How do young people view the future?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Let's do that, right now. Global GDP last year was $63 trillion. Global population last year was 6.8 billion.

$63 trillion / 6.8 billion = $9264 per person per year. That's a high estimate, of course, because GDP would shrink with less people working and no for-profit companies.

---

Good luck convincing Americans and Europeans that they should live on just $9264/year. I don't think anyone living in LA could afford rent with that income. Can you live on $9k/year?

Dollars are not a resource.

Wood, metal, water, glass, minerals, food - those are resources.

The dollar is 'worthless' it doesn't do anything. Making it is arbitrary.

Back in the 60's a house cost what 20K? today its 200K.

Did the value of the wood change? did the value of the brick change?

If you said yes, you are wrong. One brick will get you one brick (fair trade) It doesn't matter if that brick was made in 1906 or 2006, the 'value' of a brick is a brick.

[Aester]

Thank you Bowyn Aerrow for saying what I think about the society

[WesHollywood]

Job creation is a function of economic policy, not population. You can eliminate unemployment in the US tomorrow by banning all labor unions and removing the minimum wage. You'd then argue that American workers aren't making a living wage...but it's a living wage by India's standards.

Perhaps you are not aware, but the European countries you so idolize, like Italy, ran roughly 10% unemployment rates during boom times. Why? The cost of their welfare-states, combined with labor union laws that make it near-impossible to fire/layoff individuals, make roughly 10% of the population too expensive for local businesses to hire. In countries like Italy and Greece, these permanently unemployed 10% were provided for by the government. Germans actually have a mocking name for these people permanently on welfare.

This is the system you and your president are brining to the US...so get used to permanent 9% unemployment. This is what you wanted.

---

P.S. My hospital just stopped hiring in anticipation of the estimated $100-million cost of Obamacare on our hospital system over the next two years. We're the second-largest private employer in the state (over 15k employees). That's how regulation can kill job creation. Fewer employees = fewer services = longer waits for treatment. And co-pays were increased to offset the cost of Obamacare's mandated "free preventative services." Guess what my fellow employees think of Obamacare. My boss is hoping that Republicans will kill Obamacare before its most destructive measures hit our department.

Hell, the publicly-funded hospital that treats mostly urban poor in my city just laid off 400 workers...so we're all sweating bullets right now. The people dying for lack of insurance will soon be dying for lack of workers and hospital beds.

As usual flamboyant declarations are posted without a SINGLE fact link to substantiate your comments.

[cloud999]

Dollars are not a resource.

Wood, metal, water, glass, minerals, food - those are resources.

The dollar is 'worthless' it doesn't do anything. Making it is arbitrary.

Back in the 60's a house cost what 20K? today its 200K.

Did the value of the wood change? did the value of the brick change?

If you said yes, you are wrong. One brick will get you one brick (fair trade) It doesn't matter if that brick was made in 1906 or 2006, the 'value' of a brick is a brick.

Dollars represent value at a given period in time, as do all currencies. At todays prices, global population produces approximately $9000 worth of wood, metal, water glass, minerals, food, and iPods per person. It's an abstraction of real, concrete things.

The dollar is a measure, similar to meters and ounces. Unlike those measures, however, the dollar's value changes both with the number printed and the quantity of goods people will trade it for. When the number of dollars printed outpaces our production of goods, prices goes up, and we call this inflation. When the number of goods produced outpace the printing of dollars, prices decrease and we call this deflation. Prices having been going up steadily, as you've mentioned, since FDR took us off the gold standard...enabling the Fed to print money at will.

What does this mean? It means that the world does not produce enough resources to sustain a global American-style middle class. Whether you measure world production in dollars, euros, yen, gold ounces, oil barrels, or sacks of grain doesn't change the output of the world...it is constant at a given point in time.

---

The value of goods is completely subjective, as per the Marginal Value Theorem. The value of a bucket of water is not constant...a man swimming in a river will value that bucket of water lower than an individual dying of thirst in the desert. Likewise, that $20 you wiggle into a stripper's thong without a thought is precious to a starving child in the Congo.

This is actually an argument for progressive taxation, because it means money becomes inherently less valuable as one accumulates it. It's a theory taught in Economics 101 at virtually every college campus in America, and isn't difficult to comprehend.

If you support income distribution and welfare, it obviously should be American and European money going to Africa. Sadly, these populations spend more on their own government pensions and healthcare than they give to truly poor nations.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Alas, I didn't take economics, I was busy pursing an education in Ministry. Economics from a religious point of view is taking water, converting that to wine, and taking two loaves and two fishes to feed 500. Handing one's cloak and coat over to a person who needs it, Feeding the poor when they are hungry, and all sort of other socialist notions.

You obviously took the economics courses. We most likely are talking in different languages.

Agreed there are not enough goods on ten earths to keep everyone on the planet at a middle class American standard. Either we march billions into the gas chamber, or we lower the standard and live within the means of the one Earth we have. I prefer lowering the standards of all over the Final Solution.

I also submit, that Economy means thrifty management; frugality in the expenditure or consumption of money, materials, etc. The middle class American life style is neither frugal nor thrifty.

I personally do not live 'middle class' While I do have a computer and a cell phone and an HDTV to watch, I also live in 450 square foot house on 2 acres, with about 500 square feet dedicated to growing most of our vegetables, which I can and preserve. On top of that we have a few citrus and nut trees, grape vine and black berries and a few herbs scattered among the 5 gardens/yards. My energy bills are low - well low compared to the majority of the USA. My carbon foot print is very low, falling short of the 12% mark on the USA scale. I am comfortable, well dressed, warm, well fed, content. Its not a bad way to live.

[cloud999]

Alas, I didn't take economics, I was busy pursing an education in Ministry. Economics from a religious point of view is taking water, converting that to wine, and taking two loaves and two fishes to feed 500. Handing one's cloak and coat over to a person who needs it, Feeding the poor when they are hungry, and all sort of other socialist notions.

I believe that the best thing you can do for a man is give him useful employment., a capitalist notion but grounded in fish nonetheless. Break bread and feed five hundred for a day...teach skills and feed five hundred for generations.

Africa needs the security of stable government, the capital to purchase/develop modern technologies, and the education to use it. When these three things come together, a country booms (like in Botswanna). Giving them food is a short-term solution that doesn't address the the core causes of their poverty.

You obviously took the economics courses. We most likely are talking in different languages.

Different languages for the same goal. While we do not currently produce enough to support a universal first-world lifestyle, I do not believe the answer is to cut down the first-world. Rather, we have only begun to to tap the energy potential of this world, which is why I am a scientist.

Agreed there are not enough goods on ten earths to keep everyone on the planet at a middle class American standard. Either we march billions into the gas chamber, or we lower the standard and live within the means of the one Earth we have. I prefer lowering the standards of all over the Final Solution.

Or we could learn to harness the nearly limitless energy found inside the sun, inside the Earth's core, and inside each and every atom. With the current exponential rate of technological development, I will see unlimited energy sources in my lifetime. Which will be easy, considering that I will most likely live more than a hundred years.

I also submit, that Economy means thrifty management; frugality in the expenditure or consumption of money, materials, etc. The middle class American life style is neither frugal nor thrifty.

I personally do not live 'middle class' While I do have a computer and a cell phone and an HDTV to watch, I also live in 450 square foot house on 2 acres, with about 500 square feet dedicated to growing most of our vegetables, which I can and preserve. On top of that we have a few citrus and nut trees, grape vine and black berries and a few herbs scattered among the 5 gardens/yards. My energy bills are low - well low compared to the majority of the USA. My carbon foot print is very low, falling short of the 12% mark on the USA scale. I am comfortable, well dressed, warm, well fed, content. Its not a bad way to live.

The problem is that cutting down your personal lifestyle, while admirable, does little to relieve the poverty of the third world. It will just make you as poor as them, in the long run.

Far more effective is to invest your surplus income into developing markets. I live on about 1/5th of my yearly income...and invest the rest. This helps both me, because it ensures retirement income as I grow old, and the world because my investments are researching new technologies and building up the poorer regions of the world.

When you invest your surplus income, you are effectively giving someone part of your share of humanity's resources with the expectation that they will share a small percentage of the fruits of that investment, should it be beneficial.

Example: my Uncle learns that China is restricting rare earth mining to jack up the price (monopoly power). He also learns that a small upstart company in Australia wants to use a new technique to mine rare earths and relieve the shortage, but they don't have the money. So he gives them a few thousand dollars to help build that mine (through international stock exchanges). The mine succeeds, cell phone manufacturers happily buy the cheaper rare earths from Australia, and the Australian company makes so much money that they are able to give my Uncle twice his initial investment. My Uncle then took that money and found a new sector that needed money.

This mining company, with the help of my Uncle's investment, created well-paying blue collar jobs that increase world productivity by providing a needed resource. That's how capitalism works, and that's how people are pulled out of poverty. When government regulation shuts this process down, economies slow and eventually collapse.

That's how we are permanently eliminating poverty in Africa.

---

And I live in a 1500-square-foot house on 0.09 acres built 120 years ago in the city. Walk to work, drive only once or twice a month. I try to be efficient and frugal because wise investment benefits both the investor and the world.

[HollandofFrance]

i was going to stat a post call"“Countless millions will protest against the New World Order, and will die fighting it.” - HG Wells, The New World Order

im sort of conservative -im pissed off at left and right wing maybe

im 57

[monk]

I imagine that young people face the future with a feeling of uncertainty. I'm thankful I grew up in happier times.

[Zet]

I suck at argumenting but my view of the future is either a technological ruin, a world either suffering from a broken ecosystem and constant nature disaster or an atomic winter. Or a world with mental slavery, a broken people controlled with microchips and other means.

[Kiid]

I hope that lots of people die off as the world is over populated. This would be sad but I fell in the end it would be a positive thing. Also ego death would be nice n.n