Japan's Population Problem

Low fertility rates and longer life spans are leading to an older and smaller population.

Japan's population is aging and declining. Two main forces are responsible: declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans:
1. Fewer babies. A total fertility rate of 2.1 would keep a population stable, assuming no migration. Japan hit this level in 1960, falling persistently below since 1975. The total fertility rate reached a low of 1.26 in 2005.

2. Longer lives. Japanese women attained the longest life expectancy among 228 countries in 1982, according to World Bank data, and have held that position to now.

Smaller workforce
Japan's population peaked in 2004 at 127.8 million. Current projections expect the rate of decline to accelerate to 1% annually by 2050. The workforce hit its high in 1999 and is now already 2.5% smaller.

A smaller workforce and an aging population imply that the ratio of workers to non-workers will fall. The conventionally measured dependence ratio--the number of workers that must cover the dependent population of young and retired--compares the number of people in the 15-64 year old age group to all others. The fertility collapse and aging have pushed the ratio down to 1.8 this year, with a projected ratio of one worker per dependent after 2050. Were this to happen, the consequences for taxes, transfers and incentives could be enormous.
Link -
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/14/japan-population- aging-business-oxford-analytica.html?feed=rss_busi ness
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Some things that await the rest of the world, over the next 20-30 years.

Japan's Population Structure

Some interesting graph's, which you will need to look at yourself.

That said, the total Japanese Population level has been basically stagnant for a decade and it is about to start a long term decline, which will see a 25% actual reduction, that is 32 million people less, by 2050!

Link -
http://japanjapan.blogspot.com/2010/06/japans-popu lation-structure.html
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If the rest of the world remained in growth mode, as it did for the first 15 years of the Japanese dilemma, then they would muddle thru?

Regrettably, the rest of the world is about to enter into the Japanese Dilemma and we will bring a few extra dilemma's with us, such as Debt & Energy Decline

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 17^th, 2010 at 9:44pm:

Japan's Population Structure Some interesting graph's, which you will need to look at yourself. That said, the total Japanese Population level has been basically stagnant for a decade and it is about to start a long term decline, which will see a 25% actual reduction, that is 32 million people less, by 2050! Link - http://japanjapan.blogspot.com/2010/06/japans-popu lation-structure.html =========== If the rest of the world remained in growth mode, as it did for the first 15 years of the Japanese dilemma, then they would muddle thru? Regrettably, the rest of the world is about to enter into the Japanese Dilemma and we will bring a few extra dilemma's with us, such as Debt & Energy Decline

http://wasatchecon.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/japan-pyramid-2009.gif

http://wasatchecon.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/tab2_2.gif

Above are two of the charts, from the above article on the Japanese Population issue.

I'll get the hang of these new tools, sooner or later?

That chart makes it look pretty drastic. But I still think it is a good thing. Overpopulation is the biggest threat to the world's quality of life, economy and environment, not an ageing population. China's boom would not be happening without the one child policy. They would be back to eating grasshoppers.

The Western press are in the business of attempting to frighten the Japanese with tales of a supposed imminent demographic disaster in their country unless they start opening up immigration. They have every right to give the West the middle finger; the problems aren't going to be that bad, and at any rate, trying to solve demographic problems like this by letting in millions more people is a short term solution.

The Japanese have this quaint idea that they like Japan the way it is; they want Japan to remain Japanese. I'm really sure that a few million Filipinos and Puerto Ricans are going to be huge enrichment for them. They're going to solve all of their problems, forever.

Good on them.

freediver wrote on Jun 18^th, 2010 at 8:37pm:

That chart makes it look pretty drastic. But I still think it is a good thing. Overpopulation is the biggest threat to the world's quality of life, economy and environment, not an ageing population. China's boom would not be happening without the one child policy. They would be back to eating grasshoppers.

It's a perspective thing!.

From a long term point of view, there really isn't another viable choice, the Japanes have to head in that direction and so does the rest of the planet.

However, in the short to medium term, the Economic costs will be great.

aikmann4 wrote on Jun 18^th, 2010 at 8:43pm:

The Western press are in the business of attempting to frighten the Japanese with tales of a supposed imminent demographic disaster in their country unless they start opening up immigration. They have every right to give the West the middle finger; the problems aren't going to be that bad, and at any rate, trying to solve demographic problems like this by letting in millions more people is a short term solution. The Japanese have this quaint idea that they like Japan the way it is; they want Japan to remain Japanese. I'm really sure that a few million Filipinos and Puerto Ricans is going to be huge enrichment for them. It's going to solve all of their problems, forever. Good on them.

The "press" are also not saying anything about the Aging Boomers, AT ALL, because there are those who want the status quo to continue, which it can not!

Sorry, gotta go, diner awaits!

Quote:

e Japanes have to head in that direction and so does the rest of the planet.

Or countries that are developed, at least. The denizens third world are going to continue to crank out babies until the cows come home. The labour pool there is practically limitless.

Quote:

However, in the short to medium term, the Economic costs will be great.

Many of the benefits to China have been very short term. So will the benefits to the Japanese.

Consider, first up, the plight of a young Tokyo couple trying to buy a place to live near to where they work. Fortunately, Tokyo real estate hasn't really risen in price much in a long time. However, if you imagine that population chart being bell shaped with a lot more people in the under forty bracket, what would that do to the price of rent or land in Japan? Or the price of food?

This will make it easier for them to support the ageing population, because they won't be trying to support an exponentially increasing population of young people at the same time. An economy doe not need an ever increasing number of young people to prop up the old people in order to function. That is the sort of reasoning that makes Africans slaughter each other every time there is a drought.

freediver wrote on Jun 18^th, 2010 at 8:59pm:

Quote: However, in the short to medium term, the Economic costs will be great. 1) Fortunately, Tokyo real estate hasn't really risen in price much in a long time. 2) This will make it easier for them to support the ageing population, because they won't be trying to support an exponentially increasing population of young people at the same time. An economy doe not need an ever increasing number of young people to prop up the old people in order to function.

1) That's actually an understatement, the Japanese R/E markets took a huge tumble beginning around 1990, I haven't looked for a while, but I believe it was down about 70%, from 1990 levels. Btw, the USA & Europe are now heading down a similar path and it seems likely that OZ will also, at some point, in the not too distant future.

2) This is where things start to get ineteresting, because Growth is one of the absolutes that underpin all current Economic models.
Be it Growth in Population, Energy supply, Money supply, in fact everything is on an ongoing, exponential increase basis.

And one of the longer term issues is that the Exponential function simply ins't possible to sustain, in the longer term the numbers become too large in everything and it all collapses!

So, long term, we have no option, we need to shrink!

That said, the short to medium term is difficult, because any economy which does not grow, which is in fact going to shrink, takes away many of the things which have come to be accepted as part of the "free enterprise" economic system.

If all markets are shrinking, including Population, Energy & Money, then the profit motive and increased volumes, basically get consigned to the toilet and the old "greed is Good" dies.

Now, some of that may not sound too bad, but the net effect on the economy, in the short to medium term, is that the economy contracts.

As everything delevers, the amount of taxes shrinks tremendously, just at the time when more taxes are needed, to pay for increased Aged Pensions (Baby Boomers) & increased Health Costs (Baby Boomers)

However, the exact opposite is actually happening, as tax revenues shrink, due to the "worker to population participation rate' shrinking, as the Baby Boomers first retire enmass & then pass away, over the next 20-30 years!

Sorry, I hope breakfast was good?  

You are leaving out the cost of raising and educating children. That gets a lot cheaper when the population shrinks, and it is not an insiginficant chunk of government revenue.

Plus, not all old people are useless, even if they don't know how to use a mouse.

freediver wrote on Jun 19^th, 2010 at 9:39pm:

You are leaving out the cost of raising and educating children. That gets a lot cheaper when the population shrinks, and it is not an insiginficant chunk of government revenue. Plus, not all old people are useless, even if they don't know how to use a mouse.

Oh, I am sure the cost of education is significant, just no where near the Pension & additional Health costs of the largest generation in history, the Baby Boomers.

At least in OZ we have some advantages that other countries lack, for example we have a partial retirement fund for the Boomers under the "Super Guarantee" and the Dent level has started out low, whereas in the US most of their Boomers will retire pretty much with nothing and go straight onto the government pension and most other countries already have massive Debt.

The estimates I have seen suggest somewhere around $50-60 Trillion in unfunded liabilities for aged Pensions & Health.

By way of example, in days gone by, there were around 8 workers to fund the retirement of ONE retiree. Getting toward the end of the Boomer retirements, that ratio is estimated to decline to around 2/1!

The strain on government Revenue Vs Outlays, on a Global basis, is set to do what happened in economic growth, Debt is going Exponential, at least for the short to medium term!

Freediver,
You have moved the Population & Peak Oil Threads, from the Political board to the General board, along with a few others.

Obviously, you may do as you wish, but these two are actually highly political and will in fact wield an extraordinary influence over politics, in the next 20-30 years.

Yo Perceptions!

When Macca sees your graphic illustrations, she's gonna get her thong in a knot and have kittens...


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[timestamp=1276952799]

PS I wouldn't be too concerned about the board shift, since this one gets higher billing.

Human race 'will be extinct within 100 years', claims leading scientist

As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.’
Fenner told The Australian newspaper that 'homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.'
'A lot of other animals will, too,' he added.
'It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.'
Since humans entered an unofficial scientific period known as the Anthropocene - the time since industrialisation - we have had an effect on the planet that rivals any ice age or comet impact, he said.

Fenner, 95, has won awards for his work in helping eradicate the variola virus that causes smallpox and has written or co-written 22 books.
He announced the eradication of the disease to the World Health Assembly in 1980 and it is still regarded as one of the World Health Organisation's greatest achievements.

He was also heavily involved in helping to control Australia's myxomatosis problem in rabbits.

Last year official UN figures estimated that the world’s population is currently 6.8 billion. It is predicted to exceed seven billion by the end of 2011.
Fenner blames the onset of climate change for the human race’s imminent demise.
He said: 'We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island.
'Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we're seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.'
'The Aborigines showed that without science and the production of carbon dioxide and global warming, they could survive for 40,000 or 50,000 years.
‘But the world can't. The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species that we've seen disappear.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1287643/Human-race-extinct-100-years-population-explosion.html?ITO=1490

Boom in elderly population seen

The Filipino population is aging and there are not enough medical experts to treat the elderly, a University of the Philippines (UP) study on aging revealed.

Though the nation boasts of a reserve of young citizens, the elderly population is now catching up as they compose at least seven to eight million of the current total population.

Filipinos, aged 60 and above, are now the ‘‘fastest growing segment of the Philippine population, the UP Population Institute (UPPI) study showed.

If only there were as much health professionals who are knowledgeable and well-trained to care for them holistically, the country’s senior citizens will grow even bigger in number, said Dr. Shelley Ann dela Vega of the National Institutes of Health in UP Manila.

“The Philippines needs to prepare for the burgeoning population of older persons. The population 60 years and above has grown at a very rapid rate, increasing from 3.2 million in 1990 to 4.6 million in 2000. By the year 2030, ten percent of our population will be composed of senior citizens,” dela Vega said in the study “Status of Geriatric Education in Philippine Medical Schools.”

Dela Vega said we could even catch up with the aging population of Japan if the number of older citizens continue to grow.

She said increasing life expectancy among Filipinos is one major factor for the Filipino aging population.

In 1995, the average life expectancy in the country is 65 to 67 years. Currently, it stands at 72 to 73.

Moreover, she said improvement in healthcare also plays a big factor as well as the vaccines that prevent diseases. Fewer adults are also dying from strokes and heart attacks and there are better drugs now resulting to lower death rate.
Link -
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/262958/boom-elderly-population-seen
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Aging Populations are not restricted to Japan, Australia or certain other Western countries, it is pretty much universal, but with some exceptions.

The Health Care & services area is set to become a major Global issue, due to the rising Aging ratio, within the increasing total Population levels,

Salaries some $70,000 a year higher are making it easy for Australia to hire doctors and specialists who may never return to NZ

Newly qualified specialist doctors are being poached by the Australian health system, where salaries are $70,000 a year higher. A new survey has found half of doctors in their last year of training as senior registrars, plan to go to Australia.

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists says the doctors leaving with every expectation they will stay overseas for good. Dr Ian Powell says it is having a vice-like effect on New Zealand's senior doctors and District Health Boards. He says we are struggling to recruit internationally, and losing our own specialists. Dr Powell says now we are also losing their replacements, with doctors we have trained and invested in for so long, also going to Australia.

The Association also says it might not be worth training doctors if New Zealand keeps losing them to Australia. Dr Powell says the absurdity of the situation means if this keeps going, we may well be better off closing a medical school and simply putting that money into recruiting from overseas. Dr Powell says that is something the association would never advocate but it is a logical consequence if things continue the way they are.

Link -
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=116203&fm=newsmain,nrhl
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With Health Care & Services set to become a much greater issue over the next 10-20 years, due to the Baby Boomers, how long to you think it will take for other countries to realise that this sort or thing is happening and then for them to step in, with measures to stop it?

U.S. needs more, not fewer, immigrant workers

Contrary to popular opinion, America does not have an immigration problem, but its current policies are creating one. In particular, America remains an attractive destination for immigrants, a boon for this nation. However, America is rapidly losing its competitive advantage in attracting immigrants to our shores. The loss to America, and its standing in the world, will be catastrophic.

Not surprisingly, America's biggest failure is a lack of understanding about the profound benefits of immigration. Immigration is this country's great "free lunch" and it represents a significant transfer of wealth from the rest of the world to the U.S.

The value of immigration is accentuated when comparing America's demographics with those of the rest of the developed world. Largely due to healthy immigration, America will have a growing population for the remainder of this century, standing alone among major developed nations. Japan and Europe will see their populations decline over the decades to come. More ominously, China - due to its one-child policy - will see its population age and decline by the middle part of this century, calling into question whether China will modernize before it ages. It remains to be seen whether a nation can remain a world leader with a declining population. Recent history has no precedent. The precedent set during the late Middle Ages - when Europe's population declined - provides a dismal omen.

With the need for a stable population in mind, a liberal immigration policy seems not only logical, but in this nation's best interest.
Link -
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7062142.html
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Contrary to the opinion of the author of this article, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The costs are simply not immediately apparent!

There are two confliction issues are work here, one is the short to medium term and the other is the longer term interests, of any nation and how  the immigration issue is handled.

Yes, there will be short to medium term pain for the National & Global economy, if the total Population level/s are restricted, as this will lead to a general Population decline in many, in not most countries, over the next 20-30 years.

However, in the longer term, exponential growth is simply not possible, as all sorts of resources get depeleted, particularly Enegry (oil), with the final outcome of any such attempt in that direction, being total collapse.

There really is only one choice, in this new paradigm, we must live within our means!

And, in our current circumstances, where resources are being depleted, that will most likely require, lowering the Population level.

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 19^th, 2010 at 10:44pm:

Freediver, You have moved the Population & Peak Oil Threads, from the Political board to the General board, along with a few others. Obviously, you may do as you wish, but these two are actually highly political and will in fact wield an extraordinary influence over politics, in the next 20-30 years.

It is not a politics board. It is a politicians suck board. It is for partisan bickering and mindless cheerleaders, to separate it from the real issues, like this one.


Quote:

Oh, I am sure the cost of education is significant, just no where near the Pension & additional Health costs of the largest generation in history, the Baby Boomers.

So, you have the numbers? What about our ability to cope? Aren't most people supposedly saving enough for their own retirement?


Quote:

By way of example, in days gone by, there were around 8 workers to fund the retirement of ONE retiree.

This is a far too simplistic way to think about it, becuase those workers were not funding the retirement. They were raising children and paying off their own mortgage. Now they have paid it off, they have their own house to retuire in, etc etc. Our society has always had a small number doing the real work. The aging population will not change this in any major way. From the way the fearmongers talk, one would think that all people used to do is work to support the elderly.

Currently, the biggest burden on our economy is building new infrastructure to accomodate the growing population.

freediver wrote on Jun 21^st, 2010 at 7:14pm:

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 19th, 2010 at 10:44pm: Freediver, You have moved the Population & Peak Oil Threads, from the Political board to the General board, along with a few others. Obviously, you may do as you wish, but these two are actually highly political and will in fact wield an extraordinary influence over politics, in the next 20-30 years. [quote]It is not a politics board. It is a politicians suck board. It is for partisan bickering and mindless cheerleaders, to separate it from the real issues, like this one.

No problem, I was simply making the observation that Debt, Energy, Aging & Poppulation decline will dominate what politics is all about, for the next 20-30 years, minimum!

Quote:

So, you have the numbers? What about our ability to cope? Aren't most people supposedly saving enough for their own retirement?

It is easrier getting info on the US, than OZ, but the following should give some answers, by virtue of the large amounts set aside for Social Security, Medicare and Medicade, with the interest side about to take a hike as well.
 
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2010/6/19/226469-127695438303018-Steven-Hansen.jpg

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2010/6/19/226469-127695444698036-Steven-Hansen.jpg

We, in OZ, are actually better off than most, at least we have a relatively low National Debt to GDP ratio and we have had the Super Guarantee program since around 1990.

That said, the rest of the world are pretty much toast, the retirement allowances in most countries, is very poor & their Debt is way to high!

Unfortunately, the fact that we are not as bad as the others, will not prevent their Economic slowdown, from flowing onto to us.

Btw, retirement saving, via super was going ok, until this GFC got going and it has since gone backward, but I expect it will take some greater hits, starting around October, this year.

Quote:

By way of example, in days gone by, there were around 8 workers to fund the retirement of ONE retiree.

Quote:

This is a far too simplistic way to think about it, becuase those workers were not funding the retirement. They were raising children and paying off their own mortgage. Now they have paid it off, they have their own house to retuire in, etc etc. Our society has always had a small number doing the real work. The aging population will not change this in any major way. From the way the fearmongers talk, one would think that all people used to do is work to support the elderly.

Actually, it does provide some guidance!

In the past, with so many workers and arelatively few retirees, Pensions & Health costs for the aged, were manageable. But with the Boomers now passing into retirement, before passing on, those numberswill become lopsided, the other way, with a few supporting the many.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Our society has always had a small number doing the real work", the ratio was 8/1 & it will be 2/1, what is "real work"?

The aging population will most certainly change our position dramatically, it has never happened before, anywhere near this extent!

freediver wrote on Jun 21^st, 2010 at 7:14pm:

Currently, the biggest burden on our economy is building new infrastructure to accomodate the growing population.

I agree, allowing for increasing the OZ population is a drag that we can not afford, particularly long term.

We should actually reduce the immigration intakes, instead of increasing them and gradually shrink the Population.

In the longer term, OZ & other countries, will not have the resources, to support the current Population, let alone large increases, which would require the infrastructure you refer to.

Larger population would pose serious problems


Irvin Studin's vision of Canada with a population of 100 million stirs the imagination in terms of increasing our capacity for playing a role of importance on the world stage. Unfortunately, however, what might have been possible in Wilfrid Laurier's time a century ago is no longer realistic today.

For one thing, the ecological footprint of individual Canadians is much larger now, and the environmental impact of such a massive increase in population would be overwhelming.

In terms of current immigration policies, it could also be extremely costly for Canadian taxpayers -- particularly because of our generous system of social programs that did not exist 100 years ago. It is estimated that the benefits newcomers now receive already amount to tens of billions of dollars a year more than what they pay in taxes.

A third and particularly challenging problem would be the integration into Canadian society of huge numbers of people from very different cultural backgrounds. With the connections they can maintain with their former homelands through satellite TV, the Internet, inexpensive overseas travel, etc., assimilation of large concentrations of newcomers is increasingly problematic even today.

Nor would there be significant advantages in terms of economies of scale as a result of domestic population increases, since we are very much part of a global trading community.

Cities such as Toronto and Vancouver are already struggling to cope with rapidly increasing populations due to international migration and will hardly welcome the prospect of dealing with even faster growth.

Martin Collacott Vancouver Martin Collacott served as Canadian ambassador to countries in Asia and the Middle East.

Link -
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Larger+population+would+pose+serious+problems/3180214/story.html
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There is NOT general agreement that growth is the way to go.

In fact, Population growth, over the next 20-30 years, is absolutely nOT the right course of action, from a long term perspective!

Delaying The Entitlement Bust

Karl Smith agitates for open borders:

Immigration temporarily dilutes expenditures on Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the national debt. However, temporary counts for a lot. The future is inherently uncertain and so truly pushing off consequences into the future is inherently a net gain. There is a chance of catastrophe, in which case your sacrifices were useless and there is a chance of explosive growth, in which case your sacrifices were unnecessary. These are real possibilities and should not be ignored.

It also gives additional time to prepare for changes in Social Security. One possibility is that the continued shift away from physically intensive jobs will mean that in 50 years a retirement age of 70 is feasible even if in 25 years it is not.
Link -
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/temporary-fixes.html
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It the long delay, so far, in postponing the required actions, that is now the reason for the problems that are immediately ahead of us!

Quote:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Our society has always had a small number doing the real work", the ratio was 8/1 & it will be 2/1, what is "real work"?

You are only considering working people and retired people. You are leaving out the younger generation, which is a far bigger burden than retirees. They have to be educated, housed, fed, etc. Then after all that investment by society into them the first thing they want to do is buy or rent their own house. Obviously if you only consider the ratio of working people to retirees it looks grim, but that ratio is meaningless in term's of our society's ability to cope. The ratio that matters is the ratio of working people to total population. However, even this will be significantly tempered by the reduced infrastructure demands that come with a plateuing population.


Quote:

We should actually reduce the immigration intakes, instead of increasing them and gradually shrink the Population.

I think immigrants and their immediate descendants would do a far better job of propping up our economy. Especially those from poorer countries. They tend to be harder working. There are a lot more lazy young people from families that have been here for generations and developed a sense of undeserved entitlement. And yes the stats do back this up.

Quote:

Perceptions_now We should actually reduce the immigration intakes, instead of increasing them and gradually shrink the Population.

Quote:

Freediver I think immigrants and their immediate descendants would do a far better job of propping up our economy. Especially those from poorer countries. They tend to be harder working. There are a lot more lazy young people from families that have been here for generations and developed a sense of undeserved entitlement. And yes the stats do back this up.

I don't know that I would say that immigrants are better or worse, but there will still be a place for them, just on a reduced scale.

However, I can & will say, that OZ will never support 35 million people, just as the Planet will never support 11 Biilion.

It just will not happen! So, we need to look at what we can do, with a little less, of everything.

freediver wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2010 at 5:54pm:

Quote: perceptions_now I'm not sure what you mean by "Our society has always had a small number doing the real work", the ratio was 8/1 & it will be 2/1, what is "real work"? [quote] Freediver You are only considering working people and retired people. You are leaving out the younger generation, which is a far bigger burden than retirees. They have to be educated, housed, fed, etc. Then after all that investment by society into them the first thing they want to do is buy or rent their own house. Obviously if you only consider the ratio of working people to retirees it looks grim, but that ratio is meaningless in term's of our society's ability to cope. The ratio that matters is the ratio of working people to total population. However, even this will be significantly tempered by the reduced infrastructure demands that come with a plateuing population.

There are a couple of ways to look at what is called "the Participation rate".

Some refer to the ratio of actual Workers to those who are in the "working years" - ie 15-65ish.

Others refer to the ratio of Workers, to the Total population.

I agree with your assesment, the one that counts more, particularly now, is the comparison to the total population, because that reflects the percentage of Workers (PAYG tax payers), who are the largest support for the total population, including those under 15 years & those over 65 years.

That participation ratio has Peaked and has started to decline in OZ, but the comparions in some overseas countries are already showing a more substantial decline.  

Btw, I am not disregarding the younger generation, simply putting it into perspective.

We have had the younger generation issues with us for quite some time, but this is the first time in history that a generation of this magnitude has passed into retirement, before passing away altogether.

The ramifications of this event, will be massive compared to the issues of the younger brigade and it is going to happen at a time when -
1) The Global Population will actually decline, which is extremely rare.
2) Global Debt is already rampant.
3) The dominant Energy supply on the planet, Oil, is also set to go into decline.

I would prefer to be saying something different, as I have family that are going to live thru whatever happens.

But, if WE don't start taking the correct decisions soon and putting those decisions into action to change the future, then the future may not be all that rosy?

perceptions_now.
You and freediver have put a lot of effort into your dialogue, but all the scaremongering about the population aging is mainly being pushed by economists and politicians.
The worlds population is actually rising at an alarming rate, and as this planet is finite, that risk is far greater than the aging population, although the dropping of population in some countries, while there are huge rises in other countries will change the demographic composition in the developed countries, probably not the best for people in the developed countries.
But can anyone imagine what will happen to this planet if the people in China,India and others aspire the same wastefull consumer spending that is so prevalent in the developed countries, and can we tell them, they are not entitled to it.

Quote:

hawil the scaremongering about the population aging is mainly being pushed by economists and politicians.

Actually that's not entirely correct, the Pollies & economists have actually been underplaying the risks and they are still pushing Growth, both economic & population.


Quote:

hawil The worlds population is actually rising at an alarming rate, and as this planet is finite, that risk is far greater than the aging population

There are two competing interests at work, the short to medium term & the longer term.
In the short to medium term, Aging will be difficult, but in the longer term, mankinds very existence could at stake, unless the Global Population starts to shrink and come back into line with the available resources.


Quote:

hawil But can anyone imagine what will happen to this planet if the people in China,India and others aspire the same wastefull consumer spending that is so prevalent in the developed countries, and can we tell them, they are not entitled to it.

I am sure there are aspirations in China & India, as there are here & elsewhere and I am sure all would say they are entitled, but I can see many aspirations being unmet!

Quote:

But, if WE don't start taking the correct decisions soon and putting those decisions into action to change the future, then the future may not be all that rosy?

What are those decisions? It looks pretty rosy to me. We are overcoming the biggest problem threatening our way of life.


Quote:

but all the scaremongering about the population aging is mainly being pushed by economists and politicians

Make that the business sector and politicians. Economists tend to be a bit more philosophical about it, at least in my experience. The business sector doesn't like the problem of a labour shortage, because it means higher wages. Personally, I don't have a problem with it. If there is one thing we want to be short on, it is people looking for work.


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But can anyone imagine what will happen to this planet if the people in China,India and others aspire the same wastefull consumer spending that is so prevalent in the developed countries, and can we tell them, they are not entitled to it.

China is going to achieve it by keeping their population in check. India could go either way. It is going to be the problem. The implications will be mixed. As the Chinese get wealthier, the price of beef and other food items will go up, but the price of consumer goods will go down, as the global economy will get a whole lot bigger. Maybe our farmers will start making money again.

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freediver We are overcoming the biggest problem threatening our way of life

And, what problem would that be?

Overpopulation.

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What are those decisions?

1) Reducing the overall immigration intake and adjusting Public policy to ensure that the Total Australian population, begins to slowly Decline over time, not increase.

2) Commence measures to reduce our Overall Energy footprint, over time, as Energy is set (notwithstanding objections from Gizmo) to become scarce & more expensive, a lot more!

3) Undertake a complete review of all governments, government related bodies & their impacts on society. Included in these reviews, should be -
A simplification of Taxation.  
A disbanding of one arm of government, local councils.
A complete review of all Revenue & Expenditure.

An attempt, over time, to reign in Public Debt, without impacting the Publics disposal income, too radically, as seems to be what the Conservatives in the UK are about to try.

They might be a starting points of reference.

However, I should also say, that none of this will make much difference, if OZ does it, but the rest of the world continues trying to maintain the status quo!

freediver wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2010 at 7:15pm:

Overpopulation.

I agree, that is the absolute centre of many of our problems and that it is slowing before finally going into reverse in 20-30 years!

But, that is a long term work in progress, in the interim, the next 20-40 years won't be anything like the last 20-40 years and there will be some great economic difficulties, at least over that timeframe!

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Reducing the overall immigration intake

This would make the aging population issues worse, not better.


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Commence measures to reduce our Overall Energy footprint, over time, as Energy is set (notwithstanding objections from Gizmo) to become scarce & more expensive, a lot more!

Our energy footprint is one of the most meaningless measures available. Energy will get more expensive, at least in the short term, but it will never be scarce. It is how we get energy that matters, not how much we use.


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But, that is a long term work in progress, in the interim, the next 20-40 years won't be anything like the last 20-40 years and there will be some great economic difficulties, at least over that timeframe!

You still haven't provided any meaningfull numbers on this.

freediver wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2010 at 8:22pm:

[quote]Reducing the overall immigration intake

This would make the aging population issues worse, not better.

I take the view that it is better to start addressing the total Population issue, sooner rather than later, because the later it is left, the more serious will be the situation.

It is therefore a choice between to evils, bad in the short term or worse in the long term.

I would opt to take a not so pleasant medicine now, rather than go thru chemotherapy later and hope for the best.

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perceptions_now Commence measures to reduce our Overall Energy footprint, over time, as Energy is set (notwithstanding objections from Gizmo) to become scarce & more expensive, a lot more!

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freediver Our energy footprint is one of the most meaningless measures available. Energy will get more expensive, at least in the short term, but it will never be scarce. It is how we get energy that matters, not how much we use.

Then use another term, if you want. What I'm saying is that we will have to use less energy, here in OZ & Global!

And, I don't see anyway that Energy will not get more expensive, but also more scarce.
With the Global Population set to continue to increase for another 20-30 years and Oil production set to decline, in real terms, at around 4-8% on estimates I have seen and that are already coming thru, Energy will definitely be more scarce!

Btw, both Production & usage do matter!

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Perceptions_now But, that is a long term work in progress, in the interim, the next 20-40 years won't be anything like the last 20-40 years and there will be some great economic difficulties, at least over that timeframe!

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freedriver You still haven't provided any meaningfull numbers on this.

My statement referred to the slowing Fertility artes, which have been falling for quite some time.

According to the UN medium variant rate table, which is available at the following site, the Fertility rate could fall below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, in around 2035-2040.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

The Lost Decade, U.S. Edition

If you have read Harry S. Dent's The Great Boom Ahead as well as the sequel The Great Depression Ahead, and still are not convinced of the critical importance of demographics on the economy and markets, then there's nothing I can say to convince you. Move on.

And if you haven't read them, please do yourself a favor and read them. Just discard the "commodities cycles", "presidential cycles", "yearly cycles" and so forth, and focus on demographics.

The earliest babyboomers are 55 years old now, well past their peak spending years and into their retirement savings period. The later boomers, in their late forties, would be entering their peak spending years; but the scares and scars of the 2008 crisis may have forced them to enter the saving phase earlier than usual. There are many reports indicating that boomers may have been hit harder by lay-offs, and have a harder time re-entering workforce due to their age. In addition to damaged or even destroyed home equity nest eggs, the risks on social security and Medicare have risen sharply due to the dismal state and future outlook of the federal deficit, especially for the late boomers.
In terms of housing, boomers may be forced to either forego the usual trade-up or even trade down.

The result is declining productivity, consumer spending and debt (deleveraging), and continued weak demand on housing. The decline will continue until circa 2016, followed by a small rebound of 2-3 years, then resume until the early 2020's. But it's hard to say whether the small rebound would manifest into the financial markets.

To make matters worse, Europe and Japan have entered the declining phase earlier and will be stuck in the glut longer.

Can governments save us all by money printing? Japan stands as a resounding answer of "NO" to this question. They've ramped up a huge pile of public debt, sucked up domestic savings, created a huge counter-productive bureaucracy, and nothing else. If it weren't for the extremely resilient private sector and domestic savings culture, Japan would've been in much worse shape today. I can't help wondering if it would've been much better if the government had not engaged in the futile deficit spending and the domestic savings had gone to the private sector.

If the above sounds familiar, it's because that's exactly what the US government has been trying to do. Except we won't have nearly as much domestic buying of the debt in relative terms. Uncle Sam's ability to borrow and print directly and singularly hinges on the dollar's reserve status. But the world has been actively looking for alternatives; the lunacy of some of the proposals only speaks to the desperation. How long can we count on the world's failure in this regard? Desperation is the best motivation. If the situation becomes grim enough, alternatives that sound lunatic today may appear more and more plausible.

The only hope is to create another asset bubble, or a series of them, with wide participation that last beyond 2025. A better Ponzi. BIC may be the only candidate big enough to support such a grand Ponzi. But how do we participate in that? Can they please be stupid enough to participate? Well, good luck with that.

Interestingly, Europe seems to have embarked on a very different approach to the same problem: austerity. Even the new Japanese prime minister seems to lean towards that direction. It's the only right thing to do, but it remains to be seen whether they can implement it because the short-term pain would be high. I'll write more about this later. But in any case, I don't see any political will in the US to follow suit.
Link -
http://seekingalpha.com/article/211418-the-lost-decade-u-s-edition?source=email
===============
A couple of observations -
1) How would Japan have gone, if the rest of the world had got sucked into this problem, at the same time as Japan did, 20 years ago?

2) Aust-erity will not fix the problems, it will only make it worse, we are steadily going down similar paths, to the 1929 Depression, we need to pull back and look at issues with a new perspective!

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What I'm saying is that we will have to use less energy, here in OZ & Global!

Why can't we use more, and just obtain it in a way that hos a lower footprint?


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With the Global Population set to continue to increase for another 20-30 years and Oil production set to decline

The majority of our energy does not come from oil.


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My statement referred to the slowing Fertility artes, which have been falling for quite some time.

I meant the economic numbers, not the fertility numbers. You insist that the short term downside of a decreasing population is bigger than the upside, and that the difference is significant enough to cause us problems, but you haven't presented any evidence of this.

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perceptions_now With the Global Population set to continue to increase for another 20-30 years and Oil production set to decline

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freediver The majority of our energy does not come from oil.

Actually, it does!

In the USA, the planets largest consummer of Energy, Oil is nearly twice as large, as the next two major Energy components (Natural Gas & Coal), that are currently in use and the remaining Energy sources, whilst the may expand, are currently minor.

That said, the following chart, which comes from the EIA, is of usage in the USA and whilst the mix in other countries will be variable, the Global mix is likely to be pretty close.  

If you are referring to what produces the most energy, then that is of course the sun, but solar technology is not currently at a point where it could replace Oil, Coal & NG and in a number of aspects, in may never do so.

Btw, both NG & Coal are both similar to Oil, in that they are finite resources, which have limits and those limits are not that much behind Oil!

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/images/h1_09.jpg

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perceptions_now My statement referred to the slowing Fertility artes, which have been falling for quite some time.

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freediver I meant the economic numbers, not the fertility numbers. You insist that the short term downside of a decreasing population is bigger than the upside, and that the difference is significant enough to cause us problems, but you haven't presented any evidence of this.

Let me put it this way, this has never happened before, it is unique in history, so there are no hard numbers, at least none that I have seen.

That said, the National & Global economies, at their core, are based on the following major Drivers & Enablers -
1) Population Total & Population Growth, in fact Economics is based primarily on Growth, accross the board.
2) Energy, being cheap, Abundant and Supply being able to match &/or exceed Demand.
3) Innovation, coming thru, to enable continuing improvements in Productivity and therefore Profitability.
4) A financial system, capable of providing the Funding (Debt) required to grow the overall size of the economy (pie).

In all of this there is one common thread and that is GROWTH!

You have previously said, that our most concerning problem is over-population and that is correct.

As I have shown in previous posts, the Population issue has been in transition for some time already, as the Fertility rates started to decline some time ago and around 2030-2040, the total Global Population will actually start to fall. Whilst this is not good in the short to medium term, it is the only sane action, from a longer term perspective.

Put simply, it took all of human history, until 1930, to reach a 2 Billion Global population, IT WILL ONLY TAKE THE NEXT 20-30 YEARS FOR 2 BILLION PEOPLE TO DIE, MOSTLY BABY BOOMERS.

Obviously this event will be unprecedented, as will the impact on the Global economy, which has previously relied on exponential growth!

But, even before Baby boomers start dying, in ever increasing numbers, their economic effect has already, is still and will continue, to ripple thru the Natiuonal & Global economy.
The following article, may provide some idea of what I am referring to -
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Economys-Greatest-Depression-Downturn-Ever-Is-Now-Just-A-Few-Years-Away&id=65824

From that article -
"The greatest force in the economy can be indisputably demonstrated to be consumer demographics, and within that the 45 to 54 year-olds demographic is just as clearly all-powerful. Things like interest rates, deficits, who is elected, and inflation are followers or consequences of the economy, not the makers of it."

If you take 50 as the median point, you can trace how much influence this Baby Boom generation has had, but the impact of that generation has already started to reduce and the generations that followed have a much lower net growth impact, particularly when Boomers start passing on.  

Good luck & watch the Debt!

If my assumptions prove to be correct, then I would see the following graph of New Housing in the USA continue its overall downwars trend, for some time to come.

The above graph comes from the following Seeking Alpha article -
http://seekingalpha.com/article/211524-housing-numbers-show-worst-data-ever-recorded?source=email


http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2010/6/23/saupload_new_home_sales_lt.png



I would also suggest the following correlations, as food for thought -
1933 - 1983 (Birth rate starts to increase - Economy & Share markets start to rise)
1945 - 1995 (Birth rate goes into high gear - Economy takes off)
1956 - 2006 (Birth rate Peaks - Economy Peaks)
1964 - 2014 (End of Boomer Gen - ???)

Good luck, watch the Debt & hope for Innovations, because Energy has Peaked!

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 25^th, 2010 at 2:07pm:

If my assumptions prove to be correct, then I would see the following graph of New Housing in the USA continue its overall downwars trend, for some time to come. The above graph comes from the following Seeking Alpha article - http://seekingalpha.com/article/211524-housing-numbers-show-worst-data-ever-recorded?source=email http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2010/6/23/saupload_new_home_sales_lt.png I would also suggest the following correlations, as food for thought - 1933 - 1983 (Birth rate starts to increase - Economy & Share markets start to rise) 1945 - 1995 (Birth rate goes into high gear - Economy takes off) 1956 - 2006 (Birth rate Peaks - Economy Peaks) 1964 - 2014 (End of Boomer Gen - ???) Good luck, watch the Debt & hope for Innovations, because Energy has Peaked!

For anyone wanting to check, to see how those dates relate to stock markets, the following graph may be of assistance.

http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/images/djia1900s.png

Demographic boom getting ready to bust

That ticking generational time bomb that politicians have been warning and arguing about for 30 years is about to explode on Jan. 1.

That’s the day when the first of roughly 80 million baby boomers turn 65. The boomer generation was the largest in American history until the Millennial Generation, those under 30, came along.

Whether you are a boomer or not, demographic trends will affect everything from taxes to immigration.

In the midst of one of the most transformative demographic shifts ever, the United States is rapidly becoming grayer and browner.

Eighty percent of those over 65 are white, compared to 56 percent of those under 15 — with Hispanics accounting for almost all the minority growth among children. By 2030, according to the Brookings Institution’s chief demographer, William Frey, 71 percent of the over-65 population and 46 percent of children under 15 will be white. Over the next decade, he predicts the working-age population will include 5 million fewer whites and 15 million more minorities, with 90 percent of the latter growth coming from Hispanics.

In coming decades, the working-age population’s growth will be among demographic groups with the least education and work skills. The high school dropout rate for Hispanics, for instance, is about twice the national average, Frey said.

At the same time, the huge generation of boomers is about to cash in on unsustainable entitlement promises.

“You have an older, whiter generation that is really going to be sucking up all the money in the future (through) Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt that they have run up during their tenure of running things, versus a poorer, more minority generation that is not getting the money,” Davis said.

What does this mean for you?

If you are a senior or approaching retirement with adequate savings and a pension, not much beyond a generational urge to make your grandchildren’s’ country as strong and as prosperous as it has been for you.

But some seniors may work longer, due to a lack of savings or because they work in professions like the sciences, where a dearth of qualified young workers may result in incentives to boomers to postpone retirement.

But if you are younger, higher taxes — or serious adjustments to expectations — appear inevitable. It is very difficult to see how the United States solves its long-term debt and entitlement promises without higher taxes for the middle class and the rich, or by cutting retirement-focused entitlement programs.
Tax-and-spend tensions are already emerging, with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer saying this week that a serious discussion needs to take place before Congress permanently extends middle-class tax cuts passed in the early months of Obama’s administration.

These are the hard truths that Americans say they want to hear from their politicians, but rarely do. Such positions often turn into political death sentences at the next election.
Link -
http://rocnow.com/article/opinion-syndicated-columns/20106240348
====
What will the Boomer Bust mean for OZ?

For a starter, higher taxes on those who can most afford it!

Lower Benefits & Services, for some!

An absolute efficiency drive, by governments at all levels and probably one less arm of government!

A complete simplification of Services, Outlays & Revenues, particularly the Tax system!

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Actually, it does! In the USA, the planets largest consummer of Energy, Oil is nearly twice as large, as the next two major Energy components

Do you know what the term majority means?

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Let me put it this way, this has never happened before, it is unique in history, so there are no hard numbers

There are hard numbers about the cost of investing in younger vs older generations. From there it is not hard to extrapolate to what happens if the proportion in each generation changes. Otherwise you are basically just scaremongering about something you know nothing about.


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Obviously this event will be unprecedented, as will the impact on the Global economy, which has previously relied on exponential growth!

The economy has never relied on exponential growth. That is a myth promoted by people who fear economic growth without understanding it. In fact there are plenty of occasions in history when a population reduction lead to an improvement in quality of life.

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perceptions_now Obviously this event will be unprecedented, as will the impact on the Global economy, which has previously relied on exponential growth!

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freediver The economy has never relied on exponential growth. That is a myth promoted by people who fear economic growth without understanding it. In fact there are plenty of occasions in history when a population reduction lead to an improvement in quality of life.

I have previously agreed that over-population is one of the BIG problems and that we need to lower the total Global population, sooner rather than later, but it does need to be done gradually.

That said, I stand by my assertion that the decline in Population Growth, followed by an actual decline in total Global population, on the scale that is likely, is unprecedented.

This decline in Population Growth and total actual population levels, particularly when combined with the Boomer generation Aging and Peak Oil, can only lead to a massive decline in Demand and the end of the Exponential Economic Growth Fairy!

With respect, I must disagree with you regards Exponential Growth, it is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more. The assumption is that there is & will be a constant exponential growth. Almost every time an Politician & Economist etc open their mouth, they talk about Growth.  

In any event, we shall see what happens over the next 10-20 years.

But, I am now saying clearly, that Growth is coming to an end and there will be massive ramifications & costs, arising from these events.

In the longer term, we have no option but to bear these costs now, because the longer we postpone the inevitable, the greater will be those ramifications & costs!    

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perceptions_now Actually, it does! In the USA, the planets largest consummer of Energy, Oil is nearly twice as large, as the next two major Energy components

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freediver Do you know what the term majority means?

Let me put it this way, with Oil contributing what it does and the next 2 closest sources also being finite and on the endangered list, for the not too distant future, we have some serious issues to overcome & we need to address them quickly!

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/images/h1_09.jpg

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That said, I stand by my assertion that the decline in Population Growth, followed by an actual decline in total Global population, on the scale that is likely, is unprecedented.

No it isn't. Every time a major plague swept through Europe and caused a major population crash, it resulted in an immediate improvement in quality of life.


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With respect, I must disagree with you regards Exponential Growth, it is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more.

Have you ever done any serious study of economics?


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The assumption is that there is & will be a constant exponential growth.

There is no such assumption. You are merely confusing the actual trend of long term growth that has been going on for a long time with assumptions or fundamental requirements. The only thing that depends on growth is growth.


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But, I am now saying clearly, that Growth is coming to an end and there will be massive ramifications & costs, arising from these events.

Growth in population is coing to an end. Growth in oil consumption is too. To suggest that growth in everything else must come to an end as a result of this is misinformed.


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and the next 2 closest sources also being finite and on the endangered list

Tell me about coal. When do you think we will start running out?

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perceptions_now That said, I stand by my assertion that the decline in Population Growth, followed by an actual decline in total Global population, on the scale that is likely, is unprecedented.

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freediver No it isn't. Every time a major plague swept through Europe and caused a major population crash, it resulted in an immediate improvement in quality of life.

It seems that we may agree to disagree!  However, it does seem odd that you would disagree that 2 billion people dying, in the space of 20-30 years, is anything other than unprecedented?

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perceptions_now With respect, I must disagree with you regards Exponential Growth, it is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more.

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freediver Have you ever done any serious study of economics?

Do you mean, like all of those Economists, who had all that training and didn't pick, what is so far, at least the 2nd biggest Economic slowdown in the last 100 years?

If so, the answer is no!

However, I did have 40 years in the Financial sector, including Insurance, Banking & Finance.

And, yourself?

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The assumption is that there is & will be a constant exponential growth.

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There is no such assumption. You are merely confusing the actual trend of long term growth that has been going on for a long time with assumptions or fundamental requirements. The only thing that depends on growth is growth.

As I said earlier, with respect, I must disagree with you regards Exponential Growth.

I agree that growth has been around for a lengthy part of recent history, but it is not automatic and it does depend on the basic factors of the economy, which are Population growth, Energy, Innovation & Debt.

It is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more. Almost every time an Politician & Economist etc open their mouth, they talk about Growth.  

As I said, lets see what happens over the next 10-20 years, but I doubt we will have to wait that long, to get the idea of where events will be heading.

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perseptions_now But, I am now saying clearly, that Growth is coming to an end and there will be massive ramifications & costs, arising from these events.

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freediver Growth in population is coing to an end. Growth in oil consumption is too. To suggest that growth in everything else must come to an end as a result of this is misinformed.

The basic premise of what I am saying is that there is no such thing as exponential growth, everything on this planet has limits and for things such as Population & many of our essential resources are now bordering on those limits.

Whether you agree with me or disagree, is really relevant, as the proof will come in future years, again the next 10-20 years, will show the way.

If you haven't looked into these areas, the following sites may be of  interest. They are lengthy, but there is a great deal of valuable information in there, they are both very insightful people.   

Link (Dr. Albert A. Bartlett - Arithmetic, Population, and Energy) –
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&search_query=Dr.+Albert+Bartlett%3A+Arithmetic%2C+Population+and+Energy+Parts+1-8

Link (The Crash Course – Chris Martenson) -
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

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perseptions_now and the next 2 closest sources also being finite and on the endangered list

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freediver Tell me about coal. When do you think we will start running out?

Have a look into the Bartlett & Martenson sites/video's, I think you will find the answer to that question and a few others!

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It seems that we may agree to disagree!  However, it does seem odd that you would disagree that 2 billion people dying, in the space of 20-30 years, is anything other than unprecedented?

Only because the population is so much higher. Apparently there are more people alive today than were ever alive previously.


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Do you mean, like all of those Economists, who had all that training and didn't pick, what is so far, at least the 2nd biggest Economic slowdown in the last 100 years?

Yes they did. The economists at the reserve bank put our interest rates up well in advance. The fact that you did not understand what was going on in front of your face does not mean the economists (or anyone who has taken the time to look into this) don't understand what is going on. Or do you only trust economists who can predict the future with accuracy and detail?


Quote:

It is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more. Almost every time an Politician & Economist etc open their mouth, they talk about Growth.

Growth of what? We can become wealthier, better off, etc, without exponenetial growth in population or energy consumption. You are basing your economic theory on piecing together random utterances about a subject you do not understand.


Quote:

The basic premise of what I am saying is that there is no such thing as exponential growth, everything on this planet has limits and for things such as Population & many of our essential resources are now bordering on those limits.

The only thing without limits is wealth. Our wealth today would be totally incomprehensible to someone from 500 years ago. They would not think it possible. To them, it would be indistinguishable from magic.  You are that person from 500 years ago making predictions based on nothing but the limitations of your understanding and imagination.

freediver,
I is apparent that you didn't look thru either of those sites that I referred you to.

If you had taken the time to go thru Bartlett's video's, particularly episodes 4 & 5, you would have got the answer to your coal question (which is a lot shorter than you think) and you may not be posing some of the queries that you are raising.

As I said previously, it appears that we will agree to disagree, but irrespective what either of us may think now, the next 10-20 years will clarify the facts.

Finally, I will leave you with this thought -

Facts do not cease, because they are ignored!

Until later!

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perceptions_now With respect, I must disagree with you regards Exponential Growth, it is in back of everything including Population, Economics, Money Supply, Energy Resources & more.

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freediver Have you ever done any serious study of economics?

Quote:

perceptions_now Do you mean, like all of those Economists, who had all that training and didn't pick, what is so far, at least the 2nd biggest Economic slowdown in the last 100 years? If so, the answer is no! However, I did have 40 years in the Financial sector, including Insurance, Banking & Finance. And, yourself?

Out of curiosity, your own background is?

Quote:

If you had taken the time to go thru Bartlett's video's, particularly episodes 4 & 5, you would have got the answer to your coal question (which is a lot shorter than you think) and you may not be posing some of the queries that you are raising.

Wouldn't it have been easier for you to just say how long you think our coal resources will last? I am not going to watch dodgy internet videos to find out what you think just because you can't bring yourself to say it.


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Out of curiosity, your own background is?

I studied some economics at university, here and overseas, inlcuding the role that law and government plays in the economy. My main interest has been the choice between taxation vs trading as a mechanism for reducing GHG emissions.

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perseptions_now Out of curiosity, your own background is?

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freediver I studied some economics at university, here and overseas, inlcuding the role that law and government plays in the economy. My main interest has been the choice between taxation vs trading as a mechanism for reducing GHG emissions.

So, are you for reducing GHG and if so, why?

As you see it, what are the major factors involved in making GHG emissions worthy of your/our interest and how do you see this issue unfolding?

Perceptions_now, aka nedwin aka PiNhead is a blow hard who just likes the sound of his own voice, none of his predictions come to anything, he has been predicting a slump in house prices for years, that is why he dumped his old ID nedwin, because he has been dis-credited so many times it ain't even funny any more.
The only person who takes any notice of him is pansi the hygienically challenged, minimum wage, trolly-dolly (oh, and gold investor) and she is as daft as a brush.
I think he gets his crackpot theories from some flakey fringe publication or other, but for sure he can safely be ignored.

Julia Gillard's first act - dumping 'Big Australia'

JULIA Gillard has used her first major announcement to reassure disenchanted voters that she does not believe in a "big Australia" with a population target of 36 million.

The policy is clearly at odds with former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who announced the "big Australia" targeting 36 million people by 2050 just as a new wave of asylum-seekers arrived off our shores.

Ms Gillard announced Labor would produce what is in effect a two-speed immigration policy to match Australia's two-speed economy, but admitted it was "a very difficult problem".

"Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population," she said.

She said the new policy was not intended to open an immigration debate. "This is not about bringing down the shutters in immigration," she said.

"It is a debate about planning affected by many factors - water supply, open space, infrastructure, ensuring the appropriate tax base to support our ageing population, the need for skills and the need to preserve a good quality life.

"Parts of Australia are desperate for workers, but other parts are desperate for jobs; having a smart and sustainable population strategy coupled with the right skills strategy will help improve this balance."

She has consequently renamed Tony Burke's portfolio the Ministry of "Sustainable" Population, and announced he will produce a comprehensive policy in answer to the population problem later this year.

"I do not support the idea of setting arbitrary (population) targets of, say, 'a 40-million-strong Australia'.

"I don't want business to be held back because they couldn't find the right workers. That's why skilled migration is so important.

"But I also don't want areas of Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment because there are no jobs."

Link -
http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/julia-gillards-first-act-dumping-big-australia/story-e6frfllr-1225884715195
============
A change in words, does not necessarily make for a change in actions.

We should await the actions first, before saying change IS happening.

That said, its now over to the "Abbott of the Monastery" & the Liberals, to see if they are going to change their course?

for once, someone's got it right.
NO MORE 2ND CLASS PPL HERE.
they are degrading Australia.
we're a becoming a dumping ground.
up your's to any Gov't that supports a big Australia.
we'll vote you out.
GOT IT?
j.

djrbfm wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 1:20pm:

for once, someone's got it right. NO MORE 2ND CLASS PPL HERE. they are degrading Australia. we're a becoming a dumping ground. up your's to any Gov't that supports a big Australia. we'll vote you out. GOT IT? j.

I am not sure, what you mean by 2nd class people?

Quote:

So, are you for reducing GHG and if so, why?

You should start a new thread if you want to change the topic. I would start a new thread asking you to explain when you think coal will run out, but I doubt that would get me a straight answer either.

freediver wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 2:28pm:

Quote: perceptions_now So, are you for reducing GHG and if so, why? You should start a new thread if you want to change the topic. I would start a new thread asking you to explain when you think coal will run out, but I doubt that would get me a straight answer either.

No thanks!

You introduced GHG as a main interest for you, I was simply asking you to elaborate on what you said, was of interest for you.

If you don't wish to explain your main interest, that's up to you, but its' not something that I would start a fresh thread on myself.

And, if you wish to start on new thread on coal, that's also for you to decide, but I did indicate, where you would find an answer, which is as usual, "it depends".

That said, it is unlikely there will be the endless supply or the 1,000 or even 500 years, as suggested by some reports.

In fact, if current rates of Economic & Population growth were to continue, which I suspect they won't, then coal could go the same as Oil is now & NG will within 20-30 years, whilst Coal may take slightly longer at 40-60 years.

It really does DEPEND on what changes we make to Economic & Population GROWTH, now & in the immediate future!

Quote:

If you don't wish to explain your main interest, that's up to you

I am more than happy to, just not as a subject changer in this thread. If you are really interested, go ahead and ask. There are plenty of other threads already where I have discussed it at length.


Quote:

In fact, if current rates of Economic & Population growth were to continue, which I suspect they won't, then coal could go the same as Oil is now & NG will within 20-30 years, whilst Coal may take slightly longer at 40-60 years.

There are known reserves to last at least a century on a business as usual model. we could outlast that without even having to look for more.

Quote:

perceptions_now If you don't wish to explain your main interest, that's up to you

Quote:

freediver I am more than happy to, just not as a subject changer in this thread. If you are really interested, go ahead and ask. There are plenty of other threads already where I have discussed it at length.

Actually, I do have an interest in Climate related issues, so if you can point me in the direction of those previous threads, I would like to have a read and that will save your time going thru it, again.

This one focusses on the economics of taxation vs trading and more direct government intervention:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1168051896

I tend to participate less in the scientific and moral arguments, mainly because I haven't looked into the science much. But there are a heap of them on the environment board.

freediver wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 6:24pm:

This one focusses on the economics of taxation vs trading and more direct government intervention: http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1168051896 I tend to participate less in the scientific and moral arguments, mainly because I haven't looked into the science much. But there are a heap of them on the environment board.

Thanks, I will have a look!

World Population Day Highlights an Increasing Global Issue

Attention is drawn to the Earth's population growth and its social and economic impacts when World Population Day is marked on July 11 each year

World Population Day was established after public consciousness of the ever-increasing number of global inhabitants was raised when Five Billion Day was marked on July 11, 1987. Since that significant number was reached on or about that date, the global population has continued to grow steadily, and now stands some 6.8 billion people. While the rate of increase in the global population has eased in recent years, the number of people on planet Earth continues its steady rise.

World Population Trends and Dynamics
Every aspect of human, social and economic development is affected by population dynamics. While some countries of the developed world are now experiencing a marked decrease in population growth, and some even show signs of a reduction in numbers due to aging populations, the opposite applies and will continue to do so in the majority of developing nations, most noticeably in their cities.
World Population Day is an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme, and aims to concentrate global attention on the urgency of overpopulation. Promoted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Population Day is given a topical theme each year to provide a focus for activities within communities around the world. In 2009, the theme was Educate Girls, highlighting the role of women as economic agents in the fight to reducing poverty.

World Population Day 2010
In 2010 the spotlight falls on the importance of accurate data for development. Everyone Counts is about encouraging people to participate in their official census and other methods of collecting data on populations. Such data is the basis for the information critical to developing and implementing sound social policies and programmes that address poverty, and in the words of UNFPA itself, “ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.”

Working with national and local governments, other United Nations agencies, NGOs and the private sector, UNFPA raises awareness of the effects of population growth, mobilises support for programmes and provides access to resources.

Link -
http://worlddevelopment.suite101.com/article.cfm/world-population-day-highlights-an-increasing-global-issue
===
Whilst it is correct that the Global population is still growing & will continue to do so, for another 20-30 years, the actual growth rate has been in decline for over 40 years.

Given the trends, it seems likely that the Global Fertility rate & the Total Global population may both turn to negative around the period 2030-2040.

For those followers of Economics, you will understand that these reduced growth rates (fertility & Total population), will place marked stress points on the current Global mode of Economic Capitalism!

Whilst the Global economy can & in fact must deal with prolonged Economic stagnation and actual declines in growth, the transition will be difficult, given that such a large part of the world will be in transition at the same time and that the period involved will be so lengthy.

Quote:

Given the trends, it seems likely that the Global Fertility rate & the Total Global population may both turn to negative around the period 2030-2040.

Wouldn't you expect one to lag significantly?


Quote:

For those followers of Economics, you will understand that these reduced growth rates (fertility & Total population), will place marked stress points on the current Global mode of Economic Capitalism!

Don't you mean for those who don't understand economics? I can't understand why you repeat this vague claim when you can't even explain what you mean by it.

Population Growth Must Stop

Much has been written about population growth since the first edition of Malthus's famous essay was published in 1798.

The widespread acceptance and political influence of modern neoclassical economics is a central part of our global problem. In one widely used economics textbook, Principles of Economics, Greg Mankiw wrote that “A large population means more workers to produce goods and services. At the same time, it means more people to consume those goods and services.” Speaking for many neoclassical economists, Tim Harford concluded, in The Logic of Life, that "The more of us there are in the world, living our logical lives, the better our chances of seeing out the next million years." The absurdity of Harford's statement must be recognized and challenged.

Economists do not deserve all the blame. As Thomas Berry noted, in The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, "Western civilization, dominated by a cultural arrogance, could not accept the fact that the human, as every species, is bound by limits in relation to the other members of the Earth community."

Nowhere is acceptance of the twin towers of economic growth and increased consumption more apparent than in the United States, where "growing the economy" is still paramount, despite the leftovers of a financial meltdown created by banking and shadow banking systems run amok and a Gulf fouled by gushing oil. As Andrew Bacevich noted, in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, "For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, to consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors." Yet evidence that modern economics has let most people down is abundant.

More than two decades ago Edward Abbey wrote, in One Life at a Time, Please, that "[W]e can see that the religion of endless growth--like any religion based on blind faith rather than reason--is a kind of mania, a form of lunacy, indeed a disease," adding that "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, in This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation, that "The economists' odd fixation on growth as a measure of economic well-being puts them in a parallel universe of their own. . .the mantra of growth has deceived us for far too long." Whether in local areas, the United States, or the world, no problem that I can think of will be more easily solved with additional millions of people.

Continued population growth is unsustainable, as is continued growth in the production of oil and other fossil fuels. As Lester Brown argued, in PLAN B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, "If we cannot stabilize population and if we cannot stabilize climate, there is not an ecosystem on earth we can save." As Alan Weisman wrote, in The World Without Us, “The intelligent solution [to the problem of population growth] would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would henceforth limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.” Started now, such a policy would reduce Earth’s population down to around 1.6 billion by 2100, about the same as the world population in 1900. Had we kept Earth’s population at that level we would not be having this conversation.

Discussion Questions
1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion?

2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable?

3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue?

Link -
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6676
========
I recommend this author, she is a senior writer for "The Oil Drum", but her knowledge extends into areas other than Oil!

Quote:

perceptions_now Given the trends, it seems likely that the Global Fertility rate & the Total Global population may both turn to negative around the period 2030-2040.

Quote:

freediver Wouldn't you expect one to lag significantly?

By negative, I mean that -
1) The Fertility level will actually fall below the replacement level of 2.1 children, per woman.
2) The Total Global Population will actually start to decline.

And, in answer to your question/statement -
No, that is not automatic!

Retiring Age Movements


France
In an effort to slash their deficit and tackle an unruly pension system, France is boosting its retirement age from 60 to 62. The country's new retirement age will take full effect by 2018.

The new plan, which also includes higher levies on capital gains, stock options and other investment income, has been heavily criticized by national trade unions. However, Labor Minister Eric Woerth forecasts that the changes will result in balanced pension accounts by 2018 and a 100 million euro surplus by 2020.

Even with the age hike, France will still have the lowest retirement age in the developed world.

Britain
This June, the British government announced they too have plans to increase the U.K.'s retirement age and reform pensions. The pension age is currently set to rise from 65 to 66 by 2016 and up to 68 by 2046. However, more recently, the U.K. government revealed that the retirement age could jump as high as 70.

Although U.K. unions and charities are attacking the new plans, British politicians say the increase is necessary due to a neglected pension system and ever-increasing life expectancies. The U.K.'s current life expectancy is 77 years for men and 81 for women.

Germany
In 2007, the German government voted to gradually raise the nation's retirement age from 64 to 67, starting in 2012. The country's incredibly low birth rate and aging population played a major role in this decision. While Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, the country's 65+ population is estimated to double by 2035.

Greece
Greece is also planning to bump up the country's official retirement age from 61 to 63 by 2015. Like many other flat broke countries, the Greek government is making the change in an effort to balance its budget and save the nation's pension system. Labor Minister Andreas Loverdos claims the pension system will be drained in five years if the country doesn't make the changes.

Greece, which has been devastated by a national debt crisis, has even considered banning early retirements altogether. Like citizens in Germany, France and the U.K., Greeks are furious and many workers are vehemently protesting the controversial plans.

Link -
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/07/02/investopedia45235.DTL

freediver wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2010 at 7:15pm:

Overpopulation.

Why do you think that over-population is the biggest problem and what would you suggest be done?

WOW!!! Some of those retiring ages are absurd. Who wants to work until they're 67 or 68? There might be a mass exodus out of the cities into the country and back to 'living cheap', that's what I would do, sell up my city property and move to the country, room to grow your own food and less expenses.

Lucky for us we have that opportunity, plenty of wide open spaces and relatively cheap living. Who wants to be in the rat race in their old age?

We have to find alternatives.

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 3:35pm:

In fact, if current rates of Economic & Population growth were to continue, which I suspect they won't, then coal could go the same as Oil is now & NG will within 20-30 years, whilst Coal may take slightly longer at 40-60 years. It really does DEPEND on what changes we make to Economic & Population GROWTH, now & in the immediate future!

I don't know where you get your figures from, but it's more like 500 years for coal, and that's a conservative estimate. We have enormous reserves of coal worldwide. For example, some coal producing basins in Australia have not even been touched yet.  

muso wrote on Jul 8^th, 2010 at 8:48am:

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 27th, 2010 at 3:35pm: In fact, if current rates of Economic & Population growth were to continue, which I suspect they won't, then coal could go the same as Oil is now & NG will within 20-30 years, whilst Coal may take slightly longer at 40-60 years. It really does DEPEND on what changes we make to Economic & Population GROWTH, now & in the immediate future! I don't know where you get your figures from, but it's more like 500 years for coal, and that's a conservative estimate. We have enormous reserves of coal worldwide. For example, some coal producing basins in Australia have not even been touched yet.

If you have a look thru the following video's of Dr Albert Bartlett, particularly parts 4 & 5, you will get an idea where I am coming from.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&search_query=Dr.+Albert+Bartlett%3A+Arithmetic%2C+Population+and+Energy+Parts+1-8

Also, the following site from Chris Martenson is a very good information source, regarding many economic issues.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

That said, there is deliberate confusion spread about this and other issues. For example, resources longevity is usually referred to by saying "at current usage", but rarely does it accommodate the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FACTORS demanded by Economists & Politicians.

As soon as those usual growth factors are included, the longevity of our resources shrinks considerably.

In considering the effects of growth, you should take the growth %, divide that into 70 and that will give you the number of years it will take to double.

Doubling time, eg -
10% growth = 7 years  
7%   growth = 10 years
5%   growth = 14 years
2%   growth = 35 years

You may be surprised what a relatively small growth means over time? Particularly, when growth starts heading in opposite directions, as the Total Global Population and Oil Production are now set to do, over the next 20-30 years!

Quote:

That said, there is deliberate confusion spread about this and other issues. For example, resources longevity is usually referred to by saying "at current usage", but rarely does it accommodate the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FACTORS demanded by Economists & Politicians.

By deliberate confusion, do you mean like when people keep insisting that our economy depends on exponential growth but are unable to explain how? Or when they insist coal is about to run out, but can't provide any evidence except a few dodgy internet videos?

freediver wrote on Jul 10^th, 2010 at 12:44pm:

Quote: That said, there is deliberate confusion spread about this and other issues. For example, resources longevity is usually referred to by saying "at current usage", but rarely does it accommodate the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FACTORS demanded by Economists & Politicians. By deliberate confusion, do you mean like when people keep insisting that our economy depends on exponential growth but are unable to explain how? Or when they insist coal is about to run out, but can't provide any evidence except a few dodgy internet videos?

I am a little curious! You have said that overpopulation is the greatest problem facing humanity, but you label Br Albert Barlett as "dodgy?

What parts of professors arithmetic were dodgy?

You may be interested in some background information on professor Bartlett -=========
Albert Allen Bartlett (born 1923 in Shanghai)[1] is an emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Professor Bartlett has lectured over 1,600 times since September, 1969 on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy.[2]

Bartlett joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulder in September 1950. His B.A. degree in physics is from Colgate University (1944) and his M.A. (1948) and Ph.D. (1951) degrees in physics are from Harvard University. In 1978 he was national president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1969 and 1970 he served two terms as the elected Chair of the four-campus Faculty Council of the University of Colorado.

Bartlett is a modern-day Malthusian.

Professor Bartlett often explains how sustainable growth is a contradiction. His view is based on the fact that a modest percentage growth can equate to huge escalations over short periods of time.

He regards overpopulation as "The Greatest Challenge" facing humanity, and promotes sustainable living. Bartlett opposes the cornucopian school of thought (as advocated by people such as Julian Lincoln Simon), and refers to it as The New Flat Earth Society.

J. B. Calvert (1999) has proposed that Bartlett's Law will result in the exhaustion of petrochemical resources due to the exponential growth of the world population (as per the Malthusian Growth Model).

Bartlett has made two notable statements relating to sustainability:

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

and his Great Challenge:

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"
Link -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bartlett
===========
Btw, the fact that Dr Bartlett is well qualified to comment on these issues does not particularly impress me and nor do the qualifications of many other Economists or so called experts.

What impresses me about Bartlet & Martenson, in particularly, is the LOGIC OF THEIR ARGUEMENTS!

So, why do you regard over-population, as humanities greatest challenge?

Yes, every country in the World seems to be suffering from the same problem....
Aging populations, and low birth rates...

When we reach a point where more than half of our citizens are over the retirement age, then we have a serious problem...
It equals less people to do the work, and more people 'retired' and on either living on superannuation or old age benefits.....both of which are detrimental to society...

Less people to pay taxes and actually produce food/goods and more people living off the food/goods....

THAT is a negative production status...

I think what we NEED to do is increase the age we can 'voluntarily' work to...

Not like the various governments have proposed.....Allow people to still retire at 60 or 65.....but give them the option of working beyond the age of 65....

As an example, my Father retired at the age of 61, which was mandatory in those days....he did all the home  maintenance he'd been putting off for years, then he got bored, and went and found another job...which he held for about 15 years.....

Some people aren't ready to retire at 60 or 65......I think they should be allowed to continue working until much later...

Quote:

So, why do you regard over-population, as humanities greatest challenge?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/population-sustainability.html#Population%20vs%20quality%20of%20life

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/population-sustainability.html#IPAT


Quote:

Yes, every country in the World seems to be suffering from the same problem....

There are plenty that have the opposite problem.


Quote:

I think what we NEED to do is increase the age we can 'voluntarily' work to...

In what situations are people forced to retire? I know plenty of people working past the official retirement age.

freediver wrote on Jul 10^th, 2010 at 9:00pm:

[quote]So, why do you regard over-population, as humanities greatest challenge?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/population-sustainability.html#Population%20vs%20quality%20of%20life

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/population-sustainability.html#IPAT

The above links appear to be the same article.

That said, you have just done what you criticized me for, by referring to other articles, sites etc.

I have had a look thru the article and the relevant forum site -
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1164956379

I would venture that there are many areas, where we agree, but some clearly, where we do not agree!

Quote:

The above links appear to be the same article.

Yes. I did not intend to make you read the whole thing to find the answers you wanted. I directed you to the two most relevant parts.


Quote:

That said, you have just done what you criticized me for, by referring to other articles, sites etc.

I can quote the relevant bits for you if you like. The sections I linked to are very short. I did not try to make you watch half an hour of dodgy internet video to get a simple answer. I directed you to two short paragraphs to give you an answer to a complicated question.

The reason I did not personally explain is because I think I have already done so in this thread. But if you still want me to I will.

So Nippon ('Japan' to the Australians, who the Nipponese call 'Arsers')
has a population decline somewhat.
Maybe its due to them being sexually fetished upon those new Designer robots that they invent. The most popular is the 'Little Schoolgirl' version. Far better an experience that the American Blow-Up Doll apparently.
Same senario as a population plagued with Condoms ...a lot of sexual activity (I really laugh at guys in this day and age who think they are the 'beez-neez' of all men, because they bed a different female each night. I'm sure he is popular because he saves the women buying batteries, let alone losing face having to buy her own drinks.) but no Pro-Creation. Its a 'sexual Dis-Ease' in itself.
Its like reving your car in the garage, but you don't have a licence to drive it outside.
Its like owning a fast, suped up car but driving around in a 60km city.

In the work place, a fair amount of guys brag about 'smashing girls' (sex) the previous night, but they are so drained from the constant 'fabricated' rooting and tooting, their eyes dark in the sockets ...that they just can't 'keep it up' in the workplace and eventually fall away.

I enjoy sex, especially pro-creative sex. No Denial.

In the end, these women who desire the company of men for only shallow sexual pleasures, end up finally relying upon 'IVF' where the child has an 80% 'problem' rate. Not only this, the children seem to walk into walls, as if swimming in a fishbowl (year after year), before finding a sense of direction and committment in life.

Australia has always had a negative population growth and a very slow rate upon the Domestic front. Having to rely heavily upon Immigration to get past the 20 million mark.
A lot of Westerner or Television Australians are worried now that this Country can't support a population over 35 million.
Well I think those people can't cope because 'they' will loose all sense of cultural empowerment here.
I think Australia can support 300 million people, but it wont be the Westerners who provide the know-how to do so.

Quote:

freediver I did not try to make you watch half an hour of dodgy internet video to get a simple answer.

I refer you to my post of 12.44pm yesterday on this thread and I ask again, seeing as you have again referred dodgy internet video's -
"What parts of professors arithmetic were dodgy?"

The Professor, being Dr Albert Bartlett, is one of the video's that you refer to and apparent haven't watched.
===========
Albert Allen Bartlett (born 1923 in Shanghai)[1] is an emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Professor Bartlett has lectured over 1,600 times since September, 1969 on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy.[2]

Bartlett joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulder in September 1950. His B.A. degree in physics is from Colgate University (1944) and his M.A. (1948) and Ph.D. (1951) degrees in physics are from Harvard University. In 1978 he was national president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1969 and 1970 he served two terms as the elected Chair of the four-campus Faculty Council of the University of Colorado.

Bartlett is a modern-day Malthusian.

Professor Bartlett often explains how sustainable growth is a contradiction. His view is based on the fact that a modest percentage growth can equate to huge escalations over short periods of time.

He regards overpopulation as "The Greatest Challenge" facing humanity, and promotes sustainable living. Bartlett opposes the cornucopian school of thought (as advocated by people such as Julian Lincoln Simon), and refers to it as The New Flat Earth Society.

J. B. Calvert (1999) has proposed that Bartlett's Law will result in the exhaustion of petrochemical resources due to the exponential growth of the world population (as per the Malthusian Growth Model).

Bartlett has made two notable statements relating to sustainability:

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

and his Great Challenge:

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"
Link -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bartlett
===========
Btw, the fact that Dr Bartlett is well qualified to comment on these issues does not particularly impress me and nor do the qualifications of many other Economists or so called experts.
=========

Let me make an observation here, every decision that you, I or anyone else, ever comes to, is first influenced by others.

I should also point out that I read many of your comments on the thread attached to your "Population & Sustainability" article at -
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1164956379

which is where my following comment came from, in my post at 10.29pm yesterday.

I would venture that there are many areas, where we agree, but some clearly, where we do not agree!

It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Jul 11^th, 2010 at 12:29pm:

Australia has always had a negative population growth and a very slow rate upon the Domestic front. Having to rely heavily upon Immigration to get past the 20 million mark. I think Australia can support 300 million people, but it wont be the Westerners who provide the know-how to do so.

You may be interested in the graph at the following site, which shows that OZ has been under the Effective replacement fertility level (2.1) since the early 1970's, but was previously over 3.5 children per woman, during the great Baby Boom (early 1960's).

Our experience may not be that dissimilar to many other countries.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:AUS&dl=en&hl=en&q=australian+fertility+rate

Btw, the chances of OZ having a population of 300 million, are about the same as the Global Population reaching 100 Billion and that chance is ZERO!

As far as the retirement age goes, I do not think that it is generally compulsory to retire at a certain age, except in some professions.
Years ago train drivers had to retire at 65, but now there are some drivers over 70. I would definitely prefer a bus or train driver who is not overe 65, because there is more risk of becoming incapacitated, but then there are car drivers on the road who are over 90, so it is hard to say what the retirement age should be.
As far as the Australian population and the global population is concerned, only some people would benefit from an increase in the population, and they usually live in a less populated area of the cities, and at times on country estates.

Quote:

Australia has always had a negative population growth

What do you mean by that?


Quote:

I think Australia can support 300 million people

Sure, so long as you are happy to live of nothing but green goo grown in a vat of your own excrement.


Quote:

"What parts of professors arithmetic were dodgy?"

For starters, it is communicated via video. That is not exactly a sensible way to communicate arithmentic, is it? What is it with you and videos? Don't you realise how useless they are for this sort of thing, unless your purpose is to avoid scrutiny?

Quote:

perceptions_now "What parts of professors arithmetic were dodgy?"

Quote:

freediver For starters, it is communicated via video. That is not exactly a sensible way to communicate arithmentic, is it? What is it with you and videos? Don't you realise how useless they are for this sort of thing, unless your purpose is to avoid scrutiny?

This is not 1910, it's 2010 and as you rightly pointed out, in another post, we humans have made some big strides in the last 100 years, in technology.

The internet & ALL THAT IT ENABLES is one of the great leaps and that includes posting videos for many reasons, including reaching a larger audience to convey information to, rather than relying on the few attend live lessons/conventions etc.

I have nothing against using the internet. I think it's great too. But if you want to communicate any detailed technical information, you do it in writing. If you want to fluff your way through it, you do it orally, or in video. Get it now?

No-one is going to take you seriously if you can't explain your own views in your own words and you think a video is a good reference to back up your argument.

freediver wrote on Jul 12^th, 2010 at 8:46pm:

I have nothing against using the internet. I think it's great too. But if you want to communicate any detailed technical information, you do it in writing. If you want to fluff your way through it, you do it orally, or in video. Get it now? No-one is going to take you seriously if you can't explain your own views in your own words and you think a video is a good reference to back up your argument.

I am happy to post my own article or parts of someone' else's, which I feel conveys some useful information or I will post an article or video with my own comment, all of which I do regularly and am happy to continue to do here &/or elsewhere.

Of those who read my starting post of "What is the Motor of the World and why is it stopping?", on "The Future/s" thread, most will come away with some understanding of where I am come from and going to, but there is a great deal of information available to back up "personal statements" and I am also happy to provide that, which I did in that article, that thread & I do elsewhere.

I am sorry, if you don't like the way I present information, but I am unlikely to change my approach!

People can either believe my personal statements &/or the accompanying video's & articles or not, that is everyone's choice, including you!

That said, I am more interested in the message!

If you disagree with the information/message, then it is your choice & anyone else's choice, not to read what I post &/or view the video's &/or read the articles.

We all make our own choices!  

Btw, I have no great interest in the "detailed technical information", I am happy to leave that to others.

Do you get it, now?

Low population growth a big worry

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is worried about its declining population growth rate and whether there will be enough young adults after it becomes a developed country.

Statistics show that the population growth rate has dropped to 2.2% in 2008 from 2.6% in 2000. The declining trend has been in evidence since the country’s first census in 1970.

“If we do not take appropriate steps, we will have an aging population in the next 20 to 30 years,” said National Population and Family Development Board director-general Datuk Aminah Abdul Rahman.

She was speaking to reporters at a seminar on Population, Environment and Climate Change, which was opened by Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Heng Seai Kie here yesterday.

Several factors had caused the fertility rate to decline, she said, adding that more people were getting married at an older age and preferring to have fewer children.

“Malaysian families are also worried about the future, cost of living and their inability to balance their work and family responsibility.”

Aminah said that an aging population also meant that the young were increasingly made to support the elderly.
link -
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/7/13/nation/6653397&sec=nation
========
A couple of observations -
1) It is apparent, from this and other articles & statements (particularly by Politicians & Economists), that LOW POPULATION GROWTH IS A GREAT CONCERN, at least in some circles, such as Politicians & Economists.
2) It is also apparent that Low Population & Economic GROWTH, are also of great concern, in those same circles.
3) It is also apparent that an AGING Population, is also of great concern, in those same circles.

I can only agree that there are legimate concerns involved in each of the above and that there will be a great deal of pain involved, in the transition periods.

However, these are SHORT TERM problems and with goodwill, from all, they are not insurmountable.

That said, if left by Politicians, Economists, Big Business & the Public, for the Future to somehow magically resolve, they will only fester into larger, species threatening problems, involving -
1) Over-Population!
2) Essential Resources Depletion/Exhaustion!
3) Catastrophic Climate Change, brought on by all that over-Population implies!

There are choices to be made, between a better now or a future for our children.

DO NOT RELY ON POLITICIANS, their timeline focus only goes to the next election!

If the RIGHT (CORRECT) things are to be done, YOU & I, will have to say what we want, clearly & unmistakeably.

If you want to be taken seriously, then vote out every incumbent Politician, at the next election & again at the following, until they get the message and take the RIGHT (CORRECT) ACTIONS!

Quote:

I am happy to post my own article or parts of someone' else's, which I feel conveys some useful information or I will post an article or video with my own comment, all of which I do regularly and am happy to continue to do here &/or elsewhere.

True. The only thing you can't or won't do is answer some very simple questions about a theory you repeat frequently. Why is that?


Quote:

People can either believe my personal statements &/or the accompanying video's & articles or not, that is everyone's choice, including you!

This is another odd thing. Most people actually think they are right and are therefor a ble to convince others. Otherwise, aren't you just wasting your time? The only people who 'believe' what you post are people who already believed it anyway.

Quote:

perceptions_now People can either believe my personal statements &/or the accompanying video's & articles or not, that is everyone's choice, including you!

Quote:

freediver This is another odd thing. Most people actually think they are right and are therefor a ble to convince others. Otherwise, aren't you just wasting your time? The only people who 'believe' what you post are people who already believed it anyway.

Well, you could be correct?

If so, God help us, because the chaos theory, will not!

Problem is, we may then need to rely on an unproven theory of religion?

I prefer to think that we all have a brain and that it can think logically.

Hopefully there will be sufficient people who are convinced by the logic of the opinion of one, to change the future?

In any event, I am now retired, having spent far too long work in the financial sector and I have the time to invest in this venture.

Only time will tell, whether the investment will pay a reasonable dividend or as you put it, I simply wasted another valuable resource?

Quote:

perceptions_now I am happy to post my own article or parts of someone' else's, which I feel conveys some useful information or I will post an article or video with my own comment, all of which I do regularly and am happy to continue to do here &/or elsewhere.

Quote:

freediver True. The only thing you can't or won't do is answer some very simple questions about a theory you repeat frequently. Why is that?

Well, much of what I am on about, is in my article "What is the Motor of the World and why is it stopping?", but if you are looking for anything in particular, ask away!

But, as I have already said, I am not into the details!

I must have missed that article. It sounds like it answers the questions about your economic theories. Would you mind linking to it again?

freediver wrote on Jul 15^th, 2010 at 6:10pm:

I must have missed that article. It sounds like it answers the questions about your economic theories. Would you mind linking to it again?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1276844918/all

Happy reading?

freediver wrote on Jul 14^th, 2010 at 7:54pm:

Most people actually think they are right and are therefor a ble to convince others.

This is why most people are wrong - being right and being able to convince others are not connected in any way. But a lot of people operate along such fallacies.

Hans Rosling on Global Population Growth

A short video on the issues, with some interesting slants?

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/07/hans_rosling_on.html
==============
Also, a few comments from the site, to show the complexity of views -
1)  Rosling's self-loathing plan to turn the western world into some kind of chattel for the poorer world fails to take into account that most of the western world's population is already starting to crash. He should have had cut the western box in half for the 2050 segment.

In any case, it seems Rosling confuses correlation with causation. Rosling clearly has the relationship backwards. If a country reduces its birthrate then it climbs out of poverty. All of the nations he emphasizes, China, India, Bangladesh and so on emphasized birth control first and became less poor next.

2) What if a country just receives wealth? Will that alone control its population? Quite the opposite. Saudi Arabia discovered oil in 1938 and established a welfare state. Its population went from 4 million in 1960 to 29 million today.
Have a look at this chart. Stunning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saudi-Arabia-de...

Rosling's plan is a plan to get the developing world's population to 10 or 15 billion. Eventually a nasty resource limit will be hit and the wealthier nations would have to ditch the poor to feed themselves. An ugly outcome indeed.

What liberals always struggle to grasp is that free markets are usually the most merciful. Utopian it is not.

3) Yes, there is a moment at about 8 minutes in, where he makes a statement that the only way to get world population to stop is to get survival rates up. But there is no backing that up with an explanation of how that helps. He is not grappling with how to provide food and water and energy to the 9 billion people. He suggests that "green tech" will help. But it all feels like "wave a magic wand" and it will work out, as long as we can get population to top out at 9 billion.

Though Hans says he is possiblist, not an optimist, I would like to understand his view on what makes feeding and supporting 9 billion consumers (not to mention 6 billion), all moving toward a developed world consumer lifestyle, possible. It is the challenge of the century.

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 17^th, 2010 at 9:43pm:

Japan's Population Problem Low fertility rates and longer life spans are leading to an older and smaller population. Japan's population is aging and declining. Two main forces are responsible: declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans: 1. Fewer babies. A total fertility rate of 2.1 would keep a population stable, assuming no migration. Japan hit this level in 1960, falling persistently below since 1975. The total fertility rate reached a low of 1.26 in 2005. 2. Longer lives. Japanese women attained the longest life expectancy among 228 countries in 1982, according to World Bank data, and have held that position to now. Smaller workforce Japan's population peaked in 2004 at 127.8 million. Current projections expect the rate of decline to accelerate to 1% annually by 2050. The workforce hit its high in 1999 and is now already 2.5% smaller. A smaller workforce and an aging population imply that the ratio of workers to non-workers will fall. The conventionally measured dependence ratio--the number of workers that must cover the dependent population of young and retired--compares the number of people in the 15-64 year old age group to all others. The fertility collapse and aging have pushed the ratio down to 1.8 this year, with a projected ratio of one worker per dependent after 2050. Were this to happen, the consequences for taxes, transfers and incentives could be enormous. Link - http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/14/japan-population- aging-business-oxford-analytica.html?feed=rss_busi ness ====== Some things that await the rest of the world, over the next 20-30 years.

The Japanese also live longer than westerners because of the diet and the communal living they entail. They eat from rough memory around 147 different types of foods along with brown rice as opposed to white rice. White rice being the bad one and brown rice being the better one.

It is like the difference between eating white bread all your life and brown/husk seed/wholemeal bread.

Some also attribute the climate being very high above sea level for longevity of the Japanese. Lesser use of oxygen.

In regards to the Australian population debate. We need to find better ways of building houses. Growing our own food and buying less of the junk from supermarkets.

Mind you not all of the food from Coles Group LTD and Safeway is junk just a set principle of it is not fantastic nutritionalist food. You are free to support which ever food [corporation] you want.

Japan have already one of the world's fastest transport systems in the world's most earth quake prone region but they manage

http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=852&catid=23&subcatid=153

We could also learn from the Japanese example by making a bullet train of our own since we are not a earthquake prone region and I'd definately want one for example getting from Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne or Adelaide. The bullet train can go very fast and is a highly efficient form of transport versus our old electrical clunker system. Which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Coping with World Population Boom and Bust – Part II

In a growing number of countries, average fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels, the numbers necessary to ensure stable population. While concerns about shrinking populations have arisen in the past, the issue now affects almost all regions of the world.

Have fun now: When these Japanese kids grow up, they'll have to work doubly hard - to support themselves and their elders NEW YORK: “Sweetie, please have a baby!” No, this isn’t the gentle plea of a would-be father or eager grandparent-to-be. It is the appeal of a growing number of governments concerned with the consequences of low birth rates.

Today, in one country out of three, fertility is below two children per woman, the level necessary to ensure stable population numbers, or, in the term preferred by demographers, the 'replacement' of generations. In some countries, such as Armenia, Italy, South Korea, and Japan, average fertility levels are now closer to one child per woman.

In the absence of immigration, when fertility remains below the two-child replacement level long enough, a population shrinks and ages. This is the projected future for most low-fertility countries. In a couple of generations, for example, the Italian population is projected to be 20 percent smaller than it is today, with the working age population (15-64 years) shrinking by some 40 percent. It is not difficult to imagine the social and economic consequences of such a drastic change.
The picture for Europe as a whole is not much different than Italy’s. By mid-century, Europe’s population is projected to be 13 percent smaller, with the working age population declining by 27 percent, and the median age increasing by a third, reaching 50 years. Population decline and aging is also in the future for Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. In contrast, Australian and Canadian populations, which also have below-replacement fertility levels, and the United States, which has fertility near replacement, are expected to continue growing throughout the century – a trend due largely to immigration.

Many governments view low birth rates, with the resulting population decline and aging, to be a serious crisis, jeopardizing the basic foundations of the nation and threatening its survival. Economic growth, defense, and pensions and health care for the elderly, for example, are all areas of major concern.

While population decline has been an issue in the past, today’s concerns are more widespread, involving virtually all regions of the world. Also, these concerns have extended over a lengthy period of time, and consequences have become progressively evident to governments as well as the general public. In addition, the problem of below-replacement fertility is spreading rapidly.

Will government policies, incentives, and various other pro-natalist measures be sufficient to raise birth rates to replacement levels? Taking into account the considerable social, economic, and political constraints, the policies most governments will be able to offer may have only a modest – and temporary – effect on raising fertility. It also seems likely that fertility may increase somewhat above the very low rates of today as the lowering effect of postponing childbearing runs its course over the coming years.

Nevertheless, current and foreseeable efforts available to most governments to raise their fertility rates seem highly unlikely to succeed, at least for the near term. In other words, a government appeal to Sweetie to have a baby is unlikely to reverse the trend any time soon – even with a little sugar on it.
Link -
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/coping-world-population-boom-and-bust-%E2%80%93-part-ii
========
Moreover, the longer term problems of over-population, given declining essential resources, makes even a short term 2nd Baby Boom, to get over the hump of the first great Baby Boom, absolutely untenable!

For anyone who hasn't seen it before!

Go to the below site & download -
Years to Add Each Billion to World Population  Download

We have come a long way, in a short span of time?

http://www.prb.org/Publications/GraphicsBank/PopulationTrends.aspx

Immigration, population 'inseparable'


Prime Minister Julia Gillard's attempt to decouple the issues of immigration and population growth is ridiculous, the federal opposition says.

Asked on Wednesday if she would cut immigration to ensure a sustainable population, Ms Gillard said the debate was about planning and policy choices for the nation's future growth.

So, yes immigration & Population Growth are linked, but they do not have to continue to follow the old rules.

But opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the two issues are inseparable.

"She made the ridiculous statement that immigration has nothing to do with curtailing population growth," Mr Morrison told reporters on Wednesday in Sydney.

"She says she wants to do something about sustainable population but she doesn't want to address the primary reason that population is growing so significantly.

"And any prime minister who says they want to do something about getting population growth under control obviously has to address immigration."

Australia's immigration rate is the main reason the population is forecast to reach 36 million by 2050. Ms Gillard does not support such a number.

"I don't believe that this is an immigration debate ... I believe it's a debate about planning and policy choices for the nation's future, about where we want to see growth," she told reporters in Sydney.

"We do need skilled migrants, definitely."

Meanwhile, another boatload of asylum seekers has been intercepted near Christmas Island, with about 40 people on board.

It is the first boat to arrive since the federal election campaign began on Saturday.

It was the 80th suspected illegal entry vessel to arrive in Australia this calendar year, Mr Morrison said.
Link -
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/7616418/immigration-population-inseparable/
=========
Let me try to put a little perspective into the discussion.

If the current level of Boat People were to continue for a few years, it would be an additional expense that Australia could do without and we should endeavour to keep the level down, but the sun will continue to rise in the morning!

Should the Climate run into some of the suggested tipping points, including rising sea levels, then 100's of MILLIONS OF REFUGEES looking for a safe haven, would be a very different story.

In terms of Population Growth & Immigration, the current Australian Fertility rate is below replacement level, so should that continue then the total Population would eventually start to decline, unless the immigration intake is high enough to level things off or if the immigration level is high enough, then the total population will continue to show growth.

Governments set immigration levels and therefore whether we will have a net Population growth or a decline!

No matter what both major Political party's say, they seem intent on Growing the Population & continuing to Grow the economy!

That can not end well, for either new or old immigrants or those original Australians!!!

The future is likely to have some unpleasant Climate problems and all essential resources will shortly (now - 40 years, depending on what) start to slide into decline, which will make any larger population extremely difficult to sustain.

In fact, the existing 22 million, is likely to actually be too high and may finally be lowered, either by plan or by disaster?

Discussion Questions
1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion?

2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable?

3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue?
1. Rather than spending much time to post here, which is read by very few people, it would maybe have more effect to contact our leaders, after all they still make some far-reaching decisions in this regard.
2.if anybody thinks that the population can go on growing forever, he/she is fooling herself, and even if they are the people who profit from it.
3.Social security in Australia is skewed towards the top 30% of income and wealth population.
Take someone who owns 40000 TLS shares, has a Self Managed Super Fund and is over sixty year of age, he/she will get some $120,000 in dividends annually, and as he/she does not have to pay tax, the government will send them another cheque for $30,000, for the dividend imputation, and as he/she does not have to put the income on the tax return, they can have additional assets of some 15-20 thousand in the bank and still not pay any tax.
Compare this to a person who paid into a defined benefit super here in Australia or overseas in a country where they had compulsory super, but no means-testing, for the last 60 or more years, when his/her income exceeds $6500, they will lose $0.50 of Centrelink pension, which is paid out of taxes which they paid while they were in the workforce, and should a couples combined income exceed $40,000 per annum, they will pay $0.315 in tax including medicare levy.

hawil wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2010 at 1:16pm:

Discussion Questions 1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion? 2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable? 3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue? 1. Rather than spending much time to post here, which is read by very few people, it would maybe have more effect to contact our leaders, after all they still make some far-reaching decisions in this regard. 2.if anybody thinks that the population can go on growing forever, he/she is fooling herself, and even if they are the people who profit from it. 3.Social security in Australia is skewed towards the top 30% of income and wealth population. Take someone who owns 40000 TLS shares, has a Self Managed Super Fund and is over sixty year of age, he/she will get some $120,000 in dividends annually, and as he/she does not have to pay tax, the government will send them another cheque for $30,000, for the dividend imputation, and as he/she does not have to put the income on the tax return, they can have additional assets of some 15-20 thousand in the bank and still not pay any tax. Compare this to a person who paid into a defined benefit super here in Australia or overseas in a country where they had compulsory super, but no means-testing, for the last 60 or more years, when his/her income exceeds $6500, they will lose $0.50 of Centrelink pension, which is paid out of taxes which they paid while they were in the workforce, and should a couples combined income exceed $40,000 per annum, they will pay $0.315 in tax including medicare levy.

2. More saleable? To be honest, I doubt it, the prevalling attitude is one of, if it is going to affect ME, then it's not going to happen!  

3. It should have started being dealt with about 40 years ago, with governments setting up programs, such as the Super Guarantee,  started in OZ, but not until around 1990.
Although OZ started, it did not start early enough and the Liberals then stopped the progression thru from 9%, to 15% & more, which should have happened, to more fully fund the Baby Boomer retirements.
That said, Australia at least did something, the rest of the world & the USA in particular, did nothing, with the result that the majority of their people now have very, very little in the way of Funds or assets, with the housing market having collapsed, along with the shahe markets and governments with Debt coming out of every orifice.  

On top of that, there are several other tsunami's impacting or about to impact and I simply can see any Hollywood ending?

Btw, your Telstra example may have a few floors, as the dividends would be nowhere near $120,000 annually. In fact the total share price today would only be about $128,000 for 40,000 shares (@ $3.20 today), having fallen from nearly $5.00 a share at their recent top on 27/02/2008.

1. Talk about it, at every opportunity, in every forum possible, in person, by letter or electronically!
Just don't expect to many, particularly Politicians or Economists to agree with you, let alone put anything into action!

But, also remember, Aging is not the only issue, there is also Peak Energy, Over-Population (&Population Decline), Debt Mountains & Climate Change, all requiring "their fix"!
 

Population policy a national pyramid scheme

THE "populate or our future fortunes will perish" cry is the ultimate national pyramid scheme.

NEVER mind environmental sustainability, there's an even more fundamental disconnect in the debate, such as it is, over Australia's population. It is that between a "big Australia" and the source of our contemporary and future prosperity.

Our future growth is entirely dependent on China's -- hopefully continued -- voracious appetite for our resources.

On the one hand, population growth of unprecedented size in raw terms; on the other, an economy that will be increasingly dependent on growth in low-jobs resources.

The alternative is much more worrying. What if we run a 250,000-plus annual immigration intake and the China boom ends?

The experience of the previous high-immigration phase in the 1950s and 1960s is both instructive and concerning. Then the initial jobs for those migrants were in heavily protected manufacturing; the broader jobs came in servicing those industries and supplying the goods and services and housing for our soaring population.

It's not difficult to understand business and especially big business support for a big and, equally important, continually rising population. It delivers customers. And customers that are much easier to tap than those pesky ones living overseas.

Nothing could have better captured the complete disconnect between utterly empty feel-good rhetoric and the reality of the challenges of our future, centred on population and China, than Julia Gillard's so-called climate change policy.

At core the new "populate or our future fortunes will perish" cry is the ultimate national pyramid scheme. We need to get to 36 -- or 50? -- million, to have the taxpaying workforce to support the now ageing baby-boomers. Beware of a Japanese-style population implosion!

Oh yeah? And when all those younger new arrivals start to age, we will presumably then need to move to 72 -- or 100 -- million, to have a sufficiently large taxpaying workforce to support them. Just as every boom busts, even our China one will; the laws of arithmetic always topple even the most elegant pyramid scheme.
Link -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/population-policy-a-national-pyramid-scheme/story-e6frg9if-1225896291035
============
We know that soaring Population Growth will engender Economic Growth, as we have seen over the period 1945-2005 and particularly the period 1995-2005, which were the Peak Baby Boomer Earning & Spending years.  

But we also know, if we revert to pure arithmetic, that endless or exponential growth is just not possible and the catch-cry now should be "POPULATE & PERISH", as we find essential Resources, such as Oil & Coal start their inevitable production decline!

And so, we face the dilemma, Economic pain now or much worse later (possibly species threatening), if we try to put our pain off to future generations?

Btw, your Telstra example may have a few floors, as the dividends would be nowhere near $120,000 annually. In fact the total share price today would only be about $128,000 for 40,000 shares (@ $3.20 today), having fallen from nearly $5.00 a share at their recent top on 27/02/2008.

You are very right; it takes 400,000 shares from my calculations.
You are also right, no politician or economists will agree with me, but the big cowardice from them, is, that they do not even try to prove me wrong, because all the economists and politicians earn enough to set up their own Self Managed Super Funds (SMSF) including Jeremy Cooper, and according to governemnt statistics, the average balance of the funds is $947,000, yet the average balance for the average people will be $180,000 after 30 years of contributing 9%.
As far as the USA goes, they always worshipped the winner takes all principle.

Just shut the Door already, we're full.

FUTURE WINDOWS

Written in mid 2006, this contained 6 Possible, Major Influencing Events, including this one, relating to -


5)  BABY BOOMER RETIREMENT
Event Initiator
- Commencement of post WW2 babies going into retirement.

Event Start Date
- Already commenced recently – 2005.

Event Outcome/s
- Significant reduction in Workforce Participation is likely, notwithstanding government efforts to delay.
- Immigrant intake dilemma likely, some will want a greater intake, to offset bottlenecks in some workforce sectors, whilst others will seek lower intake, to offset rising unemployment.
- Significant cost factor increases will enter the economy, due to population aging and lower Participation Rate, causing inflationary & deflationary pressures to grow.
- Significant reduction in Property values is likely, as event shifts thru to retirement and to the death of Baby Boomer generation. The generation birth rates that followed the Boomers reduced to 60%, then 40% in more recent times. As the asset rich Baby Boomers die, those left will be less well off and there will be less of them – the laws of supply & demand will take over.
- Significant reduction in Share Market values is likely and an extended depression, commencing around 2010, give or take a couple of years.
 
Event Duration
- 20 to 30 years.

Event Probabilities
- Start 100% - Has been guaranteed for over fifty years.
-Worst case scenario, 60-40

If you relax zoning laws and housing/development regulation, the market would make room for newcomers. Our population could double by 2050 and as long as we maintain a free market, I see no reason why we can't accommodate for growth like that.

A magazine in the United States called 'Reason' teamed up with Drew Carey (The Price is Right, Who's Line Is It Anyway, The Drew Carey Show) to do a documentary on Carey's hometown of Cleveland, which has been going downhill for decades. They found that while Cleveland was dying under mass amounts of regulations, other cities in the country like Houston were flourishing with very few regulations on business, housing, development and zoning.

Growth doesn't require central planning. I know it seems like chaos would result from things being allowed to take their own course without oversight, therefore we need an elected group of elites to run society for us. But that's a conventional wisdom that needs to be reassessed. The reality is that central planning doesn't work (Soviet Russia) and in the absence of it, chaos doesn't necessarily occur.

Global population outlook: Fewer workers to support seniors

WASHINGTON: The ranks of retired and elderly citizens are beginning to swell in many countries while the number of younger workers funding seniors' benefits and health care is on the slide, a report published Wednesday found.

The world population stood at 6.9 billion in 2010, with all the demographic growth taking place in developing countries.

Africa was expected to double its population by 2050, to two billion.

Industrialized countries, in contrast, now have 1.2 billion people and will see their populations grow increasingly elderly.

Japan, for example, has watched its birth rate edge down to 1.4 per woman; it has just three adults working to support one elderly person, the lowest ratio in the world alongside those of Germany and Italy, the report found.

By 2050, Japan will have just one working-aged adult to fund the needs of an older person. In Germany, Italy and France, the ratio will be two to one.

The United States, which now has five workers for every elderly person, will see the ratio slide to three to one.

"In 2011, world population will reach seven billion, just 12 years after reaching six billion," said Carl Haub, PRB senior demographer. "It also took 12 years to climb from five billion to six billion. The big question now is when will we reach eight billion? Most likely in 2024, 13 years after the seventh billion, but it could be sooner," he noted.

The economic recession also seems to have already caused a decline in the birth rates in developed countries including Spain and the United States, the study found.
Link -
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Global-population-outlook-Fewer-workers-to-support-seniors/articleshow/6228932.cms
===========
Personally, I think we may struggle to reach 8 Billion!

European population reaches 501 million

On 1 January 2010, the population of the EU was estimated at 501.1 million, compared with 499.7 million on 1 January 2009.

In that way, the population grew by 1.4 million in 2009, an annual rate of 2.7 per 1000 inhabitants, due to a natural increase and net migration, which confirms a trend change with respect to the negative data of the beginning of the decade, and questiones that growth was due only to immigration, as stated in the report about population projections 2008-2060 issued by Eurostat.

In conclusion, the population increased in nineteen Member States and decreased in eight, with considerable variations between Member States.

The largest relative increases were observed in Luxembourg, Sweden, Slovenia, Belgium and the United Kingdom, and the largest decreases in Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Germany.
Link -
http://euroalert.net/en/news.aspx?idn=10197

BobH wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 4:25pm:

If you relax zoning laws and housing/development regulation, the market would make room for newcomers. Our population could double by 2050 and as long as we maintain a free market, I see no reason why we can't accommodate for growth like that. A magazine in the United States called 'Reason' teamed up with Drew Carey (The Price is Right, Who's Line Is It Anyway, The Drew Carey Show) to do a documentary on Carey's hometown of Cleveland, which has been going downhill for decades. They found that while Cleveland was dying under mass amounts of regulations, other cities in the country like Houston were flourishing with very few regulations on business, housing, development and zoning. Growth doesn't require central planning. I know it seems like chaos would result from things being allowed to take their own course without oversight, therefore we need an elected group of elites to run society for us. But that's a conventional wisdom that needs to be reassessed. The reality is that central planning doesn't work (Soviet Russia) and in the absence of it, chaos doesn't necessarily occur.

Well, we could have a lengthy discussion  about Growth & Planning, but let me head that one off and simply say this -
Economic Growth is dying, for many reasons and the "Economic Growth Fairy" will not be resuscitated.

So trust me, Economic Decline will need every bit of Economic, Population & Energy Planning possible and then some!

perceptions_now wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 10:39pm:

BobH wrote on Jul 29th, 2010 at 4:25pm: If you relax zoning laws and housing/development regulation, the market would make room for newcomers. Our population could double by 2050 and as long as we maintain a free market, I see no reason why we can't accommodate for growth like that. A magazine in the United States called 'Reason' teamed up with Drew Carey (The Price is Right, Who's Line Is It Anyway, The Drew Carey Show) to do a documentary on Carey's hometown of Cleveland, which has been going downhill for decades. They found that while Cleveland was dying under mass amounts of regulations, other cities in the country like Houston were flourishing with very few regulations on business, housing, development and zoning. Growth doesn't require central planning. I know it seems like chaos would result from things being allowed to take their own course without oversight, therefore we need an elected group of elites to run society for us. But that's a conventional wisdom that needs to be reassessed. The reality is that central planning doesn't work (Soviet Russia) and in the absence of it, chaos doesn't necessarily occur. Well, we could have a lengthy discussion  about Growth & Planning, but let me head that one off and simply say this - Economic Growth is dying, for many reasons and the "Economic Growth Fairy" will not be resuscitated. So trust me, Economic Decline will need every bit of Economic, Population & Energy Planning possible and then some!

So economic slowdown caused by central planning (e.g. affordable housing policy) is what is needed now in spades?

The idea that a group of elites need to manage society for the rest of us so chaos doesn't result from things being allowed to take their own course must seem like such a conventional wisdom that to spend anytime questioning whether that actually works in practice must seem like time wasted. But when you do look into it, you see that where central planning has been tried, it has had repeatedly bad results. There's perhaps no better example of that than, of source, Soviet Russia where economic central planning is what perhaps caused the USSR's demise.

the world is overpopulated.
we have reached the point where we should naturally have fewer people in the earth, for the benefit of us all .

our unnaturalness may make our overpopulation worsen.
But it's still overpopulated as it is .

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 11:44pm:

the world is overpopulated. we have reached the point where we should naturally have fewer people in the earth, for the benefit of us all . our unnaturalness may make our overpopulation worsen. But it's still overpopulated as it is .

Agreed!

there would conceivably be in the world extremely powerful and wealthy interests who would agree with that no doubt. What do you say if these interests, corporate, government, military, or economic or a combination any or all of these, decide to act upon some agenda to reduce the world population by "rapid attrition", for want of a better term.
What would you say then?

three - i've been advocating that for years.
At least a 30% decrease in numbers. 50% 'ld be better.

A Pyramid of Ponzi Schemes

It’s not often your editor is impressed by what’s written in the mainstream press. But Terry McCrann’s column in last week’s The Australian did fill us with some hope that not all mainstream writers are Keynesian Muppets.

Mr. McCrann’s last two paragraph’s sum up the article perfectly:

“At core the new “populate or our future fortunes will perish” cry is the ultimate national pyramid scheme. We need to get to 36 — or 50? — million, to have the taxpaying workforce to support the now ageing baby-boomers. Beware of a Japanese-style population implosion!

“Oh yeah? And when all those younger new arrivals start to age, we will presumably then need to move to 72 — or 100 — million, to have a sufficiently large taxpaying workforce to support them. Just as every boom busts, even our China one will; the laws of arithmetic always topple even the most elegant pyramid scheme.”

Simply put, prior generations have lived beyond the economy’s means. And now that it’s time for payback, that same generation doesn’t want a bar of it. That’s why they’re trying to push the payback period out into the future – increasing the population should help!

But back to Mr. McCrann’s article. He makes a great point on the bogus population argument. Their mainstream’s only solution for the increased cost of welfare and healthcare is to encourage an increased population. But as Mr. McCrann points out, what happens when those people get old?

More immigration? An even bigger population? It all comes back to the issue of exponential growth that we wrote about a few months back.

At some point the exponential growth breaks down, because it isn’t sustainable. If the only reason for increasing the population is so those new-comers can pay for the old timers or to keep house prices up, then that’s a policy heading for disaster.

Besides, if you know that’s the only reason you’re being welcomed into the country what are the odds you’ll stay, or even come here in the first place?

The crazy part of their theory if you work it all the way through to the logical conclusion is that the exponential growth would mean Australia needing the entire population of the world to move to Australia in order to maintain the welfare and health payments.

Our question would be what happens next?

Of course, everyone knows that isn’t going to happen. The whole idea that you can get an economy out of economic strife just by increasing the population is ridiculous. It isn’t sustainable, full stop.

It’s no more sustainable than their claim that you can solve a credit bubble by issuing more credit.
Link -
http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20100802/a-pyramid-of-ponzi-schemes.html
============
The road to perdition, is full of those who talk of ideals and who promise the world, but deliver nothing!

Human population: our brushes with extinction


American Indians are reduced Asians, but we are all reduced Africans. Africa is the most diverse continent in many ways, both biologically and culturally. More than half of man’s history happened on that continent, and at the time of the Great Escape to the rest of the world 60,000 years ago there was a large reduction of variability. Its extent can be used to estimate the size of the group that got out. The figure is about eighty people for one generation, or more for a longer period of scarcity (and I would like to remind Telegraph readers – because nobody else will – that I was the first, 20 years ago, to work that out).

Now comes news that Africans themselves were once endangered. The genes of the continent show a great split between the peoples of the East and of the South. The difference is such that they must have been quite separate for the first 100,000 years of Homo sapiens’ existence. Pollen hints that, just then, Africa suffered a series of huge droughts. That led to a population crash that – some say – may have been as small as 2,000 people: the ancestors of everyone today.

As a result, our species long teetered on the edge of extinction.
Link -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/steve-jones/7923782/Human-population-our-brushes-with-extinction.html
===========
Well ,we are not too badly off, then.

We are only in DEAP Sh1t!

Debt Growth (Global)
Energy Decline (Global)
Aging Population (Global)
Population Decline (Global)

Plus, Climate Change coming! (Global)

Nah, we're doin ok?

We're goin Global???

Baby Slump Leaves Fukui Site Playing Cupid to Spur Japan Growth

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The coastal region of Fukui has Japan’s biggest share of dual-income households, highest ratio of working women and lowest unemployment. What it doesn’t have is enough babies.

The provincial government this month is starting the Fukui Marriage-Hunting Cafe, a website for singles, to help stem the falling birthrate as it damages the economy. As an added incentive, couples who agree to marry will get cash or gifts, said Akemi Iwakabe, deputy director of Fukui’s Children and Families division.

Japan’s first online dating service organized by a prefectural government follows national measures to extend parental leave that have so far failed to convince women to have more children. The fertility rate has dropped to 1.34 children per woman, shrinking the pool of workers and consumers and increasing the burden on younger employees to pay for an aging population.

“It’s difficult to breathe life back into an economy without children, without young people,” said Naoki Iizuka, an economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. “When an area like this keeps aging, the public finances of that government won’t last.”

Fewer Workers
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates the number of working-age Japanese will drop to 81 million this year, compared with the 1995 peak of 87 million.
The average number of children that Japanese women have compares with Canada’s 1.6 and France’s 2, according to the World Bank. The 2.1 rate in the U.S. is considered the minimum for a developed nation to maintain a constant population.

About 23 percent of the country’s population is over 65, the highest ratio among the 62 countries tracked by Bloomberg.

Single Women
Census data show that 32 percent of women between 30 to 34 years old were unwed in 2005, more than twice the number 15 years earlier.

Lowest Jobless Rate
Fukui had the lowest jobless rate in the first quarter among Japan’s 47 prefectures, at 3.3 percent, according to the statistics bureau. About 53 percent of Fukui’s women held jobs in 2007, versus a national average of 48.8 percent. The prefecture also had the highest ratio of dual-income households at 39.6 percent, against Japan’s average of 26.6 percent, census data from 2005 show.

The hope is that members from the Fukui Marriage-Hunting Cafe will pair off and help turn around the prefecture’s fertility rate, which dropped to 1.54 in 2008, from 1.93 in 1985.
Link -
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8lJlkVWqRuQ&pos=9
===========
All of which goes to confirm just how interlocked and complex things now are.

It wasn't that long ago that women were being implored to enter the workforce, because more workers were needed satisfy an increasing Demand in the OZ & Global Economy.

In addition, particularly in many Western countries, women were virtually being forced into the workforce, as a double income family was nearly a mandatory requirement, to kept family finances from going broke.

The paradigm is changing!

As can be seen in the Japanese situation, their Fertility rate is well below the replacement level of 2.1, at only 1.34 children per woman and their working age workforce has declined from 87 Million in 1995, to only 81 Million now.

So, Japan actually needs to increase the Female Participation in their workforce to keep production & product Demand rising, but it needs more women to marry (maybe) &/or at least have babies, to stop the declining Fertility rate, the decline in total Population and therefore a decline in Demand!

Of course, if women do have babies, then that will lessen their Participation in the workforce and the Japanese Workforce Participation rate is already in decline, as is the case in many countries, due to Baby Boomer retirements which are just getting under way.

The Gordian Knot is already at work in Japan and has now started to move on the majority of other countries around the world.

Which is one of the reasons that the next 20 years, will be nothing like the last 20 years!

Tony Burke smashed Abbots hopes out of the park today!

Bye Bye crack smokers!

 :D :D ;) ;D :o :o

Peak Capital - Our Ultimate Limit?

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/myrtveitresources_0.gif

The five main elements of the world model developed in "The Limits to Growth" study according to Magne Myrtveit .

The LTG study was based on a rather complex model which, however, can be summarized in terms of five main elements, as you see in the figure at the beginning of this post. The five elements are 1) population, 2) mineral resources, 3) agricultural resources, 4) pollution and 5) capital investments. This is just one of the many ways to build such a model. Other choices are possible, but the LTG model, improved over the years, is a good way to capture the essential elements of the world's economy. Despite the persistent legend that the LTG study was "wrong"; the results of the study have been found to be remarkably accurate.

None of the five elements of the model is a problem in itself. But each one can become a problem. In that case, we speak of 1) overpopulation, 2) mineral depletion, 3) famine, 4) ecosystem collapse and 5) economic decline. Often, these five problems are considered as if they were independent from each other. People tend to attribute all what is going on to a single problem: peak oil, climate change, overpopulation, and so on. In particular, economists tend to see the economy as independent from the availability of natural resources. Of course, this cannot be true and in a "dynamic" model, such as the LTG one, all the elements of the economic system interact with each other; either reinforcing each other (positive feedback) or weakening each other (negative feedback). To understand how the economy behaves as the natural resources are exploited (and overexploited) it is important to consider the role of the "capital" parameter. The behavior of the capital stock directly affects industrial production and other parameters which are counted as part of economic indicators such as the gross domestic product (GDP).

In the LTG world model, "capital" is created by investments generated by industrial activity. Capital is assumed to decay at a rate proportional to the amount of existing capital. This is called obsolescence or, sometimes, depreciation. To keep capital growing, or at least not disappearing, investments need to be larger than, or as large as, depreciation. Since investments depend on the availability of natural resources, the buildup (or the dissipation) of the capital stock depend on the progressive depletion of these resources. In the original LTG model of 1972, there were three kinds of capital stocks considered: industrial capital (factories, machines, etc.), service capital (schools, bridges, hospitals, etc.) and agricultural capital (farms, land, machinery, etc.). In the latest version (2004), industrial capital and mining capital are considered separately, as you see in the following figure ( from the synopsis of the 30 year update of LTG). Note how the "capital" parameter (in its various forms) affects the parameters which determine the GDP.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/LTGScenario1.jpg

In the graph, you don't see the "capital" parameter plotted. However, industrial capital follows the same curve of industrial production. The other forms of capital have a similar behavior. All reach a maximum level and then decline, carrying the whole economy down with them. Overall, it is "peak capital."

When do we expect peak capital to occur? According to the "standard run" of the LTG report, it may arrive during the first two decades of the century. It may very well be that much of what we are seeing now is a symptom of peak capital approaching: airports, roads, bridges, dikes, dams, and about everything that goes under the name of "infrastructure" are decaying everywhere in the world. The whole economic system is becoming unable to maintain the level of complexity that it had reached just a few decades ago.
Link -
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6809
============
Of special interest, should be the central position of POPULATION and how everything is interlocked to population!

Report Warns That Baby Boomers Could Face a Grim Retirement Without Social Security, Medicare, and Other Social Insurance Programs

      NEW YORK, Aug. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- As baby boomers head toward retirement, many are facing a financial bust. Those retirees could face a grim future without the support of strong social insurance programs, according to a new issue brief from The Century Foundation.

      "The Impact of Housing and Investment Market Declines on the Wealth of Baby Boomers" shows how the bursting of the housing bubble in 2007, the financial meltdown in 2008, and the most severe recession since the Great Depression have destabilized the economic security of the baby boom generation of Americans - those born between 1946 and 1964 - just at the time when they are approaching retirement. Although the stock market has recovered somewhat in recent months, the baby boomers have little time left before retirement to rebuild the wealth they lost in the past couple of years. As a result, many boomers will be even more dependent than they anticipated on Social Security, Medicare, and, for some, Medicaid, to provide them with a degree of security after they stop working.

      The issue brief - written by Greg Anrig, vice president for policy and programs, and Millie Parekh, a researcher at The Century Foundation - finds that, prior to the housing and investment market collapse, many baby boomers benefited from a surge in asset prices over the past two decades, enjoying large increases in the value of their homes and retirement savings plans. However, savings plans, 401(k)s, Individual Retirement Accounts, and other investments have become depleted, not only because of the market's decline, but also because individuals withdrew funds during the crisis, often incurring penalties in the process. Even more significant for most baby boomers, the housing equity that they counted on as being their major asset in retirement has plummeted in value and remains far lower than it was just a couple of years ago.

      The authors cite studies that show that a large portion of the baby boom cohort has not accumulated sufficient retirement savings and other assets to be adequately prepared for retirement. A 2007 McKinsey Quarterly article found that only about a quarter of boomers are prepared for retirement, while other studies estimate that 45 percent of boomers will be "at risk" in maintaining their standard of living during their retirement. These studies highlight how stagnating incomes, low savings rates, the shift in employer pensions from defined benefit to defined contribution plans, and weak public knowledge about matters related to financial planning all have left a large share of the baby boom generation poorly positioned to provide for themselves after they have stopped working.

      The declines in housing values and investment markets have greatly worsened the situation for those who soon will be seeking retirement, according to the issue brief. In 2008 alone, housing prices dropped an average of 33 percent, greatly depleting the wealth of the majority of baby boomers, who have relatively little savings beyond what they have invested in their home. Concurrently, the 40 percent drop in equity markets in 2008 had a devastating affect on higher net worth baby boomers, for whom stock ownership is the predominant form of wealth. The net wealth for households with a head aged 50 and over decreased by 25 percent between 2007 and 2009 - amounting to an average loss of approximately $175,000 per household. The declines in housing and equity values have had an even more threatening impact on the less wealthy.

      The authors acknowledge that spending for Medicare and Social Security is likely to increase as more of the 78 million baby boomers begin to retire. They warn that, as the debate over the deficit and the future of these social insurance programs moves forward, these higher expenditures will spur critics of these programs to call for benefit reductions or the elimination of the programs entirely. However, they conclude that the recent economic crisis underscores the importance of preserving, and even strengthening, these essential programs.
Link -
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20100805.071356&time=08%2033%20PDT&year=2010&public=1
=============
For those who would say, but that is an Amercian problem, I suggest you think again!

Home prices: Boom less likely in a baby bust

Home prices will have a harder time rising as population growth slows, a new study finds.

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/0806-homesale.jpg/8445295-1-eng-US/0806-homesale.jpg_full_380.jpg
A home for sale is posted at a reduced price in Palo Alto, Calif., in June. Home prices may not rise as fast in the future as they did in the past because slower population growth will weaken demand.

Over at the Bank for International Settlements, Elod Takats has a new working paper that examines how demographics may affect asset prices (ht Torsten Slok). As he notes, standard economic theories suggest that aging will lead to lower asset prices. In an overlapping generations model, for example:

The young save for old age by buying assets, while the old sell assets to finance retirement. This asset transfer can happen directly or through institutions such as pension funds. In this setting, the changes in the relative size of asset buyers (the young) and sellers (the old) have consequences for asset prices. In particular, the asset purchases of a large working age generation, such as the baby boomers in the United States, drives asset prices up. Conversely, if the economy is ageing, ie the subsequent young generation is relatively smaller, then asset prices decline.

Takats tests this theory on international data on house prices and finds a significant link with population age. He uses that relationship to estimate how much demographics affected house prices in recent decades and to project, based on demographic estimates from the UN, how population aging will affect house prices in the future.

He concludes that demographic trends boosted U.S. house prices by almost 40% over the past four decades. Given current population trends, however, his model predicts that aging will trim about 30% off of house prices over the next forty years.

I should emphasize that this does not mean that house prices will actually fall over that period. Other factors, e.g., growing incomes, should continue to boost prices. But house prices will now face a demographic headwind–blowing at about 80 basis points per year–rather than a demographic tailwind.

These headwinds will be even stronger in Europe.
Link -
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Donald-Marron/2010/0807/Home-prices-Boom-less-likely-in-a-baby-bust

Dick Smith's Population Puzzle. 8.30 ABC1 Tonight.

If you're interested. Could be good????

8:32pm - 9:40pm

Classified:
   G
Genre:
   Documentary

What does it take to spark a change in national attitudes? High profile entrepreneur Dick Smith is on a crusade to influence one of the biggest public policy issues facing the country - unplanned population growth.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Aug 12^th, 2010 at 7:08pm:

Dick Smith's Population Puzzle. 8.30 ABC1 Tonight. If you're interested. Could be good???? 8:32pm - 9:40pm Classified:    G Genre:    Documentary What does it take to spark a change in national attitudes? High profile entrepreneur Dick Smith is on a crusade to influence one of the biggest public policy issues facing the country - unplanned population growth.

Yes, thanks for the reminder, I had seen the promos and I will be having a look.

In fact, it is a POPULATION NIGHT, as according to my TV guide, the Tony Jones Q & A tonight, after the Dick Smith doco, is also on Population.

I may record one, as both may lead to Population overload?

Dick Smith is another modern day crusader. He said he will not give up on the 'sustainable' population issue until the day he dies. He's doing it for his grandkids, and all humanity. He will take it to the world, I reckon he's got what it takes.


q&a had some interesting comments too, not from John Elliott, who was a scream, a veritable comedy act. I wish tv was like that every night, I'd watch it more.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 6:30am:

Dick Smith is another modern day crusader. He said he will not give up on the 'sustainable' population issue until the day he dies. He's doing it for his grandkids, and all humanity. He will take it to the world, I reckon he's got what it takes. q&a had some interesting comments too, not from John Elliott, who was a scream, a veritable comedy act. I wish tv was like that every night, I'd watch it more.

No matter what both major party's say, they are still inclined to the big is beautiful idea (at this time), because they are influenced by big business & Economists, who are convinced that Exponential Growth is not only possible, but that it must happen or the world will end, as was evidenced by the reactions from John Elliott & the big business representative on Q & A last night.  

As Dick Smith repeatedly pointed out, we live on a planet with finite resources, which means that there are limits and we are now approaching many major limitations, as demonstrated by Dr Albert Bartlett in the following series of video's -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHuwgxrTKPo&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3y7UlHdhAU&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyseLQVpJEI&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoiiVnQadwE&feature=PlayList&p=9B70AC68E1D2AA54&index=7

1) There is a maximum sustainable Population, for both countries & the planet.
2) The greater the Population, the faster Essential Resources, such as Energy, Food & fresh Water will be used.
3) Population & Energy Growth/Decline ARE DIRECTLY RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

We are already at Peak Oil, which means that, in all likelihood, the next 20-30 years, will see increasing Demand because the Population is still rising, whilst the great Economic Enabler (oil) will be in terminal decline, as already started in 2005.

The decline of available Supply & the rising Price of our Energy Future, will directly & severely lessen our capacity to sustain our current Global Population, let alone continue to Exponentially increase it!  

In fact, I would suggest the POPULATION/ENERGY problem is not so much a Population Puzzle, it is more a GORDIAN KNOT, which will prove intractable and will finally result in the end of the current Political & Economic paradigm!

Trust me, I'm not a Politician, Economics & Politics can survive without a GROWTH Economy.

However, Economics & Politics will need to adapt, because the human race will not survive any attempt at Extended Exponential Growth!

Btw, VIDEO 3 COMPARES US (HUMANS) to BACTERIA, IT IS APPLICABLE!

ABC/Population Puzzle website -

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/populationpuzzle/index.html

Now about this population debate, there is no debate, it's either sustain or extinct.

mellie wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 12:50pm:

Now about this population debate, there is no debate, it's either sustain or extinct.

Alas, poor Yorick (Mellie), were it that easy, to convince both the silent majority (swinging voters) & the vocal minority (Pollies & big business), that action is not only merited, but that the urgency mounts daily!

It is with regret, that I say I know the beast I call “Exponential Growth” and it is not easy to pin down, let alone cease its abhorrent grin!


 

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 1:55pm:

mellie wrote on Aug 13th, 2010 at 12:50pm: Now about this population debate, there is no debate, it's either sustain or extinct. Alas, poor Yorick (Mellie), were it that easy, to convince both the silent majority (swinging voters) & the vocal minority (Pollies & big business), that action is not only merited, but that the urgency mounts daily! It is with regret, that I say I know the beast I call “Exponential Growth” and it is not easy to pin down, let alone cease its abhorrent grin!

Assume a gazebo, if you have it not.


And the missing word is.....(6)




....Look, don't start me off pal...  I have Shakespeares complete works, (hardcover) and I'm not afraid to use it.

;) I'll give you poor Yorick mellie hehehehe

Yes, and as the urgency mounts daily...Rudds quote rings near...

"I actually believe in a big Australia I make no apology for that. I actually think it's good news that our population is growing,"

Rudd's gone aside a bit, his big thing's gone too.

Glad somebody like Dick brought it up and 1/4 acre could come back if we could reduce the numbers.

Constant growth is not possible as it is exponential and we like it or not it will one day collapse, so better to control it.

In all debates on population and aging population, one factor is never mentioned. The GNP is produced with ever decreasing effort and the only problem is the distribution of the GNP.
In 1960 it would take some 20 wharf labourers to load a ship with 15,000 tonnes of wheat, in 1961 a mechanical loader was installed on the same wharf and that amount of wheat was loaded by two or three man operating the equippment in 48 hours.
Almost the same cost savings was achieved on the farms and on transport to the port.
This happened in many other industries, but most of the savings have been usurped by the providers of capital.
The article by Terry McCrann was the most sensible that I ever read from him, and I read many, but he must really mellowing in his old age.
Another thing that the population debate needs, is some straight talking; some countries should be told, you cannot go on breeding like rabbits, and others, that they are not entitled to consume, or waste most of the goods produced in sweatshops, but for that, we need some honest politicians and leaders.

hawil wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 5:33pm:

In all debates on population and aging population, one factor is never mentioned. The GNP is produced with ever decreasing effort and the only problem is the distribution of the GNP. In 1960 it would take some 20 wharf labourers to load a ship with 15,000 tonnes of wheat, in 1961 a mechanical loader was installed on the same wharf and that amount of wheat was loaded by two or three man operating the equippment in 48 hours. Almost the same cost savings was achieved on the farms and on transport to the port. This happened in many other industries, but most of the savings have been usurped by the providers of capital.The article by Terry McCrann was the most sensible that I ever read from him, and I read many, but he must really mellowing in his old age. Another thing that the population debate needs, is some straight talking; some countries should be told, you cannot go on breeding like rabbits, and others, that they are not entitled to consume, or waste most of the goods produced in sweatshops, but for that, we need some honest politicians and leaders.

You may be interested in the following chart, from Steve Keen's website -

http://cdn.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/081010_2302_BankProfits3.png

You may also be interested in the following chart, which will be a forerunner of charts to follow, which will show substantial increases in Energy expenditure to GDP, which will require further massive changes in Technology, just to stand still.

http://gregor.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/United-States-Energy-Expenditures-as-a-Percent-of-GDP-1999-2008.jpg

As for Leaders & Politicians, good luck and can I suggest you do not look for any real leaders amongst the Pollies, I waould hate to see you waste your valuable time!

Will Baby Boomers Hurt Equity Valuations for the Next 20 years?

A recent Barclays study suggests demographics and baby boomers may keep equity valuations down for another 20 years.

The Barclays Equity Gilts Studypublished in the Financial Times on Feb. 10, 2010 suggests these bubbles were driven by shifts in the demand for equities and other assets and these, in turn, were driven largely by demographics.

Equities only became mass-market savings vehicles in the 1950s, as investment management companies started marketing their services.  This process accelerated sharply in the early 1980s, which is exactly when baby boomers began entering their ages of peak productivity and savings.

The introduction of 401K pension plans in the U.S. further incentivized individuals to start playing in stock markets.  As of 1980 the world had survived without a true bubble since the Great Crash of 1929.  Economic growth continued to be unusually stable until 2000 and the bubbles of the past decade.

As baby boomers aged and the long bull market made them more confident, they ‘over-invested’ in assets around the world. The process was already apparent when Alan Greenspan made his famous speech about the risks of “irrational exuberance” in 1996, and become obvious with the Asia crisis of the following year, and then the great Internet bubble that finally burst in 2000.  

Barclays compared cyclical price/earnings ratios on stocks since 1950 with the ratio of 35-54 year-olds in the population.  Stock valuations became most extended just as baby boomers were saving and producing most.

The Barclays study suggests boomers were a major force in creating the later credit crisis. Mistakes both in U.S. monetary policy and in regulating mortgage lending were serious contributory factors to the credit crisis.  

However, the study contends that underlying demographic factors were a more potent underlying force.  Baby boomers, faced with the crash in equities and with their retirements imminent, they would only have been expected to put money into bonds and other debt products, thereby helping to push interest rates.  That’s exactly what boomers did.

This drove a strong acceleration in the global appetite to put savings into debt financial instruments, which is the same thing as a surge in the global appetite to lend.

The implications here for the future are not good.  The proportion of 35-54 year-olds in society will keep declining for another decade, while the growth in the retired population will be very sharp.

This means equity valuations should keep coming down.  The demographic shift that drove the equity bull market for 20 years can be expected to drive a bear market for another 20 years.  This would suggest that this bear market has another 10 years to run.
Link -
http://stocksonwallstreet.net/featured/will-baby-boomers-hurt-equity-valuations-for-the-next-20-years.php
=========
This Barclays study does suggest a linkage between Demographic shifts & share markets, Demographics also has far reaching implications for the general Global Economy, which in turn affects the financial & equity markets!

Whilst this study talks of the 35-54 year old spread, I prefer to use the breakdown of 45-55, being the Peak Earning & Spending years, which is then followed by the 55+ era, which is more related to saving for retirement and a consequent decline in Consumer Spending!

Given the Peak Spending period is 45-55, I take 50 as the average to then guage the rise & fall of Economic activity and therefore overall share prices.
If we take the early 80's, the mid 90's and 2006, then cast back 50 years, you will see the correlation of the 50 years, to the absolute start of the Baby Boom in the early 30's, the real Boomer explosion started in 1946 and the Peak of the Baby Boom was in 1956.
Of course, there will always be issues external to demographics, which will influence events, such as the first Oil Crisis in 1973 and the 9/11 attack in 2001.

I should stress that Demographics are not the only issue that have, are & will continue to influence events.

Certainly, Energy, in all its forms has a very significant impact and the Peaking of Global Oil in 2005 has enormous ramifications, as will the upcoming declines in the supply of Gas & Coal, within the next 30-40 years!

That said, it does seem that the Barclays study focus may have been too narrow, given the likely effects of Energy decline, Climate Change and an actual decline in total Global population (in 20-30 years), it would appear logical that the "Bear Market" could be considerably longer than another 10 years!

To those who would say, we just need another Baby Boom?

I'm sorry, our capacity as a country and a planet to sustain a greater population, simply isn't there. We are now running headlong into an Energy crisis of monumental proportions & our other Essential resources including Water & Food will also come under increasing stresses.

In short, we are between a rock & a hard place, there are no easy choices, but we will need to decide between a better now and of robbing future generations of their rights, their financial welfare & perhaps their very existence?

The next 20 years will be very different to the last 20 years, choose wisely!

As for Leaders & Politicians, good luck and can I suggest you do not look for any real leaders amongst the Pollies, I waould hate to see you waste your valuable time!

If you are right, why do we pay politicians; the cost of the current and ex-politicians has never been written much about, it would be massive.
As far as the capitalists and bankers on the graph are concerned, they
would come under the same category.
Wasting my valuable time: are we all not doing it?

hawil wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 2:16pm:

As for Leaders & Politicians, good luck and can I suggest you do not look for any real leaders amongst the Pollies, I waould hate to see you waste your valuable time! If you are right, why do we pay politicians; the cost of the current and ex-politicians has never been written mus=ch about, it would be massive. As far as the capitalists and bankers on the graph are concerned, theyw ould come under the same category. Wasting my valuable time: are we all not doing it?

Yes, it would seem to be that we are all suffering from the same mass hysteria & hallucinations!

Hans Rosling on global population growth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

Taiwan population to reach zero growth 4 years early

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s population will reach zero growth in 2022, four years earlier than previously thought, the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development said Monday.
Due to a sharply falling birth rate, the country’s population will begin to fall from the following year, reports said.

The CEPD studies new projections for Taiwan’s population growth once every two years using figures from the Ministry of Interior and the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics. The latest estimates for the period 2010-2060 were the subject of a CEPD meeting Monday afternoon, the Chinese-language United Evening News reported.

The previous estimates, released in August 2008, predicted zero growth in 2026, but since then the birth rate recorded an even sharper decline, the paper said.

The CEPD report took a range of elements into account, including birth and death rate, the graying of the population and migration, to reach its conclusion. The speeding up of the zero-growth phenomenon came despite the migration to Taiwan of numerous brides from Southeast Asia and the liberalization of restrictions on people moving in from China.

Officials warned that the advent of zero growth would bring serious social consequences, the evening paper said. A larger number of elderly people as a proportion of the total population would make it harder for businesses to find employees, and might force them to move overseas, seriously damaging the country’s competitiveness, officials said.

The CEPD was likely to discuss measures to encourage births and eventual changes to immigration policies.

If trends predicted by the CEPD persisted, around 2027 every two working citizens would have to support one non-working citizen, the paper said. At present, there was still no cause for alarm because the working population was still growing in number, according to officials.
Link-
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1348346&lang=eng_news&cate_img=logo_taiwan&cate_rss=TAIWAN_eng
=============
Most of the rest of the world will also be at ZPG, by 2040!

Sixty Percent Of Baby Boomers Don't Have Enough For Retirement

Nearly three in five baby boomers face a financial bust in retirement if the current economic climate persists, according to a study cited in a recent article by the Wall Street Journal.

"Early" baby boomers, aged 56 to 62, have a 47 percent chance of not having enough money to pay basic retirement costs, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "Late" boomers, aged 46 to 55, as well as workers currently aged 29 to 45, have about a 45 percent chance of running short, the study noted.

Baby boomers, who make up around 78 million or 25 percent of the total spenders in the U.S., are among the Americans who have had their nest eggs slashed by 18 percent or an average of $171,000 per person since the end of 2007, according to the WSJ.

A study released earlier this month by the Century Foundation showed that declining housing values, weak investment markets and scarce opportunities for employment will all force baby boomers to tighten their belts in their old age. "In 2008 alone, housing prices dropped an average of 33 percent, greatly depleting the wealth of the majority of baby boomers, who have relatively little savings beyond what they have invested in their home. Concurrently, the 40 percent drop in equity markets in 2008 had a devastating affect on higher net worth baby boomers, for whom stock ownership is the predominant form of wealth," the report noted.

The cutbacks would put an additional drag on retirees' already weak consumer spending -- people aged 65 to 74 spent 12.3 percent less in 2008 than they did ten years earlier, says the WSJ. In 2007, the consulting firm McKinsey estimated that baby boomers control nearly 40 percent of U.S. consumer spending.
Link -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/60-percent-of-baby-boomer_n_683191.html
============
Where goes the USA Economy, goes the rest of the world.

It is not correct that the rest of the world, nor emerging economies, nor China, has de-coupled from the USA.

We are all now more interlocked than at any other time in history!

Population and Density

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Japan is not growing like gangbusters. Demographically speaking, it's not a young country anymore. This is one reason why Japanese stocks have never fully recovered from the 1989 crash and another reason why Japan's public-debt-to-GDP ratio has been sustainably high. Japanese savers have been content to fund domestic government deficits because they prefer the safety of bonds to taking risks in the stock market.

As you can see from the population pyramid of Japan (see charts below) it's relatively top-heavy. That means Japan has a large percentage of its population at or near retirement age. To the extent that "demographics is destiny' - demographic trends drive consumer spending and corporate earnings and/or indicate the coming strain on government financiers - Japan doesn't look like much of a growth stock.

And now - why'll we're anticipating and preparing for the next great U.S. dollar crisis - we'll pause in our regular reckoning to look at a few of the population pyramids that struck our fancy. The question, posed by a long-suffering reader, is whether Australia faces a lot of long-term negatives because it shares the same demographic profile as Japan or the nation's of Western Europe. Before we answer that, let's look at the population pyramids we selected from here. As a reminder, they show you the distribution of the population in terms of age.

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/images/dr20100817a.jpg

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/images/dr20100817c.jpg

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/images/dr20100817d.jpg

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/images/dr20100817e.jpg

What have we learned?

Japan and Italy have ageing populations. Through either low immigration or low birth rates, or a combination of both, ageing countries face some grim demographic math. Pension (private and public) pensions are likely to increase even as the tax base shrinks. Taxes go up on younger people. But government borrowing probably increases too, unless benefits get cut. If the borrowing is not from domestic savings (where it would then NOT go to private enterprise) it must be done on global markets at whatever the market price for money is.

Iran is very young, but ruled by theocratic old men. Hmmn.

The U.S. has a squarish figure. But the pyramid does not reveal that for most American workers, real wages have gone nowhere since 1974. The boomers might be able to retire by liquidating their share market and housing wealth. But who are they going to sell to? The government?

Australia looks surprisingly curvy, which reveals something demographically unusual. Australia's GenX generation is actually larger than its Baby Boomer generation. Hmmn.

The Boomer in both parties are promising the sky to themselves and Gen Y and the Millennials. Who's going to pay for it? The Xers that run small businesses and are in the prime of their wage earning years. Give them they yoke. There are future fields to plough!

It will be interesting to see how the votes breakdown over the weekend. As an Xer, but not an Australian citizen, your editor remembers recessions and his first job (as a 12-year old bus boy in a restaurant owned by a friend's dad). We generally reject most stereotypes. But we do find most Xers to be suspicious of or at least not expect a lot of government. However, government may be expecting a lot of all of us!

What can you take away from Australia's demographic chart? Given that there is no immediate funding crisis for social welfare, it's going to be pretty easy to convince Aussie investors to invest in government bonds as an alternative to shares. It might even be mandated that popular investment vehicles are required to own "safe" government bonds and thus, directly fund deficit spending for years to come.
Link -
http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/population-and-destiny/2010/08/17/
=============
When considering the impact of Older/Aging Demographics, it would be appropriate to remember -
1) An Older/Aging Dempgraphic will spend less & save more, under normal circumstances, therefore Demand would normally decline.
However, these are not normal times, as a large chunk of what Global Boomers were relying on for their retirement years, were in Housing &/or Shares and both of those areas have had &/or will have considerable falls in value, thus placing many Boomers in very difficult circumstances.
2) Dempgraphically, the 45-55 years are the Peak Earning & Spending years, whilst the +55 group is where saving for retirement commences in earnest and therefore Demand will start to be impacted a full 10 years prior to a 65 year olds retirement.  

Korea's population to decline from 2018

Korea’s population is projected to peak in 2017 and then decline the following year as women are having fewer children, raising concerns that the low birthrate and the rapidly aging population will weaken economic viability.

The nation has and will continue to become an increasingly multiracial, multicultural society, with more foreign women coming here, mostly from China and Southeast Asian countries, to marry Korean men.

Additionally, Asia’s fourth largest economy is the only country among the 32 OECD members to grapple with a rising suicide rate, with one individual taking his or her own life every 40 minutes. Particularly, a growing number of senior citizens are committing suicide, largely due to financial difficulties after retirement.

Korea’s birthrate has remained one of the world’s lowest levels over the past 10 years as more Korean men and women became reluctant to tie the knot and have babies.

The birthrate, or the average number of babies expected per woman aged 15-49, hit an all-time low of 1.08 in 2005 but rebounded to 1.25 in 2007 and 1.19 in 2008. The annual average birthrate is projected to stand at 1.13 from 2005 through 2010, lower than the OECD average of 1.64.

With more senior citizens and fewer babies here, workers aged 15-64 will have to support more elderly. Currently, every five Korean workers provide for one senior citizen. But by 2050, one employee will have to look after one senior citizen.
Link -
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/08/113_71628.html
========
One Worker for one Retiree?
If so, then Sth Korea has a REAL DRAMA!
And, by the look of the suicide rate, perhaps the Sth Koreans know it?

Can Europe Survive Its Population Plunge?

Europe is dying. The Washington Post, among others, reports that, within a hundred years, there will be the rare German in Germany or Italian in Italy. Some demographers believe it is too late to correct Europe's plunge into extinction. "The fall in the population can no longer be stopped," reported Walter Rademacher of the German Federal Statistics Office.

Replacement fertility rates are 2.1 children per woman in developed nations. No nation in Europe can claim that rate, and most fall under 1.6. At those levels, each generation is barely half the number of the preceding one. The working-age population is reduced by 30 percent in just 20 years, having a devastating impact on economies. Today, European Union and United Nations experts are sufficiently alarmed to call councils to address the population crisis. The irony is that this is a crisis of their making.

In the 1960s, futurists painted a dire picture of population explosion and its concomitant depletion of resources. As recently as ten years ago, the UN's own Millennium Summit Declaration insisted, "We must spare no effort to free all of humanity, and above all our children and grandchildren from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities, and whose resources would no longer be sufficient for their needs".
Link -
http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/can-europe-survive-its-population-plunge.html
==========
The real irony is that there are ironies, within ironies and that the crisis is not in the making, the demographic crisis has already started!

The World Won't Be Aging Gracefully. Just the Opposite.

The world is in crisis. A financial crash and a deepening recession are afflicting rich and poor countries alike.

A bipartisan congressional panel announced last month that the odds of a nuclear or biological terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the year 2014 are better than 50-50. It looks as though we'll be grappling with these economic and geopolitical challenges well into the 2010s.

But if you think that things couldn't get any worse, wait till the 2020s. The economic and geopolitical climate could become even more threatening by then -- and this time the reason will be demographics.

By the 2020s, an ominous new conjuncture of these trends will once again threaten massive disruption. We're talking about global aging, which is likely to have a profound effect on economic growth, living standards and the shape of the world order.

For the world's wealthy nations, the 2020s are set to be a decade of hyperaging and population decline. Many countries will experience fiscal crisis, economic stagnation and ugly political battles over entitlements and immigration.

Meanwhile, poor countries will be buffeted by their own demographic storms. Some will be overwhelmed by massive age waves that they can't afford, while others will be whipsawed by new explosions of youth whose aspirations they cannot satisfy.

The rich countries have been aging for decades, due to falling birthrates and rising life spans. But in the 2020s, this aging will get an extra kick as large postwar baby boom generations move into retirement. According to the United Nations Population Division (whose projections are cited throughout this article), the median ages of Western Europe and Japan, which were 34 and 33 respectively as recently as 1980, will soar to 47 and 52, assuming no miraculous change in fertility. In Italy, Spain and Japan, more than half of all adults will be older than the official retirement age -- and there will be more people in their 70s than in their 20s.

Graying means paying -- more for pensions, more for health care, more for nursing homes for the frail elderly. Yet the old-age benefit systems of most developed countries are already pushing the limits of fiscal and economic affordability. By the 2020s, political warfare over brutal benefit cuts seems unavoidable.

Aging is, well, old. But depopulation -- the delayed result of falling birthrates -- is new. The working-age population has already begun to decline in several large developed countries, including Germany and Japan.

By 2030, it will be declining in nearly all of them, and in a growing number, total population will be in steep decline as well. The arithmetic is simple: When the average couple has only 1.3 children (in Spain) or 1.7 children (in Britain), depopulation is inevitable, unless there's massive immigration.

The economics of depopulation are grim. Even at full employment, real gross domestic product may decline, because the number of workers will be falling faster than productivity is rising. With the size of markets fixed or shrinking, businesses and governments may try to lock in their positions through cartels and protectionist policies, ushering in a zero-growth psychology not seen since the 1930s.

The World Won't Be Aging Gracefully. Just the Opposite (Cont)

America certainly faces some serious structural challenges, including an engorged health-care sector and a chronically low savings rate that may become handicaps as we age. But unlike Europe and Japan, we will still have the youth and fiscal resources to afford a major geopolitical role.

Consider China, which may be the first country to grow old before it grows rich.
China's coming age wave -- by 2030 it will be an older country than the United States -- may weaken the two pillars of the current regime's legitimacy: rapidly rising GDP and social stability. Imagine workforce growth slowing to zero while tens of millions of elders sink into indigence without pensions, without health care and without children to support them. China could careen toward social collapse -- or, in reaction, toward an authoritarian clampdown.

Russia, along with the rest of Eastern Europe, is likely to experience the fastest extended population decline since the plague-ridden Middle Ages. Amid a widening health crisis, the Russian fertility rate has plunged and life expectancy has collapsed. Russian men today can expect to live to 59, 16 years less than American men and marginally less than their Red Army grandfathers at the end of World War II.

All told, population trends point inexorably toward a more dominant U.S. role in a world that will need us more, not less.

Abraham Lincoln once called this country "the world's last best hope." Demography suggests that this will remain true for some time to come.
Link -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202231.html
==========
Whilst this article, from January 2009, makes a number of good points, it is also incorrect in some areas.

For starters, the current GFC IS actually partially attributable the leading edge of the Boomer retirement phenomenon.

Why? Well, because although the first of the "official Boomers" don't start retiring until January 1st, 2011, the actual start of that Baby Boom has its origins in the Great Depression of the early 1930's and because retirement doesn't start on the day of retirement, it starts a good 10 years earlier, by changes in spending & savings habits!

The article also ignores the real world, which is now starting to see the effects of a Post Peak Oil world, with Oil production having effectively Peaked around 2005. I also ignores the reality of Climate Changes and what that will mean in the short, medium & longer term, to both Demographics & the Global Economy!

It is true that Aging has always been a human condition, but never before to this extent, in just ONE GENERATION. We have also had instances of Depopulation (Population Decline), but never before on such a Global basis, with the numbers anywhere near these massive levels!

So, Yes the Economics are grim, but the alternative is even more grim!

We either face the issues now or try to delay the day of reckoning again, with yet another Baby Boom &/or by imposing massive levels of immigration, which also has some inherent problems.

This would simply exacerbate our problems, by forcing Essential Resources, such as Oil, Coal, Gas, fresh water & Food production, into a faster decline and leave humanity more exposed to a "die off" or "Extinction Event", directly by our own hands or indirectly via Climate Change!

The time has come, for us (Humans) to pay the piper, change our ways, change the system and get back into balance!

Either that or our tenure will be limited and we may be dismissed, without further notice!

Japan will have a heavy burden of increasing old ages in the near future, because the attitude toward the number of children among Japanese women is to have fewer children (but not to have no children) and because it is anticipated that this attitude will not last for a good number of years in the future. This is one of issues discussed in recent Japan as population problems in the ldquoAging Societyrdquo.
Another issue is population problems in the ldquoHigh Density Societyrdquo. This issue is discussed in relation to unbalanced land utilization, air and water pollution, destruction of village life etc., brought about by the over-congestion in the metropolitan areas areas and depopulation in rural areas.
One of the aims involved in the regional development plan of Japan is to solve the problems occured by the uneven distribution of population. The Third Comprehensive National Development Plan published in 1977 states that the central aim of this plan is to undertake the reorganization of population distribution by the development of attractive local cities, towns and villages where enough educational and employment opportunities are provided to make a best use of the desirable characteristics of the region, maintaining the present profitable feature of the areas and comfortable living conditions for people.

Intraday Tips wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2010 at 8:14pm:

Japan will have a heavy burden of increasing old ages in the near future, because the attitude toward the number of children among Japanese women is to have fewer children (but not to have no children) and because it is anticipated that this attitude will not last for a good number of years in the future. This is one of issues discussed in recent Japan as population problems in the ldquoAging Societyrdquo. Another issue is population problems in the ldquoHigh Density Societyrdquo. This issue is discussed in relation to unbalanced land utilization, air and water pollution, destruction of village life etc., brought about by the over-congestion in the metropolitan areas areas and depopulation in rural areas. One of the aims involved in the regional development plan of Japan is to solve the problems occured by the uneven distribution of population. The Third Comprehensive National Development Plan published in 1977 states that the central aim of this plan is to undertake the reorganization of population distribution by the development of attractive local cities, towns and villages where enough educational and employment opportunities are provided to make a best use of the desirable characteristics of the region, maintaining the present profitable feature of the areas and comfortable living conditions for people.

Intraday,
Welcome to OzPolitic in general & to the Finance & Economics section, in particular!

I note that you see Japan as having some upcoming difficulties, how do you see the future Japanese share market in particular and the Global (inc. Australian) share markets, in general?

Sixty Percent Of Baby Boomers Don't Have Enough For Retirement

Nearly three in five baby boomers face a financial bust in retirement if the current economic climate persists, according to a study cited in a recent article by the Wall Street Journal.

"Early" baby boomers, aged 56 to 62, have a 47 percent chance of not having enough money to pay basic retirement costs, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "Late" boomers, aged 46 to 55, as well as workers currently aged 29 to 45, have about a 45 percent chance of running short, the study noted.

Baby boomers, who make up around 78 million or 25 percent of the total spenders in the U.S., are among the Americans who have had their nest eggs slashed by 18 percent or an average of $171,000 per person since the end of 2007, according to the WSJ.

A study released earlier this month by the Century Foundation showed that declining housing values, weak investment markets and scarce opportunities for employment will all force baby boomers to tighten their belts in their old age. Century's study says:


"In 2008 alone, housing prices dropped an average of 33 percent, greatly depleting the wealth of the majority of baby boomers, who have relatively little savings beyond what they have invested in their home. Concurrently, the 40 percent drop in equity markets in 2008 had a devastating affect on higher net worth baby boomers, for whom stock ownership is the predominant form of wealth."

Boomers' cutbacks would put an additional drag on retirees' already weak consumer spending -- people aged 65 to 74 spent 12.3 percent less in 2008 than they did ten years earlier, says the WSJ.

In 2007, the consulting firm McKinsey estimated that baby boomers control nearly 40 percent of U.S. consumer spending.
Link -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/60-percent-of-baby-boomer_n_683191.html
=========
Boomers will take another massive hit before the end of this year, as sahres take another fall, exacerbating an already difficult situation!

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 25^th, 2010 at 1:49pm:

Sixty Percent Of Baby Boomers Don't Have Enough For Retirement …

Partially model of new workers supporting retirees is to blame for.
I consecutive Governments put away some money away for every alive person we would not have such problem.

Wasteful management and temporary nature of Government (3 years between elections) make politicians do what they did.

Sure, if we don’t stop growth of population at some stage we will end up with the option of inescapable cannibalism in order to survive.

Happy wrote on Aug 25^th, 2010 at 3:18pm:

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 25th, 2010 at 1:49pm: Sixty Percent Of Baby Boomers Don't Have Enough For Retirement … Partially model of new workers supporting retirees is to blame for. I consecutive Governments put away some money away for every alive person we would not have such problem. Wasteful management and temporary nature of Government (3 years between elections) make politicians do what they did. Sure, if we don’t stop growth of population at some stage we will end up with the option of inescapable cannibalism in order to survive.

I agree that Politicians span of attention & plans for the future are limited, by the very nature of their short term in office, which on average is quite a bit shorter than their stated 3 year term.

It should be rolled out to a fixed 4 year term for everybody, including lower & upper houses, all state governmentsand they should go to the polls on the same fixed day, to save the money that is currently wasted on separate elections.

To offest that, I would prefer to see "Publicly funded Elections" and the banning of all "Political donations, from non-normal people (ie. Businesses & unions) & any donation over $1,000.

In terms of retirements, the current political system has prompted Politicians to put today ahead of tomorrow, when it comes to buying votes today, versus allowing for proper funding of the future Baby Boomer retirees.

Now, all of a sudden, it is no longer tomorrow, but today & the correct allocations have not been made, by many governments, over many years!

Shrinking global child population

Key points
•The total number of children globally aged 0-14 shrank in the decade from 2000-2010, dropping by an average annual of 0.1%.  
•Longer-term, a shrinking child population will feed through to smaller numbers of working-age people, which will make it more difficult for governments and companies to support retired consumers. The number of 65+ year-olds rose by an annual average 2.5% from 2000 and 2010 to account for 7.9% of the total population globally.

http://www.euromonitor.com/reportgraphics/Articles/0375c2de-afc6-4ee0-b810-81667dd379f9.gif

Global and regional trends
•The fertility rate required for natural population replacement is 2.1, meaning that the global average is still higher than this level. However, in 2010 in Japan, which has the world's oldest population, fertility rates were 1.3 children per woman;
•79.5% of the world's children aged 0-14 are located in Asia Pacific or the Middle East and Africa region in 2010, where countries tend to have the highest child population growth rates. Even here there was a sharp fall in fertility rates between 2000 and 2010, from 2.9 to 2.5 in Asia Pacific and in the Middle East and Africa region from 5.3 to 4.6;

•Many Eastern European countries have amongst the most rapidly declining child populations in the world. Between 2000 and 2010 the number of 0-14 year-olds fell by an annual average of 4.8% in Moldova and by 3.6% in Lithuania.  
•The Middle East and Africa are seeing the most rapid increases in those aged 0-14. For instance growth in Qatar and Bahrain was 6.6% and 6.4% respectively on average per year over 2000-2010, although the small size of these countries makes them special cases. Many African countries had very high child population growth in the same period, especially Niger (4.0% per year), Sierra Leone (3.6% annually);

•In China the child population fell by 3.0% on average annually over the decade, largely thanks to the one-child per family policy, introduced in the 1970s, which has aimed to limit overall population growth.

http://www.euromonitor.com/reportgraphics/Articles/64e01d2a-14e1-4d5e-bb1a-7fe7e07f8fc1.gif

Government policies
Many governments are implementing policies on child population:

•In some countries, governments are actively seeking to reduce birth rates to avoid pressure on resources. The most obvious example of this is China, the most populated country in the world, whose “one child per family” policy was introduced in the 1970s and has reduced birth rates from 18.2 per 1,000 people in 1980 to 11.8 in 2010, and the proportion of 0-14 year olds from 35.5% of the population to 16.3% over the same period;

•Other countries with high child population growth, for example in sub-Saharan Africa also have campaigns to reduce birth rates, for instance by promoting the use of contraception and encouraging women to stay in education;

•Many developed nations with declining child populations are attempting to encourage higher birth rates. For example, Australia offers a cash payment and other social security incentives for every child born, while European countries including France and Italy offer incentives for couples that have children. These efforts are aimed at offsetting a declining population;

•The impact of the 2008-2009 global economic recession may discourage couples from having children, at a time of economic and employment uncertainty, whilst reductions in child benefits in some countries such as Spain or Greece may also restrict birth rates. In parallel, many governments in the developed world are seeking to raise retirement rates in order to keep people in the labour force, to reduce pension deficits. The old-age dependency ratio (the proportion of 65+ year-olds to the total population) was 12.0% worldwide in 2010 but much higher in countries such as Japan (36.2%) and Germany (31.2%).
Link -
http://blog.euromonitor.com/2010/08/shrinking-global-child-population.html
============
Whilst the Aging process has already increased from 1980 to 2010, the rate of that increase is set to rise dramatically between now & 2050, with the over 65 year old group estimated to increase by between 50 to 100%.

This will dramatically affect many areas of the economy, including & resulting in -
1) Demand in many areas, including housing, as retirees spend less.
2) Pension obligations of government will increase.
3) Health Services Demand & Costs, will increase.
4) The Employment/Total Population participation rate, will decline, which will mean fewer workers supporting more Non-workers.

The above & much more, will result in lower government revenue, higher Business & Personal Taxes, but also a higher government Revenue to income gap, which means increasing Deficits & Debts, "just as we thought they couldn't go any higher?".
 

I've given this population explosion a lot of thought and have decided that it is unsolvable.

1. As pointed out earlier, govt. is not in power long enough to tackle the issue.
2. You cannot control a persons right to procreate.
3. The poorer the nation, the greater the population, as people have more children to insure themselves against the death of some.
4. Decreasing populations in affluent nations has the effect of decreasing demand, which runs contrary to the will of Capitalist who are all about growing profits. Although i concede that Capitalists could counter this by increasing the standard of living in poorer nations, but not whilst the accumulation of wealth is better sort from the affluent as is the case now.  

Sappho wrote on Aug 29^th, 2010 at 12:35pm:

I've given this population explosion a lot of thought and have decided that it is unsolvable. 1. As pointed out earlier, govt. is not in power long enough to tackle the issue. 2. You cannot control a persons right to procreate. 3. The poorer the nation, the greater the population, as people have more children to insure themselves against the death of some. 4. Decreasing populations in affluent nations has the effect of decreasing demand, which runs contrary to the will of Capitalist who are all about growing profits. Although i concede that Capitalists could counter this by increasing the standard of living in poorer nations, but not whilst the accumulation of wealth is better sort from the affluent as is the case now.

Well, it certainly does present, as a Gordian Knot, I think we can agree there is little that now presents as an easy or at least easier option!

Of course, as I have said in other posts, it would have made life much easier if change had of started some 50-60 years ago!

That said -
1) I agree governments need a longer horizon to look at this and other problems and to take the actions needed. However, the whole Political & Economic landscape also needs to change, before anything else will actually do any good.

2) Yes, you can, look at China.

3) Regrettably, those poorer nations may pay a higher price, than others, as events move on.

4) That is a large part of the problems, Exponential Growth of any sort, in a finite environment, will automatically & always lead to great difficulties, when nearing the end.
Capitalists & Capitalism can look forward to some changes, not all to their liking, but I'm equally sure that there will be few that will like or want some of the changes that must come, if we are to see out this century?

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29^th, 2010 at 10:17pm:

2) Yes, you can, look at China.

The 'One Child Policy'. You think you have a right to impose that upon affluent nations do you, when we are not the ones causing the population explosion? You think you have the right to deny a child aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins... whilst poorer nations that are the root cause of over population, can still enjoy the extended family? You think it is fair that these solitary souls who have but a mother and father, perhaps grandparents should suck it up and save their moaning whilst refugees from over populated war torn nations work at bringing out their extended family... and rub that in the nose of the solitary soul?

Africa, India, Asia, South America... these are where you need to focus your population reduction strategies. White people are a minority caste... a minority shrinking, if the stats have anything to say, that you seem to want to make into a fringe existence and without relatives.

Wow... great thinking there.

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29^th, 2010 at 10:17pm:

Capitalists & Capitalism can look forward to some changes, not all to their liking, but I'm equally sure that there will be few that will like or want some of the changes that must come, if we are to see out this century?

Capitalists have a role to play in population reduction you know. They can assist in making poorer, over populated nations more affluent and therefore less inclined towards many children because the few created have a greater chance of survival.

You sound like one of those Socialist Dictators of the last century... Way behind the times comrade.  >:(

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29^th, 2010 at 10:17pm:

3) Regrettably, those poorer nations may pay a higher price, than others, as events move on.

Suffer the coloured peoples of this world. 'Tis regrettable... but... what choice is there?

Dude... that's friggen racist and amoral.

Sappho wrote on Aug 29^th, 2010 at 11:38pm:

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29th, 2010 at 10:17pm: 2) Yes, you can, look at China. The 'One Child Policy'. You think you have a right to impose that upon affluent nations do you, when we are not the ones causing the population explosion? You think you have the right to deny a child aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins... whilst poorer nations that are the root cause of over population, can still enjoy the extended family? You think it is fair that these solitary souls who have but a mother and father, perhaps grandparents should suck it up and save their moaning whilst refugees from over populated war torn nations work at bringing out their extended family... and rub that in the nose of the solitary soul? Africa, India, Asia, South America... these are where you need to focus your population reduction strategies. White people are a minority caste... a minority shrinking, if the stats have anything to say, that you seem to want to make into a fringe existence and without relatives. Wow... great thinking there.

You said, "You can not control a persons right to procreate", I simply pointed out that it could be done & it has been done.

Now, if you had of asked me, I would have told you that I personally think that China's ONE child policy may have been needed for them & perhaps for India, but everywhere else I would have gone for two children.

That said, I suspect that the days of governments having to enforce the size of families is probably now in the past, if the Global Population goes into decline within 20-30 years.

Btw, you certainly seem to make a few assumptions?

Sappho wrote on Aug 30^th, 2010 at 12:10am:

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29th, 2010 at 10:17pm: 3) Regrettably, those poorer nations may pay a higher price, than others, as events move on. Suffer the coloured peoples of this world. 'Tis regrettable... but... what choice is there? Dude... that's friggen racist and amoral.

No, not at all, I simply do not see that there is a real world remedy!

So, your remedy is that Capitalism will save these people?

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 30^th, 2010 at 12:20am:

Sappho wrote on Aug 30th, 2010 at 12:10am: perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29th, 2010 at 10:17pm: 3) Regrettably, those poorer nations may pay a higher price, than others, as events move on. Suffer the coloured peoples of this world. 'Tis regrettable... but... what choice is there? Dude... that's friggen racist and amoral. No, not at all, I simply do not see that there is a real world remedy! So, your remedy is that Capitalism will save these people?

History shows that affluence reduces birth rates, because the likelihood of child mortality reduces significantly. Thus far, the only means to ensure affluence is Capitalism.


Quote:

Btw, you certainly seem to make a few assumptions?

You were the one who cited the One Child Policy. You were the one who choose not to extrapolate upon that idea.


Quote:

I would have told you that I personally think that China's ONE child policy may have been needed for them & perhaps for India, but everywhere else I would have gone for two children.

One child... two children... what does it matter what a Dictator decrees? They are still dictates enforced that go to the very core of human choice and seek to deny it.

Pity the divorcee with two children who would dare to fall in love with another who has none.  

Sappho wrote on Aug 30^th, 2010 at 12:10am:

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 29th, 2010 at 10:17pm: 3) Regrettably, those poorer nations may pay a higher price, than others, as events move on. Suffer the coloured peoples of this world. 'Tis regrettable... but... what choice is there? Dude... that's friggen racist and amoral.

No, not at all, I simply do not see that there is a real world remedy!

So, your remedy is that Capitalism will save these people?[/quote]

History shows that affluence reduces birth rates, because the likelihood of child mortality reduces significantly. Thus far, the only means to ensure affluence is Capitalism.


Quote:

Btw, you certainly seem to make a few assumptions?[/quote] You were the one who cited the One Child Policy. You were the one who choose not to extrapolate upon that idea. [quote]I would have told you that I personally think that China's ONE child policy may have been needed for them & perhaps for India, but everywhere else I would have gone for two children.

One child... two children... what does it matter what a Dictator decrees? They are still dictates enforced that go to the very core of human choice and seek to deny it.
Pity the divorcee with two children who would dare to fall in love with another who has none.  

[/quote]

As Malcolm Fraser said, "life wasn't meant to be easy" and he was right (pun intended)!

I didn't put US in this position, others did that over the last 50-60 years, but we now have to deal with the best of a whole bundle of bad choices, which are not of our making, at least not of the majority of us!

Btw, you did start the chain of events, all I have done since is comment on what has actually happened & what is likely to happen.

Social Security: The Futile Fight For What's Been Promised

No discussion of the upcoming collapse of the bond market would be complete without a mention of Social Security.

At least, after they've lost their money in stocks, real estate and bonds, Americans will at least have Social Security to live on, right? Wrong!

You know all that money you pay in Social Security taxes? Where do you think it goes? Into current expenses and US bonds!

That's right, the feds just use the money to finance whatever fool scheme they've got going at the moment...and give the Social Security Administration a bond in return. In theory, the SSA has assets. In practice, all they've got is the hope that the feds can squeeze enough money out of taxpayers to meet their obligations.

Can they?

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/08.10/images/socialsecurity.jpg

Professor Laurence Kotlikoff:

Social Security has also played a central role in the massive, six-decade Ponzi scheme known as US fiscal policy, which transfers ever-larger sums from the young to the old.

In so doing, Uncle Sam has assured successive young contributors that they would have their turn, in retirement, to get back much more than they put in. But all chain letters end, and the US's is now collapsing.

The letter's last purchasers - today's and tomorrow's youngsters - face enormous increases in taxes and cuts in benefits. This fiscal child abuse, which will turn the American dream into a nightmare, is best summarized by the $202 trillion fiscal gap discussed in my last column.

The gap is the present value difference between future federal spending and revenue. Closing this gap via taxes requires doubling every tax we pay, starting now. Such a policy would hurt younger people much more than older ones because wages constitute most of the tax base.

What about cutting defense instead? Sadly, there's no room there. The defense budget's 5 percent share of gross domestic product is historically low and is projected to decline to 3 percent by 2020. And the $202 trillion figure already incorporates this huge defense cut.

Reducing current benefits, most of which go to the elderly, is another option. But such a policy is highly unlikely. The elderly vote and are well-organized, whereas 3-year-olds can neither vote, nor buy Congressmen.

In contrast, cutting future benefits is politically feasible because it hits the young. And that's where Congress is heading, starting with Social Security. The president's fiscal commission will probably recommend raising Social Security's full retirement age to 70 from 67, for those who are now younger than 45. This won't change the ages at which future retirees can start collecting benefits. It will simply cut by one-fifth what they get.

In other words, there is no question about whether the US government will default or not. It will default. The only question is how. Will it manage to slip out of its obligations by raising the inflation rate enough to slough them off? Or will it have to officially renounce them? Will it refuse to pay retirees? Or bondholders?

Any way you look at it, the situation is interesting. Retirees, employees, loafers and chiselers - all are stakeholders in the US government. They have something to lose and will fight to hold onto what they've been promised. Bondholders have something to lose too.

So far, the bondholders have been largely protected - even enriched. Stakeholders in Greece, Ireland and other countries have begun to feel the pain. In America, the class of stakeholders is actually increasing, as the public sector spends more and the private sector spends less.

Best guess: stakeholders, bondholders, placeholders, cupholders, napkin holders - they'll all take a loss.

Regards,

Bill Bonner
(Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning)

Link -
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/08.10/futile.html
=============
I would agree with Bill Bonner here, everyone will take a hair-cut (loss), but perhaps some more than others!

'Population could halve'

MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said that Singapore's population could shrink by half in 20 years if we do not 'replace ourselves'.

Singapore's fertility rate has fallen to 1.21 babies per person, far below the replacement level of 2.1.
MM Lee was speaking at the Tanjong Pagar GRC's inter-racial harmony day, where he joined some 1000 residents at a Ramadan break-fast ceremony.

He also spoke about the issue of Singapore's ageing population, and the need to address the population imbalance by bringing in immigrants.

Video of Lee Kuan Yew embedded in article.
Link -
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_575082.html
============
That would mean Singapore would go from a population of 5 million today, to a only 2,500,000 in 20 years time.

An Australian equivalent, would be from 22 million today, to a only 11,000,000 in 20 years time.
Given those circumstances, Australian immigration would have to run at 550,000 Million per year, just to stand still after 20 years.

OZ currently has what is regarded as high immiration, which current stands at around 270,000 P/A.

Japan's fertility rate is only a little above that of Singapore and Japan is anti immigration, so what do you think will happen there?

David Rockefellers Speech for Population control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ms9-85NmpU&feature=player_embedded

Notwithstanding the written comments at the end of the video, Rockerfeller makes some valid points!

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited

At the root of all the converging crises of the World Problematique is the issue of human overpopulation. Each of the global problems we face today is the result of too many people using too much of our planet's finite, non-renewable resources and filling its waste repositories of land, water and air to overflowing.

The true danger posed by our exploding population is not our absolute numbers but the inability of our environment to cope with so many of us doing what we do.

Bringing about a sustainable balance between ourselves and the planet we depend on will require us, in very short order, to reduce our population, our level of activity, or both.
One of the questions that comes up repeatedly in discussions of population is, "What level of human population is sustainable?"


Sustainability
A sustainable population is one that can survive over the long term (thousands to tens of thousands of years) without either running out of resources or damaging its environmental niche (in our case the planet) in the process.

In addition a sustainable population must not grow past the point where those natural limits are breached. Using these criteria it is obvious that the current human population is not sustainable.

Carrying Capacity
Carrying capacity is the population level of an organism that can be sustained given the quantity of life supporting infrastructure available to it. If the numbers of an organism are below the carrying capacity of its environment, its birth rate will increase.

If the population exceeds the carrying capacity, the death rate will increase until the population numbers are stable. Carrying capacity can be increased by the discovery and exploitation of new resources (such as metals, oil or fertile uninhabited land) and it can be decreased by resource exhaustion and waste buildup, for example declining soil fertility and water pollution.

Note: "Carrying capacity" used in its strict sense means the sustainable level of population that can be supported. This implies that all the resources a population uses are renewable within a meaningful time frame.

An environment can support a higher level of population for a shorter period of time if some amount of non-renewable resources are used. If the level of such finite resources in the environment is very high, the population can continue at high numbers for quite a long time.

An increase in the carrying capacity of an environment can generally be inferred from a rise in the population inhabiting it. The stronger the rise, the more certain we can be that the carrying capacity has expanded. In our case a graph of world population makes it obvious that something has massively increased the world's carrying capacity in the last 150 years.

During the first 1800 years of the Common Era, like the tens of thousands of years before, the population rose very gradually as humanity spread across the globe. Around 1800 this began to change, and by 1900 the human population was rising dramatically:

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Paul%201.jpg

Part of the early phase of this expansion was due to the settlement of the Americas, but the exploitation of this fertile land in the 16th to 19th centuries would not seem to be enough on its own to support the population explosion we have experienced. After all, humans had already spread to every corner of the globe by 1900. There is something else at work here.

The Role of Oil

That something is oil. Oil first entered general use around 1900 when the global population was about 1.6 billion. Since then the population has quadrupled. When we look at oil production overlaid on the population growth curve we can see a very suggestive correspondence:

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Paul%202.jpg

However, we have to ask whether this is merely a coincidental match. A closer look at the two curves from 1900 to the 2005 reinforces the impression of a close correlation:
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Paul%203.jpg

==============
Whilst viewing this article & charts you should bear in mind in was posted in May, 2007 and has just been re-posted, as was, with no updates, so some of the stats (particularly population figures) are now a little dated.

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

The Food Factor
Are there other factors besides oil that may have contributed to the growth of the Earth's carrying capacity?

The main one that is usually cited is the enormous world wide increase in food production created by the growth of industrial agribusiness. There is no question that it has caused a massive increase in both yields and the absolute quantities of food being grown worldwide. While it has been celebrated with the popular label "The Green Revolution", there is nothing terribly miraculous about the process.

When you open up that so-called revolution, you find at its heart our friend petroleum.

Here's how it works. Industrial agriculture as practiced in the 20th and 21st centuries is supported by three legs: mechanization, pesticides/fertilizers and genetic engineering. Of those three legs, the first two are directly dependent on petroleum to run the machines and natural gas to act as the chemical feedstock. The genetic engineering component of agribusiness generally pursues four goals: drought resistance, insect resistance, pesticide resistance and yield enhancement. Meeting that last goal invariably requires mechanical irrigation, which again depends on oil.

Even more than other oil-driven sectors of the global economy, food production is showing signs of strain as it struggles to maintain productivity in the face of rising population, flattening oil production and the depletion of essential resources such as soil fertility and fresh water.

According to figures compiled by the Earth Policy Institute, world grain consumption has exceeded global production in six of the last seven years, falling over 60 million tonnes below consumption in 2006.
After keeping pace with population growth from 1960 until the late 1980s, per capita grain production has shown a distinct flattening and declining trend in the last 20 years.


Without large quantities of cheap oil, this revolution could not have occurred.

The United States currently uses over 12% of its total oil consumption for the production and distribution of food. As the oil supply begins its inevitable decline, food production will be affected. While it is probable that most nations will preferentially allocate oil and natural gas resources to agriculture by one means or another, it is inevitable that over the next decades the food supply key to maintaining our burgeoning population will come under increasing pressure, and will be subject to its own inescapable decline.

Carrying Capacity: Conclusion
Oil and its companion natural gas together make up about 60% of humanity's primary energy. In addition, the energy of oil has been leveraged through its use in the extraction and transport of coal as well as the construction and maintenance of hydro and nuclear generating facilities.

Oil is as the heart of humanity's enormous energy economy as well as at the heart of its food supply.
Humanity's use of oil has quadrupled the Earth's carrying capacity since 1900.

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

Overshoot
In ecology, overshoot is said to have occurred when a population's consumption exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment, as illustrated in this graphic:

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Paul%204.jpg

When a population rises beyond the carrying capacity of its environment, or conversely the carrying capacity of the environment falls, the existing population cannot be supported and must decline to match the carrying capacity. A population cannot stay in overshoot for long.

There are two ways a population can regain a balance with the carrying capacity of its environment. If the population stays constant or continues to rise, per capita consumption must fall. If per capita consumption stays constant, population numbers must decline.

Those portions of the population that are operating close to subsistence will experience a reduction in numbers, while those portions of the population that have more than they need will experience a reduction in their level of consumption, but without a corresponding reduction in numbers.

Populations in serious overshoot always decline.

These signals seem to be telling us we are approaching the maximum carrying capacity. If the carrying capacity were to be reduced as our numbers continued to grow we could find ourselves in overshoot rather suddenly. The consequences of that would be quite grave.


An Image of Overshoot

The predicament of a population entering overshoot is illustrated by a short scene from the children's cartoon series about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

As the scene opens, our hero, Wile E. Coyote, is zooming hungrily across the top of a mesa, propelled by the exuberant blast of his new Acme Rocket Roller Skates. Suddenly a sign flashes into view. It reads, "Danger: Cliff Ahead." The coyote tries desperately to change course, but his speed is too great and rocket roller skates are hard to control at the best of times. Just before the edge of the cliff the rocket fuel that was sustaining his incredible velocity runs out; the engines of his roller skates die with a little puff of smoke. The coyote begins to slow but it's too late, his inertia propels him onward. Suddenly the ground that moments before had ample capacity to carry him in his headlong flight falls away beneath him. As he overshoots the edge high above the canyon floor, he experiences a horrified moment of dawning realization before nature's impersonal forces take over.

http://paulandlayne.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wile-e-coyote-gravity1.jpg
===========
If you take Wile E. Coyote back just a little, so he is left teetering on the edge, then the slightest push or pull may have a profound affect on his future!

I am not sure that the "human condition" has the collective wisdom to pull back voluntarily, so we had best hope that a slight nudge was/is provided, as I suspect may be the case?

That said, the costs will still be great!

Btw, I have added the above cartoon, it was not in the article!

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

Peak Oil
As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. This automatically means that its use is not sustainable. If the use of oil is not sustainable, then of course the added carrying capacity the oil has provided is likewise unsustainable.

Carrying capacity has been added to the world in direct proportion to the use of oil, and the disturbing implication is that if our oil supply declines, the carrying capacity of the world will automatically fall with it.

These two observations (that oil has expanded the world's carrying capacity and oil use is unsustainable) combine to yield a further implication. While humanity has apparently not yet reached the carrying capacity of a world with oil, we are already in drastic overshoot when you consider a world without oil.


What are the chances that we will experience a decline in our global oil supply? Of course given that oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, such an occurrence is inevitable.

Individual oil fields tend to show a more or less bell-shaped curve of production rates - rising, peaking and then falling. Once a field has entered decline it has been found that no amount of remedial drilling or new technology will raise its output back to the peak rate.

The signals of Peak Oil are all around for those who know what to look for: the continuing two-year-old plateau in the world's conventional crude oil production; the crash of Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field last year; the U.K. slipping from being an oil exporting nation to a net importer in 2005; the fact that three of the world's four largest oil fields are confirmed to be in decline; the analysis on The Oil Drum of Saudi Arabia's super-giant Ghawar field that indicates it may be teetering on the brink of a crash; the fact that over two thirds of the world's oil producing nations are experiencing declining production; delays and cost overruns in new projects in the Middle East, Kazakhstan and Canada's tar sands.

To make matters worse, according to several analyses including a very thorough one (pdf warning) done by a PhD candidate in Sweden, the addition of new projects is unlikely to delay the terminal decline by more than a few years.

Understanding the role of oil in expanding the earth's carrying capacity brings a new urgency to the topic of Peak Oil. The decline in oil supply will reduce the planet's carrying capacity, thus forcing humanity into overshoot with the inevitable consequence of a population decline.

The date of the peak will mark the point at which we should expect to see the first effects of overshoot. The rapidity of the decline following the peak will determine whether our descent will be a leisurely stroll down to the canyon floor or a headlong tumble carrying a little sign reading, "Help!"

Time Frame and Severity
The first questions everyone one asks when they accept the concept of Peak Oil is, "When is it going to happen?" and "How fast is the decline going to be?" Peak Oil predictions are hampered by the lack of data transparency by many oil producers.

As a result the fully correct answer to both questions is, "We don't know yet." This isn't the whole answer, though. As with many predictions we can specify probable ranges based on the current evidence, observed trends over the last few years and published future development and production plans.

The guesses are becoming more and more educated as time goes by.

Several "heavy hitters" in the Peak Oil field have said the peak has already happened. These include Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes (a colleague of Dr. M. King Hubbert), major energy investor T. Boone Pickens, energy investment banker Matthew Simmons (who first sounded the alarm about Saudi Arabia's impending depletion) and Samsam Bakhtiari, a retired senior expert with the National Iranian Oil Company.

The steepness of the post-peak decline is open to more debate than the timing of the peak itself. There seems to be general agreement that the decline will start off very slowly, and will increase gradually as more and more oil fields enter decline and fewer replacement fields are brought on line.

A full picture of the oil age is given in the graph below. This model incorporates actual production figures up to 2005 and my best estimate of a reasonable shape for the decline curve.

It also incorporates my belief that the peak is happening as we speak.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Paul%205.jpg
============
To paraphrase M. King Hubbert, it appears as if our ignorance is not as vast as our failure to use what we already know.

Carl Sagan put it this way -
“When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions; that is the heart of science.”

Or finally, as Don Rumsfeld would put it, "this is a known unknown"!

We need to accept the Reality that Energy depletion of Fossil Fuels is coming and it will arrive sooner, rather than later.

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

Maintaining Our Carrying Capacity
The consequences of overshoot might be avoided if we could find a way to maintain the Earth's carrying capacity as the oil goes away.

To assess the probability of this, we need to examine the various roles oil plays in maintaining the carrying capacity and determine if there are available substitutes with the power to replace it in those roles.

The critical roles oil and its companion natural gas play in our society include transportation, food production, space heating and industrial production of such things as plastics, synthetic fabrics and pharmaceuticals. Of these the first three are critical to maintaining human life.

Transportation
Peak Oil is fundamentally a liquid fuels crisis. We use 70% of the oil for transportation. Over 97% of all transportation depends on oil. Full substitutes for oil in this area are unlikely (I'd go so far as to say impossible).

Biofuels are extremely problematic: their net energy is low, their production rates are also low, their environmental costs in soil fertility are too great. Crop based biofuels compete directly with food, while cellulosic technologies risk "strip mining the topsoil" at the production rates needed to offset the loss of oil.

Electricity will be able to substitute in some applications such as trains, streetcars and perhaps battery powered personal vehicles, though at significant cost in terms of both flexibility and economics. There is no realistic substitute for jet fuel.

Food
Oil is used in tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting and transporting food, as well as in pumping water for crop irrigation. Natural gas is used to make the vast quantities of fertilizer required to support our industrial, monoculture agribusiness system. As oil and natural gas decline, global food output will fall.

This will be offset to some degree by the adoption of more effective and less resource-intensive farming practices. However, it is not clear that such practices could maintain the enormous food production required, especially as much of the world's farmland has been decimated by long term monocropping and will require fertility remediation to produce adequate crops without fertilizer inputs.

Heat
In northern climates the fuel of choice for building heat is natural gas. Gas is on its own imminent "peak and decline" trajectory, made worse by the fact that it is harder to transport around the world than oil.

The only realistic replacement for natural gas is electric heat. It is quite possible that the rapid adoption of electric resistance heating in cold climates could lead to a destabilization of under-maintained and over-used distribution grids, as well as localized shortages of generating capacity. While there are technologies that will allow us to increase the generation of electricity, they all have associated problems - coal produces greenhouse gases, nuclear power produces radioactive waste and is politically unpalatable in many countries and solar photovoltaic is still too expensive. Wind power is showing promise, but is still hampered by issues of scale and power variability.

I think that we will strive mightily to produce alternative energy sources to maintain the carrying capacity, but I am convinced we will ultimately fail.

This is due to issues of scale (no alternatives we have come up with so far come within an order of magnitude of the energy required), issues of utility (oil is so multi-talented that it would take a large number of products and processes to fully replace it), issues of unintended consequences (as is currently being recognized with biofuels) and issues of human behaviour (a lack of international cooperation is predicted by The Prisoner’s Dilemma, and behaviours such comfort-seeking, competition for personal advantage and a hyperbolic discount function are planted deep in the human genome as explained in Reg Morrison’s “The Spirit in the Gene” and in my article on Hyperbolic Discount Functions).

We will be able to replace some small portion of the carrying capacity provided by oil, but in the absence of oil it is not clear how long such alternatives will remain available, relying as they do on highly technical infrastructure that currently runs on oil like everything else.
==============
For those thinking that Coal may or will come to the rescue, you should be aware that about 80% of all Coal Production comes from the top 5 producers.

That said, the top producer by far, being China, is also a net importer of Coal, with large volumes infact, coming from Australia.

China has also vastly stepped up its own proction, in recent years and is using mountains of Coal in a vast program of building new Coal fired power stations.
This Production is questionable?  




http://www.theoildrum.com/files/top_20_coal_0.png

Outside of Australia there is little export capacity amonst the major world producers.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/coal_exports.png

The issues of Human Behaviour & Un-intended Consequences may also play a significant part in future events!

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

Given the fact that our world's carrying capacity is supported by oil, and that the oil is about to start going away, it seems that a population decline is inevitable. The form it will take, the factors that will precipitate it and the widely differing regional effects are all imponderables.

Some questions that we might be able to answer (though with a great degree of uncertainty) are "When will it start?", "When will it end?", "How much control will we have?", "How bad will it be?" and "How many people will be left?"

To set the parameters of our model, we need to answer the four questions I posed above.

When Will The Decline Start?
This depends entirely on the timing of Peak Oil.
My conclusion that the peak is occurring now makes it easy to pick a start date. The model starts this year, though a start date five or ten years from now would not affect the overall picture.


When Will it End?
Given that oil is a primary determinant of carrying capacity, the obvious answer is that the situation will stabilize when the oil is gone. The oil will never be completely gone of course, so we can modify that to read, "When oil is unavailable to most of humanity." We know that point will come, because oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, but when will that be?

Based on the model in the figure above I chose an end date of 2082, 75 years from now.

How Much Control Will We Have?
Will we be able to mitigate the population decline rate through voluntary actions such as reducing global fertility rates, and making the oil substitutions I mentioned above.

I have decided (perhaps arbitrarily) that the oil substitutions would not affect the course of the decline, but would be used to determine the sustainable number of people at the end of the simulation.

Fertility rates are an important consideration. The approach I've taken is to model the net birth rate, the combination of natural fertility and death rates that give us our current global population growth of 75 million per year. I modified that by having it decline by 0.015% per year. This reflects both a declining fertility rate due to environmental factors and some degree of women's education and empowerment, as well as a rising death rate due to a decline in the the global economy. I do not think that traditional humane models such as the Benign Demographic Transition theory will be able to influence events, given that the required economic growth is likely to be unavailable.

How Bad Will It Be?
This question comes from the assumption that the decline in net births alone will not be enough to solve the problem (and the simulation bears this out). This means that some level of excess deaths will result from a wide variety of circumstances. I postulate a rate of excess deaths that starts off quite low, rises over the decades to some maximum and then declines. The rise is driven by the worsening global situation as the overshoot takes effect, and the subsequent fall is due to human numbers and activities gradually coming back into balance with the resources available.


How Many People Will Be Left?
Taking the carrying capacity effects discussed above into account, I initially set the bar for a sustainable population at the population when we discovered oil in about 1850. This was about 1.2 billion people.

Next I subtracted some number to account for the world's degraded carrying capacity, then added back a bit to account for our increased knowledge and the ameliorating effects of oil substitutes. This is a necessarily imprecise calculation, but I have settled on a round number of one billion people as the long-term sustainable population of the planet in the absence of oil.

Comments
The model is a simple arithmetical simulation that answers the following question: "Given the assumptions about birth and death rates listed above, how will human population numbers evolve to get from our current population of 6.6 billion to a sustainable population of 1 billion in 75 years?" It is not a predictive model. It is aggregated to a global level, and so can tell us nothing about regional effects. It also cannot address social outcomes. Its primary intent is to allow us to examine the roll that excess deaths will play in the next 75 years.
==============
With the exception of the start date, which I put down as 2005 for Peak Oil, these are very subjective issues, with many possible variations.

That said, my guestimate would be around 2 Billion by the end of this century & I hope that figure will be sustainable.

Whilst I fully recognise the consequences here, I must point out that the consequences of trying to maintain "business as usual", would be far greater!

Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room - Revisited (Cont)

The Cost
The human cost of such an involuntary population rebalancing is, of course, horrific.

The peak excess death rate would happen in about 20 years, and would be about 200 million that year. To put this in perspective, WWII caused an excess death rate of only 10 million per year for only six years.

Given this, it's not hard to see why population control is the untouchable elephant in the room - the problem we're in is simply too big for humane or even rational solutions.

Summation
One of the common accusations leveled at those who present analyses like this is that by doing so they are advocating or hoping for the massive population reductions they describe, and are encouraging draconian and inhumane measures to achieve them.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am personally quite attached to the world I've grown up in and the people that inhabit it, as is every other population commentator I am familiar with.

However, in my ecological and Peak Oil research over the last several years I have begun to see the shape of a looming catastrophe that has absolutely nothing to do with human intentions, good or ill.

It is the simple product of our species' continuing growth in both numbers and ability, an exponential growth that is taking place within the finite ecological niche of the entire world.

Our recent effusive growth has been fueled by the draw-down of primordial stocks of petroleum which are about to deplete while our numbers and activities continue to grow. This is a simple, obvious recipe for disaster.

This model is intended to give some clarity to that premonition of trouble. It carries no judgment about what ought to be, it merely describes what might be.

The model is likewise no crystal ball. It offers no predictions and no insights into the details of what will happen. It presents the simple arithmetic consequences of one set of assumptions, albeit assumptions that I personally feel have a reasonable probability of being fulfilled.

There are factors that will affect the course of events that have not been considered in the model. Readers may legitimately take me to task for not considering or summarily dismissing the various ways humanity is already trying to alleviate some of the foreseen dangers.
For instance, my model does not mention global warming or carbon caps, and dismisses most alternative energy sources as ineffective.

The model also does not address the regional differences that are bound to expand as the crisis unfolds.

While such criticisms are justified and are well worth exploring in the context of oil decline, the purpose of this article is to take a high-level look at the global population situation, considering the entire planet as one ecological niche with a single aggregate carrying capacity supported by oil in its role as a facilitator of transportation and food production.

The model warns us that the involuntary decline of the human population in the aftermath of the Oil Age will not happen without overwhelming universal hardship.

There are things we will be able to do as individuals to minimize the personal effects of such a decline, and we should all be deciding what those things need to be.

It's never too early to prepare for a storm this big.
Link -
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6924
=============
To paraphrase M. King Hubbert, it appears as if our ignorance is not as vast as our failure to use what we already know.

Carl Sagan put it this way -
“When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions; that is the heart of science.”

Or finally, as Don Rumsfeld would put it, "this is a known unknown"!

We need to accept that Energy depletion of Fossil Fuels is coming and it will arrive sooner, rather than later.
We need to develop alternative energy sources, particularly for transport, with the urgency of a Manhattan style project, while limiting population growth and the excessive material aspirations of the Global population, to realize a sustainable society.
If we (humans) do not adopt and plan for these known circumstances voluntarily, it will inevitably be imposed upon us by nature or ourselves, probably in a much less desirable way.

Hi Perceptions,

Quoting experts perceptions doesn't make it right,and these arguments have been around for years!
The experts in the 1970,s claimed that by NOW we would be out of oil!
Which reflected high prices,in which made firms get off their arses and find more!
Today we have twice as much and we use three as much,since 'the end is near days' of the 70's,or thereabouts. They want U to believe in peak oil,so they can get as much mileage as possible before technology takes over oil,and they out the door with nothing to sell.
And because its logical to assume that a substance like oil takes about 1million odd years to to produced its obviously finite,a top selling point! So up go the prices,oil is used to suck the life blood out of the economy!
Don't U think they wont happen to find more oil?
How many inventors of other forms of engines have been silenced bought out,over the decades?
New sources like Canada sands once claimed by the EXPERTS again as noncommercial?
And lets talk about Australia's  Energy problems... what problems?
With our small population we have gas supplies alone that exceed 100 odd years,we have oil too, and coal  and yellow cake so what's the problem?

David Rockefellers Speech for Population control

Or UN agenda 21...

Look at the flip side of the Rockafella statement of the call of 7 billion people shrink down 2billion sustainability,I bet they not included though.

If they were included, no need to bump off 4 billion odd people,their wealth alone would double everyone left standing!

lerche007 wrote on Sep 12^th, 2010 at 8:04pm:

David Rockefellers Speech for Population control Or UN agenda 21... Look at the flip side of the Rockafella statement of the call of 7 billion people shrink down 2billion sustainability,I bet they not included though. If they were included, no need to bump off 4 billion odd people,their wealth alone would double everyone left standing!

The fact is we (humans) will soon be unable to support 7 Billion people on this planet.

That fact will still remain, irrespective of what wealth some people have and I have no doubt that those in "wealthy countries" will have a better cahnce of survival, than those in not so wealthy countries.

lerche007 wrote on Sep 12^th, 2010 at 7:50pm:

Hi Perceptions, 1) Quoting experts perceptions doesn't make it right,and these arguments have been around for years! 2) The experts in the 1970,s claimed that by NOW we would be out of oil!Which reflected high prices,in which made firms get off their arses and find more! 3) Today we have twice as much and we use three as much,since 'the end is near days' of the 70's,or thereabouts. They want U to believe in peak oil,so they can get as much mileage as possible before technology takes over oil,and they out the door with nothing to sell. And because its logical to assume that a substance like oil takes about 1million odd years to to produced its obviously finite,a top selling point! So up go the prices,oil is used to suck the life blood out of the economy! 4) Don't U think they wont happen to find more oil? 5) How many inventors of other forms of engines have been silenced bought out,over the decades? 6) New sources like Canada sands once claimed by the EXPERTS again as noncommercial? 7) And lets talk about Australia's  Energy problems... what problems? With our small population we have gas supplies alone that exceed 100 odd years,we have oil too, and coal  and yellow cake so what's the problem?

1) You are right quoting experts doesn't make something right, as can be seen from the rubbish that came from & still comes from, many Economists & Politicians.
But, if the facts fit the argument, then you have to recognise it enough to do your own DD, then you can dismiss it or accept it, based on something that adds up, not on an Economist living in the past or a Pollies spin.

2) There may have been, but the main one (Hubbert) claimed the USA would Peak in 1970, which it did and Global Peak would be just after the turn of the century and I am calling it for 2005.
Of course he did not say Peak was the end of Oil, just the Peak of Production.
However, based on "proven Global Reserves" and current usage, Oil would run out in around 40 years.
That said, it won't happen quite like that, because many of the variables will change, with Population first rising and then falling, other Energy sources being introduced &/or increased in the mix, changes in products such as Electric cars and a host of other issues.

But, the over-riding consideration, is that Oil particularly & Fossil Fuels in general, are on the endangered list, they will become extinct and the only thing left is the final date.
3) Inflation is a bitch, isn't it! I came accros an article recently where the author talked about the DOW being 20,000 in 2020 and all that was needed was a 7% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate).
Doesn't sound much, right?

But, it would take the current Population of just under 7 Billion, to around 11.25 Billion, by 2020.

That's an additional 4.25 Billion people in just 10 years?

Possible, yeah?

Likely, not a chance in hell!

And the same goes for DOW 20,000 in 2020.

In fact, the DOW may well be lucky to still be north of 2,000 in 2020?

Or, it could be simply pushing up daisies, along with an increasing number of Baby Boomers, who are in the process of causing a massive Economic downturn, together with Peak Oil, which has already arrived!
4) Yes, we (humans) will! Just not anywhere near enough to make up the decline rate of existing fields. To do so, would mean finding and putting into full production, about ONE NEW SAUDI ARABIA, EVERY 4 YEARS, over the next 20 years.
Given that Oil discoveries have been in decline since 1964, that is unlikely!

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Oil%20discoveries.png

5) We shall soon see!
6) Sources such as the Canadian Tar Sands, Deep Ocean wells and some other remote areas are coming into play, precisely because the Oil price has risen to where it is now, but even all of those new resources will only marginally extend Oils lifetime.
7)  I suspect, if you were to ask that question of some young Australians, AT THE END OF THIS CENTURY, they would ask you, WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO SELL OUR FUTURE?

Investors Face Low Returns on Ageing World, Deutsche Bank Says

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Investors should prepare for more volatility, shorter business cycles, more asset purchases by central banks and below-average returns as populations age, according to Deutsche Bank AG.

“There are no stand-out opportunities in developed markets,” London-based strategists Jim Reid and Nick Burns wrote in a research report. “Credit has normalized to average valuations, equities have arguably returned to above average valuations with bond yields now looking rich relative to history. Property still looks highly valued with commodities the asset class with most to lose if all assets mean revert.”

The “golden era” for investment in the 25 years through 2007 resulted in a 50/50 portfolio of U.S. Treasuries and equities returning an average of 7.3 percent, Deutsche Bank said. That was partly because of one of the world’s biggest periods of population growth in its history, between 1950 and 2000, it said.

“The ultra-supportive demographics of the past cannot be repeated,” the note, dated Sept. 10, said. “De-population is a genuine problem for parts of the developed world going forward. Indeed on that front Europe is more at risk of repeating Japan’s problems than the U.S.”
Link -
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=axVvKb0s6lZk
===============
I would suggest that both the USA & Europe are exposed and Japan will dive even deeper!

That should not be read, as OZ and the rest of the world will be ok! Far from it, OZ & the ROW will catch the same brand of "flu"!

Population: Thinking about our Future

Death is inevitable; population growth is not.

I prefer to discuss the latter and some of its implications in an attempt to convince you that further growth of the human population is unnecessary and will complicate virtually every other problem that we face today.

Writing about his popular blog, Dot Earth, Andy Revkin noted, “By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today.”

The word “expected” is used here and elsewhere as if nothing we do can stop the addition of at least 2.1 billion more people to the planet over the next 40 years. That is absurd. Though nine billion is only a projected figure, based on assumptions about birth and death rates that may or may not be accurate between now and 2050, it is most often accepted as a fait accompli.

Rather than ask why we want or need another 2.1 billion humans on the planet, researchers focus almost exclusively on how we are going to provide those additional people with safe drinking water, food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and other needs, even though billions already do without some or all of those things.

Let’s be clear up front. There is nothing natural or necessary about adding 2.1 billion more people to the planet and it can’t be done without either diverting scarce resources from other uses or finding new resources.

One of the most common comments that I hear about population is the following: As the poor countries become richer, women in them will have fewer children. This thinking is based on the demographic transition model, which in turn was based on the experience of a number of western nations during earlier phases of the Industrial Revolution. The demographic transition model has no predictive power, as most demographers know, but it has led to the conventional wisdom that economic growth everywhere will lead to lower rates of population growth.

If we take an extreme case, the fallacy of such thinking becomes apparent. Assume that we wish to bring the world’s current population of 6.9 billion up to an American standard of living, then ask how we might do that. If we focus just on crude oil, the absurdity of such an assumption is striking. In round figures the United States right now consumes about 20 million barrels of crude oil per day and we have about 5 percent of the world’s population. If we were to bring the world up to our current oil consumption level, we would need to extract about 400 million barrels of crude oil per day, nearly five times current extraction.

Given what we know about oil extraction, oil deposits, oil reserves, alternative fuels from tar sands, and whatever else you want to throw in the mix, it is clear that we could not even come close to extracting 400 million barrels of oil per day from planet Earth, now or ever. We may not even be able to reach 100 million barrels per day.

Consider two different disciplinary perspectives, economics and ecology, and their very different implications for the future of humans and our planet. In the economics corner, Larry Summers a few years back stated that there is no limit to the carrying capacity of Earth for humans. More recently, Tim Harford concluded, in The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, “The more of us there are in the world, living our logical lives, the better our chances of seeing out the next million years.”

Though I don’t want to bias you too much, keep in mind that about 99.9 percent of economists failed to predict our recent global financial meltdown.

Economists and ecologists cannot both be right. Or can they? The answer depends in part on the time frame in which we choose to think, with economists thinking in much shorter time frames than ecologists.

The ecological costs of future demographic growth also outweigh the benefits.

In their recent study, Running on Empty? The Peak Oil Debate, David Ingles and Richard Denniss concluded the following:

Peak oil will arrive; the question is simply one of timing. It will probably be sooner than most people expect and definitely sooner than many would prefer. In an ideal world, governments would anticipate this development and plan for it; the alternative is a laissez-faire scenario likely to impose high economic costs in terms of stagflation and lost output.

As the sun rises on the dawn of peak oil we will see emerging from the shadows the four horsemen, ready to ride again if we do nothing now to humanely curtail our birth rates and shrink our burgeoning numbers. The choice is ours; the burden of making the wrong choice will fall on future generations.
Link -
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6949
============
Let's be clear, we don't have the essential resources to sustain 8-9 Billion people.

In fact, we would still struggle to sustain 2-3 Billion in a highly complex society, with all living in 1 st world conditions, given our existing & future likely positions regarding Energy, particularly in respect of transport.  

That said, the longer we leave the current status quo, the more we are restricting the choice of future generations!

In fact, the likely outcome of business as usual, is a massive die-off in Energy starved third world countries and the danger of war in the "developed world".

Chris Martensons Crash Course

Anyone wanting to get a holistic handle on current & future events, including Financial issues, would do well to review all of the following!

Personally, I would view Chapter 19, for an overview, then go back to Chapter’s 1 thru 18, to get a full perspective. Finally, look at Chapter 20 to view, What should we do?

The following observation of Arthur Schopenhauer is included in these videos and is very apt!

All Truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Chapter 1 – Three Beliefs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnXZzx9pAmQ&feature=player_embedded

Chapter 2 – The three E’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEHUbfP7OA&NR=1

Chapter 3 – Exponential Growth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXd66gP53fk&NR=1


Chapter 4 – Compounding is the Problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIwyMif5EOg&NR=1

Chapter 5 – Growth Vs Prosperity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1KsFDLZ3B4&NR=1

Chapter 6 – What is Money?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8dq1bH1X6s&NR=1

Chapter 7 – Money Creation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIxhsF6JLEA&NR=1

Chapter 8 – The Fed & Money Creation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3_Q1SiRN-A&NR=1

Chapter 9 – A brief History of US Money
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM7rITeNW6U&NR=1

Chapter 10 - Inflation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afWqKcqntfs&feature=channel

Chapter 11 – How much is a TRILLION?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caMRBGmja3w&feature=channel

Chapter 12 – DEBT (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsTblStwiuM&feature=channel

Chapter 12 – DEBT (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ECro3HwPo&NR=1

Chapter 13 – A National Failure to Save (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKn3jROgznM&feature=channel

Chapter 13 – A National Failure to Save (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJIEscbKGI&NR=1


Chapter 14 – Assets & Demographics (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y23zmnocxdM&feature=channel

Chapter 14 – Assets & Demographics (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EcXKzRNBVE&NR=1


Chapter 15 – Bubbles (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v2QynM0V2E&feature=channel

Chapter 15 – Bubbles (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0QStbuLRLc&NR=1


Chapter 16 – Fuzzy Numbers (1of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsNgJVD8KgY&feature=channel

Chapter 16 – Fuzzy Numbers (2of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01KIOjTe2CM&NR=1


Chapter 17a – Peak Oil (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8s7orGZbY&feature=channel

Chapter 17a – Peak Oil (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoFTNurAcws&NR=1


Chapter 17b – Energy Budgeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeBtdwPpTQM&feature=channel

Chapter 17c – Energy & the Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w6gf3tSGTg&feature=channel

Chapter 18 – Environment Data (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lRkB6gvBC0&feature=channel

Chapter 18 – Environment Data (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BafOxXU13sk&NR=1

Chapter 19 – Future Shock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDNvr82gqd0&feature=channel

Chapter 20 – What should I do?
http://vodpod.com/watch/1239314-crash-course-chapter-20-what-should-i-do-chris-martenson

Arithmetic, Population & Energy
Dr Albert Bartlett

(Part 1 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&p=230E06A93105883E&index=1

(Part 2 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&p=230E06A93105883E&index=2

(Part 3 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&p=230E06A93105883E&index=3

(Part 4 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E&p=230E06A93105883E&index=4

(Part 5 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-X6EpvWWu8&p=230E06A93105883E&index=5

(Part 6 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3y7UlHdhAU&p=230E06A93105883E&index=6

(Part 7 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyseLQVpJEI&p=230E06A93105883E&index=7

(Part 8 of 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoiiVnQadwE&p=230E06A93105883E&index=8

The Bacteria comparison in Chapter 3, is apt!

But, there are a few other apt observations –
1) Technology Optimists will always be able to solve all of our Population Growth, Food, Energy & Resources problems?
2) Thinking is upsetting, it tells us things, we’d rather not know!
3) The chief source of problems, is solutions!
4) Facts do not cease to exist, simply because they are ignored1
5) The 1st Law of Sustainability, is that Population growth &/or growth in the rates of Consumption of Resources
CAN NOT BE SUSTAINED!
6) The greatest shortcoming of the human race, is OUR INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THE EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION!

Pensioners in Japan exceed 20% of population

For the first time the number of Japanese aged over 65 has reached 29.44 million, or 23.1% of the population of Japan, the ministry of national affairs reported on Monday.

The number of men of retirement age is 12.58 million, or 20.3% of the male population. For the first time since such statistics have been kept the age of one in every five men in the country is over 65 years.

There are 16.85 million women over the age of 65, or 25.8% of the female population, this means that one in four women in Japan is of retirement age.

Experts note that the "aging society", which is linked on the one hand, with increasing life expectancy, and on the other, with a reduction in birth rates, threatens to turn into a serious problem in the near future, because every year a growing number of people begin living on pensions and the reduction of the percentage of the working part of the population.
Link -
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/09/21/21428362.html
=============
Whilst the headline of this article refers to 20% being being of Pensionable age (65), the figures are actually closing in on 25% or a quarter of the Population.

However that is only part of the story!

Of equal or greater importance is how these figures relate to the overall Worker to Total Population Participation Rate?

At present, given that 23% of the Population are retirees and at least 15% of the Population are under the working age, that means there are now approximately 6 workers for every 4 none workers.

That equates to 1.6 workers for every one non worker and that gap is expected to close significantly thru to 2050, placing a huge tax burden onto the remaining Japanes workers.

Similar patterns are emerging & will continue to do so, in many other countries, including the USA, Europe & Australia, Japan just started earlier than most, in around 1990, which also coincided with Declines in Japanese Share markets (Nikkei) & in their Real Estate markets!

http://contraryinvesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/NIKKEI-25-Year-Price-Chart-1.png

http://chartmechanic.com/rest/charts/CURRENT?_cmRandom=1285129884046

Hey, this all looks pretty interesting after just having watched Attenborough's "How many people can planet earth have?" BBC last night on SBS.
...gotta go to work now though.

It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2010 at 12:40pm:

Hey, this all looks pretty interesting after just having watched Attenborough's "How many people can planet earth have?" BBC last night on SBS. ...gotta go to work now though.

Thanks Jasignature, I hadn't seen that before, it was good viewing!

================

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?
Part 1 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF15YAvT9G0

Part 2 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B498dbsireA&feature=related

Part 3 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndtOAkDOBVs&feature=related

Part 4 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9Q78dro0t8&feature=related

Part 5 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkqnhrn_KnU&feature=related

Part 6 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1wlpY2W2BE&feature=related

Attenborough produces some strong arguments, although perhaps, he could have gone for a little more of reality bites?

That said, he (Attenborough) does close well with -
Will the human condition called “Intelligence” save us?

Although, I would have added -
Or, will the human conditions of Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride Lust, Envy and Gluttony, condemn us?

China: One-child policy will stand

Beijing, China (CNN) -- China will not drop its one-child policy, officials say, 30 years after Beijing decreed the population-control measure.

"I, on behalf of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, extend profound gratitude to all, the people in particular, for their support of the national course," said Li Bin, who leads the commission.

"So we will stick to the family-planning policy in the coming decades," she said over the weekend, according to the state-run China Daily.

An estimated 400 million births have been prevented by the policy, according to official statistics.

Some critics have urged Beijing to relax the policy, partly because it has skewed China's population. Its workforce is aging, which hurts its ability to compete in manufacturing. That has led some companies to move operations to other countries.

The measure limits most Chinese couples to one child. In their quest for sons, some couples have aborted female fetuses or abandoned infant girls, thousands of whom have been adopted by foreigners.

Some Chinese couples -- such as those who are both only children, or some who live in rural areas -- have been allowed more than one child. Critics also have complained that better-off families have been able to bribe officials into allowing them more children.
Link -
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/27/china.one.child.policy/
===========
There really wasn't any other realistic decision possible for China and at some point India will also cease its Population growth!

Population and Sustainability: Addressing the Taboo

More and more activists in the sustainability movement are coming to the conclusion that carbon emissions can’t be reduced to a safe range without curbing population growth. However at present it’s considered politically incorrect to even mention population control. The right accuses you of infringing on God-given personal rights – to have babies and own guns. And what passes for the left accuses you of being naive and impractical for trying to address something that inflames the right.

Thus I feel compelled to begin with a disclaimer: I am not about mandatory sterilization, abortion or eugenics (mandatory sterilization and/or abortion for those considered “unfit” to reproduce). Nevertheless I believe those of us in the developed world face a stark choice: either we substantially limit our population growth or we massively – and I mean massively – downsize our high tech lifestyles.

Fossil Fuel Depletion: A Bigger Threat Than Climate Change
Unfortunately extreme weather events and other complications of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations aren’t the only major crisis human kind faces at present. Fossil fuel depletion also poses a major threat because of its implications for food production. Our industrialized system of agriculture is totally dependent on cheap oil and natural gas – not only to run farm machinery and transport produce to market, but in the production of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.

Even the oil companies acknowledge that production of oil and natural gas isn’t keeping up with the exploding demand from a new, very large middle class in India and China. Although it will be decades before we totally run out of either, we have definitely reached a point where relative scarcity has significantly increased the cost of driving and heating our homes – and, in many parts of the world, the cost of food.

Has the Earth Already Exceeded Its Carrying Capacity?
The basic problem humanity faces is that we live on a finite planet with finite resources – which means we cannot provide food, water and other resources for an infinite number of human beings. Some in the sustainability movement – pointing to the 1.2 billion people who are essentially starving to death from an epidemic of famines (due to increasing desertification, combined with the increasing frequency of tropical storms, floods, droughts and wild fires)  - believe that we have already exceeded the number (at 6.8 billion) that the earth can support.

Without the availability of cheap fossil fuels, the number of hungry people will increase exponentially. Agricultural scientists predict that subsistence level agriculture (replacing farm machinery with horse, oxen and human labor) can only support around two billion people.

The big question obviously is how we address population growth without infringing on personal freedoms.  I, for one am absolutely opposed to mandatory population controls. For the simple reason that I don’t trust the global elite that controls our so-called democracies to legislate population measures fairly. They will always pass laws that allow the privileged classes to reproduce, while mandatory abortion and sterilization is imposed on populations they consider inferior to themselves.


Ignoring the Elephant Won’t Make Him Go Away
I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers, but agreeing not to discuss the population issue definitely won’t get us there. The first step in my mind is to understanding the different pressures driving population growth (why, for example, does the US have a fertility rate of 2.1, when the rest of the developed world hovers between 1.1 and 1.4?) and then developing policy that addresses these specific pressures.
Link -
http://blogs.alternet.org/refugee/2010/10/02/population-and-sustainability-addressing-the-taboo/
==============
In terms of Climate & Fossil Fuels, I doubt it will come down to a choice, but both a large problems.

However, the Decline of Fossil Fuels will become an obvious problem first, then followed by Over-Population & Climate issues.

So, it's more a matter of timelines & when the issues become unmistakably apparent to the general Public.

Australian Job Boom Sends Immigration ‘Wake-Up Call’

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Australia’s surging job market, capping its strongest quarter since 2006, signals the government may need to retreat from a campaign pledge to slow population growth as the central bank tries to control inflation.

The number of people employed rose 49,500 in September from a month earlier, almost 2 ½ times the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey and the most since January, the statistics bureau said yesterday in Sydney. Full-time employment jumped 112,500 in the past two months, the biggest back-to-back increase since 1988.

“Clearly the latest jobs data sends a wake-up call to the government,” said Craig James, a senior economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. “If we want to restrain wage pressures and keep interest rates low then labor supply needs to increase and that means more migrants.”

Net immigration dropped 25 percent to 241,400 in the year ended March 31 from 320,400 recorded for the year earlier, a statistics bureau report showed last month.

In the past year, immigration has fallen at the fastest rate on record, which is “certainly not a desirable outcome,” James said.

Under the baseline scenario of a Treasury report in February, the population is forecast to expand 1.2 percent a year to 35.9 million by 2050. Paring that rate by one-third would cut the average annual economic growth rate to 2.3 percent from 2.7 percent, according to the Treasury. Net migration is the “key” variable influencing the outcomes, the study said.
Link -
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aUVuPXRq4L2A&pos=2
=====================
Yes, immigrants have brought along many benefits, in the past!

As did the high natural birth rates of mid last century, which brought Economic benefits!

However, nothing ever goes in one direction forever and we now find ourselves in a different situation to which we have been, for the last 50-60 uears, in particular.

Sustaining that past high growth in the natural birth rate & in immigration is now more of a cost/benefit equation, rather than simply a benefit!

For example, we are already starting to struggle to provide Food & fresh Water for the existing Population, let alone double that Population, which is where both major Political party's are heading.

An example of that is the Murray Darling basin, which is the Food bowl of Australia. It is struggling now, under a lack of water and will not double its Food production, as Climate Change continues to dry the continent, over time.

A second example is WA and the mining boom. But, the wheatbelt area & general agricultural Production are struggling against a lack of rainfall & Production will not support increasing numbers.

This is particular applicable in Perth city, as it is drying up from lack of rainfall, as shown in our current dam levels which are only 35% of capacity, having just come out of winter.

Then, there is the matter of Peak Energy, where Global Oil Production is already in Decline & Coal & Gas are set to follow, within 20-30 years.

Housing & Infrastructure are no longer simply benefits, they are two edged swords.

It's time to think a little further ahead, than the usual Political timeline of the next election & the Economic imperative of the next quarterly profit figures!

Population: It’s the infrastructure, stupid. Or is it?


I was at the local pub a few weeks ago with a friend and her husband, both of whom work in defence. He was keen to catch up and discuss my involvement in the fledgling Stable Population Party, and as it turned out, to rebut concerns I have about population growth.

More infrastructure, he said, would solve everything.

He’d barely considered peak oil or other finite resources, the loss of arable land, food security, water supply, carbon emissions or climate change. Nope, it’s all about infrastructure.

I drilled down a bit further. Why would you need ever-increasing infrastructure if you don’t have an ever-increasing population? Surely we should focus on improving our current hospitals rather than building new ones?

I eventually prised it out of him. It was about security. Or insecurity.

I explained to him (yes I know, he’s the one in defence) how modern warfare is not about more people lining the beaches. His wife nodded in agreement. Does it really make any difference if we balloon to 30, 40, 50 or even 100 million, if countries five to ten times as populous invade? Surely the odds are in their favour either way if it simply comes down to numbers, which of course it doesn’t. So why should we destroy our quality of life advantage based on fear?

We returned to infrastructure.

I pointed out that it's not just about the planning. It’s also about the paying. Importantly, these are up-front costs borne by current taxpayers, if we are to maintain our per capita infrastructure standards.

So what is the cost to existing taxpayers in order to grow the population by (say) one person?

It’s a real challenge to find information on the per capita cost of infrastructure for some reason. Growthist governments and business groups don’t normally leave that sort of information lying around.

The best information I currently have is a recent report by Curtin University which found that state development costs including infrastructure for new suburbs are $684,000 per dwelling. At the national average of around 2.6 people per household that’s approximately $263,000 per person.

Putting aside the enormous and often ignored environmental and social costs for a moment, does this evidence help demonstrate that population growth on our thin green coastal strip has reached the stage where diminishing returns have become negative? That is, uneconomic. Or are our politicians too frightened to tell us?

The term ‘black hole’ comes to mind.

Let’s put this conservative Curtin University development cost estimate into practice.

Recently we’ve heard immigration lawyers whipping up hysteria (and business) by encouraging an estimated 147,000 ex-students in the permanent residency queue to defy Australian law and stay on regardless.

If we add up the estimated state-level development costs for these students, at a conservative $263,000 each, we come to a big number. $38,661,000,000. Or $38.7 billion. That’s the conservative up-front investment required from current taxpayers, just to accommodate the current ex-student applicants. It’s not inconceivable to multiply these costs by (say) four, for our generous family reunion program, and you have a cost of over $150 billion. This just scratches the surface. What does the total population growth obsession of government and big business cost us?

Environmental and social costs are hard to measure, so we just ignore them. Higher rents and mortgage repayments, driving many into economic hardship, don’t matter. The destruction of our native wildlife and vital arable farmland don’t rate either.

If population growth is sending you broke and necessitating the sale of your remaining assets and use of retirement funds, there won’t be much left to pay for a fleet of Joint Strike Force fighters – let alone an aged-care bed.

As a starting point, the onus is on those who push population growth against the will of the people to prove that it still has net economic benefits. We then need to factor in environmental and social costs.

The evidence is now overwhelming that most of our major economic, environmental and social problems are caused or exacerbated by our high population growth. Until we get a full cost-benefit analysis, we can choose to stabilise through two simple policies:

1. Phase out the baby bonus; and
2. Reduce immigration to around 50,000 per annum.

Given the current fertility rate of around two children per woman, this zero net migration program would stabilise our population at around 23-26 million through to 2050, and beyond. It would comfortably include our refugee intake, as well as reasonable skilled migration and family reunion elements.

No matter what the business lobby and their well-funded ‘independent’ centres and institutes tell us, endless population growth is not inevitable. It’s a choice.

The way I see it, a stable Australia is the sustainable choice.
Link -
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html
=============
The real choice is Populate & Perish or operate a sustainable Population & a sustainable Economy!

Boomers exit 'key issue' for workforce

AUSTRALIA is about to start a big "baby bust", according to a new study, where baby boomers increasingly quit the workforce over the next 15 years, removing their skills and their big contribution to the national tax base.

The study, by KPMG and Ipsos, said the Australian economy had benefited for 45 years from baby boomers moving into and remaining in the workforce, including contributing to the spending and investment spree that preceded the global financial crisis.

"But from 2011 onwards, the demographic underpinning to the workforce and to the tax base provided by the boomers slowly unravels," the study said.

"The imminent removal of key skills from the workforce is shaping as a key issue for the coming decade."

As an example, the study pointed out that one-third of Australia's nurse population was likely to retire in the next five years, despite the inadequate pipeline of young nurses.The oldest baby boomers, born just after the war, start to turn 65 next year.

Many of them have inadequate superannuation, given the compulsory system only began in 1992.

The study predicted that, despite the strains on the tax base as this generation looks for greater support in retirement, the boomers are also likely to force acceptance of older workers continuing in employment, at least part-time.

Even this won't be sufficient to offset the loss of skills, with the research showing a gulf in attitudes between business leaders and the general population towards immigration and the need for a "big Australia".

Demographer and study co-author Bernard Salt said business held real concerns about the supply of labour and skills without adequate immigration and population growth.

"Business leaders are far more concerned than consumers about the detrimental effects of the current discussion about asylum-seekers and immigrants," he said.

Both parties in the August 21 election campaign backed away from any support for high immigration levels, exacerbated by the public antagonism to asylum-seekers and widespread anger that services could not cope.
The study said while many consumers acknowledged the need for more skilled migrants, there were still significant levels of anxiety and hostility about immigration in general.
Link -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/boomers-exit-key-issue-for-workforce/story-e6frg6nf-1225938383620
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This is more a "WISH" from some segments and a reflection that some boomers retirement funds have disappeared, rather than any "desire" that Boomers have to work on.

Any appearance that either major party may favor lower Population growth, is purely for perceptions, rather than reality!

The issues raised in the article should come as no surprise to anyone - what is surprising, is that our Govts (of all persuasions and at all levels) have serially failed to take serious mitigating steps...

Notably, the Howard Govt had the benefit of the 2 Intergenerational Reports and the unprecedented revenue windfalls of the GST and an extended mining boom - and they still set up the nation to suffer from several structural deficit time-bombs...

In addition to doling out billions of dollars in effectively-pre-paid pensions to the already-well-off, they gave high-end tax cuts and introduced a range of other counter-productive WEALTHfare measures...

On top of this, they failed to invest in the public education and training of those Aussies who would otherwise be able to fill the employment and service gaps created by large numbers of retiring and ailing Baby Boomers - and they chose to import record numbers of workers and students...

The Labs have been somewhat remiss too - especially when they matched the reckless $34b 2007 pre-election Tax Cut promises of Howard/Costello...

Equitist wrote on Oct 15^th, 2010 at 2:30pm:

The issues raised in the article should come as no surprise to anyone - what is surprising, is that our Govts (of all persuasions and at all levels) have serially failed to take serious mitigating steps... Notably, the Howard Govt had the benefit of the 2 Intergenerational Reports and the unprecedented revenue windfalls of the GST and an extended mining boom - and they still set up the nation to suffer from several structural deficit time-bombs... In addition to doling out billions of dollars in effectively-pre-paid pensions to the already-well-off, they gave high-end tax cuts and introduced a range of other counter-productive WEALTHfare measures... On top of this, they failed to invest in the public education and training of those Aussies who would otherwise be able to fill the employment and service gaps created by large numbers of retiring and ailing Baby Boomers - and they chose to import record numbers of workers and students... The Labs have been somewhat remiss too - especially when they matched the reckless $34b 2007 pre-election Tax Cut promises of Howard/Costello...

I agree that Liberal & Labor were well underperformed, in the lead up to the start of the current GFC and I refer there not to a few years, but many decades, really at least post 1970!  

That said, both Libs & Labs did do some things, like introduce the Super Guanrantee(Labs) & Debt clearing (Libs).

However, the Libs failed to continue raising the Super guarantee to 15% & beyond, as they should have and both Libs & Labs made an unholy mess out of "promises" for the 2007 election.

Notwithstanding that both Libs & Labs could have & should have, done much better, as they knew what was & is coming in the Boomer Bust & other problems such as Peak Oil.

Still, they both still did much better than most other countries!

Aging Baby Boomers and the Nursing Shortage

Some 80 million baby boomers are expected to retire between 2010 and 2020, and healthcare analysts are predicting that this, coupled with the already existing scarcity of nurses, will result in the largest nursing shortage in the nation's history.

The future of nursing is full of uncertainty right now -- the retirement of nurses who are themselves baby boomers will create huge shortages. About one-third of the nurses now working are 50 or older, and more than half are reported to be considering retirement in the next 10 years.

By 2020, the shortage could be anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million nurses. What makes the problem even worse is that nursing schools are turning away more than 40,000 qualified applicants each year. Some believe that the shortages will be large enough to bring the entire healthcare system to a standstill. Recently passed healthcare reform will be an additional burden, as it will require more healthcare professionals to handle the increase in the number of insured.

About 75 percent of nurses surveyed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing believe that the shortage of nurses decreases the quality of their work life, the quality of the care they give to patients, as well as the time they give to patients.

So, this shortage is especially problematic in that it is both a supply shortage, and a demand increase, with fewer nursing students, an aging workforce, and a baby boom bubble needing more healthcare services.

The shortage is not just in the United States. Canada, the Philippines, Australia, and Western Europe also are experiencing shortages.

The demand is driven even more by changes in health care management. More and more, hospitals are treating only the most severe health problems, requiring the most intense treatment. As a result, skilled nurses and nurses specializing in certain areas are in demand.

Another problem is the educational pipeline. Hospitals want nurses with at least a bachelor's degree, but college nursing enrollments have actually been falling.

Another situation making the problem even worse is the baby boom/baby bust cycle. The baby boom generation was created between 1946 and 1964 yet was followed by a rapid fall in birthrates. So now there are roughly 80 million baby boomers, followed by just 44 million in the generation after the boomers. This has led to the smallest number of entry-level workers since the 1930s. And that has created problems for employers in finding enough qualified workers to fill open positions -- a problem for healthcare employers as well.

So all of these problems are coming together to create a situation that needs to be addressed quickly and cooperatively.
Link -
http://yourarticlesource.com/Art/268393/274/Aging-Baby-Boomers-and-the-Nursing-Shortage.html
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The US situation will be reflected in many other countries, in nursing, in Doctors, in Health services generally and in many esstential industries!

But the bottleneck is not only in esstential personnel, but also in Demand for Goods & Services!

Boomers could spur bust
Taxes, less spending will offset retirements: Economist


With a greying population marching toward retirement and old age, Canada faces an unavoidable choice, a leading Canadian economist told a Parliament Hill audience Wednesday: Raise taxes or curb spending -- or both.

"I think most Canadians know that there is a population aging challenge," said Christopher Ragan, an associate professor of economics at McGill University and former special adviser to the Bank of Canada. "But I think most Canadians do not know how big it is and what it implies."

He spoke at a "Big Thinking" lecture hosted by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

For decades, Canada has enjoyed "double-barrelled" growth in its economy, Ragan said.

But the enormous baby-boomer generation has swelled each part of Canada's age structure as it passed through and that generation is now on the cusp of retiring, Ragan said, which will throw the long-standing growth of the labour force into decline.

"Now, the oldest baby boomers, born in 1946, turn 65 next year, so the whole process unravels for the next 20 years," he said.

That means a shrinking tax base right at the moment when age-related health-care costs are set to skyrocket.
Link -
http://www.theprovince.com/life/Boomers+could+spur+bust/3775343/story.html
============

Population Vs Global Warming – and charts

http://www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Wordl-Population.jpg

http://www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Surface-Temperature.jpg

http://www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Total-World-Carbon-Emissions

http://www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Correlation.jpg

http://www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Pop-growth-rate.jpg

My apology for the size of these charts.

Wow Perceptions Now
Nice BIG CHARTS you have there.

8-)