Some more factual info about Patton:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_Baum
The head of the US Chamber of Commerce said as much before Congress some years ago. I just happened to catch it on C-Span. Maybe not in the same words as C&O put it, but saying we can’t compete because of worker’s rights, minimum wage, environmental laws, regulations for this and that, etc.
To this day, I’m not sure if he was just listing things on why we can’t compete, or if he was actually advocating to have all the things he listed repealed.
Jeff
The calculations vary by source, but the scientific community in general agrees that we would need multiple planet Earths for the world’s current population to all live like the average American (or Canadian, I assume).
Unfortunately we only have one, and that ain’t changin anytime soon.
Source?
Here at BBC for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33133712
The are additional reports od different sources.
Regards, Volker
Pure nonsense. Bending and twisting facts and data to fit.
Someone with a nice government grant trying to show the world how smart he/they are.
Agenda driven scare tactics … worse they actually believe this garbage.
Malthusianism.
…old discredited outdated farce philosophy that belongs on page 38 of the worst tabloids, next to ads for." protect yourself from the coming apocalypse" stuff.
Not one of Google’s citations is a research article in a peer-reviewed science journal, so give it up with the nonsense about someone with a grant. On the other hand, trying to discredit the obvious over-population sustainability crisis with old canards like “Mathusianism” is disingenuous.
So, if the above-mentioned references are not credible, does that mean that the premise about needing multiple planet Earths for the world’s current population to all live like the average American is not true? Or is it true and just that the references are not credible?
Euclid-- Both!
…and here is my peer review " what a bunch of malarkey"
…to which I add a little bit of Othello
Not poppy nor mandragora
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
Here is what I wonder. If we need more earths to support a population that lives at the standard of the U.S., and if this is to be incorporated into public policy, as one of the reference articles says; what would be the action plan for that policy?
It seems to offer two choices:
-
Go out to the used earth market and buy a couple of them for expansion of our civilization support.
-
Reduce the development and life style of the U.S., until there is room for the rest of the world’s population to reach the same level of development as the U.S.
Here is the “Living Planet Report 2016”: https://www.wwf.de/fileadmin/fm-wwf/Publikationen-PDF/WWF-LivingPlanetReport-2016.pdf
According to Wikipedia:
The Living Planet Report is published every two years by the World Wide Fund for Nature since 1998. It is based on the Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculations.
The Living Planet Report is the world’s leading, science-based analysis on the health of our only planet and the impact of human activity. Humanity’s demands exceed the Earth’s capacity to sustain us. The latest edition of the Living Planet Report was released in October 2016.
WWF is not the only institution working on the report. They are all listet in the linked report.
On page 40 is the comparison of resources and consumption.
Regards, Volker
So we get rid of flush toliets and go back to outhouses?
Not really. Trade deficits with particular nations are not a problem at all. An overall trade deficit isn’t really a problem either.
Why? Because all those dollars come back home as investment.
https://www.heritage.org/trade/commentary/why-trade-deficits-really-dont-matter-very-much
If you want to fix the trade imbalance, the place to start is with the budget deficit. The debt, in some part, is financed by those dollars coming home. Reduce the debt and there is more “home grown” capital for investment in the US.
But, instead of fixing that, we just made it much worse by a double whammy of a tax cut and a huge budget increase. Add in the inflationary and economic dampening of trade tarrifs and you are headed for trouble. Washing machine costs are up nearly 20% since tarrifs and Whirlpool stock and sales are down.
What frosts me the most is the notion that we are being taken unfair advantage of by other countries in trade. At best, there is an anecdote or two trotted out as evidence. But, there is never any reliance on data and analysis. Why? Because it shows things are actually pretty good and mostly fair!
So, why is Fritz worried about a trade war? It’s not that UP will lose import traffic boxes. It doesn’t matter where stuff comes from. It still has to move.
One reason is a trade war will depress the economy and there will be less stuff to move.
The other reason is that a trade war is inflationary which makes capital very expensive - and RRs are capital intensive in
There is a solution!
John Scranton, author of a book on the same theme: We’re Doomed. Now What? Essays on War and Climate Change. He is a professor of English literature, although I think it fair to claim that neither English nor literature should be thought complicit in Mr. Scranton’s fifteen-alarm brand of climate lugubriousness and pitiless despair.
Prof. Scranton is not a cheerful boyo. No one will don the party hat after reading his explanation that one logical conclusion is “… the only truly moral response to global climate change is to commit suicide. There is simply no more effective way to shrink your carbon footprint. Once you’re dead, you won’t use any more electricity, you won’t eat any more meat, you won’t burn any more gasoline, and you certainly won’t have any more children. If you really want to save the planet, you should die.” Well, break out the marshmallows, throw another log on the fire, and tune up the ukulele — we’re going to have a sing-song.
– an excerpt from Rex Murphy, column in the National Post this weekend.
Your post is mildly offensive and has nothing to do with railroading or this thread,
It goes to the ’ multiple earths’ discussion.
I didn’t write it… Prof. Scranton entire article can be found recently in the New York Times. Rex Murphy wrote a column in reply in Canada’s National Post this weekend.
It is all part of the discussion of UP CEO comments on trade and tariffs.
Me too. Yet that seems to be the stated reason for us taking action to level the playing field. The problem is that the other side will never agree that there is any unfair advantage. China thinks they are just making the products we want and selling them to us for less cost than what it would be if we made them. What’s unfair about that?
The answer given for that question is that it is unfair for them to sell to us more goods and merchandise than the amount we sell to them. Since when is that unfair to the believers in free trade? If we expect to sell to them, we have to make our products attractive to them just like they make theirs attractive to us.
And because they will never agree that they are being unfair, they will retalliate with their own tariffs. Their tariffs on us, and ours on them will slow down the econmies of the world. So we all suffer because of some fake idea of fairness.
And sometimes the countries are right. When you look at the trade balance alone between European Union and the USA, the USA has a deficit.
When you additionaly take services and profits US companies make in the EU and send back home as well as profits made by EU companies in the USA into the comparison the picture changes. The summery is balanced!
Reason is the dominant position of American companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. on the European market.
But it doesn’t seem to fit into the picture.
Regards, Volker