Digest Number 722

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Joe" wrote:
>
> > Message: 15
> > Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 07:06:13 -0000
> > From: "victoriatangoman"
> > Subject: Re: Population Control Policy Issues
>
> > --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
> > wrote:
> >> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Joe"
> >>
> >>>> The reason I had trouble playing along is that I think that
your
> >>>> axioms don't account for some real-life dynamics. Try and
find me
> >>>> any business that has as its goal no revenue growth. Try to
find me
> >>>> a national economy that looks for no growth - that is
striving for a
> >>>> static level of production, population, resource use, etc.
This just
> >>>> doesn't happen.
> >>>
> >>> I disagree that economic growth is synonymous for
population
> >>> growth.
> >>
> >> I never said that they are synonymous, but population growth is
a
> >> significant contributor to economic growth. In some other post I
> >> listed the other components of economic growth, but because of
the
> >> Digest form of response, that post was so long ago that I can't
> >> remember where it is. If you're interested, dig through the
last few
> >> weeks of posts.
> >
> > Look here for analysis of what a declining population means for
> > economic growth:
> > http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid220
>
> Sorry, but I don't find this link at all convincing. It is the
> projections of the Institut Francais des Relations
Internationales (IFRI).
> There is no explanation of their methods given, just a flat
conclusion - and
> it is interesting to note that they project population growth and
loss of
> international economic share for North America.

I'm sorry things aren't always spelled out to your satisfaction in
news articles. I'm not aware of any means of getting journalists to
research and write articles that specifically address your
questions. If you'd like to analyze the methods used to reach these
conclusions you're completely free to do so by visiting the link at
the bottom of the article. It takes you to the 376 page study.
Perhaps the website manager thought most people would be satisfied
with a summary and wouldn't want to wade through a detailed
scientific analysis in order to synthasize their own conclusions.

> Heck, I can do as well, and it's got nothing to do with
population
> growth. China (their predicted big winner) desperately needs to
modernize,
> and it looks like they are well on the road to doing so.
Predictibly, and
> facilities they build now will be modern ones, and have a long
service life
> ahead of them. North America has an aging industrial
infrastructure - with
> many facilities built with out-of-date technology, but still
considerable
> service life ahead of them. True, some will be phased out, and
modern
> facilities built to replace them, but this is a piecemeal effort.
Europe
> has the worst of all worlds, many of its existing facilities date
from the
> reconstruction period following WWII (heavily updated in some
cases) and the
> european have never been able to get their act together regarding
their
> overly powerful work unions and farming lobbies - they will be the
big
> losers over the next fifty years.
> There you go - an honest-to-goodness gloom-and-doom forecast
that has
> nothing to do with losing quantity of human resources; instead I
have
> phrased it all as Loss-of-quality-in-Enterprise-resources.
> If you wanted to be convincing, maybe some historical data
would be
> better.

I don't care anymore.

TangoMan