize the phrase "Alis Volat Propiis" and say it ten times as fast as possible as they turn in circles 10 times around the handle of a baseball bat.
What could go wrong?
Or an I thinking of Greece?
Just follow the arrow
<----------------->
8=======>, or, <==8 ?
If we had a gold standard there would never be a trade imbalance for any lenght of time. Only by Washington politicians and the Federal Reserve creating counterfeit money are we able to run trade deficits for decades.
This means we could accomplish balanced trade, sound money, and neutering the politicians by ending the Federal Reserve.
And another thing the US is still the number one manufacturing country in the world. What we need is;
1. Cheap steady energy. Get rid of the affirmative action idiot in the White House and get a real president who understands he needs to get the fuck out of the way.
2. Low taxes. Why would we punish job creators? Only stupid people do this.
3. Tort reform. Jackpot justice cost jobs.
4. Privatize education and stop the fucking brainwashing of our kids. Industry is not impressed that young workers expect $100,000 a year and a diverse workplace with Eddie Murphy ther to entertain their spoiled white ass.
5. Cooperation from civic leaders/politicians at the local level. Corporations are not looking for a legal fight and protest when they spend a few billion to build a new manufacturing plant.
And more. Basically this guy should like a mouthpiece for Obama and some bull shit Keynesian, we got to export, 21st century mercantilism crap.
Fuck the exports, I want a gold standard and to consume the shit I make here in America.
And don’t forget who the winner is in a mercantilist economy, the fucking king gets the gold and the peasants do without.
nobody actually wants a diverse workplace. It is shoved down everyone's throats.
"Freedom FROM Choice" (is what they want)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU
"A victim of collision on the open sea
Nobody ever said life was free
Sink? Swim? Go down with the ship?
Use your freedom of choice..."
Trav-e-sty stated:
Yep, that's right, nobody. Not ONE person on earth wants such a thing.
Just like EVERY single silver holder or investor on earth is a parasite and has the exact same plan for profiting from silver's price explosion --- we know that you know that, though, having interviewed each and every one of them yourself.
The Great and Powerful Wizard of Lulz has spoken!
Just as you, Akak, have spoken to each and every Chinese Citizen and concluded this:
"It is the goal of Chinese citizens to destroy the environment. Such is the eternal nature of Chinese Citizenism."
Hypocrite.
Forgive me for assuming that you might have a shred of a sense of sarcasm & humor --- or any sense at all.
EDIT: Just who the fuck are all the unjustified, downarrowing junk monkeys running rampant here on ZeroHedge lately? Has anyone else noticed this trend? Lots of worthy posts, and posters, are receiving red arrows for NO good reason at all. Creepy.
Your Gubermint at work???????
I missed an episode.
The Chinese have propagated a similar thing to US citizenism?
When? And where I can find the core tenets and their application?
Because so far, Chinese are mostly adopting US citizenism which is wiping out their traditional ways.
Still, it is been crunch time for now some times and I suppose I missed something during the last few months.
i don't mind if the female race is diverse in the workplace
Brown ones even better !!!
lol....I actually heard the Hulk say that in my head....
I'd prefer if the diverse female population was home, barefoot and on the pill. Lower standard of living with fewer gadgets but work
available for them that need it. Label me a male chauvinistic pig please.
consider yourself labeled....now go get your shoe shine box bitch....
By all means Sir, you are a male Shauvinistic Pig Sir. Invoice in the Mail, PayPal please.
I gave Trav a thumbs up because I think he is frustrated with gov't mandated hiring rules that demand "equality" over competence. I am quite confident that most of us have had to suffer theconsequences of federal "equal opportunity" laws at our work places. Most of us don't look at color or anything else at work, we just want to know that everyone follows the same rules regardless of ethnic origin or whatever other category the progressives have added to the original list. Thank you
I was raised, believe and practice in all my affairs that race, color and creed have nothing to do with the quality of character of the individual. Hence the imposition of quotas are the most racist, bigoted and unfair policies possible. Addrsessing race, color or creed does not by it's very existence, treat individuals equally.
CL17, I understand your argument, and agree with it.
I had to downarrow Trav above, though, merely because I know from his past history here that his comment was simply a reflection of the fact that he hates the darkies.
And you hate Chinks (your word, not mine).
You really are quite a dullard and idiot, aren't you? Or is that just that, like the anti-libertarian trolls, you pretend to hear only what you want to hear, and not what was actually said?
After having clearly explained myself DIRECTLY to you in that other thread (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/japanese-population-shrink-one-third-size-...), I am not even going to try to further explain the concepts of sarcasm and irony to you, clueless and/or disingenuous jerk that you are, so kindly shove your self-righteous and grossly misplaced excoriations up your ass.
Go to the Geico building in Virginia Beach.
You will find the fattest blackest people on earth there. Seriously it's like going to the zoo. If Geico wasn't moving toward CPU (68%+ online business origination) that place would be in serious peril.
If you have the money I suggest a visit with family. 1345 Perimeter Parkway Virginia Beach, Virginia 23454. It's better than the zoo.
It's been a few years, but IIRC Comcast and the DMV were also interesting venues.
nobody actually wants a diverse workplace. It is shoved down everyone's throats.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Given that US citizens have been successful at pushing for conformity and uniformity, that mad thought of diversity at the workplace is just paranoia.
humans are not multicultural - they are tribal.
How was that Kool-Aid? Chilly, I bet.
Ah, the "let's use it all ourselves, that'll fix everything" approach. It's STILL GROWTH! Strength through exhaustion!
Can you people not understand simple math?
bob_dabolina:
Allow me to suggest a correction.
Growth = Death, because,
xt = x0(1 + r)t
Thus, the size of a population at time t is equal to the initial population
times [one plus the rate of growth] to the exponent of time.
Ya' got that? Time is the exponent. Please let that sink in.
Here is an example.
If the 3000-year old Egyptian civilization started with 100,000 people,
and grew at a rate of 0.5% per year, at the end of the 3000 years, how many
would there have been? Well, there would have been 317 billion Egyptians.
The Egyptian population didn't grow. At all. In all that time. Couldn't have.
Growth is death. Period.
Unless we go to the Asteroid Belt, now, we are cooked.
How many politicians can do simple math? How many care about the long term?
Zero.
very good...
& thus there is an EX in the word "exponent"
eX ?
If the 3000-year old Egyptian civilization started with 100,000 people...
How do you "start" with 100,000? Where'd they come from?
Well, its like the physicist who wanted to calculate the volume of a cow. He [or she] said, "Let's assume the cow is a sphere."
You have to start your analysis somewhere. I don't know where Egypt started, but I know where I started my analysis.
And, its just an example that makes explicit the mortal problem with growth. Time does not end! And that's a real problem, because time is the exponent. And an expanding exponent will kill your descendents. End of story.
The expanding exponent by itself is simply a function. Nothing propagates perpetually at the same rate because other limiting factors come into play. Trees, for instance, cannot propagate at an exponential rate because they eventually crowd each other out (setting aside human influence).
So the real issue is what is the sustainable rate of propagation for the population, right? Plagues, disasters, viruses, etc. all serve to constrain the rate of growth. Even security prices propagate this way.
I got your assumption. It's as reasonable as any. I was just turning the lens around to think about the rate of change back to the origin, as that is as informative as anything about the path forward.
They all came from vagina's, every single one of em...
...so they're all 'pussies'... It's starting to make sense now...
So, you're saying that they all popped out of their mummies?
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE !!!
Popped out of their dry, wrinkly, old, dusty, rotted vaginas.
Oops,I feel silly because I accidentally made the leap in thought for everyone.
How do you "start" with 100,000? Where'd they come from?
Valid question... But you're stuck in the "Adam & Eve" matrix...
Let's say they were 100,000 ORIGINAL 'Hope & Changers'... Well... it grew and lasted for awhile I suppose...
They were put here by the "visitors"
Annunaki
says "Kazoo"... Not that I challenge...
Mexico?
So Gnewt (that's Newt with a G that's silent) is right about going to the moon?
God I love politicians in electon years. Fucking Kafkaesque.
And these people are trying to get the most powerful seat in the world? If I acted and said shit like that at work, I'd be put on long term mental disability.
I think Gnat Grinchgrinch just wants to gorge on all the green cheese there.
Actually, the equations are a little more along the lines of
dx/dt = -px + qxy
dy/dt = ry - sxy
where x is a civilization's population, y is the amount of energy available,
p is the rate of decline of the population in the absence of food (energy),
q is the interaction rate at which the population increases in the presence of that food (energy),
r is the replenishment rate of the energy
s is the interaction rate at which the energy is depleted by that population.
This is an over-simplification itself, admittedly, but what it says is that population growth is non-linear, quasi-cyclical, always dies out if you completely eliminate food (energy) but the population can also go extinct if there's not enough food (energy), and that in general the smaller the population the less quickly the food (energy) gets consumed.
Two lessons from this. First, very few systems are truly exponential - they only appear that way when viewed over too short a time frame. There is always friction in the system that manifests itself as non-linear terms. (i.e., Malthus was wrong).
Second, any model is an approximation of the real world. This model, for instance, doesn't take into account environmental degradation, becomes less accurate for small numbers (where the differential equations need to be replaced by difference equations), and assumes no other constraints (regulatory limits, for instance, or multiple differing types of food (energy)).
This is an over-simplification itself, admittedly, but what it says is that population growth is non-linear, quasi-cyclical, always dies out if you completely eliminate food (energy) but the population can also go extinct if there's not enough food (energy), and that in general the smaller the population the less quickly the food (energy) gets consumed.
FANTASTIC!! ~ You just described the CPI & PCE 'deflator' numbers that the Fed 'models' it's policymaking on...
(That 'lasvegas' dude (below) will be thrilled to hear this)...
And yet the Japanese population is forcast to drop by 30% by 2060. Growth or not.
that would be an unchecked, static rate of growth.
unfortunately that's simply not the case.
it's not a pure geometric series.
we change our conditions.
growth makes for pressure which makes for changing boundaries.
technology, epidemics, cataclysms, environmental degradation,
and a host of social plagues like war make for a very volatile net
rate of growth.
simply put the growth rate hits a resource plateau, and then a shift
has to occur. then we start over wirth a new growth paradigm.
I used to think that way.
I don't think there is is any efficient way to manage an economy with/without a gold standard.
A somewhat peculiar observation is that of war, and or, massive periods of population reduction. There is an importance of mass annihilation of population, and whether or not you want to consider me a sick person is up to you. However, could you imagine if there were never any wars, or plagues, or ice ages, or whatever? I'm not sure if it's even possible to calculate how many people would be inhabiting the earth had all the aforementioned not occured.
But it's interesting because we haven't had a major population reduction in...decades, which is a first for human civilization. I postulate that this is in large part due to the advent of nuclear weapons...no major country wants to go to war due to MAD. So we have an exponential growth of the population competing for limited resources.
Everyone wants peace but the truth is, if one is to look at history, humanity is primarily violent and consumed with war with very, very short periods of peace. If the population of the world is to continue at it's current pace, there will be a time (determined by nature) where a massive reduction of life will occur.
At least from a Darwinian perspective war, plagues, sickness, is good. Do you really want 50 billion people fighting over a bannana? Sans population control that's what it comes down to.
War has rarely if ever been the determining, or even a major, factor in overall death rates. It has been disease throughout human history that has been the single largest such factor, followed by famine (usually related to weather). While deaths due to war are concentrated and notably graphic, globally they have never been more than a mere blip in the population growth curve of the last few centuries.
What are you an idiot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
Now imagine all those people had offspring, and those offspring had offspring, etc. Don't forget, population growth is exponential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
In 1900 global pop was 1.5 billion. (only) 100 years later we're at almost 7 billion. About 6 billion people added in 100 or so years.
Let's assume world peace. Where are we in 100 years?
Actually, I think you may find the idiot staring back at you in the mirror.
What you neglect to consider in your wildly simplistic analysis is 1) the normal, ongoing rate of death throughout history, and causes for that rate of death; war is not nearly among the highest; 2) the fact that not each and every one of your war casualties would have automatically contributed to further population growth --- many of them would have likewise died from disease or famine, as would many of their offspring; 3) the list your provided from Wikipedia above, while it lists all the major wars of the last two or three centuries, only lists several of the major notable famines, but more importantly does NOT acknowledge the fact that before about 1800, famine was a regular and frequent part of life (and death) around the world --- even including in Europe. That factor is in no way accounted for by your list.
I can't imagine why you are even trying to grind this particular ax --- the facts here are clear and are not even debatable, unlike your grossly erroneous interpretation of them.
Ok, you're right (this is the approach I take with my girlfriend when I want her shut up) And she's a lambs tail shake away from getting dropped like it's hot.
I'm astounded that ANYBODY would give me three (and counting) red arrows merely for pointing out the obvious historical facts. The facts here are NOT subject to revisionism or political prejudice, any more than is the fact that the sky is blue. Are ignorance and blind assumptions now to be the guiding star of ZH comments?
What the fuck is wrong with you people? If you think you are so smart, then come back with some facts or logical arguments, you cowards, instead of just hitting the red arrow.
Bob's essential argument seems to be that you're an idiot if you don't include a Wiki link in your comments.
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
We are very sexually frustrated. Trying to discuss the disappearance of segregated customer accounts at MF global, with the opposite sex, has completly overcome any advantage our pheromones hath garnered us...
There are certain aspects of human society, such as intellectual discussion and serious political and financial analysis, in which the fairer sex as a whole are chronically weak. And vice versa --- I will freely admit that my home decoration and rumor-networking skills are abysmal.
Me thinks that both sides completely over thinks the situation when it comes to the opposite sex
But then again, I am just a big dumb hulk...
At least you don't sound angry.
We don't like you when you're angry.
I think that people may just down arrow you because you're you, much like some down arrow Trav because of his 'tendancies', even though alot of what he says is valid and/or thought provoking.
Don't take it personally though, some people need time to find their voice and absorb all the enlightened (and archaic) commentary here and will contribute eventually....
SO true. I was reading an article about dark matter, and how 95% of the matter in the universe is unaccounted for or misinterpreted, and I went in to tell my wife but she was having a crisis because toys r us was out of an item they had just yesterday. I just agreed it was terrible, and left the room quickly...
rumor-networking skills are abysmal.
//////////////////////////////////////////////
US citizens weak at the rumour mill? Cant wait to see a US citizen who holds his ground then...
What a cry baby. Seriously? Crying about red arrows?
--------> Low self-esteem
Work on that.
Low tolerance for liars and assholes.
I can take both the liars and the a55holes... It's the HYPOCRITES that get me (but I suppose a 'hypocrite' could be construed as a lying a55hole)... :-)
OK, low tolerance for liars and hypocrites here --- assholes are annoying but tolerable when they're intelligent or funny.
For examples of the former, MaxFischer, LetThemEatRand and Trav7777 currently reign supreme.
@akak
What the fuck is wrong with you people? If you think you are so smart, then come back with some facts or logical arguments, you cowards, instead of just hitting the red arrow.
I'm with YOUR take on this (so +1)... All I can offer is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1tYQvbILH8
Blind assumptions ARE, in fact, a bitch to deal with...
theres a lot of fuckwits on this blog but quite a few pearls thrown in too. Be grateful there are so many idiots in the world. Less competition for us!
Hell, I only have to work a few minutes a day to keep ahead of the fuckers!
And they run the rail,airline and roads system 24/7 just in case I feel like dropping by!
Thank you Fuck wits, Drones, Poor people, God botherers etc.
But please don't let me keep you from your work.
Your discussion is useless. Humans now have the ability to destroy the world 1,000 times over with the push of a button. A power which was never been possessed before by humans. Imagine if Hitler have had 10 ICBMs during WWII.
erroneous postulate... (in my estimation)...
Has little to do with Hitler... More to do with POWER... It's a whole different discussion...
1,000 times over.. Okay just for giggles how many nukes and of what tonnage does it take to destroy the world just so I can do the math myself check your statement so to speak? Oh, and what is the total desturction of the world ? Melt the the surface 8 feet down or?
By the way, Hitler had thousands of ballistic missiles and depnding on their location when fired they were true ICBM's.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3634212.stm
History didn't have as many nukes as we have today. And remember, boys and girls: ALL SYSTEMS FAIL.
You see, nukes could quite readily, and suddenly, "adjust" population numbers in a big way.
Seems WWII was a pretty potent population reducer. And the point is that technology is rapidly closing in on nature's claim to cull dominance.
Biggest wrong assumption - population growth is exponential. See my post below.
akak is in fact correct - what changed was not that we became more efficient at war but rather we became more efficient at staying alive (improvements in health and environment). That growth started with the industrialization of coal in the 17th century, then took off with the industrialization of oil in the 20th. Reduced infant mortality, mothers living and staying fertile longer, increased health into senescence. At the moment we're in overshoot, if you buy the thesis (I do) that global oil peaked sometime between 2005 and 2010. Natural gas has bought us a window of between 15 and 40 years, depending upon which estimates you believe (the idea that we have 100 years of NG reserves, even with technological improvements in extraction, is laughable). Coal may give us another 80, but at a considerably reduced standard of living. Fission ... is already beginning to degrade the global environment (Fukushima is more toxic now than it was six months ago). Fusion might very well save us, but absent that, the history of the next 100 years is pretty ugly.
Indeed, absent wars (which I believe is an unrealistic assumption), global population will likely peak at 8.5 billion in 2040. In the OECD countries, sans immigration, the population will actually decline by as much as 1.5 billion people due to increased radiation (more cancers), declining health care systems globally, decreased infrastructure, weather extremes (I'm thinking cold more than heat, but either is possible), and a natural replacement rate that's even now at roughly 1.9 in the US (and 1.1 in Japan and Italy) - 2.1 is break-even. That means that three billion people will end up being born in Africa, South and Central America, China, India, and along the Indian ocean. Many will grow up in abject poverty, infant and maternal mortality will skyrocket, and the likelihood of infectious plagues will reach near certainty. By 2100, it's very likely the population globally will have crashed to perhaps as low as 1 billion people. The world will be a very different place.
@SystemsGuy
I like your mathematical approach to this (I'm sure I speak for others as well)...
When it comes time (in threads), to apply such logic... I'll be happy to read these types of calculations...
As always... Time & circumstances change... But mathematics is hardly a slave to either... GREAT POSTS... (Hint though: DO NOT adopt me as a friend... read further below and it may 'alienate you'... So I apologize that I liked your comments & regret any attempts to befriend)... Purely co-incidental (as the case may be)...
FS
Nice post SG. Thanks.
And I agree with you regarding the likely future, absent some breakthrough in fusion or some fundamentally novel new form of energy.
I concurr. If you read Jared Diamond's _Guns Germs and Steel_ you'll see
that geographical and ecological barriers, environmental factors, disesse,
and lastly social and cultural conflicts which in their extreme form take the
shape of war and genocide are the catalysts for change and migration.
war is expensive and risky. it happens as a consequence of other factors.
Sounds like a wonderful idea........So wonderful in fact you can be the first in line to go.....
How does your version of a gold standard work when the prior version was manipulated into something that looked as maleable as ...fiat?
FOFOA has done a fair job at considering this issue. So far his version on the use of gold in the economy stands up better than what I know of prior use of gold as a backing agent and certainly better than walking around with Au in the pocket.... Savings in non dilutable physical gold and fiat subject to the discipline of a market place with a physical gold option.
How does your version of a gold standard work when the prior version was manipulated into something that looked as maleable as ...fiat?
FOFOA has done a fair job at considering this issue. So far his version on the use of gold in the economy stands up better than what I know of prior use of gold as a backing agent and certainly better than walking around with Au in the pocket.... Savings in non dilutable physical gold and fiat subject to the discipline of a market place with a physical gold option.
Agreed, and mother nature has been providing population control towards the best ends for humans and the other billions of species perfectly well.
If we entrust population control to our wise masters we'll end up saying things like...
Secretary of State: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.”
Attorney General (Sara Rue): “So wait a minute. What you’re saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.”
Joe: “Yes.”
Attorney General: “Water. Like out the toilet?”
Joe: “Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that’s the idea.”
Secretary of State: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.”
Attorney General: “It’s got electrolytes.”
Joe: “Okay, look. The plants aren’t growing, so I’m pretty sure that the Brawndo’s not working. Now, I’m no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.”
Secretary of Energy (Brendan Hill): “Well, I’ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.”
Secretary of State: “Hey, that’s good. You sure you ain’t the smartest guy in the world?”
Joe: “Okay, look. You wanna solve this problem. I wanna get my pardon. So why don’t we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?”
Attorney General: “Brawndo’s got what plants crave.”
Secretary of Energy: “Yeah, it’s got electrolytes.”
Joe: “What are electrolytes? Do you even know?”
Secretary of State: “It’s what they use to make Brawndo.”
Joe: “Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?”
Secretary of Defense: “‘Cause Brawndo’s got electrolytes.”
In the end that situation will correct itself too.
When I saw that portion of the movie I couldn't help but think of this commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQls4ot3l4
One does not need a gold standard for this to work, just settlement in gold (albeit at a much higher price).
At this moment in civilization; growth = debt; problem of debt solved with more debt; = cataclysmic result
Where's my Ph.D?
The 'aliens' will give it to you... Right after they suck out your brain matter...
Lucky for me I came equipped with this handy dandy big ol' erectile brain matter sucking spigot. That should make it easy for 'em.
Banks set to double or TRIPLE crisis loans from ECB
European banks are preparing to tap the European Central Bank’s emergency funding scheme for up to twice as much as the ECB supplied in its debut €489bn auction last month, providing further evidence of the sector’s liquidity squeeze.
Several of the eurozone’s biggest banks have told the Financial Times that they could well double or triple their request for funds in the ECB’s three-year money auction on February 29.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09ab9542-4b6d-11e1-b980-00144feabdc0.html...
Growth may equal debt, but so what? As long as the growth is actual growth in products that are needed and help mankind and the planet and its other species sustain and renew itself along with providing people with a lifestyle to which they want to get accustumed to. Then that debt is not a problem and will not lead to negative cataclysmic results. Debt is a problem only when the proceeds of production and human capital are used to degrade and leverage that degradation further for self serving short term gain and gratification.
Exponential growth WILL consume all non renewable resources within a finite world. The only question is what is the level of exponential growth vs the quantity of those finite yet indispensable resources (the variables) and time. {new and unpredictable discoveries and inventions/techniques are also variables}
More simply put: "On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
The timeline decreases exponentially with exponential growth.
NO! GROWTH HAS TO DO WITH PHYSICAL RESOURCES! Quit pretending that this is about spreadsheet shit!
Growth is stalling because there's not enough resources to maintain the exponential demands of physical growth. This is HIGHLY problematic when one's trade/economic systems are based on growth!
Yup and the underlying mathematics of it is the exponential function.
A short history of America - Robert Crumb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ym5n-ZZWUs
A short history of America - South Park
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLzo9pOXa-s
Big news?
You wondering what the big news is today according to CNBC? Gemany demanding control of Greek finances? No. Portugal entering the insovency crosshairs? No. The EU summit? uh...no. Israel becoming more boisterous about attacking Iranian nuclear facilities while a 3rd U.S. carrier group is on it's way to the gulf? No. Another $1.2 Trillion rise in the U.S. "debt ceiling"? Nope. SOPA morphing into Jersey's ACTA where ammunition will be unconstitutionally banned? No. The Republican primaries, Davos or the fact that The Baltic Dry Goods Index has collapsed back to 2008 crash levels? No, no and more no!
No, CNBC's "journalists" are falling all over each other about none other than...The Facebook!
Yep, that's right, Facebook appears to be in the process of going public in the not too distant future and yes, THIS is big news! Retail investors spirits are being whipped up to queue for their 50, 100 (maybe even 100's) of shares that their broker will "gift" to them! This is big, big stuff! This could be even better than Google if you listen to Jim Cramer! There was talk about how many jobs will be created worldwide and how this one issue has the potential to save the entire global financial system ... only kidding about the saving the world part!
Do you believe the stupidity and complacency!
99.9% odds that when this whole "global bankruptcy" saga plays out that the masses will look back to these times while smacking themselves palm to forehead saying "I can't believe I didn't see this coming!". Think about it, globally ... not singling out the U.S. here ... housing and real estate markets have imploded and there are more negative equity situations than in all of history including the 1930's. The banking system is beyond hobbled and has been insolvent for over 3 years. Derivatives, with zero chance of performing after "trigger" events total over $1 Quadrillion and totally dwarf global GDP by something like 20-1. Central banks, sovereign treasuries and thus entire governments are broke, bankrupt or "insolvent", use whatever politically correct term you like, the bottom line is that we live in a global financial system that is a Ponzi scheme from whatever angle you view it from. Yet, "no one" see's it coming ... or doesn't want to. For investors to ignore reality like this must be the same phenomena as Roman's being entertained at the Colliseum!
So the big news is "Facebook". This is what it was like when Google went public except for one minor detail. Back then, individuals, corporations, cities, states and sovereign governments STILL had the ability to "leverage up". They have since done so which IS the problem, a Ponzi scheme cannot continue forward without continual "new money".
Facebook may turn out to be the greatest thing since "sliced bread" ... for "personal information gathering". For today it will work to avert attention from what the real problems are, but the real "problems" will just get bigger and bigger. This real problem are?
Yeah, broken record time again...the "money" we use is fake and can be produced at will for free. An old man use to always tell me that "if you can make something for nothing, that's what it's worth, nothing".
Made sense to me then, makes even more sense now!
www.lemetropolecafe.com
I hear that Farmville may be hiring soon.
From a socionomic standpoint, this is very interesting. Socionomics, for those who don't know, is a relatively new science that studies human social behavior, and movements in the collective social mood. According to socionomics theory, the collective social mood moves in waves on a spectrum of optimism/pessimism. When optimism is waxing, we have bull markets and economic expansion. When optimism is waning and pessimism is waxing, we have bear markets and recessions/depressions. The theory postulates that the collective social mood is endogenous, and the wave patterns are fractals and this is reflected in patterns in the major stock indexes; the stock indexes are the most immediate sociometer and reflect the current movements in social mood.
Okay, so, studies in socionomics show how everything from fashion, to entertainment, to politics, to wars, to peace, to monetary unions (ahem, the Euro), are a product of social mood. Certain events, such as the formation of the European Union and the Euro, often mark tops or bottoms in social mood. During times of optimism, people are open, tolerant, understanding, giving and sharing, hopeful, and all the other expressions that go with a postive mood. Thus, the formation of the EU. In times that the mood is moving to the negative, people are the opposite, and the result is conflict, intolerance, division, war, protests and riots, etc.
It's taken a while to get to the point, so for anyone who is still with me, it would be perfect socionomic poetry if the IPO of Facebook marked the top of this rally, which is a strong countertrend rally to the bear market that started in 2007 (or 2000, depending on your viewpoint). Facebook goes public, the markets get a jolt, and shortly thereafter, they tank.
Interesting to ponder. To me, anyway. If it doesn't interest you, fuck off. Hahaha, just kidding. Or am I? No, seriously...
Nice bi-polar conclusion. It was funny.
Western thought is a dilution. Get beyond it.
Of what is Western thought a dilution? Into what solvent has it been diluted? And in what form would that dilution best be expressed: molarity, molality, percent, or parts per million (ppm)?
(This thread seems to be dissolving ....)
Clever. Well done.
"I hear that Farmville may be hiring soon."
Funny, I have some land there.
I closed my facebook account over a year ago. Let the spooks spend more time if they really want to find out shit about me. Does notbody wonder why boy-faced Zuckerberg is invited to the White House all the time? Well, its because he is a freakin wimp, who just handed over the keys of his data pipes to the spooks without one single "but"....!
Washington, 2018=USSR, 1991
Fuck the spooks. Their days are numbered.
Well, its because he is a freakin wimp, who just handed over the keys of his data pipes to the spooks without one single "but"....!
Well... THAT & he's just another whore jew that's in love with confetti...
Wow that's pretty ignorant - your mother should slap you.
and that would accomplish WHAT?
- indoctrinate me?
- teach me how to be politically correct?
- teach me some 'manners'?
- help me to become 'more like YOU'?
- help me along in my progression from ZERO to HERO?
I can't wait to get started... Tell me where to sign up!
Oh you - you can't sign up to be an asshole - you were raised that way.
So by definition... You just expanded your boundaries and called my PARENTS a55holes?
Mr,. & Mrs. SAWYER aren't going to be happy...
Sorry your right - delete parents from equation.
OK... My 'parents' are thus exonerated...
Still leaves the question of "raised"... (by whom, or what structure or system)?...
(and 'your' would be spelled 'you're' [in YOUR context]... Mr. & Mrs. Sawyer, at minimum, taught me how to spell)
Well obviously YOUR way smarter than me - so I will humbly bow out with a proper "I fart in YOUR general direction".
nuf said.
whowouldathunkit- a grammar and political nazi all in one!
So being Jewish negates some of the thoughts of the great economists? Glad to see ignorance has found a place to survive.
OK... for the fucking fuck's sake of the 'hypersensitive' folks here... Let's try this...
Well... THAT & he's just another whore jew that's in love with confetti...
He's another whore..... (I don't think one gets entangled in a bazillion legal suits otherwise)
He's jewish..... (Ummm... I think that's not disputable)
He loves confetti.... (He wishes to 'cash in' his idea in FIAT)... Any disputes there???
Let's, thus, attempt to RE-PARSE that...
Well... THAT & he's just another whore................... jew..................... that's in love with confetti...
can you all sleep tonight now? (with visions of IPO's dancing in your heads)?
---
See? What you BLINDLY fail to consider is that my original response was directed towards this...
Well, its because he is a freakin wimp, who just handed over the keys of his data pipes to the spooks without one single "but"....!
---
So to you... the POINT is totally lost... Any idea that Zuckerberg just gave the KEYS TO THE KINGDOM (datawise) to agencies who will use your own personal information against your own person &/or your friends & family is COMPLETELY LOST the second some advertently or inadvertently comment misdirects you towards an "ad hominem" logic stream of personal bias...
francis-sawyer
You don't bring much to the conversation and you are hateful. In what way do you advance the ideas discussed here? What is your purpose (if you are just drunk ignore me) are you trying to give ZH a bad name. There is not much thin skin around here but the last significant bout of anti-semetism got out of hand. I'll bet there are a few sites that would consider you a contributing member but I'd like to be able to send people to this site to learn and form part of a critical mass that can influence the future. I'd prefer not to be associated with you so go away....please.
@lasvegaspersona
...on this?
"the great economists"
Can you please indulge me on your PILLAR OF WORK (which recounts the 'contributions' of GREAT ECONOMISTS over the millenia)?
Can you cite FACTUAL (time tested) bodies of work which have heretofore established UNMITIGATED CREDIBILITY to ANY 'theory of economics' that has passed the litmus test of...
- civilizations
- fiat currencies
- global politics
- races
...or anything else (to your liking), which I'm sure you will not hesitate to include due to your extensive research & multi-lingual/cultural/historical grasp of the matter at hand?