World Population Awareness

U.S.: An Unfair Fight for Renewable Energies

By Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California

More energy from the sun hits Earth in one hour than all the energy consumed on our planet in an entire year.

In those terms, it is absurd that our federal government spends tens of billions of dollars annually subsidizing the oil industry, which pulls diminishing resources from underground, while the industry focused above ground on wind, solar and other renewable energies is derided in Washington.

Federal support for development of new energy sources is lower today than at any other point in U.S. history, and our government is forcing the clean-energy sector into a competitive disadvantage. To bring true competition to the energy market, ensure our national security and create jobs here rather than in China or elsewhere, we must level the playing field for renewable energies. In this presidential primary, Americans need to hear where the candidates stand on this critical issue.

When the oil, gas and nuclear industries were forming, federal support for those energies totaled as much as 1 percent of federal spending. Subsidies available to the renewables industry today are just one-tenth of 1 percent.

To read more, click on the link in the headline above.

U.S. Debt

American Psychosis: What Happens to a Society That Cannot Distinguish Between Reality and Illusion?...

Note: I admit that this is a very pessimistic, perhaps unrealistic article. But there many grains of truth to be found here. I know many people around me who seem to have blinders on, to be in denial. I believe Americans have gotten so accustomed to material goods, that they think they deserve them, when, in fact, they are exceeding the carrying capacity of the world ... Karen Gaia

The United States is a country entranced by illusions, captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television. In the cult of the self, we have a right to get whatever we desire. Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism.

We seem to believe that because we have the capacity to wage war we have a right to wage war. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Those who fail, those who are deemed ugly, ignorant or poor, should be belittled and mocked.

A society that cannot distinguish reality from illusion dies. The belief that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the accumulation of vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others is exposed as a fraud. The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out.

America stays afloat by selling about $2 billion in Treasury bonds a day to the Chinese. It saw 2.8 million people lose their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions - nearly 8,000 people a day - and stands idle as they are joined by another 2.4 million people this year. It refuses to prosecute the Bush administration for obvious war crimes, including the use of torture, and sees no reason to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus. Its infrastructure is crumbling. Deficits are pushing individual states to bankruptcy and forcing the closure of everything from schools to parks. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have squandered trillions of dollars, appear endless. There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of Americans in a category called "near poverty." One in eight Americans - and one in four children - depend on food stamps to eat. And yet, in the midst of it all, we continue to be a country consumed by happy talk and happy thoughts. We continue to embrace the illusion of inevitable progress, personal success and rising prosperity.

As the gap widens between the illusion and reality, as we suddenly grasp that it is our home being foreclosed or our job that is not coming back, we react like children. We scream and yell for a savior, someone who promises us revenge, moral renewal and new glory. A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually, emotionally and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans and will usher America into a new dark age. It was the economic collapse in Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic. It was the Weimar Republic that vomited up Adolf Hitler. And it was the breakdown in Tsarist Russia that opened the door for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. A cabal of proto-fascist misfits, from Christian demagogues to loudmouth talk show hosts, whom we naïvely dismiss as buffoons, will find a following with promises of revenge and moral renewal. And as in all totalitarian societies, those who do not pay fealty to the illusions imposed by the state become the outcasts, the persecuted.

The decline of American empire began before the first Gulf War or Ronald Reagan. It began when we shifted, in the words of Harvard historian Charles Maier, from an "empire of production" to an "empire of consumption."

By the end of the Vietnam War, when the costs of the war ate away at Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and domestic oil production began its steady, inexorable decline, we saw our country transformed from one that primarily produced to one that primarily consumed. We started borrowing to maintain a level of consumption as well as an empire we could no longer afford. We began to use force, especially in the Middle East, to feed our insatiable thirst for cheap oil. We substituted the illusion of growth and prosperity for real growth and prosperity. The bill is now due. America's most dangerous enemies are not Islamic radicals but those who sold us the perverted ideology of free-market capitalism and globalization. They have dynamited the very foundations of our society. In the 17th century these speculators would have been hung. Today they run the government and consume billions in taxpayer subsidies.

As the pressure mounts, as the despair and desperation reach into larger and larger segments of the populace, the mechanisms of corporate and government control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability. The emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state. This is why the Bush White House pushed through the Patriot Act (and its renewal), the suspension of habeas corpus, the practice of "extraordinary rendition," warrantless wiretapping on American citizens and the refusal to ensure free and fair elections with verifiable ballot- counting. The motive behind these measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security. It is to seize and maintain internal control. It is about controlling us.

And yet, even in the face of catastrophe, mass culture continues to assure us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, by Hollywood or by Christian preachers, turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers offshore penal colonies where it openly practices torture into the greatest democracy on earth. rw

Ignorance is Bliss

If things get really bad, we can build space ships and take the extra people to another planet.
The trouble with space travel is that it will be expensive. Only a few people can afford it. 2.5 people are born in the world every second, so even if everyone could afford space travel, a space ship that held 9,000 people would have to be built and leave the planet every hour, just to keep up with the world's hourly population growth. Can you think of a country that would have the resources and the manpower to build, fuel, and send up a spaceship that big every hour?

Obama Stimulus Turns Three: What Has it Achieved?

It has been three years since President Obama signed into law the stimulus to U.S. economy which, it was claimed, would "create or save" up to 3.5 million jobs, unleash "a new wave of innovation, activity and construction cross America," ignite spending by businesses and consumers and bring "real and lasting change for generations to come."

Instead the unemployment rate has remained at 8.3%, unchanged from February 2009 to January 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Obama's economists had initially predicted that with the stimulus, unemployment would stay below 8%.

Instead the number of workers who have been unable to find a job in 27 months or more has shot up 83%, with their ranks now at 5.5 million.

The civilian labor force has shrunk by 126,000. In past recoveries, the labor force climbed an average of more than 3 million over comparable time periods.

The share of adults in the labor force - either looking or working - is at 63.7%, having dropped 3% — also highly unusual in a recovery. This is a low not seen since the middle of the very deep 1981-82 recession, when fewer women were in the work force. A lower participation rate makes the unemployment rate look better.

Obama's latest budget plan has called for still another round of stimulus spending, at $350 billion over the next four years, for what is labeled "short-term measures for jobs growth."

Median annual household income has fallen 7% below where it was in February 2009, according to the Sentier Research Household Income Index.

The national debt is up $4.5 trillion, or 41%, according to the U.S. Treasury, putting the national debt at $15.4 trillion, larger than the entire U.S. economy.

The deficit for fiscal year 2009 totaled $1.4 trillion. Obama's proposed deficit for 2012 is $1.3 trillion, which would mark the fourth year of deficits topping $1 trillion.

Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has climbed only 6% between beginning 2009 and ending 2011, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Energy: Eventually Economic Reality Will Impact the U.S.

By Bruce Parks, former nuclear plant senior engineer

Renewables like wind and solar just are not reliable enough to provide 24/7 power. - Technology for storage is just not getting there. Pumped storage sites are limited in number and capacity. Compressed gas is very inefficient and limited. Perhaps huge battery capacity which is very expensive. - "Smart grid" with long distance very high voltage DC will help alleviate regional storage requirements. - Electrical cars would have to be charged in the day, not at night, if the solar option is taken or a significant part of the mix.

With the environmental groups in opposition to nuclear, oil, coal and hydro the only* base load power option will become gas. But wait, the gas-in-the-feature scenario needs fracking. Environmentalists also oppose fracking. (*I do not have much hope for fusion electric power in the near or mid term - perhaps in 100 years?)

Our trade competition in Asia is going coal big time. Highly polluting coal at that. In terms of fuel, coal-fired plants account for 55% of India's installed electricity capacity, South Africa's 92%; China's 77%; and Australia's 76%. With "free trade" we will not be competitive on energy alone. Yes India and China are going towards renewable's, BUT are also expanding fossil capacity.

The going green model in Europe will eventually make them non-competitive with Asia and South America. China and India are already making serious inroads. Countries like Norway and Sweden are blessed with lots of hydro - solar is not a great option here. Denmark has great steady winds. But, the heavy industry countries like UK, Germany, France and Italy just will not remain industrial powers by rapidly going green.

My primary point is that going green for an industrial power is not an option in the near or mid term. To try to rapidly change will sap the very economic capacity to go green in the future.

The environmental people need to understand that one reason we have some grace on electrical power growth is the movement of industry, and jobs, OUT of the USA.

* The clothes they wear come from Central America and South Asia and are made with fossil fuel power - a lot of coal in Asia.

* The iPad they play with takes power from 77% coal power in China and nuclear in Korea (The chips are made in South Korea.)

* Many of the gadgets they buy at Wal Mart and the tools they buy at Home Depot are made with China's 77% coal electricity.

* The rare earth battery they have in their Prius was mined, purified and partially fabricated in China using petroleum products and electricity that is 77% coal.

The clear skies they see here are, in part, due to filthy skies in Asia.

All economists, whether Keynesian or Austrian school, all agree that this massive trade deficit cannot go on. We will be forced to bring the jobs, and some pollution home, or live like an old "colony". With a lower standard of living providing food and raw material to the manufacturing facilities in the "mother country." Which do they want?

Greenspan: ‘True Revolution’ to End Welfare State Impasse

Former Federal Chairman Alan Greenspan says the U.S. welfare state has "run up against a brick wall" of economic reality and fiscal book-keeping and only a "true revolution" involving major entitlement overhaul will improve the economy.

The country's leaders have found it difficult to agree on policy due to the rise of the tea party among Republicans coupled with the shift to the left of many Democrats. Last year's debt-ceiling fiasco was an example.

Compromise must happen eventually, and that will likely include reform to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, programs that have expanded without funding to match.

"We face a true revolution, not so much in the streets but in the fundamental choices the American people will have to make to secure our fiscal future," Greenspan writes.

"Arithmetic demands it."

The government's net liabilities swelled by more than $1 trillion for 2011, according to a U.S. Treasury report. The government's liabilities exceeded assets by $14.785 trillion, up considerably from $13.473 trillion a year earlier,.

Is Economy Best Birth Control? US Births Dip Again

For the third year in a row, U.S. births have dropped. Teens and women in their early 20s had the most dramatic dip, to the lowest rates since record-keeping began in the 1940s.

"I don't think there's any doubt now that it was the recession. It could not be anything else," said Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a research organization.

In 2007, U.S. births reached an all-time high at more than 4.3 million. Now it is just over 4 million, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For teens, birth rates dropped 9% from 2009. For women in their early 20s, they fell 6%. For unmarried mothers, the drop was 4%.

It seems that women who are worried about money, particularly younger women, feel they can't afford to start a family or add to it.

While birth rates fell for younger women, for women 40 and older, they rose. Those who face a closing biological window for having children and may be more worried about that than the economy.

The total fertility rate, which tells how many children a woman can be expected to have if current birth rates continue fell from 2.1 to 1.9.

For Hispanic women total fertility rate rate fell from 3 children to 2.4 in just a few years. Haub suggested that some young women who immigrated to the United States for jobs or other opportunities may have left.

U.S.: Gargantuan Large Investment in Infrastructure Needed, Experts Say

A nationwide transportation system built in the middle of the 20th century is falling apart, burdened with a system that has deteriorated after decades of deferred maintenance, according to a general consensus at a transportation conference that heard from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood; House Transportation Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.) and his predecessor as chairman, and others.

The U.S. population is forecast to grow by 100 million - a 30% increase - before the middle of the 21st century. There isn't enough money to arrest the transportation system decline, and the public is largely oblivious to the need.

To the average consumer the transportation system appears to be working reasonably well but the amount of money needed to restore and expand it is so enormous that few taxpayers can relate.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that an investment of $1.7 trillion (and the Urban Institute says $2 trillion) is needed between now and 2020 to rebuild roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems and dams that are reaching the ends of their planned life cycles.

Fail to invest now, and the cost will increase later. Already, the civil engineers said, infrastructure deficiencies add $97 billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in travel delays that cost $32 billion.

In the meantime Congress grapples with taming a massive deficit, talking about $45 billion a year in the House and $54 billion in the Senate.

If the nation does not fix these infrastructure deficiencies it will not remain competitive with other countries.

Including Ecological Risk in Country’s Credit Ratings: UNEP FI Project Seeks Framework for Assessing Government Bonds

A groundbreaking project to explore the role of natural resource accounting in strengthening risk models for government bonds will be undertaken by the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in collaboration with Global Footprint Network and leading financial institutions to answer questions like: Could an abundance of natural wealth be a factor in positively influencing a country's credit rating and the quality of its bonds? Could a resource-guzzling economy be cause for a downgrade?

Paul Clements-Hunt, Head of UNEP FI said: "This is why we must deepen our understanding of the risks posed by climate change, water scarcity and the overuse of natural resources for securities. We should not be caught off-guard again. This project is one of the first that tries to quantitatively and systematically consider the linkages between the use of natural resources and its impact on a country's core economic indicators that in turn influence the quality of its bonds."

"As resource constraints tighten globally, countries that depend heavily on ecological services from other nations may find that their resource supply becomes insecure and unreliable. This has economic implications - in particular for countries that depend upon large amounts of ecological assets to power their key industries or to support their consumption patterns and lifestyles," said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. "Meanwhile, those countries with reserves of valuable natural capital may find themselves in an advantageous position."

How the Economy is Killing Americans

Follow the link in the headline for an informative chart on current American health.

In the last year, there's been a .6% increase in Americans who smoke, a 2% decrease in Americans who say they eat healthfully all day, a 1.9% decrease in those who eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables 4 days a week, and a .7% decrease in those who exercise for at least 30 minutes 3 days a week.

77% of workers say they constantly feel "burned out" at work, and 43% report their on-the-job stress level has increased in the last half year. This also costs the economy $300 billion a year in no-shows, accidents, insurance and medical claims.

Medical patients feel the economy has affected their health, including 35% of people with heart disease, 21% of cancer patients and 39%. 19% of diabetics have skipped or put off medical appointments for financial reasons, while 15% have postponed tests. 18% have said they can't follow the prescribed diets for their condition, either.

Almost 25% of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes patients have incurred credit card debt in order to pay for their care.

Almost 33% of Americans say the economy has affected their sleep, and economic woes account for about 30% of calls made to suicide hotlines. The strongest mental impact of job loss and pay cuts is depression, which 71% of laid off/fired people and 51% of recipients of a pay cut experienced. One in six Americans can't afford the food they need-there are 49 million Americans without enough food, and 16 million of those are children.

Is the EPA Strangling the Economy

We need to include the hidden costs of going without the EPA. The environment that it protects is not just about wild animals, but the environment that humans live in. Every year we have to produce more chemicals and other agents just to maintain our way of life: chemicals to pull gas out of shale, chemicals to kill agricultural pests, agents to biodegrade spilled oil, hormones to control our fertility, plastics to drink water from and to put our sandwiches in; lead in our paint, asbestos in our ceilings, and toxics in our thrown away computers - all of which have the potential to harm humans.

Our way of life is threatened, not as much by reckless industry, or from strangling of the economy by the EPA, but more like by the endless growth machine that insists on more, more, more.

Why is George Soros Selling Gold and Buying Farmland?

Food prices are skyrocketing all across the globe, and there's no end in sight. The UN says food inflation is currently at 30% a year, and the fast-eroding value of the dollar - due to runaway money printing at the Federal Reserve - is causing food prices to appear even higher. The cost to import foods from other nations could double in just the next two years -- and possibly every two years thereafter.

Investors around the globe are investing in "farmland in the U.S. and parts of Europe, Latin America and Africa as global food prices soar," reports Bloomberg magazine.

Demand for food is accelerating even as radical climate changes, a loss of fossil water supplies, and the failure of genetically engineered crops is actually reducing food yields around the globe.

Ceres Partners, which invests in farmland, has produced astonishing 16% annual returns since its launch in 2008. And this is during a depressed economy when most other industries are showing losses.

Why growing and storing your own food can be a goldmine: 1) Food supplies will become more scarce. 2) Food prices will double over the next 2-3 years, and then probably double again in another 2-3 years. 3) When food prices are 400% of today's levels, backyard farming or gardening pays off big in terms of real dollar savings.

Storing high-density superfoods is also a good investment.

When the author was living in Taiwan post WWII the government brought out a new Taiwan dollar. In 1949, the old Taiwan dollar was being exchanged for the New Taiwan dollar (NT$) so that if you had $40,000 if would now only be worth dollar. Cash was worthless and even gold wasn't considered very useful. The only thing that represented real wealth was food. If you had food, you could trade it for anything.

Who Killed Economic Growth? (and Why the Planet is Listening)

Too often in our national discourse growing the economy and the protecting the environment are presented as being somehow antithetical, as though we have to choose one or the other. But the truth is that they are symbiotic.

More important, both have hit a fundamental turning point, as this short animation by Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg makes clear.

Cost to Operate the F-35 Fighters Through 2065 Will Be More Than $1 Trillion

"The Pentagon has estimated that the cost to operate the F-35 fighters through 2065 will be more than $1 trillion." This tremendous amount of money equals: 33 million college educations, 21 million low income houses, 9,000 miles of high speed rail (including the trains), 200 comprehensive metropolitan, 1/14th of the current national debt.

Humanity Can and Must Do More with Less: UNEP Report

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) International Resource Panel warns that, by 2050, humanity could annually consume three times its current appetite in tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass unless the economic growth rate is "decoupled" from the rate of natural resource consumption.

With population growth, continuing high levels of consumption in the industrialized countries, and increased demand for material goods, particularly in China, India, Brazil and other quickly-emerging economies - total resource use grew eight-fold, from 6 billion tons in 1900 to 49 billion tons in 2000. It is now estimated at up to 59 billion tons.

An annual average of 16 tons of those resources per capita are consumed by citizens of developed countries, while in some developed countries the figure is up to 40 or more tons per person. By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year.

Three scenarios were given for 2050 and assuming a population of 9 billion in that year:

High: If per capita resource consumption in the industrialized countries remains stable, as it has for the past three decades, and the rest of the world continues the current trend to catch up, the annual total consumption will reach 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass, or 16 tons per capita, probably exceeding "all possible measures of available resources and assessments of limits to the capacity to absorb impacts." "Far beyond what is likely sustainable" when considering all given finite world resources.

Medium: Industrialized nations halve average per capita consumption to 8 tons and other countries rise to that level. The result: total world consumption of 70 billion tons in 2050, about 40% more annual resource extraction than in 2000. "This scenario presupposes substantial structural change amounting to a new pattern of industrial production and consumption that would be quite different from the traditional resource-intensive Western industrial model," the report says. Average emissions of carbon dioxide per capita would rise almost 50% to 1.6 tons per capita and global CO2 emissions would more than double.

Low: Industrialized nations reduce per capita consumption by two thirds and other nations remain at current rates, resulting in a global per capita consumption rate of 6 tons and total world consumption of about 50 billion tons, the same as in year 2000. Average CO2 per capita emissions would be reduced by roughly 40% to 0.75 tons/capita and global emissions would remain constant at their 2000 level.

This last scenario would be so restrictive, and so unappealing to politicians, that it "can hardly be addressed as a possible strategic goal," the authors admit. Yet, even such tough measures would maintain global consumption at levels many scientists still consider unsustainable.

The world is already starting to run out of some essential materials such as oil, copper and gold, the supplies of which, in turn, require ever-rising volumes of fossil fuels and freshwater to produce.

The goal requires an urgent rethink of the links between resource use and economic prosperity, in addition to a massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation, freezing per capita consumption in wealthy countries and helping developing nations follow a more sustainable path. Technologies that have helped humanity extract ever-greater quantities of natural resources need to be re-directed to more efficient ways of using them.

Urbanization may help, since cities allow for economies of scale and more efficient service provision. Densely populated places consume fewer resources per capita than sparsely populated ones thanks to economies in such areas as water delivery, housing, waste management and recycling, energy use and transportation, experts say.

Innovations in manufacturing, product design and energy use - aided by the rising number of people living more efficient lifestyles in cities have enabled the global economy to grow faster than resource consumption growth.

Achim Steiner, UNEP's Executive Director says "Decoupling is part of a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy needed in order to stimulate growth, generate decent kinds of employment and eradicate poverty in a way that keeps humanity's footprint within planetary boundaries."

"Next year's Rio+20 meeting represents an opportunity to accelerate and scale-up these 'green shoots' of a Green Economy, which are emerging across the developed and developing world."

Rapidly expanding international trade obscures responsibility for resource consumption and associated environmental impacts.

Between 1980 and 2002, the resources required per $1,000 (U.S.) of economic output fell from 2.1 to 1.6 tons. This drop is insufficient to meet the needs of an equitable and sustainable society," the report says.

Germany has plans to double both energy and resource productivity by 2020, meeting heating, electricity and other energy needs from renewable sources, and the target of a 30% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by that same year.

Japan is committed to low carbon, the reduction, reuse and recycling of materials, and harmony with nature. Japan's measures "are probably the most advanced examples (of) increasing resource productivity and minimizing negative environmental impacts in practice," the report states.

South Africa calls for "resource and impact decoupling" and greenhouse-gas emission cuts of 30% to 40% by 2050, but with a growing reliance on exports of coal and other minerals, its carbon intensity is the world's highest and emissions per person are double the global average.

China aims to achieve a 20% reduction of energy intensity and has run nationwide energy saving and pollution-reduction programs. A 40% to 45% reduction in carbon dioxide intensity is the goal by 2020.

"If investments in developing and developed countries are made today that lock humanity into a business-as-usual or moderately improved resource intensive growth path, the risks of running into ecological and supply constraints will worsen."

Challenges:

* Policymakers and the public aren't yet convinced of the absolute physical limits to resources that humans use.

* With the wide discrepancies in per person consumption, different levels of action are required. Poorer nations, likely the first to feel the impacts of resource shortages, must have a chance to improve conditions in the developed world. But if they emulate a profligate style of growth, they not only expose their economies to supply constraints, the planet's resource bank will go far deeper into the red.

* The best and most easily accessible mineral ores and fossil fuels are being exhausted. About three times more material needs to be moved for the same ore extraction as a century ago, with corresponding increases in land disruption, water impacts and energy use.

* Resource extraction increasingly occurs in countries with lower legal and environmental standards; environmental impacts may become more severe.

* As trade expands, it becomes more difficult to assign responsibility for resource consumption. Should it go to the country that extracts the resource or to the country that uses it?

* A "rebound" effect often leads to increased consumption after energy or manufactured goods become more efficient as consumers take advantage of cost savings to buy something else, or use a device more often - for example: putting more kilometres on a fuel-efficient car.

Reasons for optimism:

* Any country "ahead of the game" by investing in innovation "will clearly reap the benefits when pressures mount for others to change rapidly."

* Developing countries can leapfrog to less resource-intensive processes and goods, such as Africa bypassing hard-wired telephone services and moving directly to wireless.

* The rising cost of many resources creates an economic imperative to use less - although, at the same time, higher prices could allow exploitation of more expensive, environmentally hazardous sources such as oil from the high Arctic.

* Urbanization can reduce a population's consumption rate due to more efficient services and concentration of "the knowledge, financial, social and institutional resources required for sustainability oriented innovations." However, consumption numbers claimed for cities can be artificially low if energy and resources come from the surrounding countryside. Also, urban dwellers consume more as the economy grows.

* Even today, there is a vast difference in resource use rate across countries, even those with the same GDP per capita, indicating that it is possible for countries to be much more resource productive and still grow their economies.

Canada: A Conversation with David Suzuki on His 75th Birthday

Sir Nicholas Stern, a leading economist, says if we don't deal with climate change it's going to destroy the global economy. Our prime minister has never said this is an important issue affecting Canada and we've got to do something. The economic drive that is just trashing the planet.

Suzuki's parents were survivors of the depression and the lessons learned from them were simple: live within your means, save some for tomorrow, help your neighbour as you never know when you might need their help. Simple lessons. You need money to buy the necessities in life, but you don't run after money as if having more makes you a better or more important person. Now, we have over 500 billionaires. How can any human being be worth a billion dollars, and at a time when two billion people live on two dollars or less a day?

Suzuki's revlation came when he realized he was one human being, part of a much bigger movement, but you yourself are insignificant. We need to do things together with family, like getting out in nature.

Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods, he says we are now suffering from "Nature Deficit Disorder." Our children need to experience nature. "Nature calms us; nature heals us. We need to have nature. We're growing a group of kids now that spend the least amount of time outdoors than any generation in human history". If people don't love something, they're not going to protect it.

Suzuki, as a scientist and a biologist, can see that we are in a global eco crisis of unprecedented proportion. He got is education in the US and was appalled at the level of ignorance about science. The funding for scientists was abysmal and there was a "total lack of appreciation that science, by far, is the most powerful force shaping our lives and our society". "Science has transformed the way we live." And yet, "We are being hammered by the impact of science".

On the internet, if you want to believe global warming is crap you can find dozens of websites saying it's junk science, it's not happening. This is really "terrifying because a great number of the global warming skeptics are basically undermining the science." They're saying, "These scientists have their own agenda, 'climategate,' ... You can't trust science." And not only are people complacent, but they believe the unsubstantiated opinions that are not being challenged.

Corporations exist to make money, as fast as they can. They may do things that we need; but they do not exist to improve the quality of life for humanity. Now the corporate agenda has become the government agenda, because of the lobbying interests in the financing of candidacy. When almost half of Canadians don't even bother to vote, we don't have a democracy.

The economic system is fundamentally flawed and inevitably destructive. Nature and nature's services - cleansing, filtering water, creating the atmosphere, taking carbon out of the air, putting oxygen back in, preventing erosion, pollinating flowering plants - is ignored by the economist. Economists actually think that the economy can grow forever, even though we live in a finite biosphere. Nothing within a finite world can grow forever. Economists equate growth with the definition of progress and growth. But what's an economy for?

"The human body was made to move. We evolved out of nature. Long before people used horses or invented cars, people did it by sheer muscle power. The human body needs to work in order to stay healthy."

The environment is everybody's issue. It shouldn't be just the Greens' issue while we focus on the economy.

"I don't call myself an environmentalist. Hunger and poverty, those are my issues. A starving person who comes across an edible plant or animal is not going to worry about whether it's on an endangered species list. They're going to kill it and eat it. I would. So if you don't deal with hunger and poverty, forget about the environment."

In terms of the environment, we're back in 1940. We have to say, "Don't litter, pick up, recycle." We have to tell people what to do. When we understand in our "deepest roots that air, water, soil that gives us our food and plants that give us our energy are what we are. Those are what keep us alive and healthy. Then it won't matter whether you elect a right wing or a left wing government, because everybody knows that you don't mess around with our air, water and soil. That's what keeps us alive."

Instead we think it's OK to pollute the air a little more because we're in a recession and it costs more money to have pollution control, not realizing that "air, water and soil are the very source of life and biodiversity is what enables us to survive on this planet."

"As an elder, we're at the most important phase of our lives. We're no longer driven by a need for fame or money or power or sex." ... "Our job, our responsibility now, is to look back on a lifetime of experience, of thought, and to distill from that some lessons we can pass on." ... "There are no hidden agendas and we can tell the truth."

In 1944 a meeting of the allies was called to discuss what to do with the world in which so much devastation had taken place. "The drive was led by John Maynard Keynes, the prize-winning economist, and out of that meeting a number of steps were taken. Two countries that were absolutely devastated were Japan and Germany. They came back to become economic powers."

The problems with their plan was that they set up a concept of development based on the northern model of the industrialized countries and then tried to globalize it, and second, they left out nature, which needs to be part of our economy. We need to have an economy that doesn't grow. The economy is already far beyond the capacity of the biosphere to support it. We can't keep supporting it in this fashion.

"The industrialized countries have got to degrow their economies. We've got to shrink. We've been able to develop as economies because we've exploited the entire planet and the ecological footprint of a country like Canada is just massive, way beyond the land that we've got."

Deaths Per Tera Watt Hour (TWh) by Energy Source

Even though there was the recent disaster with the Japanese nuclear plants following the 8.9 earthquake, nuclear still compares very, very well to the other energy sources. The air pollution data is mainly from the World Health Organization and the European study Externe.

Coal, which supplies 26% of world energy and 50% of electricity has the highest death rate per unit of energy, with 161 deaths per Tera Watt hour (a unit of electrical energy equal to that done by one terawatt acting for one hour). China's coal is responsible for 278 deaths per TWh while U.S. coal is only 15. Most deaths are from coal particulates in the air and mining accidents.

Oil, which supplies 36% of world energy, is second, with 36 deaths per TWh; followed by Natural Gas (21% of the world's energy) at 4 deaths per TWh.

Biofuel and Peat each result in 12 deaths per TWh, followed by Solar, Wind, and Hydro, each with less than 3% of world energy and less than 2 deaths per TWh. Most solar deaths are due to falling off a roof.

Last is Nuclear, which supplies 5.9% of world energy and is responsible for 0.04 deaths per TWh.

Controlling all particulates from coal plants, oil plants, natural gas plants, certain industrial facilities and retrofitting better control technology on cars and trucks would save 800,000 to 1.2 million lives per year. The cost would be in the range of $300 billion to $1 trillion, which would be more than offset by improved health and lower medical costs.

Concerning solar power: Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business and director of the UC Energy Institute, calls for more state and federal money to be spent on research into better technology, rather than on subsidies for residential solar power systems. In his analysis, Borenstein found that a typical PV system costs between $86,000 and $91,000 to install, while the value of its power over its lifetime ranges from $19,000 to $51,000. Even assuming a 5% annual increase in electric costs and a 1% interest rate, the cost of a PV system is 80% greater than the value of the electricity it will produce. Even considering the value of greenhouse gas reductions, at current prices the PV technology still doesn't deliver.

U.S.: California Has 2 Million Kids in Poverty, Says Census Bureau

Over 2 million children live in poverty in California - more than any other state, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report. The rate rose from 19.9% to 22% In the U.S., the number of children living in poverty rose from 14.7 million in 2009 to 15.7 million in 2010 with the rate rising from 20% to 21.6%

Mississippi had the highest child poverty rate among the states at 32.5%, with District of Columbia following with 30.4%. Puerto Rico had 56.3%.

Families using food stamps or supplemental nutrition programs rose from 10.3% to 11.9% from from 2009 to 2010. California is below average, going from from 6.2% to 7.4% .

California's huge foreign-born population, some 10.2 million, tends to have a higher-than-average proportion of those who arrived in the state prior to 2005. Other studies have shown that the rate of immigration into California, both legal and illegal, has dropped sharply in recent years due to the state's moribund economy.

86.7% of California's foreign-born came here prior to 2005. States who have experienced recent inflows to satisfy their growing economies and therefore their growing needs for labor, were lower, with North Dakota's 66.9% the lowest.

While California has the nation's largest number of residents over 89 years old, it also has one of the lower percentages of over 89.

How the U.S. is Becoming a 3rd World Country - Part 1

The U.S. is experiencing high unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, low wages, widespread poverty, extreme concentration of wealth, unsustainable government debt, control of the government by international banks and multinational corporations, weak rule of law and counterproductive government policies -- all fundamental characteristics that define a 3rd world country.

While other factors such as public health, nutrition, and infrastructure rank the U.S. above 3rd world countries, they are below European standards, and will rapidly deteriorate in a declining economy.

The evidence suggests that, without fundamental reforms, the U.S. will become a post industrial neo-3rd-world country by 2032.

Offshoring of manufacturing, outsourcing of jobs and deindustrialization are aspects of globalization, shoving the U.S. labor market into a long-term downward trend. The U.S. workforce has declined by approximately 6.5% since its year 2000 peak to roughly 58.2% of working age adults and the U.S. now suffers chronic unemployment of 9.1%. Although the workforce grew in the 1980s and 1990s, as dual income families became the norm, the size of the workforce is shrinking due to a lack of economic opportunity.

Before the Clinton administration, unemployment measures included workers who are now no longer counted as part of the workforce. Thus, while the official long-term unemployment is 16.5%, using pre-Clinton measurements, unemployment exceeds 22%, only 3% below the worst point (24.9%) of the Great Depression, and not far from Armenia at 28.6%, Algeria at 27.3% and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip both at 25.7%. The highest unemployment for countries with over 2 million population is Macedonia with 33.8% unemployment.

Young Americans are being left behind in terms of economic opportunity. Student loans exceed $1 trillion while the labor force participation rate for those aged 16 to 29 who are working or looking for work fell to 48.8% in 2011, the lowest level ever recorded. The fact of millions of unemployed college graduates and lack of economic opportunity for other young Americans, is a political wildcard reminiscent of countries like Tunisia.

American workers cannot yet directly compete for jobs with workers in countries like China and India. In China, for example, gross pay, in terms of purchasing power parity, is equivalent to approximately $514 per month, 57% below the U.S. poverty line. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. trade deficit with China alone caused a loss of 2.8 million U.S. jobs since 2001.

The cost of living is rising faster than wages, leaving Americans who earn more dollars poorer in terms of purchasing power. If household income is adjusted for inflation, most American families have grown significantly poorer over the past ten years. While wages have risen slightly, when adjusted for inflation, the wages of most Americans have not kept up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Also, according to economist John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, CPI systematically understates inflation.

Prices rise when the money supply is increased faster than population or sustainable economic activity. Apparent economic growth created through credit expansion, i.e., by increasing the money supply, has a temporary stimulative effect but also causes prices to rise.

The decline in real household income has set Americans back to 1996 levels, despite many households now having two incomes rather than one. The poverty rate in the United States rose to 15.7% in 2011, having risen sharply since 2006 and continues to climb. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as "food stamps," now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children.

The household income and wealth of the wealthiest Americans has increased sharply, despite the overall deterioration of the U.S. economy.

Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned that concentration of wealth undermines the consumer base of the economy, causing GDP to decline and resulting in unemployment, which reduces living standards.

Economic data from several sources, including the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), show that wealth and income in the United States have become increasingly concentrated with the wealthiest 1% of Americans owning 38.2% of stock market assets, e.g., shares of businesses. For the wealthiest 1% of Americans, household income tripled between 1979 and 2007 and has continued to increase while household wealth in the United States has fallen by $7.7 trillion.

The Gini Coefficient, a measurement of disparity in income distribution, the United States is now at parity with China and will soon overtake Mexico, a still developing country. Even though the U.S. remains a far wealthier country overall, if the current trend continues the U.S. will resemble a 3rd world country, in terms of the disparity in income distribution, in approximately two decades, i.e., by 2032.

Don't Be Fooled by Tanking Commodities, Bullish Upside Remains

Barclays say "Fresh peaks still lie ahead" for commodity demand, noting that while it may be slowing down, demand is still coming off exceptionally high levels. Commodity demand is slowing, but not fast enough to ease pressures in the supply side, particularly in crude oil, grains, and some industrial metals like copper.

In crude oil, non-OPEC production has "ground to a halt", while cost floors have been approached (for example, Saudi Arabia needs the cost of a barrel of oil to sell at $90 to $100, according to Barclays). Copper production is set to be "one of the weakest ... since the mid-1990s." Corn and soybean harvest are also expected to come in at record lows.

Kids Discuss America's Global Leadership: a Strategic Investment for U.S. Jobs

U.S. Global Leadership Coalition's brand new video illustrates the direct connection between our investments in U.S. global leadership and job creation here at home . . . from a kids point of view.

U.S.: Why Washington Isn't Doing Squat About Jobs and Wages (Just When You Thought the Recession Was Ending)

Republicans don't want to do anything about jobs and wages because they want the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day and they want to prove that jobs will return if spending is cut and government shrinks.

Democrats don't want to admit the recovery has stalled or undermine consumer confidence or spook the bond market and they don't want to look bad before Election Day.

But there's a third reason for Washington's inaction is that the unemployed are politically invisible. They can't afford to make major campaign donations. They don't lobby Congress. And there is no National Association of Unemployed People.

Many of them are women who had been public employees, single mothers, minorities, young people trying to enter the labor force, and middle-aged men who have been out of work for longer than six months. They have little political clout.

State and local governments are continuing to slash jobs of teachers, public health professionals and social workers. Almost 40% of the nation's public sector job losses last year were in public schools. And in the year ending March 2011, women lost nearly double the public sector jobs than men lost.

Unmarried mothers whose jobs were heavily concentrated in the retail, restaurant and hotel sectors are having a particularly difficult time because their jobs disappeared when consumers reduced their discretionary spending.

The recession eliminated over half the jobs single mothers in California had gained from 1992 to 2002, notes a report by the California Budget Project. Unmarried mothers who still have jobs are working fewer weekly hours.

Blacks unemployment rate in California reached 20% in March, up 5% from a year ago, over double their rate before the downturn.

Unemployment among high school dropouts is around 30%. Many recent college graduates are settling for jobs that don't ordinarily require college degrees, which pushes those with less education even further back in the line.

Older workers who have lost their jobs are at the greatest risk. Those who are jobless and in their 50s have only a 24% chance of landing another job within the year. Over 62, you've got only an 18% chance, according to the Urban Institute.

These jobless people lack the political connections and organizations to get the ears of politicians, and demand policies to spur job growth.

This Time We're Taking the Whole Planet with Us

By Chris Hedges

The engine of global economic expansion is based on the assurance that there will always be plentiful and cheap oil.

The elites of the world make no pretense of defending the common good. 90% of the large fish in the oceans have been obliterated and half of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet, have been wiped out. By 2030 only 10% of the Earth's tropical forests will remain. Contaminated water kills 25,000 people every day around the globe, and each year some 20 million children are impaired by malnourishment. Soon huge parts of the planet, beset with overpopulation, droughts, soil erosion, freak storms, massive crop failures and rising sea levels, will be unfit for human existence.

On Easter Island the inhabitants, when they first settled the 64-square-mile island during the fifth century, found abundant fresh water and woods filled with the Chilean wine palm, a tree that can reach the size of an oak. Seafood, including fish, seals, porpoises and turtles, and nesting seabirds were plentiful. Easter Island's population, within five or six centuries, swelled to some 10,000 people. The natural resources were devoured and began to disappear.

"Forest clearance for the growing of crops would have led to population increase, but also to soil erosion and decline of soil fertility," Paul Bahn and John Flenley write in "Easter Island, Earth Island." “Progressively more land would have had to be cleared." In the end, nothing but the statues were left.

As food and water shortages expand across the globe, as mounting poverty and misery trigger street protests in the Middle East, Africa and Europe, the elites launch more wars, plunge their nations deeper into debt, and as it all unravels they take it out on the backs of workers and the poor. The collapse of the global economy, which wiped out a staggering $40 trillion in wealth, was caused when our elites, after destroying our manufacturing base, sold massive quantities of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities to pension funds, small investors, banks, universities, state and foreign governments and shareholders. To cover the losses, the elites then looted the public treasury to begin the speculation over again.

The modern belief by evangelical Christians allows for the denial of global warming and of evolution and the absurd idea that the righteous will all be saved and go to heaven. The faith that science and technology, which are morally neutral and serve human ambitions, will make the world whole again is no less delusional. Magical thinking exists in secular as well as religious form.

We think we have somehow escaped from the foibles of the past. We are certain that we are wiser and greater than those who went before us. We in the United States, only 5% of the world's population, are outraged if anyone tries to tell us we don't have a divine right to levels of consumption that squander 25% of the world's energy. President Jimmy Carter, when he suggested that such consumption was probably not beneficial, became a figure of national ridicule.

Bahn and Flenley said: "We consider that Easter Island was a microcosm which provides a model for the whole planet. Like the Earth, Easter Island was an isolated system. The people there believed that they were the only survivors on Earth, all other land having sunk beneath the sea. They carried out for us the experiment of permitting unrestricted population growth, profligate use of resources, destruction of the environment and boundless confidence in their religion to take care of the future. The result was an ecological disaster leading to a population crash. ... Do we have to repeat the experiment on this grand scale?"

The greater the extent of the deterioration the less humans are able to comprehend what is happening around them. There is nothing left on the planet to seize. We are now spending down the last remnants of our natural capital, including our forests, fossil fuel, air and water.

This time when we go down it will be global. There are no new lands to pillage, no new peoples to exploit. Technology, which has obliterated the constraints of time and space, has turned our global village into a global death trap.

The World's Largest Bond Fund Dumped All of Its U.S. Government Debt - The Devaluing of the Dollar

PIMCO Total Return is the world's largest bond fund. It has dumped all of its U.S. government-related debt in the biggest signal yet of how negative investors have become about the U.S. Treasury market.

The move followed in the wake of a vicious Treasury market sell-off and just days after he questioned who will buy Treasuries once the Federal Reserve halts its latest round of bond purchases in June.

Bond prices have come under severe selling pressure because of a strengthening U.S. economy and as investors brace for what could happen when the U.S. central bank ends its controversial quantitative easing program.

PIMCO's co-chief investment officer has often railed against U.S. deficit spending and its inflationary impact. He has advocated buying bonds with "safe," higher yields -- such as emerging-market bonds -- that can withstand possible erosion of returns by inflation.

Science Magazine Explores the Tragedy of the Commons

Picture a pasture open to all. Each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible. This may work satisfactorily while tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of man and beast below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally social stability becomes a reality and the herdsman concludes he should add more animals to his herd together with all the other herdsmen. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit in a world that is limited and this brings ruin to all. Cattlemen on the western ranges are asking to increase the head count to the point where overgrazing produces erosion and weed-dominance. Maritime nations bring species after species of fish and whales closer to extinction. As the human population has increased, we abandoned the commons in food gathering, enclosing farm land and restricting pastures and hunting and fishing areas.

The rational man finds his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges is less than the cost of purifying them. So we are locked into a system of fouling our nest. But the air and waters cannot be fenced, and so the cesspool must be prevented by laws or taxing that make it cheaper to treat pollutants than to discharge them untreated.

The pollution problem is a consequence of population. It did not matter how a frontiersman disposed of his waste. But as population became denser, the natural recycling processes became overloaded. A hundred and fifty years ago a plainsman could kill a bison, cut out the tongue for dinner and discard the remainder. Today, with only a few thousand bison left, we would be appalled. It is impossible to spell out the conditions under which it is safe to burn trash or run an automobile without smog-control, so by law we delegate the details to bureaus. Bureau administrators are liable to corruption, producing a government by men, not laws.

Restrictions on the disposal of sewage are accepted in the Western world, but we are still struggling to eliminate the pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations.

In a finite world the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease and it is clear that this will increase human misery. Any organism must have a source of energy and for man, maintenance of life requires about 1600 kilocalories a day. Anything he does above staying alive will be supported by work calories. If our goal is to maximize population we must make work calories approach as close to zero as possible. No gourmet meals, no vacations, no sports, no music, no literature, no art. The acquisition of energy becomes a problem with large populations.

Population growth must eventually equal zero. Most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to avoid overpopulation without giving up any of their privileges. They feel that any decision about family size must rest with the family. A taboo inhibits criticism of the UN; however if we love truth we must deny the validity of their Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself; we must get Planned Parenthood-World Population to see the error of its ways in embracing the same ideal. A positive growth rate might indicate that a population is below its optimum. However, the most rapidly growing populations on earth are the most miserable.

In a world governed by the principle of "dog eat dog" how many children a family had would not be a matter of public concern. Parents who bred too exuberantly would leave fewer descendants because they would be unable to care for their children. If each family were dependent on its own resources there would be no interest in controlling breeding. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will respond more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more consciences. "If you don't do as we ask, we will condemn you for not acting like a responsible citizen" but "If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the resources. Freely available resources (commons) are justifiable only under conditions of low-population density. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. The only way we can preserve and nurture other freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. rw

Tragedy of the Commons

By Richard Grossman - First published in the Durango Herald

"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation…." Great Law of the Iroquois

"They know that they shouldn't fish closer than 500 meters from the coast, but I've seen these boats with their nets out just 200 or 300 meters offshore. The officials don't enforce the laws."

We were visiting the Greek island of Mykonos while on tour with the Durango Choral Society. We walked along the harbor with our guide, David, admiring the many small fishing boats. He explained facets of the failing Greek economy as well as the ancient and modern sites on this beautiful island. The Aegean Sea around Mykonos was so overfished, David said, that there were few fish left to catch.

We found proof that David was correct when we sat down to eat. Restaurants, even those overlooking the beautiful blue Aegean, had menus that listed few seafood dishes. Any seafood was prohibitively expensive since it had been caught in distant seas.

The situation that we encountered in Greece is a good illustration of the "tragedy of the commons". That tragedy can occur when a limited resource is open to uncontrolled use by many people. Any one user may think he can benefit from taking as much of the resource as possible. This behavior is rational only in the narrow sense of self-interest. Regrettably, unbridled use of a resource is likely to lead to its depletion.

The term "commons" referred to pastureland that was available for everyone to graze his sheep in old England. Now it includes many different vital resources such as the air we breathe, the water we drink and the fish in the Aegean.

Most of us learned to share in kindergarten. Unfortunately, some adults never mastered that lesson or have forgotten it. When there are many people using the same resource, any person who takes more than his share may deprive others of their fair share. Even worse, selfish people can deplete the resource, so eventually no one benefits from it.

In the case of fishing off Mykonos, there had been plenty of seafood for centuries. In the past the boats and fishing techniques only allowed small, sustainable catches, so the small proportion of sea life that ended up in nets was quickly replaced. Now, with more fishermen and more effective fishing techniques and many more mouths to feed, the fish supply has been exhausted. The Greek government has tried to prevent depletion by having a "no fish" zone, with poor results. People don't seem to pay attention to the law, or the reason that it is needed.

Human population growth is one factor leading to the tragedy of the commons: more people using the same resource means less for all.

Ironically, some of the pollutants we have unintentionally added to drinking water may serve as a feedback mechanism to slow human population growth. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that have unintended hormonal effects. They are found in much of our country's drinking water. Some come from insecticides and other agricultural chemicals. Many plastics contain BPA, which has undesirable effects. Another source is the waste of women taking hormones. These chemicals have been shown to produce fish and other animals with sexual aberrations. It is possible that endocrine disruptors will lead to decreased human fertility.

The amount of fresh water on the planet is limited and, in some cases, is very slow to be replenished. The Ogallala aquifer is an example of a resource that is being used in an unsustainable manner. Much of the food grown in our country's midwestern breadbasket depends on water from this aquifer. Tragically, there are some places in eastern Colorado (and in other states) that rely on the Ogallala where the water table has dropped 40 feet in just 15 years!

As our human population has grown, the apparent size of the commons has shrunk. Although the first few wells in the Ogallala made little difference to the water table, now we seem to be sucking it dry. Dumping waste into a river or the atmosphere made little difference with few people and fewer factories, but these resources have become toxic in our populous, industrialized nation. We are learning the problems that can be caused by abusing the commons. The people who will suffer the most may be those who come after us, the "seventh generation" in the Iroquois law. Unless we think and plan ahead, our progeny will not have the use of many of the resources that we have enjoyed.

Adjusting the Economy to the New Energy Realities of the Second Half of the Age of Oil

There are numerous theories that try to explain historical business cycles, in order to understand the causes of and solutions to recessions. so that we can accelerate a return to rapid growth during slow or non-growth times. They include ideas based on: Keynesian Theory, the Monetarist Model, the Rational Expectations Model, Real Business Cycle Models, Neo-Keynesian models, and so on. All assume there will be a return to a growing economy. GDP, incomes, and most other measures of economic growth have in fact grown steadily over the past century.

But with peak oil we may be asked to grow the economy while simultaneously decreasing oil consumption. Historically, spikes in the price of oil have been the primary cause of most recessions. Expansionary periods tend to be associated with prolonged periods of relatively low oil prices that increase aggregate demand and lower marginal production costs, all leading to, or at least associated with, economic growth.

For the economy to sustain real growth over time there must be an increase in the flow of net energy (and materi- als) through the economy. Economic production requires energy.

To produce goods and services, energy must be used, and to grow the economy, we must either increase the energy supply or increase the efficiency with which we use our source energy. This is called the energy-based theory of economic growth, which was advanced significantly by the work of Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen, amongst many others .

Research of the data shows that the consumption of every major energy source has increased with GDP since the mid-1800s at nearly the rate that the economy has expanded. Throughout this growth period, however, there have been numerous oscillations between periods of growth and recessions. A common mechanism underlies each recession: oil consumption increases and oil prices are lower during periods of economic expansion while oil consumption decreases and oil prices are higher during recessions.

Statistical analysis supported the hypothesis that energy consumption causes economic growth, and found that about 50% of the changes in economic growth over the past 40 years are explained, at least in the statistical sense, by the changes in oil consumption.

Yet changes in oil consumption are rarely used by neoclassical economists as a means of explaining economic growth. For example, Knoop (2010) describes the 1973 recession in terms of high oil prices, high unemployment and inflation, yet omits mentioning that oil consumption declined 4% during the first year and 2% during the second year.

Economic growth requires lower oil prices and simultaneously an increasing oil supply. The inflation-adjusted price of oil averaged across all expansionary years from 1970 to 2008 was $37 per barrel compared to $58 per barrel averaged across recessionary years, whereas oil consumption grew by 2% on average per year during expansionary years compared to decreasing by 3% per year during recessionary years

When energy prices increase, expenditures are re-allocated from areas that had previously added to GDP, mainly discretionary consumption, diverting money from the economy towards energy only. The data show that recessions occur when petroleum expenditures as a percent of GDP climb above a threshold of roughly 5.5%..

Each time the U.S. economy emerged from a recession over the past 40 years, there was always an increase in the use of oil while a low oil price was maintained. However oil is a finite resource.

The energy return on (energy) invested (EROI) of global oil production has been decreasing. Global oil extraction declined from about 36:1 in the 1990s to18:1 in 2006. Increasingly supplies of oil are originating from sources that are inherently more energy-intensive to produce simply because cheaper resources were extracted before expensive ones. In the early 1990s fewer than 10% of oil discoveries were located in deep water areas. By 2005 the number jumped to greater than 50%. Also, enhanced oil recovery techniques are being used more frequently in the world's largest conventional oil fields. Nitrogen injection was initiated in the once super-giant Cantarell field in Mexico in 2000, which boosted production for four years, but since 2004 production from the field has declined precipitously. Enhanced oil recovery techniques require significantly larger energy inputs to production, offsetting much of the energy gain for society.

In theory, if the price of oil is below the cost of production, then most producers will cease operation. In the areas in which we are currently discovering oil, we can calculate a theoretical floor price below which an increase in oil supply is unlikely.

About 60% of the oil discoveries in 2005 were in deepwater locations. The cost of developing that oil is between $60 and $85 per barrel. Oil prices therefore, at a minimum, must exceed roughly $60 per barrel to support the development of even the best deep water resources. But the average price of oil during recessionary periods has been $57/bbl, so it seems that increasing oil production in the future will require oil prices that are associated with recessionary periods. In other words, growing the economy will require oil prices that will discourage that very growth. Indeed, it may be difficult to produce the remaining oil resources at prices the economy can afford, and, as a consequence, the economic growth witnessed by the U.S. and globe over the past 40 years may be a thing of the past.

Conclusions: (1) Over the past 40 years, economic growth has required increasing oil consumption. (2) The supply of high EROI oil cannot increase much beyond current levels for a prolonged period of time. (3) The average global EROI of oil production will almost certainly continue to decline as we search for new sources of oil in the only places we have left: deep water, arctic and other hostile environments. (4) Increasing oil supply in the future will require a higher oil price because mostly only low EROI, high cost resources remain to be discovered or exploited, but these higher costs are likely to cause economic contraction. (5) Using oil-based economic growth as a solution to recessions is untenable in the long-term, as both the gross and net supplies of oil has or will begin, at some point, an irreversible decline.

Economic feedback system for post-peak oil: (1) economic growth increases oil demand, (2) higher oil demand increases oil production from lower EROI resources, (3) increasing extraction costs leads to higher oil prices, (4) higher oil prices stall economic growth or cause economic contractions, (5) economic contraction leads to lower oil demand, and (6) lower oil demand leads to lower oil prices which spur another short bout of economic growth until this cycle repeats itself. This system of insidious feedbacks is aptly described as a growth paradox: maintaining business as usual economic growth will require the production of new sources of oil, yet the only sources of oil remaining require high oil prices, thus hampering economic growth.

This growth paradox leads to a highly volatile economy that oscillates frequently between expansion and contraction periods, and as a result, there may be numerous peaks in oil production. Campbell (2009) has referred to this as an undulating plateau. In terms of business cycles, the main difference between the pre- and peak era models is that business cycles appear as oscillations around an increasing trend in the pre-peak model while during the peak-era model they appear as oscillations around a flat trend.

What if economic growth was no longer the goal? What if society began to emphasize energy conservation over energy consumption? Unlike oil supply, oil demand is not governed by depletion, and incentivizing populations to make incremental changes that decrease oil consumption can completely alter the relation between oil and the economy that was described in the aforementioned model. Decreasing oil consumption in the U.S. by even 10% would release millions of barrels of oil onto the global oil markets each day.

U.S.: Secular Sign Posts: the View From 30,000 Feet

The core demographic for consumption is the age group entering their prime in terms of income. The distribution of consumer spending reflects a bell-shaped curve in which the middle-aged demographic represents the largest income brackets. As a rise in the rate of change in consumer spending increases with the higher earning income's relative population, so too does the stock market which reflects a rise in GDP. Japan's post WWII baby boom crested in 1990, and Japan's Nikkei 225 index peaked. Since the baby boom in 1990, Japan has suffered from a rising retiree population and a deceleration of consumption spending as the higher income earners retired and the lower income earners grew in relative numbers. The bottom of the Nikkei 225 also coincided with the trough in the relative population ratio of the 35-49 year old to 20-34 year old groups.

This ratio between the higher wage earner and spender (35-49) relative to the lower wage earner and spender (20-34) relating to aggregate consumption and stock prices has also played out in the U.S. . Peaks in the relative population demographic coinciding with peaks in real stock prices (S&P 500). Rising real stock prices are associated with rising relative population ratios of the higher wage earner relative to the lower wage earner.

While there is a positive relationship between productivity and relative population demographics, there is a negative relationship between productivity and inflation. We can infer that there is a negative relationship between inflation trends and relative demographic trends with productivity trends providing the associating link. We can look at what the future may hold. The relative demographic ratio peaked in 2000 and was coincident with the real S&P 500 peak, and does not bottom until 2015. The conclusion is that the secular bear market we entered back in 2000 will not likely end until roughly 2015, and the secular inflationary trend that began in 2003 will be in place until 2015 as well. rw

Jakarta Says to Sue If Freeport Snubs Complaints

Indonesia will sue U.S. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold if it fails to follow recommendations to stop pollution from its Papua operations. Critics say the mine creates environmental damage by polluting streams and killing wildlife. The report said tailings, had flowed through the nearby Ajkwa river and recommended the firm better manage its tailings, for example by using them for building construction. The firm might have up to three years to follow the recommendations. Freeport said it had implemented some of the recommendations and would follow through on the rest. The Grasberg mine is believed to hold the world's third-largest copper reserves and one of the biggest gold deposits. Indonesia needs foreign investment to speed up the recovery of an economy that verged on collapse in late 1990s. "If they look at it in a reasonable way they will know that it is for the long run," said a key member of President Yudhoyono's campaign team. He also said that haze from Indonesian forest fires could cloud skies again this year. That is bad news for neighbours Malaysia and Singapore where the smoke has caused health problems and shut down airports, close schools, and businesses. The haze, much of it caused by slash-and-burn at palm oil plantations, tends to be an annual problem but its intensity varies with the severity of the dry season. The problem has persisted and interest in resolving the issue tends to fade when rain comes. The government has been trying to litigate against plantation firms, many owned by Malaysians, whose practices cause haze, but could do nothing if courts fail to severely punish them. The government plans to open palm oil plantations near the Indonesian border on Borneo island. They will start by making use of the areas ready for planting and strongly oppose cutting down forest for the replanting of palm oil plantations. rw

U.S.: Court Clears Way for Suit on Energy Projects Abroad

A federal judge has given a green light to a lawsuit filed by cities and environmental groups that contend the U.S. government's quest for oil abroad will promote climate change across the globe. The suit, filed by the California cities of Oakland, Santa Monica and Arcata, as well as Boulder, Colo., and the environmental groups Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, seeks to halt energy projects being developed on five continents until assessments are conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act. Named as defendants are officers of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of the US that provide insurance and loan guarantees. The suit contends they have approved more than $32 billion in foreign fossil fuel projects in the past decade to assure supplies for the US. Judge Jeffrey White denied the government's request for summary judgment. White said those suing had provided evidence of a threat to their interests that might be averted if the studies were performed. A lawyer for the US said no decision had been made regarding an appeal. The suit was based on declarations concerning greenhouse gas emissions and quoted a declaration by consultant Richard Heede, who said projects like these have been responsible for 1,911 million tons of carbon dioxide and methane emissions a year. He said 162 such projects were funded in the past 20 years such as in Mexico, China and India. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said the government's conduct "injures the citizens of Oakland and every person in this country." rw

Out of the Dark In Rural China - Electricity Transforming Village Life

In this ethnically Tibetan village in China's southwest, villagers haul water from the river for cooking, washing and drinking and walk a day down a dirt trail to get to the nearest market town. Yet a hydro generator the size of a coffee can, installed last year, kicks to life. Single bulbs cast light through the five houses. In one home, villagers stare transfixed at a TV drama beamed by satellite from Beijing. As China seeks energy for industrial expansion, here in Yunnan province, villages are being wired with electricity. Television penetrates the remote corners of the country, giving people an inkling of the world. Isolated farmers are seeing how quickly their country is developing and how little wealth reaches them. 98% of households now have electricity, yet there are millions of people without. The government reckons China has potentially hydropower capacity of 87 million kilowatts. The Three Gorges Dam accounts for much of the plans. But dams have displaced millions of people and raised environmental concerns. The Ministry is now pressing to subsidize small-scale hydro projects. Deforestation in these areas of the Yangtze is blamed for the floods and villagers dependent on firewood must find other sources. Gonjo a village of 200 people, is connected by a highway paved in 2002. Wheat and cornfields encircle the houses, but many residents supplement incomes as truck drivers, hauling from towns to the south for upriver villages. Gonjo has had electricity for 15 years and runs refrigerators, electric stoves, televisions, water filters and washing machines. Plumbing has yet to arrive. Three hours' walk upriver five families occupy mud houses beneath a Buddhist stupa. They tend to the grain fields or orange groves, harvesting fruit they sell in towns, carrying it on their backsto Gonjo. Most families live on less than $1,000 per year. Firewood is stacked up outside every house, but a satellite dish looks over the river. The electrical system installed seven years ago has brought TV news from Kunming and Beijing. One family put their savings into the purchase of a washing machine and a refrigerator where they can keep their vegetables and fresh meat. Two years ago, they installed a plumbing system to bring water up from the river. Farther upriver, electricity did not arrive until last December. The five families each paid $10 to buy the tiny generator that operates from 8 p.m.-to-midnight. Villagers used to spend three days a month harvesting pine branches they used as torches. Now, they have more time for farming, gathering the mushrooms they sell, giving them more cash to buy goods such as the tape player, the television and the DVD player. The township government supplied a satellite dish. Electricity has also heightened awareness of how poor this area is. The television images of Shanghainese riding around in cars and buying designer clothes in steel and glass malls makes them frustrated. A day's walk upriver, the village of Bala had electricity arrive last June. It runs between 7:30 and 10:30pm. The township government donated the diesel generator but keeping it running is the responsibility of the locals. Twice a year, each of the nine families must trudge down the road to buy diesel fuel and bring it home on the back of a donkey. Each household contributes about $4 per month. If they had more electricity, they could use an electric stove, tape players, a rice cooker, a washing machine. Household income here is around $300 per year. The teacher at the school sees the television as a force of economic ascendance. He is one of the only people who can speak Mandarin Chinese, most speak only a unique dialect. His students sit nightly in front of the television, absorbing entertainment in Mandarin. It helps them understand life outside the village. rw

How the U.S. is Becoming a 3rd World Country - Part 2

The United States is quickly coming to resemble a post industrial neo-3rd-world country, likely by 2032.

High unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, low wages, widespread poverty, extreme concentration of wealth, unsustainable government debt, control of the government by international banks and multinational corporations, weak rule of law and counterproductive policies are defining characteristics of 3rd world countries. Other factors include poor public health, nutrition and education, as well as lack of infrastructure—factors that deteriorate rapidly in a failing economy.

In response to the economic downturn that began in 2007 and the start of the financial crisis in 2008, the U.S. federal government and the Federal Reserve resorted to a radically inflationary policy intended to save banks and to shepherd the U.S. economy through a recession. Instead, radically inflationary policies greatly increased the concentration of wealth.

Under ordinary circumstances, monetary inflation has the effect of redistributing wealth in favor of those recipients who receive newly created money first because they can spend it before it loses value. In a declining economy, however, the wealth redistribution effects of inflation are magnified.

When the Federal Reserve or the federal government supports banks and financial markets through liquidity injections, bailouts, asset purchases, quantitative easing, etc., the lion's share of financial support, i.e., newly created money, is captured by the largest financial institutions and by the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Money printing skews the distribution of money over the economy while the value of money, i.e., the purchasing power of wages and savings, is reduced.

U.S. government debt and deficit spending have markedly accelerated over the past decade. For example, The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created and the U.S. military grew to 3 million active duty and reserve personnel, not including contractors. Since 2001, the U.S. spent approximately $1 trillion on military expansion while the total cost of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been estimated to exceed $3.7 trillion.

As of 2012, the majority of new federal government debt will stem from interest on existing debt. Treasury bond issues totaled $2.55 trillion in 2010, roughly 2x the federal budget deficit of $1.3 trillion.

The U.S. federal government's fast growing debt is $14.94 trillion, approximately 100% of GDP. Additionally, future liabilities total $66.6 trillion, including Medicare at $24.8 trillion, Social Security at $21.4 trillion, and Federal debt at $10.2 trillion.

The eventual insolvency of the U.S. federal government cannot be averted through any combination of taxes, budget cuts or realistic GDP growth. Increasing deficit spending by the federal government and debt monetization by the Federal Reserve, would devalue the U.S. dollar and potentially trigger a hyperinflationary collapse of the currency. To stave off the inevitable, interim measures might include tax increases, exchange controls, nationalization of pension funds or other measures similar to those taken in 3rd world countries.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), explained that the finance industry had effectively captured the U.S. government, a state of affairs typical of 3rd world countries.

Corruption, cronyism and weak rule of law are typical of 3rd world countries. The United States exhibits a clear corporate influence over elections and legislation and, arguably, relatively little law enforcement action where large, legally well-equipped corporations are concerned.

Critics have alleged that, underlying the sub-prime mortgage meltdown that triggered the financial crisis in 2008 was rampant fraud. Despite an avalanche of alleged crimes under existing federal law, no firm or individual of any significance in the financial crisis has yet been prosecuted.

More than any other aspect of America's progression towards 3rd world status, the federal government's low level of law enforcement action where "too big to fail" banks are concerned is perhaps the most insidious because it raises questions of legitimacy and of the social contract. A financial and legal system of moral hazard implies that victims face double jeopardy while they are deprived of legal recourse, i.e., those allegedly defrauded might face inflation and tax burdens stemming from preferential treatment of favored corporations or from further bailouts.

According to the Tax Policy center at the Urban Institute, Brookings Institution, 46% of American households will pay no federal income tax in 2011. The reasons include income tax exemptions for subsistence level income, dependents and nontaxable tax expenditures for senior citizens and low-income working families with children.

Assuming that big banks, multinational corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans remain off limits in terms of tax policy, the range of income taxed is likely to fall on what remains of the once much larger middle class: professionals, small business owners and dual income families in urban areas, etc. These are the households that have managed to stay ahead of inflation, declining real wages and falling household incomes.

Among other things, U.S. tax policies will erode capital formation within the remnants of the middle class, which is the engine of small business creation and the source of most American jobs. The eventual result will be a three-tier socioeconomic structure consisting of a super rich wealthy class, a much poorer working class and a massive, politically and financially disenfranchised underclass, similar to that of a 3rd world country.

Global: A 20-Rule Manifesto for New No-Growth Economics

By Paul B. Farrell Classical economics is a fraud which sabotages investors and will destroy America.The cards are stacked in favor of the banks and their co-conspirators, political lobbyists, corporate CEOs and the Super Rich.

All classical economic ideas derive from one central idea, an unproven hypothesis - from Ben Bernanke's Fed staff, economists in the World Bank, IMF, CBO and White House economic advisers, to economists at Wall Street banks, think tank and academic economists - is the unquestioned acceptance of the dogma of "Eternal Growth," the unscientific assumption that the global economy will continue growing indefinitely … that the world's economies will be able support global population growth indefinitely … and that all necessary commodities and essential natural resources will be available indefinitely to sustain the world's relentless economic and demographic growth.

That's impossible, absurd, irrational, proving the need for a New No-Growth Economics. After the 2008 meltdown it became painfully obvious that America's 15,000 economists were clueless (as were more than 50,000 portfolio managers and all government leaders in both parties). Less than 0.01% of America's best and brightest economic leaders and economists predicted the 2008 meltdown that essentially bankrupted America. Since 2008 leaders and economists have done nothing to protect us against a new crash. Quite the opposite: The same banks and their economists are working feverishly with lobbyists, politicians and the Super Rich to kill all reforms.

Even with another market meltdown, taxpayers may still get duped into bailing out the banks again. Eventually, however, they will wise up.

New No-Growth Economics are essential to our survival. Here's how the 20 rules will work:

1. Basic supply/demand equation flawed. We're "eating our young." Earth's resources can support about five billion people. We already have 7 billion. And maybe 10 billion by 2050. Demand (population growth) is rapidly outstripping supply (commodity/resources). This leads to disastrous world wars, starvation, poverty, pandemics, and more.

2. Worst-case scenario: Population explodes to 10 billion if we do nothing. We continue using and wasting commodities and nonrenewable resources at a rate equivalent to six Earths. Multiple catastrophic events, kill economics, trigger a global wake-up call

3. Next worst-case scenario: Population not reduced back to 5 billion. Earth has too many people. Like having huge debt. Disasters will soon end denial.

4. Population control is an economic necessity, the last taboo falls. Soon, this massive "conspiracy of denial" will be shocked awake by economic, political and military catastrophes that threaten the planet and human existence.

5. Mass denial ends in aftermath of global catastrophes. We don't know what will shock the world, finally bankrupt America and wake us up. But we do know that it's dead ahead.

6. Revolution topples dominance of Super Rich capitalists. There is a widening income gap between the Super Rich and the other 99% of Americans. This is undermining America's future and will erupt in increasing class warfare similar to the Arab Spring revolutions fueled by unemployed youth angered by their inequality.

7. Once powerful banks are forced to balance public welfare ahead of shareholders.

8. Commodities and natural-resources pricing will be set by negotiators and international agreements.

9. New regulations reign in quants and hi-risk derivatives traders; This casino gambling no longer serves the common good and will gradually disappear.

10. Fed monetary policy no longer dominated by Wall Street banks and will balance more Main Street and global needs.

11. Behavioral economics and behavioral finance get new careers

12. Oil and carbon-based energy epiphany, invest in alternatives

13. Self-destructive no-compromise political gridlock ends; cooperation is essential to global survival.

14. GOP returns to principles of Lincoln, tea party disappears; no rigid minority can hijack the public good.

15. Inequality gap drops when the Super Rich wises up to the reality that their blind addiction to money is causing the destruction of the planet.

16. Lobbyists will no longer run Washington as a private anarchy

17. American imperialism ends; Half our tax dollars go to wars: Unnecessary in the post-catastrophe economy.

18. The rise of a powerful, new democratic United Nations; international cooperation will be more essential than ever.

19. End of climate-deniers, after the ticking time-bomb explodes

20. Beginning of New Global Era … the New No-Growth Economy

The long-term survival of all nations and peoples on Earth depends on interaction across the globe; therefore we must cooperate and live in peace.

U.S.: The Cost of Raising a Child Has Risen 40% Over the Past Decade

Providing a child with the basics has become more than most parents can afford.

The cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 for a middle-income, two-parent family averaged $226,920 last year (not including college), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was only $60,000 10 years ago. Just one year of spending on a child can cost up to $13,830. From buying groceries to paying for gas, every major expense associated with raising a child has climbed significantly.

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute says "Many parents are working longer hours, or another job, and they are giving up time at home. It's a complete catch-22."

Food prices, in particular, have weighed on parents' budgets as rising demand for commodities like corn and wheat, along with other factors such as rising oil prices, drought and floods, have made even a box of cereal pricey.

Another increase has been in gas prices. Between 2000 and 2010, consumers paid an average of 85% more per gallon at the pump, according to AAA.

Employers have scaled back or even did away with medical coverage in recent years, while at the same time, costs for doctors visits, medications and other health services also climbed - for families with children rising 58% over the decade, said Mark Lino, a senior economist at the USDA.

Incomes are shrinking and unemployment is near an all-time high. Over the past decade, median household income has fallen 7%, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau.

In addition a large part of the paycheck must go for child care. In 2010, the cost of putting two children in child care exceeded the median annual rent payments in every single state, according to a recent report by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, or NACCRRA.

Also see: The anti-baby boom: Why the U.S. birth rate keeps falling - http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/11/pf/recession_birth_rate/index.htm?iid=EL Go to this link to see a great chart of birth rates from 1910 to present, linked to various economic downturns.

Demographics Putting a Squeeze on the Debt Dilemma

Editor's note: the first part of this article gives a valid reason for the 'Debt Dilemma'. But the second half is seriously flawed

The West is getting old. There has begun a generational war and a democratic squeeze which will likely worsen in coming decades.

As life expectancy increases and fertility declines, the population pyramid is being inverted - and in some countries that is causing the entire economy to topple. In Greece and Spain state pension commitments have become so heavy they are suffocating the economy and depriving the seniors' grandchildren of any chance of a job. In the United States programs for the elderly constitute about $1.6-trillion (U.S.) of the $3.3-trillion total non-interest government spending in 2010. That figure will swell as baby boomers retire.

Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt says:, "costs associated with population aging are estimated to account for about half the public-debt runup of the OECD economies over the past 20 years."

The threat of sovereign default of the international debt is a big danger, especially since "old folks may be less willing to repay sovereign debt," says Ali Alichi, an economist at the International Monetary Fund .. "As the number of older voters relative to younger ones increases around the globe, the creditworthiness of borrowing countries could decline - resulting in less external lending and more sovereign debt defaults."

Not long ago, the conventional wisdom was neo-Malthusian: For individuals, for families and for societies, one of the keys to prosperity was to have fewer children. That thinking has been turned upside down. India, whose fertility was once seen as its national curse, is touted as a rising investment prospect thanks to its "demographic dividend."

One solution to the demographic dilemma is immigration. But absorbing immigrants can be tough on a country, and it's a zero-sum game that can't work for everyone forever. As the world's poor countries get richer, their citizens have less reason to emigrate and they begin to suffer their own demographic squeeze.

The other answer is to persuade families to have more children. So far, that's something no developed country has really figured out. As women get richer, better educated and more autonomous, they have fewer babies. That decline in fertility is driven by harsher economic forces, too: Most middle-class families in the West need a mother's wage to survive, and women in industrial and postindustrial societies can't take their babies to work in the way their peasant great-grandmothers could.

Yet there is one political movement that has long campaigned for societies to find a better way for women to be both workers and mothers: feminism. Until now, we have framed those efforts as being about expanding personal choice - and government and business have paid them lip service, but not much more.

We think the most pressing issues in the rich West are budget deficits and job creation. To fix our economies in the long term, what we should probably be talking about is parental leave and workplace day care.

Human and Economic Toll of Iraq War on 8th Anniversary

Eight years after US invasion of Iraq, the the US human toll includes more than 4400 deaths to servicemen and women, over 70,000 wounded, and more than half a million US troops who have returned suffering a variety of ailments, including post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

In Iraq, there are at least 100,000 direct casualties and hundreds of thousands more deaths from lack of medical care, due to illnesses, shortages of medicines and medical treatments. About half the doctors in Iraq left and never returned. 4 million Iraqis were displaced - about half inside Iraq and the other half becoming refugees outside of the country. Nearly 2 million Iraqi refugees live outside of Iraq.

The financial cost for the US was estimated to be $3 trillion in 2008, including medical care and disability compensation for war veterans, military equipment, the economic cost of lives lost and disrupted, and an estimate of the impact on the economy from rising oil prices. Last September the final cost was estimate to be $4-$6 trillion, but veterans costs, military costs, cost of contractors, fuel costs, and war-related indirect costs have risen at least 50% more than projected. Also the war played a role in precipitating events that led to the US financial crisis and contributed directly to the rising US debt.

The war also proved to be a major distraction from the conflict in Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to strengthen and regroup in the absence of US presence.

Was it worth it? The benefits are hard to discern, and may appear different over time. The costs, however, are clear. In Iraq the country is happily rid of Saddam Hussein but the nation suffers near-daily bombings and widespread shortages of electricity, drinking water and sanitation. In the US; there is no question that our economy would have been much better off today if we had invested those trillions in education, infrastructure and technology that would have created jobs and laid a foundation for the future.

Income Inequality Pushes U.S. Down in Well-Being Ranking

The United Nations latest Human Development Index shows the gross domestic product isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all measurement of economic health. In addition to income, the Index looks at measures of health and education. In 1980, the U.S. was number one in the income ranking.

Today, the U.S. is number 4 for well-being behind Norway, Australia, and New Zealand. What has changed is that, for the first time, the rankings were also filtered for inequality, gaps between rich and poor. Consequently the overall Human Development Index fell by about 11%, which is quite significant, dropping the U.S. from 4th to 13th in the world. , Tamara Draut, who tracks U.S. income inequality and says "The middle class has lost ground and lower income households have just been clobbered. That is the story of the last couple of decades."

America's record on education, on the other hand, has helped its ranking on the Index.

Which Countries Match the GDP and Population of America's States?

We Americans like to think we live in a rich country, but looking at it state by state, you will be surprised. This map of the United States shows an equivalent country in terms of GDP. California's GPD is nearly the same of Italy, and Idaho's is nearly the same as Sudan, for example.

A second comparison is done with population, but it would have been useful to do a map with per capita GDP equivalencies.

Devastating Exodus of Doctors From Africa and Caribbean

There has been an increasing amount of doctors who are leaving Africa and the Caribbean to seek emplyoment in United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. This exodus of physicians has left an already pandemic criplied country with fewer doctors than two at most hospitals. The ratio being only 6:100,000 people in most areas. Women are dying in childbirth more and more due to the lack of obstetricians. The poorest countries of Africa and the Caribbean are loosing between 30% to 41% of the their trained doctors to English speaking countries. Due to the exodus of doctors, there is a fear that neglect for the sick in the poorest countries will also threaten the health of Americans in the face of potential outbreaks of avian flu and SARS. At a World Health Organization forum on global staffing issues, there was international outcry to train more doctors for the pandemic cripplied African and Caribbean countries.

Vatican Decries 'Religion of Health'

Vatican officials decried what they called a "religion of health" in affluent societies and held out Pope John Paul II's suffering as an antidote to the idea that modern medicine must cure all. In rich countries they claim, the concept of health as well-being creates unrealistic expectations about medicine to respond to all needs and desires. The medicine of desires, egged on by the health care market, increases the request for pharmaceutical and medical-surgical services, and soaks up public resources beyond all reasonableness. A Vatican academic, hailed John Paul as the living alternative to the health-fiend madness. Officials took pains to put a positive spin on limitations that such health problems bring. John Paul no longer walks in public, and Parkinson's leaves his speech unintelligible. The Vatican's chief bioethicist, "Does a right to health at all costs exist? Medicine has become impossible to manage because it can't fulfill the desires of consumers for perfect health. Vatican officials stressed that all people should have access to basic health care but "it is difficult to establish what a decent minimum is," said Faggioni, when asked about criticism over unaffordable health care for many in the U.S. rw

Osama Bin Laden's Got a Point

This article is the full text of Osama bin Laden's online "letter to the American people" that appeared on the internet in Arabic and has since been translated and circulated by Islamists in Britain. Among his perhaps more legitimate claims are: We are fighting and opposing you because: "You attack Muslims in Palestine; you attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon .. You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats .. Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; You corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures .. You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down." Bin Laden claims "Islam is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language." Bin Laden calls upon Americans to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest. He says: "Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy. ... You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women. .. You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and*industries. .. Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. .. Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you consent to, such as Israel, then they are allowed to keep and use such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you take military action against them. .. You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the wall with the full support of America. .. In America, you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. .. We call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries."

This Economic Collapse is a 'Crisis of Bigness'

The results of half a century of debt-fuelled "growth" are becoming impossible to convincingly deny, but even as economies and certainties crumble, our appointed leaders bravely hold the line. No one wants to be the first to say the dam is cracked beyond repair.

Banks grew so big that their collapse would have brought down the entire global economy. To prevent this, they were bailed out with huge tranches of public money, which in turn is precipitating social crises on the streets of western nations. The European Union has grown so big, and so unaccountable, that it threatens to collapse in on itself. Corporations have grown so big that they are overwhelming democracies and building a global plutocracy to serve their own interests. The human economy as a whole has grown so big that it has been able to change the atmospheric composition of the planet and precipitate a mass extinction event.

Leopold Kohr's message is "Wherever something is wrong," ... "something is too big."

Kohr, born in 1909, wrote The Breakdown of Nations, published In 1957. He said that small states, small nations and small economies are more peaceful, more prosperous and more creative than great powers or superstates. He claimed that society's problems were not caused by particular forms of social or economic organisation, but by their size. Socialism, anarchism, capitalism, democracy, monarchy - all could work well on what he called "the human scale": a scale at which people could play a part in the systems that governed their lives. But once scaled up to the level of modern states, all systems became oppressors. Changing the system, or the ideology that it claimed inspiration from, would not prevent that oppression - as any number of revolutions have shown - because "the problem is not the thing that is big, but bigness itself".

When people have too much power, under any system or none, they abuse it. The world should be broken up into small states, roughly equivalent in size and power, which would be able to limit the growth and thus domination of any one unit. Small states and small economies were more flexible, more able to weather economic storms, less capable of waging serious wars, and more accountable to their people. Not only that, but they were more creative.

Bigness, predicted Kohr, could only lead to more bigness, for "whatever outgrows certain limits begins to suffer from the irrepressible problem of unmanageable proportions". Beyond those limits it was forced to accumulate more power in order to manage the power it already had. Growth would become cancerous and unstoppable, until there was only one possible endpoint: collapse.

We have now reached the point that Kohr warned about over half a century ago: the point where "instead of growth serving life, life must now serve growth, perverting the very purpose of existence".

UN: Only Green Technology Can Avert 'Planetary Catastrophe'

The recent UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs report "The World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation," warns that humanity is near to breaching the sustainability of Earth, and needs a technological revolution greater and faster than the industrial revolution to avoid "a major planetary catastrophe". Investments of at least $1.9 trillion per year are needed to avert this catastrophe. At least $1.1 trillion of that will need to be made in developing countries to meet increasing food and energy demands.

The report blames rapidly expanding energy use, mainly driven by fossil fuels, as the cause for "global warming, biodiversity loss, and disturbance of the nitrogen-cycle balance and other measures of the sustainability of the Earth"s ecosystem," and warns that "A comprehensive global energy transition is urgently needed" to avert a major planetary catastrophe.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggests that "we embrace a low-carbon, resource-efficient, pro-poor economic model."

According to the report the Earth has lost about half its forests, groundwater resources are being depleted, enormous species loss has occurred, and "through increased burning of fossil fuels, the stability of the planet's climate is being threatened by global warming."

"Much greater economic progress will be needed," the report says, for people in developing countries to to achieve a decent living standard, "especially the billions who currently still live in conditions of abject poverty, and the additional 2 billion people who will have been added to the world's population by mid-century."

The survey's lead author Rob Vos said "Even if we stop the global engines of growth now, resource depletion and pollution of our natural environment would continue because of existing production methods and consumption habits. Without drastic improvements in and diffusion of green technologies, we will not reverse the ongoing ecological destruction and secure a decent livelihood for all of humankind, now and in the future."

The survey calls for major investments for clean energy technologies, sustainable farming and forestry techniques, climate-proofing of infrastructure, and in waste-reduction technologies, and for a completion of these technological transformations in the next 30 to 40 years.

The Copenhagen Accord already promises to mobilize $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 in transfers to help developing countries cope with climate change as a step in the right direction. But delivery will need to be accelerated and resources scaled up to ensure developing countries meet the challenge.

The report proposes a global public technology-sharing regime and networks of international technology research and application centers, and also more multilateral intellectual property rights modalities than presently allowed under the World Trade Organization.

"The necessary set of new technologies must enable today's poor to attain decent living standards, while reducing emissions and waste and ending the unrestrained drawdown of the Earth's non-renewable resources."

Click here ( http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wess/index.shtml ) to read the report,

The State Story: Growth Without Growth

by Richard Florida .. Harvard economist Edward Glaeser points out that median family incomes were $56,200, $60,800, and $56,600 in fast-growing Georgia, Nevada, and Texas, significantly lower than the $83,000, $81,000, and $66,900 found in slow-growing Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

Economists agree that it is productivity growth -- fueled by invention and innovation, increased skills and human capital -- that is the main driver of economic growth and greater prosperity. Higher productivity translates into higher wages and income and improved living standards.

The author and colleagues took a systematic look at the connection between population growth and productivity growth across the 50 states and found little connection between the two.

Please visit the website at the headline link above to see the map charts and scatter graphics.

The first map, color-coded by population growth, shows state population growth based on the new 2010 U.S. Census.

The second map charts the change in productivity measured as gross state product per capita.

The scatter-graph shows how some states that have attracted lots of people have registered meager productivity growth. This is especially true of the booming Sunbelt states that show up in the lower right-hand quadrant of the graph. Nevada, which posted the fastest rate of population growth, posted negative productivity figures. Productivity growth was also negative in the fast-expanding Sunbelt states of Georgia and North and South Carolina. And economic conditions in many of these states have likely worsened as the housing crisis has deepened.

There are just a handful of states (upper right-hand quadrant) -- among them California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Virginia -- that posted rates of productivity growth and population growth that were both above the national average.

15 Poverty Statistics That Are Skyrocketing as the American Middle Class Continues to Be Slowly Wiped Out

The "America" that so many of us have taken for granted is disintegrating. Most Americans are under the delusion that the United States will always be "the wealthiest nation" in the world and that our economy will always produce large numbers of high paying jobs and that the U.S. will always have a very large middle class. But that is not what is happening.

The foundations of the U.S. economy have rotted away and we now find ourselves on the verge of an economic collapse. Already, millions upon millions of Americans are slipping out of the middle class and into the devastating grip of poverty. Statistic after statistic proves that the middle class in the United States is shrinking month after month after month. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are starting to wake up and are beginning to realize that we have very serious problems on our hands, but they have no idea what is causing our economic distress and they are unaware that most of our politicians have absolutely no idea how to fix the economic disaster that we have created.

The American people are treated to endless footage of leaders from both political parties proclaiming that the primary reason that we are in the midst of such an economic mess is because of what the other political party has done.

This economic nightmare has taken literally decades to develop, and both Democrats and Republicans have contributed greatly to this disaster. Both parties have absolutely refused to stand up to the Federal Reserve and the horrific economic policies that they have been shoving down our throats for decades.

Both parties have stood idly by as the U.S. trade deficit has exploded in size and the United States has become poorer month after month. Both parties have refused to do anything as factories and good paying jobs leave the United States, and now we have the largest national debt in the history of the world.

Both parties have done nothing as the health care industry has degenerated into a cesspool of corruption and greed and now seems designed to do little more than to provide pharmaceutical companies and health insurance crooks with obscene profits.

If factories keep leaving the United States and jobs keep leaving the United States and the federal government keeps going into more debt, then things are going to keep getting worse.

As wealth continues to leave the United States and as the U.S. gets even deeper into debt, more Americans are going to become poor. Approximately 45 million Americans were living in poverty in 2009. Experts believe that 2009 saw the largest single year increase in the U.S. poverty rate since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.

The U.S. poverty rate is the third worst among the developed nations. Household participation in the food stamp program has increased 20.28%, with 41 million Americans on food stamps for the first time ever in June.

One out of every six Americans is now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program. More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid. One out of every seven mortgages in the United States was either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, four times as many as in 2007. The number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen over 60% in just the past year, and 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.

Bankruptcy filings rose 20% in the 12 month period ending June 30th. More than 25% of all Americans now have a credit score below 599. One out of every five children in the United States is now living in poverty.

The system can only support so many people. We are now at a point where our anti-poverty programs are clearly unsustainable in the long-term, but nobody has a solution for how we are going to get all of these people off of these programs or how we are going to provide good jobs for all of them.

The cost of every U.S. government anti-poverty program is absolutely soaring. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is already running a budget deficit that is approaching 1.5 trillion dollars every year.

The U.S. economic system is dying. The American people need very real economic solutions to very real economic problems.

Neither major political party is doing anything real to address the very real economic problems that are causing that to happen. Most Americans have become so "dumbed down" that they don't even understand what the real problems are anymore. rw

Australia: Is Population Growth a Ponzi Scheme?

The pitch of those promoting population growth is straightforward "More is better." While it may come in many guises, Ponzi demography is essentially a pyramid scheme that attempts to make more money for some by adding on more and more people through population growth.

But measures of GDP do not reflect, for example, the degradation of the environment, the depreciation of natural resources or declines in individuals' quality of life.

According to Ponzi demography, population growth - through natural increase and immigration - means more people leading to increased demands for goods and services, more material consumption, more borrowing, more on credit and of course more profits. Everything seems fantastic for a while - but Ponzi demography is unsustainable.

When the economy sours, the scheme spirals downward with higher unemployment, depressed wages, falling incomes, more people sinking into debt, more homeless families - and more men, women and children on public assistance.

That is the stage when the advocates of Ponzi demography consolidate their excess profits and gains. That leaves the general public to pick up the tab. Ponzi demography exploits the fear of population decline and aging. Without a young and growing population, we are forewarned of becoming a nation facing financial ruin and a loss of national power.

Due to population aging, government-run pensions and healthcare systems will become insolvent, Ponzi demography advocates claim, thereby crippling the economy, undermining societal well-being and threatening national security.

Low birth rates, especially those below replacement levels, are considered a matter of national concern. Without higher fertility rates and the resulting population growth, the nation, it is claimed, faces a bleak and dreary future.

So Ponzi demography calls for policies and programs to encourage couples to have more children, which will lead to the promised sustained economic growth.

In addition appeals are also made to one's patriotic duty to have children in order to replenish and expand the homeland. Ponzi demography also turns to immigration for additional population growth in order to boost companies' profits. The standard slogan in "the country urgently needs increased immigration," even when immigration may already be at record levels and unemployment rates are high.

Increased immigration, it is declared, is a matter of national security, long-term prosperity and international competitiveness. Without this needed immigration, Ponzi demography warns that the country's future is at serious risk.

Another basic tactic of Ponzi demography is promoting the advantages of an increasing population for continued economic growth. No mention is made of the additional profits they reap and the extra costs the public bears.

When confronted with environmental concerns such as climate change, global warming, environmental contamination or shortages of water and other vital natural resources, the advocates of Ponzi demography typically dismiss such concerns as unfounded and overblown.

And they obliquely stress "innovation," ingenuity and technological fixes as the only appropriate and workable solutions.

Many environmental groups are also reluctant to take up or even touch the volatile subject of population growth, especially those that have been burned on this issue in the past. Such groups fear possibly offending some members and donors, which might undercut their organizations and efforts.

Fortunately, most couples around the world have chosen to have a few children rather than many and to invest more in each child's upbringing, education and future well-being. The sooner nations make the transition from ever-increasing population growth to population stabilization, the better the prospects for all of humanity and other life on this planet. "If Norway can prosper with a stable population, why can't Australia?"

It is argued primarily that we must have an expanding population, in order to maintain "labour supply", and to counter demographic ageing. These are related but subtly different goals. A third goal, not so publicly acknowledged but the driver for the largest single source of political donations, is to maintain the inflation of property values. All three goals of growth are examples of Ponzi scheme economics, not contributing significantly to the common good but rather shifting wealth from the many to the few, from the younger to the older, and from future people to current people.

Weaning oneself off a Ponzi scheme can be an unattractive proposition. Luckily, the impact would likely be more than off-set by the dividends of population stabilisation. The diseconomies of growth rate far outweigh the benefits. By doubling our population growth within a decade, we have increase our infrastructure costs, perhaps costing hundreds of thousands of dollars per added person.

According to MIT economist Lester Thurow, it requires 12.5% of GDP to expand capacity at 1% per year. For the developed world this was over $200,000 per person of net population growth. Using these figures, if we're currently growing at 2% per year, then 25% of our GDP is currently being used to expand capacity to accommodate the people who are not yet here. This means that the GDP available per capita to serve current residents is 25% less than the advertised per capita GDP.

Against this burden, the 2010 Intergenerational Report's estimate of 4.1% of GDP needed for extra health care and aged care by 2050 pales into insignificance.

Not to mention that only 40% of this is attributable to ageing, and less than half of that could be deflected by immigration. Does it make sense that we're incurring a 25% of GDP cost to avoid less than 0.8% of GDP cost?

Ageing is touted as the greatest economic challenge facing Australia, and therefore to be minimised by whatever means we have. Conversely, we are told that growth merely requires planning and management (as if the infrastructure magically appears by virtue of having been planned). In fact, the exact opposite is true.

Growth is a virtually insurmountable challenge, becoming ever more costly as resources are spread thinner, pushing an ever increasing burden on future generations, while diluting their wealth base and inflating their living costs. Ageing, in contrast, is a modest and limited shift, back towards the sort of dependency ratio we had in the 1960s, but with much higher workforce participation than then.

So we have immigration to reduce the fiscal gap anticipated to be caused by ageing, but causing a fiscal black hole. And we have skilled immigration to solve the skills shortage but actually increasing it. And we have a baby bonus requiring a school-building program comparable to the current debt-financed economic stimulus package repeated annually to accommodate the extra 50,000 kids per year moving through the system. And, just when we should be encouraging extra saving for retirement, instead we have orchestrated oversupply of labour suppressing wages and increasing casualisation and underemployment, combined with the orchestrated housing affordability crisis, having a devastating effect on national savings.

Back in 1986, Lester Thurow concluded that no nation could move forward economically with population growth greater than 2%. Deliberate (but not coercive) fertility reduction was the primary enabler of economic development in the Asian Tigers, boosting workforce participation and allowing government efforts to move from quantity to quality of services. In contrast, Argentina famously fell back from first-world to third-world status, with the most plausible explanation being that its growth outstripped its ability to maintain quality of life. A disgruntled population and unmanageable public debt are not conducive to maintaining good stable democracies

Could Australia enter such a downward spiral? We already have many of the symptoms: widening inequality between rich and poor, declining national savings and expanding current account deficit, the selling of public assets to balance budgets, welfare systems falling behind the cost of living, intractable queues for medical services, increasing youth unemployment, fracturing social tensions erupting in ethnic violence ... the question is, will we wake up in time to arrest it? rw

Debunking the Population Myths

There are too many myths that foster Australian population growth.

1. Some say that it's inevitable that we grow to a vast population, but if we chose, we can stop at 23 million the figure the Australian Academy of Science has said should be our safe maximum.
2. Some worry that the refugee intake would suffer; however, refugees are a tiny fraction of our annual migrant intake.
3. We can plan for convenient transport systems and every imaginable public facility. When was the last time we so much as managed to build the train line before installing the suburb. we're not keeping up with population growth even now.
4. More people means higher house prices so we'll all be richer. There's likely a connection between more people and more environmental damage. More people means higher house prices and makes a few of us absurdly rich and turns the rest into mortgage slaves
5. We can't do anything about Australia's population problem till we've solved the world's. Australia must take care of its own problems, just like every other country should.
6. Australia is a vast continent.Australia is a small country with big distances.
7. We're going to have a labor ahortage. Over 100,000 young Australians dropped out of the work force last year, unable to compete with imported workers.
8. If we stop growth, we will be faced with an ageing population. Australia's population is unusually young by first world standards. It is those too young to work, not those too old, who make the greater demands on the public purse.

As Economy in Silicon Valley Slides, Birth Control Booms

With the ranks of the uninsured increasing along with unemployment rates, many women are taking steps to avoid having a child.

Among gynecologists and family-planning clinics throughout the South Bay, there have been more birth-control consultations since the fall, and women are asking for more reliable, more permanent methods of contraception.

"They want to focus their finances on the one or two kids that they have," said an OB-GYN. "Instead of going with condoms or birth-control pills, they want longer-term solutions like the intrauterine device." IUDs have a lower failure rate than birth-control pills and condoms, according to the CDC.

A national Gallup poll revealed that 20% of women surveyed were more concerned about an unintended pregnancy during the bad economy, and 19% were more conscientious about using birth control.

In the years straddling the market crash of the Great Depression, birthrates plummeted almost 30%. Rates peaked after World War II, then took another nose-dive following the recession of the early 1970s.

Even lower-income women are filling the rooms of in a Planned Parenthood clinic East San Jose.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which runs 33 clinics in Northern California, including the South Bay region, sees between 40,000 and 50,000 patients every month. Last December clinics had 25% visits than the previous year, and in March, it was 16% more, with the bulk of patients coming in for birth-control consultations, refills and infection screenings and treatment. Local abortion rates went down during the same time period.

One woman who opted for an IUD said she wanted a more reliable method since her boyfriend started having trouble finding painting and construction jobs. They can hardly pay the rent on their one-bedroom apartment, and as their public benefits run out, they're struggling with the four kids they have. "I tried the injection and I got pregnant, I tried the pill and I got pregnant. I needed something safer."

Some women use permanent sterilization, such as the outpatient procedure of placing titanium coils in the fallopian tubes.

Sometimes it is more than the money. For Indian immigrant women on H-1B visas that require them to be actively employed, losing a job can mean leaving the country.

Paying for the birth control itself is usually a challenge for low income women. California's Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment program, which provides free contraception and reproductive-health services to low-income Californians of childbearing age, received 5,000 more claims in 2008 for services than in 2007. Latinos make up the majority of enrollees in the program at 65% statewide.

With the proposed up to $36 million in cuts to family-planning programs in the state budget, there is much to fear. The federal government matches every $1 the state spends on family planning with $9, so even more is at stake.

Men are also undergoing more vasectomies to cushion their families against hard times.

The Geopolitics of Babies

Many Americans and Europeans believe that if all countries were governed on democratic principles, wars and conflicts would disappear. However one factor more critical is demography, not democracy. Burgeoning populations are a drag on developing countries, while low fertility rates are slowing growth in developed societies. The poor are making themselves poorer by over-producing themselves, and the rich will have a less dynamic society because they are not replacing themselves. Populations are outstripping the capacity of governments to deliver basic services in the Middle East and Africa which will become breeding grounds for extremist movements. Migrations from developing societies will increasingly be seen as a threat to developed societies. European governments have made efforts to reverse declining fertility rates but results have been disappointing and have meant a re-evaluation of the roles of marriage and the family. They will need immigrants to keep their economies vibrant. Countries that most welcome migrants have an economic advantage. However, the new waves of migrants will be ethnically different, less educated and lower skilled. Many are illegal. Greater ethnic diversity generates social tensions and can have profound effects on the cultural identity and cohesion of nations. Those more conservative in religious faith are more likely to have many children. Japan has a reproduction rate of 1.29, but is uncomfortable with immigrants, especially those of different races and religions. China is facing a demographic crunch as a result of its one-child policy. India's population is expanding too swiftly for its rate of economic growth. The US has traditionally welcomed immigrants and 80% of a projected growth of 120 million in the next 50 years will be immigrants. The dilemma is starker for Europe where most migrants are Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East who are not likely to be assimilated into a Christian secular society. Turkish entry into the EU could change the character of Europe's society; but Turkey's rejection will increase the alienation of Muslim peoples in Christian Europe. Educated women across the world are postponing marriage and having fewer children. Educating women will help the Middle East and Africa to achieve self-sustaining growth. Those governments most able to deal with these problems can save their societies and neighbours pain and suffering. Finally, there is the danger of a huge demographic upheaval, unconnected with fertility rates. Millions will be displaced from sea level coastal cities, the estuarial areas of big rivers, like Bangladesh, and low-lying islands like the Maldives as the ice caps melt. As the glaciers on the Himalayas, Karakoram and Kunlun mountains melt, the rivers they feed will first flood and then fall when there is no more ice. The human race is at risk because it has mastered technology but without mastering man's natural desire to push for more of the benefits of technology without going beyond the limits. rw

Opinion: Population Growth Reduction Vs the Profit Motive

While the empowerment of women and the provision of reproductive health services undoubtably reduces the birthrate in the poorer countries, there is a much more serious problem facing the developed countries of our world. We have based our entire society on "competition" and the "profit motive", which has worked well during times of increasing demand for goods and services. However the crucial factor for its success lies in those two words, "increasing demand", which is completely contradictory to a reduction in our population. Certainly there will be a demand for improved products, such as more efficient methods of transport and communication, but this will not replace the demand for houses, factories, cars and other items that inevitably occurs with the ever increasing population. If there is not a major change in our society and the forces that drive it, as we reduce our population we will face a dramatic increase in unemployment, and a breakdown of our financial system. As an example consider the effect on the housing market when the demand for new homes can be satisified from the transfer of empty houses rather then building rows of new dwellings, when the value of property drops dramatically as development implies improving current buildings and returning land back to the farmer. A similar picture can be seen in the reduction of automobiles, with manufacturing plants and repair and gas stations closing.

We are already seeing signs of the problem. Some countries with a lowering population growth are looking to immigration to bolster their numbers, and in a few cases are encouraging their people to have larger families rather than seeking ways to function with fewer people. The demands on air, water, food, trees, fish, and other environmental concerns are fast becoming apparent to us all. What is not at all clear is how we can organize ourselves to provide a good life for all our people when we cannot use "competitonand profit" ? It has functioned well and appeals to the basic instinct of greed in all of us. As a nation we view more government control with suspicion, but it is difficult to see how we can avoid this. How can we replace the desire to compete and posses more than our neighbor with the desire to work for the good of society as a whole?

‘Indefinite Detention’ Bill Heads to Obama’s Desk as White House Drops Veto Threat; Establishment Media and Neo-cons Still Pretend NDAA Doesn’t Apply to American Citizens

The bill which would codify into law the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens is about to be passed and sent to Obama's desk to be signed into law, even as some news outlets still erroneously report that the legislation does not apply to U.S. citizens.

The bill which would codify into law the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens is about to be passed and sent to Obama's desk to be signed into law, even as some news outlets still erroneously report that the legislation does not apply to U.S. citizens.

Click on the link in the headline to read the whole story.

Invest More in Bangladesh's Youth to Reduce Poverty

Bangladesh needs to invest in better education, and job training for its young people to produce stronger economic growth and reduce poverty.

Investing heavily in Bangladeshi's between 12 and 24 could banish poverty and galvanize its economy.

The need is to develop primary education and access to secondary and higher education.

In rural Bangladesh, working while attending primary school had a negative effect on the transition to secondary school, and starting to work while attending secondary school had even larger effects on secondary school completion.

Channeling subsidies directly to girls 11-14 has increased girls' enrollment-despite strong biases against their schooling. In Bangladesh, over 30% of 15-19 year old girls are mothers or pregnant. In Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, use of birth control is low among young women. In rural Pakistan, adolescent girls' mobility is limited and may affect their ability to seek timely health services. .. • Nearly 50% of teenage mothers in Bangladesh reported seeking no help for maternal complications. Men's exposure to social development activities as part of Grameen Bank's micro-credit schemes could explain lower fertility rates. ..

• In an international survey of 15 to 24 year-olds, very few young Bangladeshi women thought they had the most influence on schooling or marriage choices. rw

Did Worldwide Inequality Drop Between 1960 and 2000?

While the rich get richer, the poor are falling behind. But a recent study argues the opposite, because of increases in life expectancy in less developed countries that more than offset the disparity between the incomes of less and more developed countries. In the new research, Becker and co-authors combine life expectancy from birth rates with national per capita income figures to create a "full-income" index that reminds us income per capita is not the only measure of well-being. If we think about welfare as some combination of life and consumption, this index shows us that poor countries have caught up. But others say the study masks a slide in well-being among the world's poor. The WHO reports that life expectancy rose an average of 23 years in the poorest 50% of countries, but only nine years in the richest 50%. While East Asia and the Pacific had an increase of 29 years (from 42 to 71), in North America it grew from 70 to 77. But factoring this trend into a comparative index of well-being has been a long-standing problem for economists. To counter this problem, Becker and his co-authors calculated the dollar value of changes in life expectancy at birth for 96 countries between 1960 and 2000. The study argues that health improved dramatically in the less developed world after 1960. While "full income" for the poorest one-half of countries grew an average of 4.1% percent annually, it grew for the richest one-half by only 2.6%, although that amounted to about $600 more per year for the rich than the poor. There has been more success on the health side than on the income side, because it's easier to transfer health knowledge than transfer the tools for raising income. Reductions in mortality for infectious, respiratory, digestive, congenital, and perinatal diseases, most before age 20 or between the ages of 20 and 50, were responsible for most of the reduction in life expectancy inequality. Drops in respiratory and digestive diseases deaths alone accounted for 81% of the reduction. Reductions in mortality from diseases of the nervous system, sense organs, and cardiovascular diseases were larger for elderly people in rich countries than in poor ones. Becker and his co-authors conclude that "health education programs and simple interventions" were responsible for the bulk of closing the full-income gap. Not all analysts are impressed with the new index some say using country averages misses the hundreds of millions of people in the developing world who still lack adequate access to health services. Nugent is worried that policymakers will use the study's results as a pretext for curtailing investments in health or development assistance. But Becker says the study argues for more health spending, not less. Investment in health will improved rates of income growth as well as improve health. Nugent, however, argues that health technologies aimed at diseases of the poor world are often left undeveloped because adequate profit incentive is lacking. "Factors such as the spread of the AIDS epidemic new infectious disease strains and developing country spending on expensive medical technologies could mean that the 40-year trend of shrinking full-income inequality might have already ended. rw

Vatican Decries 'Religion of Health'

Vatican officials decried what they called a "religion of health" in affluent societies and held out Pope John Paul II's suffering as an antidote to the idea that modern medicine must cure all. In rich countries they claim, the concept of health as well-being creates unrealistic expectations about medicine to respond to all needs and desires. The medicine of desires, egged on by the health care market, increases the request for pharmaceutical and medical-surgical services, and soaks up public resources beyond all reasonableness. A Vatican academic, hailed John Paul as the living alternative to the health-fiend madness. Officials took pains to put a positive spin on limitations that such health problems bring. John Paul no longer walks in public, and Parkinson's leaves his speech unintelligible. The Vatican's chief bioethicist, "Does a right to health at all costs exist? Medicine has become impossible to manage because it can't fulfill the desires of consumers for perfect health. Vatican officials stressed that all people should have access to basic health care but "it is difficult to establish what a decent minimum is," said Faggioni, when asked about criticism over unaffordable health care for many in the U.S. rw

Bhutan's Gross National Happiness

Bhutan, one of the world's least developed countries, is seeking to protect its cultural assets by using Gross National Happiness (GNH). Bhutan, population 800,000, has opened up to television and Internet and is considering an application to the World Trade Organization. GNH is a reflection of its culture to find the Buddhist Middle Path. Some have suggested that the GNH may be a Bhutanese approach but has application elsewhere. GNH measures human well-being beyond material wealth and emphasizes that development should be for the benefit of the people and allow for cultural differences. It also discusses management as related to human happiness. rw

Gaian Economics

An economic system is proposed that would bring population into the equation of wealth and human values, and the outcome would be optimum population on a regional level. Global Monetocracy is the continuation of money growth to maintain the current debt-based system. Some form of exchange of goods and services has been essential to the progression of a civilized infrastructure. Many systems have been tried, but the perfect system has not been found. In 1990 the idea of Jubilee was introduced, a forgiveness of debts every few years to temporarily level the playing field. This is symptomatic of a monetary system without feedback from the rest of the worldly considerations. Today, in every Western country, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It is time for a change to an economic system in balance with the rest of the world. Social, economic and political reformers, point to problems with the system, and ask whether banks or the state should continue to create money? Transactions surrounding human activity are conducted in terms of Global Monetocracy (GM) with money that can be created with the stroke of a keyboard, is globally integrated and can destroy competition. One other related activity is the use of fossil fuels to generate an infrastructure consisting of roads, electric grids, heavy industry, mechanized farming and communications industries, medical technologies, etc. This requires population growth, which has zoomed to over 6 billion. Human Activity (HA) represents the number of humans and the things we do that impact on earth�s web of life. The monetary system is one of the subsystems of human civilization but system stability requires interaction with many elements and a stable and sustainable civilization is the hope of many humans. Some of the issues that relate to each other: Energy use and sources, ... Human population and fertility levels, ...Industrial material throughput, ... Resource consumption and stability ... and Human waste management. Hard Systems are designed systems such as engines, radios, etc. Natural Systems are bacteria, weather, humans, hearts, trees, eyes, etc. Soft Systems are governments, corporations, sports leagues, religions, monetary systems etc., which do not exist in physical form. Within any systems positive feedback leads to system runaway, or to crash, or die-off, or to revolution, depending on the system involved. Negative feedback puts a damper on things and for a system to be at rest, negative and positive feedback are in balance. Humanity has become a victim of soft systems of our own creation. In the past years, (HA) has exceeded a critical level. We are now deficit-spending the stability or our ecosphere, in terms of decline in biological diversity, topsoil loss, potable water per capita, or the energy peak. These changes suggest we are now above human capacity the Earth. Some say that if there was the political will to reduce activity and redistribute goods, the earth could sustain our 6 billion + population. We envision a system that will generate appropriate feedback such that in the future HA will be at or below some critical threshold, and we will have a sustainable civilization. Our new system must remain robust whether HA growth is positive, neutral or negative, and be able to transition from the old monetary system without social collapse. In past we have had barter, the gold standard, or the IOU, which are all a promise to repay via produce or labor. But Nixon abandoned gold and shifted the GM to run on fiat money, which has no physical basis. Hegemony from banks and corporations caused governments to give them more power. Positive feedback begins its work, and now we have $8 trillion dollars in global goods and services, and another $288 trillion dollars as a value of currencies on global trade. It is a systen that favors the rich, is fostered by The Chicago School of Economics, and lays out the principles of capitalistic globalization which supporters have said, has no alternative. But we need to design, define and institute an antidote for this. A non-inflationary monetary system could be implemented if the political will-to-change were there. One such continues a fiat monetary system, but does not expand with interest payments. Other changes are suggested such as government loans that need not pay interest, and a way to establish a common ownership of revenue generating assets. One characteristic suggests a set of global standards to develop commodity-based currencies that are developed locally, yet can be traded nationally and internationally. Another is that monetary currency is designed as a variable supply that will link human wealth and well being to the stability of the natural systems that sustain us. To establish a desired goal, there is maximum autonomy at the lowest level of governance. Representatives of higher levels are selected from representatives of the next lower levels. Global government deals with global issues, and setting global standards. The new form of money could take root before governmental shifts occur and have primary characteristics of a commodity-based system, but will require some elastic characteristics through loans, for periods when commodity balance cannot be met. Some components will be measurable and some are abstract and would be determined by standards based on human wants and needs. Each region would have its own currency. A branch of Global Government would establish standards to be used by each Region to determine its Wealth Factor. To prevent bias, assessments will be audited annually by a third party. A credit balance means that the Human Activity is beyond sustainable limits. A zero balance means it is at human capacity. Debit means more wealth per capita and/or your Region could lend money to a neighboring Region. A zero balance means that the average person could have enough money for a comfortable life. Some will have much more, some much less in a modified capitalist system. Some will be at the minimum wage while others have reached a maximum. The goal of governance is at least a balances but debit is even better, i.e. more wealth per capita for the people and the Region does not need to borrow from another Region. Each Region has control over immigration. If you want to emigrate to another Region, you will need permission and documents from that Region. The wealth of each Region is determined by the amount of renewable energy produced by the Region, and the potential to produce renewable energy, as well as for the amount of renewable resources, the amount of water which can be used by humans, the amount of food which can be produced sustainably, the amount of green space for biodiversity and human leisure, facilities for high tech research and development, industrial capability for production of recyclable goods, the quality and quantity of human services, dependence on goods or services from other Regions, the amount of non-renewable energy used, regional human population, and current Regional fertility rate. Most categories are controllable within limits some are imposed by nature. With lower population there will be more natural, renewable resources per person. Fewer humans = greater wealth per capita. But with a larger number of humans there will be a greater likelihood of technological advancement. It requires large numbers of humans to sustain a modern society with medical services, educational facilities, computer industries, research facilities, the arts and entertainment. More human contribute to greater wealth potential. Optimum population and fertility rate will be determined by the other factors and updated at least annually but perhaps continuously, like automatic inventory control. No Region could sustain an industrial society without trade. The accounting would be complex. Human procreation in Western societies is a private affair. This taboo needs to be broken. Growth of either people or activity cannot continue indefinitely and must become societal controllable variables. rw

China: Wealthy Chinese Not Stopping at One Child

A population expert says tougher measures should be adopted to prevent China's wealthy from having more children. Business tycoons and celebrities are challenging China's family policy by paying the "social maintenance fee" to have two or more offspring. Imposing fines or administrative punishments is not enough but the personal credit of private business people or celebrities should be tainted if they choose to have more children. At least 84 cases were registered between 2002 and 2005 among affluent citizens in Shanghai. In Shenyang, 76 wealthy people were punished for having more than one child in 2000. rw

India: ADB Plans Urban Project to Help Realize Potential of Uttaranchal

Asian Development Bank (ADB) is helping an urban development project in the Indian state of Uttaranchal, through a grant of US$600,000. The project is to blend infrastructure and service improvements with urban policy for sustainable urban service in the state. Located on the borders with Nepal and China, Uttaranchal was created in 2000. One quarter of its 8.4 million population lives in the rapidly growing urban areas. Many of these areas are major tourist destinations in a state blessed with pristine and picturesque environment. More than 90% of the terrain is classified as hilly and two thirds is forest, limiting the availability of land for agriculture. Urban areas where tourism and can flourish present opportunities for development. But these areas are held back by deficiencies in infrastructure and services. The overall shortfall in water supply exceeds 50% due partly to inadequate sources and distribution and partly to leakage from old pipes. Less than one fifth of the urban population is served by sewerage networks. Untreated sewage is disposed in water bodies, causing public health problems. Meanwhile, the urban roads and parking spaces are insufficient. Inadequate urban institutional and financial capacities are the major cause of the poor environmental conditions. The bodies responsible for providing infrastructure and services lack the skills, and an adequate revenue base. Sustainability of water supply and sanitation is in question due to high operating ratios and production costs, and poor management in the two bodies responsible for their construction and upkeep. Uttaranchal is one of ADB's priority areas for assistance. The total cost is about $750,000, of which the state will contribute $150,000 equivalent in counterpart facilities. The state government's Department of Urban Development is the executing agency. rw

India: Urbanisation Or Economic Growth?

Rapid urbanisation had been taking place in many parts of the developing world. At a United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research's Jubilee Conference there was a need to study this much-neglected aspect of development. Overall (GDP) growth cannot be separated from the delivery of public services or strategies to improve them. Urbanisation grows faster after the proportion of urban population has reached 25%. In India, urbanisation has now reached 29%. Economic reforms and globalisation have made cities primary engines of economic growth. Urban areas contribute close to half of India's GDP. The more urbanised states in India (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat) recorded higher growth rates. Cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai have grown rapidly. However, the incidence of urban unemployment is much higher than that of rural unemployment, as reported in the 59th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO). There were 14 urban persons unemployed (by principal and subsidiary activity) per 1,000 in 2003, compared with only five for rural India. Other reports compiled from NSSO data show that most urban employment (33.5%) is in production-related work, which means the service sector boom continues to elude urban areas. With the increasing incidence of frauds, the reliability of outsourcing and call centre jobs is uncertain, suggesting that the sustainability of the service sector is questionable. The answer may lie with the manufacturing sector. Cities, by offering good quality public services, attract residents with skills, which in turn attract jobs. Currently, states with high urban unemployment (e.g Jharkhand) are those that are unable to attract residents with skills (e.g, those with engineering degrees) because of their poor quality public services, and limited opportunities for jobs and growth. The experience with the private sector world-wide has shown that wherever governance is weak, privatisation of essential public services results in serious problems, including raising costs and reduced access and quality for the less well-off.

Development is Most Important for Developing Nations: Chinese President

The Chinese President said that development is the most important task for the developing countries, in eliminating poverty, promoting development and delivering higher living standards. Developing countries should both rely on themselves and open up to the outside world for competition and cooperation. Hu urged developing countries to stay united, saying conducting policy and taking concerted actions on major international issues will help these countries safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. The key to resolving problems is to seek common ground on major issues while shelving minor differences. The Chinese president said that developing countries should become mutually complementary partners in win-win cooperation. Hu also said that trade protectionism has raised its head amd such mechanisms as G20 should be used so as to intensify cooperation and give a boost to the World Trade Organization negotiations. Hu called for earnest observation of the targets and principles enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol. rw

Protecting Our Environment

The report from the World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. 45th of 146 countries in its index of environmental sustainability. With all the strides this country has made over the past three decades in correcting the grossest of our environmental failings, one would think we'd have fared better. Less understandable are the above-the-U.S. rankings of several European and Latin American nations, which were years behind us in adopting unleaded gasoline and anti-pollution technology for automobiles. Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, and other northern-clime countries were at the top of the list with lower density populations. Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Mexico. Much the U.S. EPA have been cussed over the past 30 years, America is now the better. The EPA cut air pollution through emission controls, and the cost has been enormous, but how much is breathable air worth? Though it was a long time coming, the smoke-belching diesel trucks are now having to clean up their act. The U.S. electric power industry are light years ahead of where they were. Rivers and streams are now much improved. Agriculture has cleaned up its act, reduced chemical exposure to humans and wildlife, and is providing additional protection for fields, forests, and habitat. We may not be at the top, but given the vast scope of this country and the monetary resources available, we've come a long way. rw

Understanding the Demographic Dividend

The demographic dividend occurs when a falling birth rate changes the age distribution, so that fewer investments are needed to meet the needs of the youngest age groups and resources are released for investment in development and family. It improves the ratio of productive workers to child dependents that makes for faster economic growth and fewer burdens on families. The demographic dividend does not last forever; there is a limited window of opportunity. In time, the age distribution changes again, as the adult population moves into the older, less-productive age brackets. The dependency ratio then rises again, with the need to care for the elderly. While demographic pressures are eased where fertility falls, some countries will act to capitalize upon the released resources and use them effectively, but others will not. Take the Republic of Korea for example: as its birth rate fell in the mid-1960s, elementary school enrolments declined and funds previously allocated for elementary education were used to improve the quality of education at higher levels. In Korea the bulk of the population is at the working ages whereas in Nigeria the young dependent ages stand out, with all the burdens that they represent in that poor country.
The demographic dividend is delivered when the generations of children born during high fertility become workers. Women have fewer children and take jobs outside of the home and tend to be better educated. Working-age adults tend to earn more and save more than the young favoring savings. The ability to save money is greater when individuals born during periods of high fertility move into their 40s. Personal savings serve as a partial resource for investments that fuel economic growth. Having fewer children enhances the health of women. Their participation in the labor force enhances their social status and personal independence. They have more energy to contribute to society. Family income can be focused on better food for infants. Incomes can go toward prolonged education. There are increased benefits from the demographic dividend, assuming that policies are constructed to build upon the dividend. Evidence suggests that better health facilitates improved economic production, as will focusing especially on low-income populations, with strong public sector programs. Poor health is an important cause of losses in household income. About one fourth of all births in the developing world outside China are unwanted or ill-timed. About 20 million unsafe abortions occur annually. Half of the world's 175 million pregnancies annually are unwanted or mistimed. There is room for improvement in contraceptive provision and education. Governments and the public sector must target resources to the poor while releasing the private sector to meet the needs of those who can afford to pay for family planning and health services. Reducing unwanted pregnancies benefits maternal health and family welfare and hastens the changes in age structure that advance development. Policies to generate capital are needed to fuel growth. In East Asia, personal savings helped greatly; other sources are government and business savings as well as foreign investments and assistance. All these are responsive to favorable government actions. Investments in education, health, and job creation are vital, as are policies that favor the fertility declines that have created and sustained the window. This article is well worth reading in full - just follow the link. rw

Rush Micro Aid to Women Hurt by Tsunami

Microcredit programs for women have been criticized for falling short of real aid. The number of borrowers topped 55 million by 2004 and the U.N. is making this the Year of Microcredit but critics point out that low income is only part of the poverty trap. Poor health, lack of sanitation, bad or no schools and a low status of women are burdens that limit the ability of loans to improve life and there is scant evidence that microcredit alone empowers women. But now is the time for the quick introduction of microcredit loans in the coastal regions of South and Southeast Asia. A chorus of economists has been saying that the financial effects of this tsunami disaster are not going to be felt at the national level. In the tourist industry, economists are calculating that more than three-quarters of business losses will be borne by small and uninsured entrepreneurs. Only the president of the World Bank has articulated the importance of women to relief. In Sri Lanka, many fishermen died and left behind women who may never have had to work. Sri Lankan women are well educated and along with Thai women are in a good position to learn new skills. Wolfensohn, who is planning to step down as World Bank president, has been one of the strongest promoters of women in the larger U.N.system. The World Bank has been focusing on the role of women, while the U.N. has weaseled out of its commitment to women on several fronts. U.N. leaders, bowing to a range of conservative governments, have allowed gender rights, sexual choices and universal access to health services for women and girls to be eliminated from the Development Goals. Without these tools, neither poverty nor HIV/AIDS can be mitigated. Women are important to families and families are the building blocks of communities. In the wake of this disaster, the short-term needs should be the top priority. In the fishing communities, many men who survived have no assets other than a ruined boat, or no boat at all. They say they can live with interest rates of 20%, to get back to sea. rw