Food, inflation & social stbility

[quadraphonics]

No it is based on many false assumptions of yours.

Horseshit. Name one.

So I can only again conclude you opposition to a new choice for the poor is a knee-jerk reaction with no desire to understand the proposal.

I understand it just fine - that's why I can recognize that there's no real "choice" involved.

I.e. no desire to learn that not one of the following you assert is true:

Why would I desire to learn that true statements are not true?

You seem to be confusing your desire to evade honest description of your disgusting, fascist proposal, with some flaw on my part. Projecting, as it were.

(1) "A program of forced sterilizations of the poor, by another name.”
No one is forced to participate.

Just as, again, no one is "forced" to eat or breathe.

If the only means by which one can afford to eat is to enroll in this program, then it is an instance of the use of force, and not free choice. If you aren't even going to address this point, then stop embarassing yourself with this repetitive badgering.

They can stay with the current system if that is their wish.

Also, there is no such thing as "rape." A woman can simply choose to be killed if she doesn't want to submit to the sexual demands of a "rapist." Her choice, no force involved!

Program is a new ALTERNATIVE they can CHOOSE. or choose to remain in the current assistance programs. I.e. they are NOT sterilized but can be fertile again when ever they chose.

Whenever they choose to no longer be able to afford to eat, that is. That's about as much of a "choice" as your responses are "counter-arguments."

(2) “It means the poor cannot breed, unless and until they cease to be poor. That is a repulsive exercise in social darwinism, that you ought to be ashamed to propose in public.”
No if they choose to participate and then change their mind, for example later want another child, they simply cancel their registration, automatically get any food stamps etc. they were getting before joining and return to the present system. Participation is their free and not permanent choice.

But the need to eat is their unchosen and permanent condition. If you make their ability to afford to eat contingent on a birth-control regimen, then you are forcing them not to breed. No amount of cheap rephrasing is going to obscure this, and it is contemptible that you keep attempting such.

Unless you are proposing that the cost of food under your "eliminate poor babies" program is the same as currently. In that case, again, what is the point? Why not just give them the option of free birth control as such, without putting it in food? Unless there's some incentive - cheaper food - for participating, then it's just inane. And if there is some such incentive, then you are using force - presenting the poor with a choice between nutrition and fertility. So, which is it? Are you being stupid, or outright evil?

(3) “Making that assistance conditional on a birth control regimen, is thus exactly a program of forced sterilization of the poor.”
Answer to (1) applies, but here I note not one of the current assistance programs is taken away from them to force them to participate in the NEW ALTERNATVE assistance program. Again it is their choice. I also note that IF the current assistance programs were avoiding malnutrition brain damage to children, not sending many hungry children to school many mainly for the free lunch, etc. I would not suggest any alternative, but the current system is failing.
Ergo a more effective new alternative is needed.

How about just making food cheaper for the poor, as such, without all of the nasty social engineering?

Again, the only way that this can be a free choice is if comparably-priced food is also made available, untainted by birth control agents. In which case - yet again - what is the point of mixing birth control into the food? Why not just provide free birth control directly to those who want it? What is the value of mixing the two together?

Answer me this one simple question: does enrollment in your program result in food being more affordable? If so, you are forcing the poor to take birth control. If not, it's just stupid - no reason not to simply provide the birth control directly. If so, it's evil: a program of forced sterilization of the poor. There is no other option.

Again replies to (1) and (3) apply. Your text I have made bold it pure fiction – a straw horse you have invented because you don’t want to understand the suggestion is a new choice offer as a supplement to the present system.

Do you think that repeating yourself enough times is going to somehow add up to a counter-argument?

Are you just trying to "win" by sheer pig-headedness and obtusity? You're just coming off as an unhinged codger - which is maybe unavoidable.

Your suggestion is equal parts nasty and stupid, and your argumentation in favor of it is equal parts inane and contemptible. You should cease immediately, and apologize for acting in this way. You should also consider resigning your moderator post.

You are not being rational, not trying to understand

Horseshit accusations - I understand fine, and note that you either cannot or will not provide meaningful answers to any of my points. You are instead being pig-headed and trollish, and so are the last person who should be accusing anyone else of a lack of rationality or understanding.

And you should give up on the condescension plays. You're terrible at them.

- you are attacking the straw horse you invented.

That you do not wish to answer to the obvious implications of your proposal does not mean that they are my invention. That's just weakness and venom on your part. Go find some dolls to play with, if that's the sort of fantasy discourse you need to engage in.

If that is not a knee-jerk reaction of opposition then I don’t know what to call it.

You should stop worrying about what to call me, and start worrying about the fact that the branch you went out on has cracked off beneath your feet. At the very least, exhibit a bit of tactical sense and stop pushing this line publicly.

There is no need to apologize for calling a spade a spade.

That's why I'm not apologizing.

Now how about you apologize for calling a program of forced sterilizations of the poor a compassionate social welfare program, as well as the various unwarranted personal accuastions you've leveled at me? Not to mention, your inability to exhibit any of the discursive qualities a moderator should embody.

As you note, the government does give some birth control free to the poor (at least in Brazil), but I am not sure about the US, where some religions, with considerable numbers of voters are opposed to that.

Differences between Brazil and the USA or whatever other country have no bearing on your suggestion or my opposition to it. Leave your pet subjects at home for once in your life, eh? This shit got tiresome a long, long, long time back.

In any case this often fails to prevent unwanted births. Hundreds if not thousands of women die annually as a result of botched illegal abortions. Others are made sterile so later when they want a child they cannot have one. These failures of the present system are what the new alternative is trying to reduce.

Again, I'm all for providing free birth control, sex education and family planning to anyone who wants it. I've been extremely clear about that, repeatedly. I see no reason to force people to take birth control just so they can afford to eat - and no reason to think that such wouldn't be more expensive, and less effective, than simply providing free birth control and family planning, directly. Something I've already pointed out repeatedly. So if you're going to "respond" to my posts, how about you try to actually address their content, instead of just restating your initial statements ad nauseum?

Certainly, when the desired birth control is not successful, the US does not give free abortions at tax-payer expenses.

Irrelevant to anything at issue here. Stop running to your tired old USA vs. whatever schtick. It's cheap and boring.

Many, even those who are well educated and not poor may desire to not have more children and have birth control pills available but fail to always take them correctly and become pregnant against their wishes.

So your plan amounts to nothing more than a convenient way of making sure you take your birth control pills?

You realize that there are already long-acting birth control methods available, right?

What about children and males eating all of this female-hormone-laced food? How is that ever possibly going to be safe?

Again, this is inane. That you'd fail to discard this suggestion yourself, before ever going out and advocating it publicly, indicates that you either didn't bother to think through the implications, or are simply deluded/confused/stupid.

 

[quadraphonics]

First let me clarify: The program I am suggesting should be considered by many countries with excessive population growth.

So it's totally irrelevant to the USA - a country which grows at very close to replacement rate. And so I'll thank you to stop bringing up the USA and its politics in discussions of your plan to liquidate the poor.

 

[quadraphonics]

My understanding is that population growth in the US is being driven by three factors.
1) Immigration.

Okay.

2) Baby Boomers

Huh? The Baby Boomers stopped contributing to population growth decades ago, when they got too old to have more kids.

3) Religiosity.

Interesting suggestion, but I'd need to see some supporting argumentation and data for such a general claim.

To the first, it can be dealt with through laws,

Unless you share a 3000-mile-long border with a country full of people who want to come here. Then what you need isn't "laws" but "massive standing armies."

and as neighbouring countries become increasingly prosperous, immigration pressure tends to lesson.

Plenty of immigration to the USA from non-neighboring countries, already. And increasing prosperity isn't sufficient - said prosperity needs to increase to the point of being comparable with that of the USA. Mexico is not a poor country by any means, in the larger scheme of things. But they're a lot poorer than the USA, with really bad inequality.

To the next, baby boomers are a glut moving through the system, when they have moved through the system, growth pressures will eases substantialy.

They stopped putting pressure on growth decades back, when they stopped breeding.

To the last. Religous extremism. What, precisely can be done about it? Not a lot really, however perhaps worthy of note is the fact that even the Iranian government has recognized the need to control the level or population and has introduced family planning laws.

Yeah, this is all over the place, and muddled. Try to pin down exactly what factors you're addressing, and how they relate to growth.

But, moreover: why do we need to reduce population growth in the USA to begin with? The USA is not overpopulated - lots and lots of empty, cheap land, more than enough food - and the US population is not growing particularly quickly.

 

[Trippy]

Huh? The Baby Boomers stopped contributing to population growth decades ago, when they got too old to have more kids.

My understanding is that they did, however contribute to the momentum, and it takes a couple of generations for that sort of glut to move through the system.

Interesting suggestion, but I'd need to see some supporting argumentation and data for such a general claim.

I'm not sure I have that on hand, but if you plot GDP versus fertility rate (I think it might be GDP per capita) you get a curve, where populations that have a low GDP per capita tend to have a high growth rate, and vice versa. There are, of course, outliers to this trend, however, most of them tend to have populations below 5 million people, and the others...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg
Saudia Arabia and Israel are two notable outliers, and the US appears to be an outlier as well.

Consider the stance of Catholicism on birth control (I don't know if that's changed) but also the conservative christian stance on abortion, and abortion laws in the US. If Abortions are unavailable, or difficult, and contraceptives are hard to come by, the population will grow.

Unless you share a 3000-mile-long border with a country full of people who want to come here. Then what you need isn't "laws" but "massive standing armies."

Which, strictly speaking need to be authorized by Congress, do they not? (genuine question, I don't know how these things work in the US).

But also, consider the scenario where a Bill (over here Bill=law) is passed by congress that provided incentives for companies to invest in Mexico, and employ mexicans in mexico - would that not remove some of the incentive to immigrate to the US?

Plenty of immigration to the USA from non-neighboring countries, already. And increasing prosperity isn't sufficient - said prosperity needs to increase to the point of being comparable with that of the USA.

It wasn't my intention to suggest otherwise.

Mexico is not a poor country by any means, in the larger scheme of things. But they're a lot poorer than the USA, with really bad inequality.

Agreed.

They stopped putting pressure on growth decades back, when they stopped breeding.

They may have stopped breeding, but they still apply pressure, just not neccessarily directly.

Yeah, this is all over the place, and muddled. Try to pin down exactly what factors you're addressing, and how they relate to growth.

Here I (was) addressing religiosity.

But, moreover: why do we need to reduce population growth in the USA to begin with? The USA is not overpopulated - lots and lots of empty, cheap land, more than enough food - and the US population is not growing particularly quickly.

It's not my suggestion, neccessarily, that the population growth of the US needs to be controled.

The observation is that as prosperity increases, the total fertility rate tends to decrease, this trend can be observed in a number of countries, and there have been a number of causal mechanisms proposed for it, some of which appear to be directly evidenced in the demographics of certain countries (Pakistan is a good example for the effects of urbanization, and education).

The observation is that, as I mentioned, if you plot GDP per capita versus total fertility rate, a curve emerges. Compared to other countries of similar GDP per capita, the US has an unusually high birth rate (or seems to).

 

[Billy T]

"... In its report, "2010 Revision of World Population Prospects," published May 3, the UN now estimates that the global population will reach 9.3 billion in 2050, which is an increase of 150 million from the 9.15 billion it projected in its 2008 forecast. ...
The effect on global commodity prices will be clear - and dramatic. Oil prices, metals prices and - above all:
food prices are likely to be much higher in 2050 (in terms of that era's overall purchasing power) than they are today.

From today's Email to me of customerservice@moneymorning.com

BT comment: Many are now spending >40% of their income on food and they will starve if in real terms food is 2.5 times more expensive than now. That seem to be a certainity* by 2050 unless population growth is significantly decreased. Unfortunately as this report shows, growth rate estimates are constantly being increased.

------------
* People now spending 10% of their income on food will spend 25% instead of go hungry - that is how the price will rise in real terms.
------------
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By edit the next day to add some comments (and more facts) from another source:

"... Humanist notions (that all these extra people are a blessing to mankind) to the contrary, this explosive population growth figures to be a disaster from a global-resources standpoint - and for two very good reasons.

First, if we want all 10.1 billion people to enjoy a standard of living that's essentially on par with us here in the West (meaning they all have automobiles, washing machines, refrigerator/freezers, and all the rest of the latest electronic gadgets), the consumer demand will put an impossible strain on global resources - and if the global-warming theory proves accurate, will heat our planet up like a meatball in a wok.

Second, the vast majority of these new people will be in very poor countries, many of which are already stretched in terms of water, food and other resources.

Continental Africa's projected 2100 population is 3.6 billion, over a third of the global total, while Nigeria's projected population is 730 million, up from 39 million in 1960. If the Nigerian city of Lagos were to maintain its current ratio of the country's overall population, it would contain no less than 81 million people - a truly frightening thought as that city's infrastructure is already overwhelmed.

Past experiences with many countries have repeatedly demonstrated that rapid rates of population growth are wholly incompatible with economic takeoff. That's because the need for housing, education and infrastructure overwhelms the limited amount of available capital. Add to that the additional difficulties caused by resource scarcity and it's likely that Nigeria's 2100 population will be even poorer than the one that exists today.

China's draconian "one-child" policy solved this problem, albeit at high social cost; projected 2100 Chinese population is only 941 million, a full 30% below where it is today. {Billy T comment: There will be a much greater percentage in the over 60 age group, but not much problem as most production will be automated. Perhaps / probably even very humanistic robots attending them in old folks homes; Robots which are much more tolerant of their groundless complaints than humans would be at the end of an 8 hour day. etc.}

More palatable solutions to the problem include increased expenditure on education (particularly for female students), and perhaps a Western-funded old-age-pension scheme in very poor countries, which would reduce the economic incentive for large families. ."

FRom: http://www.investorsalley.com/mc11/05-23/feature.html

 

[Billy T]

I have many posts telling that sugar cane based ethanol is the liquid fuel of choice (8 times more energy efficient than the corn based alcohol the US is subsidizing with corn getting nearly half of all agricultural subsidies plus more subsidies for blending the alcohol into gasoline, and not a diversion of a food crop) etc. Here is a comparison of energy gains for various fuels:

"...Food takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of food for sale in today’s supermarkets, according to food expert Michael Pollan ... A 2008 study by Bruce Dale concluded that it takes 1.19 mega joules of fossil fuel to produce one mega joule of gasoline compared to only 0.77 for corn ethanol and 0.10 for cellulosic ethanol. “The point is, gasoline’s energy requirement is greater than ethanol’s … "

From: http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/7783/fuel-choice-turn-oil-into-salt {The ref. to salt, is from old fact that salt was once the cause of many wars - back when Roman soldiers were paid in salt, etc. I.e. oil is the modern salt. This source is very pro FLEX fuel cars and anti-big oil. IMHO gasoline from oil is about energy neutral, not negative; however when US is running on Canadian shale oil it will be strongly negative with ~ twice the CO2 production per mile driven. Growing sugar cane for alcohol fuel removes slightly more CO2 than it produces when burned.}

I also have many posts pointing out that the food on your table, which traveled more than 1300 miles to get there on average (some say 1500,miles) "is 90+% oil" The extreme is an Idaho potato eaten in NYC - its cost is ~98% the cost of oil used to produce and trans port it. Thus the price of food will rapidly increase as oil becomes more expensive to produce, from ever deeper ocean deposits.

As these prior posts are in other threads, Especially "How DUMB can US voters be?" and "Alcohol fuel the obvious choice -yes or no?" I decided to post these fact here.

 

[quadraphonics]

My understanding is that they did, however contribute to the momentum, and it takes a couple of generations for that sort of glut to move through the system.

Okay - I'm not sure I'm following what you mean by "momentum" or "growth pressure" then. They aren't having kids, and they are dieing - is it just that there's a "bulge" in the population distribution, and once we get to the point where they're dieing off in large numbers, that will put a big downward pressure on the overall growth rate?

I'm not sure I have that on hand, but if you plot GDP versus fertility rate (I think it might be GDP per capita) you get a curve, where populations that have a low GDP per capita tend to have a high growth rate, and vice versa. There are, of course, outliers to this trend, however, most of them tend to have populations below 5 million people, and the others...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg
Saudia Arabia and Israel are two notable outliers, and the US appears to be an outlier as well.

This was going to 'religiosity,' no?

I'd suggest that you might also find some differences in the levels of inequality in those states, compared to others with comparable GDP per capita.

But even if you identify a strong correlation between birth rate and religiosity, that's still not what you claimed - you asserted a causal relationship. Can we be sure that both religiosity and birth rate are not themselves caused by some third factor? Maybe even inequality?

Consider the stance of Catholicism on birth control (I don't know if that's changed) but also the conservative christian stance on abortion, and abortion laws in the US. If Abortions are unavailable, or difficult, and contraceptives are hard to come by, the population will grow.

Sure, I'm aware of the usual stances and their pro-birth intents and effects. But have we established that "religiosity" as such causes a higher birth rate? Would seem to depend a lot on what the religions in question actually say about that stuff, no?

Which, strictly speaking need to be authorized by Congress, do they not? (genuine question, I don't know how these things work in the US).

Yes, and I think you'll find that Congress has repeatedly authorized massive deployments of National Guardsmen and the like for border issues in the last decade or so.

But also, consider the scenario where a Bill (over here Bill=law) is passed by congress that provided incentives for companies to invest in Mexico, and employ mexicans in mexico - would that not remove some of the incentive to immigrate to the US?

We tried that 20 years ago. It was called NAFTA, and the reasoning you cite there was exactly how it was publicly justified. It didn't work - within a few years, the investors simply packed up their factories and went to China or Vietnam or wherever else, leaving Mexico with an even bigger surplus labor supply than before - hence the massive immigration (legal and illegal) over the intervening years.

An interesting idea I've seen floated would be for Americans to retire in Mexico in much larger numbers. Cheaper cost of living, nice weather, etc. An obstacle to this is that you have to be a Mexican citizen to own land in Mexico, so there are all manner of weird long-term lease arrangements and the like.

More generally, the way free trade is supposed to work to address such pressures is that labor goes where there's excess capital, and capital goes where there's excess labor. Problem with NAFTA is that we only want to move around the capital and goods, but not accept the labor flows. And the reality is that you can't just stand athwart such pressures; hence, the large-scale illegal immigration. From a population growth perspective, we shouldn't even want to - yes, immigration will show up as a higher growth rate in the USA. But it also shows up as a lower growth rate in Mexico. Considering that Mexico is right next door, I don't see any point in excluding their growth from consideration - it's not like we can ignore demographic issues south of the Rio Grande so long as we like what happens north of there.

Also, "Bill=law" is the standard usage in the USA as well.

The observation is that, as I mentioned, if you plot GDP per capita versus total fertility rate, a curve emerges. Compared to other countries of similar GDP per capita, the US has an unusually high birth rate (or seems to).

Yeah, but it's really not that much higher. It is actually right about replacement rate - all of the growth is coming from immigration. I'd suggest that those other countries exhibit problematically low birth rates - well below replacement - especially considering that almost none of them have a GDP per capita quite as high as the USA.

 

[Trippy]

Okay - I'm not sure I'm following what you mean by "momentum" or "growth pressure" then. They aren't having kids, and they are dieing - is it just that there's a "bulge" in the population distribution, and once we get to the point where they're dieing off in large numbers, that will put a big downward pressure on the overall growth rate?



This was going to 'religiosity,' no?

I'd suggest that you might also find some differences in the levels of inequality in those states, compared to others with comparable GDP per capita.

But even if you identify a strong correlation between birth rate and religiosity, that's still not what you claimed - you asserted a causal relationship. Can we be sure that both religiosity and birth rate are not themselves caused by some third factor? Maybe even inequality?



Sure, I'm aware of the usual stances and their pro-birth intents and effects. But have we established that "religiosity" as such causes a higher birth rate? Would seem to depend a lot on what the religions in question actually say about that stuff, no?



Yes, and I think you'll find that Congress has repeatedly authorized massive deployments of National Guardsmen and the like for border issues in the last decade or so.



We tried that 20 years ago. It was called NAFTA, and the reasoning you cite there was exactly how it was publicly justified. It didn't work - within a few years, the investors simply packed up their factories and went to China or Vietnam or wherever else, leaving Mexico with an even bigger surplus labor supply than before - hence the massive immigration (legal and illegal) over the intervening years.

An interesting idea I've seen floated would be for Americans to retire in Mexico in much larger numbers. Cheaper cost of living, nice weather, etc. An obstacle to this is that you have to be a Mexican citizen to own land in Mexico, so there are all manner of weird long-term lease arrangements and the like.

More generally, the way free trade is supposed to work to address such pressures is that labor goes where there's excess capital, and capital goes where there's excess labor. Problem with NAFTA is that we only want to move around the capital and goods, but not accept the labor flows. And the reality is that you can't just stand athwart such pressures; hence, the large-scale illegal immigration. From a population growth perspective, we shouldn't even want to - yes, immigration will show up as a higher growth rate in the USA. But it also shows up as a lower growth rate in Mexico. Considering that Mexico is right next door, I don't see any point in excluding their growth from consideration - it's not like we can ignore demographic issues south of the Rio Grande so long as we like what happens north of there.

Also, "Bill=law" is the standard usage in the USA as well.



Yeah, but it's really not that much higher. It is actually right about replacement rate - all of the growth is coming from immigration. I'd suggest that those other countries exhibit problematically low birth rates - well below replacement - especially considering that almost none of them have a GDP per capita quite as high as the USA.

Sorry, I got sidetracked along the way, I do intend to respond, however such response is more in depth than I'm generally capable of at this point.

 

[Billy T]

Fortunately, for China, but not Africa and US's poor etc., China has the cash to import the food it needs. Images of Chinese drought, once posted here will no longer post but may still be seen at ChinaDaily link given below. China does not like me spreading bad news.

"...WUHAN {China} - The worst drought in 50 years to hit provinces along the Yangtze River may continue to plague Central China. These regions will mostly see hot, dry weather during the coming week, the administration said, adding that local departments will activate cloud seeding when weather conditions are fit. Data indicated that rainfall in these regions is 30 to 80 percent less compared to normal years, while the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Shanghai municipality continue to suffer the worst drought since 1954. ..." From: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/25/content_12574307.htm

“…U.S. corn farmers are running out of time to plant this year’s crop after wet weather swamped fields from North Dakota to Ohio. ... higher costs for livestock and ethanol producers as growers switch to soybeans.
About one-fifth of the corn crop had yet to be sown as of May 22 in the U.S., the world’s top producer and exporter, government data show. ... Fields planted after mid-May yield less, while soybeans can be sown until late June. …” From:http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arit0lSqyZDM&pos=6 This article also states that yields from flooded crops that were planted, like in photo, will be poor.

BT comments:In Mississippi valley floods and unusually heavy rains are significantly reducing crops US can export. Expect food prices to keep climbing faster than inflation. Production of corn based alcohol will not be reduced. Thus more than 20% of the corn will be fueling cars, not feeding the hungry poor. As noted in first bold line above, China can pay high prices and will get from US what it wants unless the US puts some controls on volume exported - A break from capitalism's "Sell to the highest bidder" that Russian has made for its wheat exports, but Russia does not claim to be capitalistic / free market / as the US does.

Drastic change is coming to the US: I concluded post 20 with:

... Basically that is the future choice - Food riots or end of the current American economic system. Printing press dollars cannot fund a greatly expanded food assistance programs (1 in 8 is already on a food assistance program). That "solution" will not only fail but will destroy the entire economy.

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28May11 addition:
"...A severe drought from April has affected some 34.83 million people in five provinces along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as of Friday, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Among them, about 4.23 million are experiencing difficulty in finding drinking water and 5.06 million are in need of assistance, ... The Ministry has warned that the drought poses a serious threat to drinking water supplies for urban residents in affected areas as reservoirs are being drained.
The drought, caused by unusually low rainfall and insufficient flow from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, also led to an direct economic loss of 14.94 billion yuan ($2.29 billion), it said. From: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/28/content_12597022.htm

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

The prices of staple foods will more than double in 20 years unless world leaders take action to reform the global food system, Oxfam has warned.

By 2030, the average cost of key crops will increase by between 120% and 180%, the charity forecasts.

Half of that increase will be caused by climate change, Oxfam predicts, in its report Growing a Better Future.

It calls on world leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund.

"The food system must be overhauled if we are to overcome the increasingly pressing challenges of climate change, spiralling food prices and the scarcity of land, water and energy," said Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive.

Women and children
In its report, Oxfam highlights four "food insecurity hotspots", areas which are already struggling to feed their citizens.

We are sleepwalking towards an avoidable age of crisis - one in seven people go hungry every day despite the fact that the world is capable of feeding everyone”

in Guatemala, 865,000 people are at risk of food insecurity, due to a lack of state investment

in smallholder farmers, who are highly dependent on imported food, the charity says.

in India, people spend more than twice the proportion of their income on food than UK residents - paying the equivalent of £10 for a litre of milk and £6 for a kilo of rice.

in Azerbaijan, wheat production fell 33% last year due to poor weather, forcing the country to import grains from Russia and Kazakhstan. Food prices were 20% higher in December 2010 than the same month in 2009.

in East Africa, eight million people currently face chronic food shortages due to drought, with women and children among the hardest hit.

The World Bank has also warned that rising food prices are pushing millions of people into extreme poverty.

In April, it said food prices were 36% above levels of a year ago, driven by problems in the Middle East and North Africa.

Oxfam wants nations to agree new rules to govern food markets, to ensure the poor do not go hungry.

It said world leaders must:

increase transparency in commodities markets and regulate futures markets

scale up food reserves

end policies promoting biofuels

invest in smallholder farmers, especially women

"We are sleepwalking towards an avoidable age of crisis," said Ms Stocking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13597657

 

[iceaura]

It didn't work - within a few years, the investors simply packed up their factories and went to China or Vietnam or wherever else, leaving Mexico with an even bigger surplus labor supply than before - hence the massive immigration (legal and illegal) over the intervening years.

It "stopped working" immediately, as a direct consequence of its structure and real purpose - which "encouraged" immigration, rather than the reverse.

The major factors were things like the combination of the low wages and preference for the exploitable - i.e. women, in Mexico - in the factories, their location on direct routes and nearby areas to the US, and the dislocation of so many farmers through the swamping of the agricultural economy with US money and produce. It wasn't the departure of the NAFTA factories, but their arrival, that set off the immigration boost.

And it was already increasing, as the Mexican economy degraded in the face of an increasing population over time.

Yeah, but it's really not that much higher. It is actually right about replacement rate - all of the growth is coming from immigration.

If the topic is population growth compared with prosperity, immigration counts.

 

[quadraphonics]

If the topic is population growth compared with prosperity, immigration counts.

Did I say somewhere that immigration "doesn't count?"

Because I'm pretty sure that what I said there was exactly that immigration is the decisive factor in US population growth, and that the fixation on fertility rate was largely irrelevant (since it sits around replacement rate).

 

[Billy T]

"... Wet weather that delayed corn planting in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, may send global inventories to their lowest in 37 years, signaling higher costs for consumers and livestock producers. ...

Corn futures more than doubled in the past year to $7.365 a bushel in Chicago and may top $9 if conditions worsen, according to Morgan Stanley. The rally is boosting costs for meat producers including Tyson Foods Inc. and ethanol makers such as Poet LLC, as global food inflation tracked by the United Nations accelerated in nine of the past 11 months.* ..." From: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCBuyadERu8U&pos=12

*BT thinks that in ALL of the last 11 months food prices have risen, but in two of them the rise was less than the month before - I.e. not an "accelerating rise" but still growing more costly every month to put food on the table.

 

[Trippy]

Okay - I'm not sure I'm following what you mean by "momentum" or "growth pressure" then. They aren't having kids, and they are dieing - is it just that there's a "bulge" in the population distribution, and once we get to the point where they're dieing off in large numbers, that will put a big downward pressure on the overall growth rate?

Mostly, but not entirely. Most of the definitions of 'Baby boomers' that I'm familiar with extend through until 1964 which would give 2004-2009 as the limit of their child bearing (generally speaking), and I know that some of them left child bearing quite late.

This was going to 'religiosity,' no?

I'd suggest that you might also find some differences in the levels of inequality in those states, compared to others with comparable GDP per capita.

But even if you identify a strong correlation between birth rate and religiosity, that's still not what you claimed - you asserted a causal relationship. Can we be sure that both religiosity and birth rate are not themselves caused by some third factor? Maybe even inequality?

Maybe - but bear in mind that, at least in the context of the US, I only asserted that it was a contributing factor, not the sole causal factor.

Sure, I'm aware of the usual stances and their pro-birth intents and effects. But have we established that "religiosity" as such causes a higher birth rate? Would seem to depend a lot on what the religions in question actually say about that stuff, no?

We're both familiar with the christian stance, or at least, the more extreme views on it. Islam, from what I'm given to understand, from the limited research I've done on it, essentially states "If it happens, it will happens because of Allah's will, and there's nothing you can do about it, one way or the other, so don't." Although Islam also doesn't teach ensoulment at conception, I think it teaches ensoulment at what amounts to 12 weeks. I'm going to assume, for the time being, that Judaism teaches the same thing as christianity, because my recollection is that the supporting passages from the bible are all old testament.

Yes, and I think you'll find that Congress has repeatedly authorized massive deployments of National Guardsmen and the like for border issues in the last decade or so.

I've forgotten what my point here was, but the closest thing that I can see may have had something to do things being authorized by congress by the passage of laws and similar.

We tried that 20 years ago. It was called NAFTA, and the reasoning you cite there was exactly how it was publicly justified. It didn't work - within a few years, the investors simply packed up their factories and went to China or Vietnam or wherever else, leaving Mexico with an even bigger surplus labor supply than before - hence the massive immigration (legal and illegal) over the intervening years.

An interesting idea I've seen floated would be for Americans to retire in Mexico in much larger numbers. Cheaper cost of living, nice weather, etc. An obstacle to this is that you have to be a Mexican citizen to own land in Mexico, so there are all manner of weird long-term lease arrangements and the like.

More generally, the way free trade is supposed to work to address such pressures is that labor goes where there's excess capital, and capital goes where there's excess labor. Problem with NAFTA is that we only want to move around the capital and goods, but not accept the labor flows. And the reality is that you can't just stand athwart such pressures; hence, the large-scale illegal immigration. From a population growth perspective, we shouldn't even want to - yes, immigration will show up as a higher growth rate in the USA. But it also shows up as a lower growth rate in Mexico. Considering that Mexico is right next door, I don't see any point in excluding their growth from consideration - it's not like we can ignore demographic issues south of the Rio Grande so long as we like what happens north of there.

Right, and presumably the immigrants integrate into their host society, I've looked at some statistics for the UK and Pakistan, and they seem to suggest that even among first generation immigrants, although the family size might be larger than normal in their host country, it's still smaller than normal in their home country - with the net result of a decreased growth rate across the two countries.

Also, "Bill=law" is the standard usage in the USA as well.

Cool.

Yeah, but it's really not that much higher. It is actually right about replacement rate - all of the growth is coming from immigration. I'd suggest that those other countries exhibit problematically low birth rates - well below replacement - especially considering that almost none of them have a GDP per capita quite as high as the USA.

Which, strictly speaking, makes the US the outlier still, because it suggests that the trend is towards problematically low birth rates. I'm not sure what the replacement rate in the US is, so I can't really comment. Germany makes an interesting study though.

 

[Billy T]

"... June 7 (Reuters) - Livestock feed producers are scrambling for supplies of
soymeal as flooding on the raging Missouri River threatens to shut several soy
processing plants in the western U.S. Midwest, traders said Tuesday.
Flood waters from the Missouri, which are expected by some analysts to
submerge about half a million acres of crop land, have also disrupted rail
service in some areas, a situation that is likely to worsen. "There are a
lot of rail problems in the western Corn Belt associated with the flooding
along the Missouri River," said Newedge USA analyst Dan Cekander. At the
Chicago Board of Trade, those factors combined to lift the front-month July
soymeal futures contract to its biggest premium over the August contract in
three months -- a reflection of tight spot supplies of soymeal, a
high-protein ingredient in livestock feed. ..." From Schwab's Email today.

 

[Billy T]

Number and percent of people in the US on food stamps as of Sept. 2010 (From Wall Street Journal source):

State .......#. Yearly change . Monthly change . Percent
U.S. total . 42,911,042 . 16.2% . 1.2% . 14% That is more than 1 in every 7 people now (+8.5 months) that more have lost their jobs etc.*
Alabama ... 849,785 .... 12.8% . 1.2% . 18%
Alaska ....... 81,196 ..... 15.4% . -0.1% . 11.6%
Arizona ..... 1,044,410 . 10.9% . -0.3% . 15.8%
Arkansas ... 483,309 .... 8.4% , 0.7% . 16.7%
California .. 3,466,974 ..17.7% . 1.2% . 9.4%
Colorado ... 424,878 .... 16.8% . 0.1% . 8.5%
Connecticut 364,341 ... 22.8% . 1.4% . 10.4%
Delaware ... 124,755 ... 21.9% . 2.6% . 14.1%
D. of Colum. 128,759 ... 16.4% . 1.7% . 21.5%

For other states go here: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/12/08/food-stamp-rolls-continue-to-rise/ As Scifroum compresses many space down to one, I needed to insert .... to make table readable and did not feel like doing too much of that.

* You need an address to get food stamps, so hunger problem is worse than figures above indicate - Some get help from church supported "soup kitchens" or the Salvation Army (but must sit thru the "alcohol is evil" lecture and prayer part first) others beg for food, others eat from trash cans, usually in dark alleys behind grocery stores and restaurants where you don’t see them. - This in the world's richest country.

If the above Sept 2010 National rate of annual increase (red 16.2%) continues, then in 2 years, i.e. by Sept. 2012, > 35% of Americans will need help buying food. Don't try to tell me there is no danger about serious social unrest, if the Tea/ Party gets to kill food stamps and local government continue to lay off policemen their budget can not pay. These problem are steadily growing worse (double digit annual increases in almost every state!) - pull head out of the sand and look.

 

[Workaholic]

Number and percent of people in the US on food stamps as of Sept. 2010 (From Wall Street Journal source):

State .......#. Yearly change . Monthly change . Percent
U.S. total . 42,911,042 . 16.2% . 1.2% . 14% That is more than 1 in every 7 people now (+8.5 months) that more have lost their jobs etc.*
Alabama ... 849,785 .... 12.8% . 1.2% . 18%
Alaska ....... 81,196 ..... 15.4% . -0.1% . 11.6%
Arizona ..... 1,044,410 . 10.9% . -0.3% . 15.8%
Arkansas ... 483,309 .... 8.4% , 0.7% . 16.7%
California .. 3,466,974 ..17.7% . 1.2% . 9.4%
Colorado ... 424,878 .... 16.8% . 0.1% . 8.5%
Connecticut 364,341 ... 22.8% . 1.4% . 10.4%
Delaware ... 124,755 ... 21.9% . 2.6% . 14.1%
D. of Colum. 128,759 ... 16.4% . 1.7% . 21.5%

For other states go here: As Scifroum compresses many space down to one, I needed to insert .... to make table readable and did not feel like doing too much of that.

* You need an address to get food stamps, so hunger problem is worse than figures above indicate - Some get help from church supported "soup kitchens" or the Salvation Army (but must sit thru the "alcohol is evil" lecture and prayer part first) others beg for food, others eat from trash cans, usually in dark alleys behind grocery stores and restaurants where you don’t see them. - This in the world's richest country.

If the above Sept 2010 National rate of annual increase (red 16.2%) continues, then in 2 years, i.e. by Sept. 2012, > 35% of Americans will need help buying food. Don't try to tell me there is no danger about serious social unrest, if the Tea/ Party gets to kill food stamps and local government continue to lay off policemen their budget can not pay. These problem are steadily growing worse (double digit annual increases in almost every state!) - pull head out of the sand and look.

It will be interesting to see when the "flashpoint" will occur in the USA. IMO, when things get to ~40% official food stamps (i.e. >40% people have food problems) is when we start seeing large scale unrest.

On the other hand, perhaps the flashpoint will never occur and the people of the USA will be content reverting back to fedual age serfdom.

 

[Billy T]

"... In 2010 China's total grain production was a historical record of 546 million tons. Second, successive years of bumper grain harvests have enabled China to build up a large grain reserve of more than 40 percent of its annual consumption - much higher than the world average of around 17-18 percent. …

The world has a stake in China's strong food security. If China followed the economic theory {Sell high value items & import more food} of comparative advantage by relying on international trade to achieve its food security, its import requirement would seriously destabilize the international grain market and drive up world inflation.

It is therefore in the favor of the whole world for China to rigidly adhere to its basic tenet of maintaining strong food self-sufficiency. ..."

From: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2011-05/31/content_12612238.htm and page 2

 

[Billy T]

An Email I routinely get from generally reliable source states:

"... BusinessWeek.com article from Monday. Here's an excerpt:

Corn purchases are accelerating as droughts and floods limit output gains in everything from soybeans to wheat, driving the Standard & Poor's Agriculture Index of eight commodities 60 percent higher in 12 months. China, the world's second-biggest consumer after the U.S., will use 47 percent more than a decade ago, adding an amount greater than the entire crop of Brazil, the third-largest producer.

You read that right... China's corn consumption has grown more than the entire corn harvest of Brazil! In the face of record corn harvests, the world is still "eating" more than its making. ..."

Billy T comment: That "more than Brazil" is probably true but a little misleading. Yes Brazil produces more corn than it needs but much less than the US does. No way, I think, does the excess corn production in Brazil comes close to the export earnings from soy beans, coffee, oranges (as juice), beef, chickens, and a few other agricultural products, all of which I listed here are often or always the world's largest dollar value export earners, or Brazil's exported oil earnings.

The last part of the quote is probably why the US Senate a couple of days ago dramatically (3 to 1 vote) despite solid "no votes" from corn & alcohol producing states, ended 41 years of subsidies on the production of alcohol from corn and the 54cents /gallon tariff on imports of cheaper Brazilian alcohol.
More details here: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2771233&postcount=409 where my comment were:

Finally some evidence for intelligence life forms in the Senate! .
...{post text omitted}...

Billy T comment: 6E9 x (2011-1970) = 246 billion dollars wasted to make your corn based food more expensive!
Because of the compounding of interest, and the high interest rate that prevailed in much of this period, if those funds had paid down the national debt it would be nearly a trillion dollars less now.

I don't like to double post, so just note this could have been in another thread I also started called: "How DUMB can American voters be?"

 

[Billy T]

"... United Nations revised up its estimate for the global population in 2050 by 150 million people to 9.3 billion, and projected a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100. That will require a 70% increase in global food production, an issue the AMIS plan{monitoring agreed to at just past G-20} doesn't even begin to address. More immediately, you have the rapidly rising appetite of countries like China, which already is using 47 times more corn than it did 10 years ago.
{BT notes: with rapidly rising incomes, the Chinese eat more meat (from corn eating animals). I don't think the Chinese are into eating "corn on the cob", yet.}

And then there is the inscrutable emphasis of governments on biofuels that convert crops such as corn into fuel. The U.S. ethanol industry expects to convert 5 billion bushels of corn into ethanol next year, encouraged by the Renewable Fuel Standard mandate requiring the blending of ethanol with gasoline.

Recent spikes in energy prices also have affected food prices, with crude oil rising 10.3% in March, 36% higher than the same period in 2010. "These oil price increases impact the price of food -- a 10% increase in crude oil prices is associated with a 2.7% increase in the World Bank Food Price Index -- through multiple channels," a recent World Bank report stated. ..."
From: http://moneymorning.com/2011/06/24/rising-food-prices-menu-regardless-g20-action/