Population Bubble?

That's a good take. That's probably true. Certainly for the poorer nations offspring are assets, and definitely in developed nations, at least financially, offspring cost a lot.

Can you imagine how the world would be if everyone everywhere enjoyed the same standard of living that we enjoy in the US, and consumed resources at the same rate we in the US do? We consume a quarter of the oil. What happens when a billion Chinese and a billion Indians get cars and those countries build roads, condos and subdivisions and power stations for everybody. Suddenly everything is in crisis shortage and nations go to war to protect their strategic interests. Yes, we in the US over-consume. And its good for the rest of the world to catch up and match us? But we do not want to lower our standards or expectations. Something's got to give somewhere.

I agree, it's unrealistic for everyone to be at the same level, in fact, I think it's only natural that there is a hierchy, that's how it's always been and seems to be human nature. However, I also think it's unrealistic and dangerous to allow the difference between the have and have nots to grow so large that the have nots feel they need to blow themselves up to make a point.

The world would be a great place to be and live, and the population would diminish naturally (as has been pointed out in regard to Europe and Japan).

Your apocalyptic view assumes that the engineering and resource issues don't get resolved. I think that is a short sited view.

Again resources are infinite, we have whole universe of resources. Distribution is the problem, and it is a grand engineering problem at that.

Dear wcfloyd, and others, I do view population control as better than war most simply.

Obviously in those nations where many have better educations often on their own they choose to have smaller families.

I forget now what the world population now is: 6 Billion?

Back when I was recording all the Ecology Lectures at UNCG in the '70s, it was said that the maximum population for Earth of human beings was calculated at 13 billion, and that the expectation was that after that number was achieved it was likely sustainable for 3 weeks.

Now though I myself may sloganize "In Science Salvation", the Human Nature factors of Politics, Religions, and the fact that while the future is here, it is not here everywhere, I am inclined to look at population control, and world population stabilization as a good thing, same as energy conservation over hopes and dependence on silver bullet energy surplus supplying technical innovations.

While it is true that many of the First World feel entitled and are hypocritically quick to tell others what to do, and the world is not fair, there is little to point to that quickly may be expected to change, and somehow of a sudden mean prosperity for all.

Some do postulate that as distasteful as it is for many nationalists, without the institution of a World Government, disparities of wealth and opportunity will continue.

Further it is now recognized that we are in an era of great instability since the end of the Cold War, which worked and is called a Bi Polar Power Balance, as opposed to the Multipolar power balance that characterized Europe prior to WWI.

While theoretically we can provide for a very large human population on Earth at higher levels of standards of living, powerful institutions and traditions prevent ready realization of a more equitable sharing of the fruits of engineering and science now available.

For one example look at the financial system which has been and continues to skew towards the haves, "Too Big To Fail", while workers are basically crushed.

I posit that National Minimum Wages are counterproductive in the era of Globalization, and only an International Minimum Wage could sensibly be expected to advance universally living standards so tied to money and income so as to inhibit compulsions towards war.

I tend to agree with your statement "Obviously in those nations where many have better educations often on their own they choose to have smaller families." I might also add "or may not have time to devote to creating a larger family (both spouses working".

I think people in most cultures wish for their culture to continue on long past their death. But the interesting thing is the above theory (if you want to call it that) implys that more educated cultures may be destined to exterminate themselves by lack of reproduction.

Would it not be make more sense to propgate educated societies instead of uneducated ones? If so, then maybe the educated need to copulate more or get busy educating those less educated so as it won't matter which culture dies out.

Reduce everyone to the lowest common level? I do not think business, especially large multi national companies would contemplate paying third world labour the same rates as the developed world. That would mean paying the same for African/Asian goods as American goods without the benefits.

Well now, not sure if we are on the same page rrvau.

National currency values that could provide "living wages" internal to those nations would still give multi nationals deals on labor.

The issues of currency valuations in a Global economy are significant.

More on this later.

By your tag line, you might be interested in Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.

Transcendian-

Many years ago, I was employed by a multinational manufacturing corporation, and it came time to build a new factory. We analyzed the cost of production in the third world country where we owned and operated fabrication facilities and compared these to the cost of production in our US facilities. In the third world country at that time, the direct labor cost per day was the same as the direct labor cost per hour in the US. There were additional hidden costs in the Third world country that increased our cost of doing business, and there was additional transportation cost, but these were not sufficient to justify adding US-based facilities. What finally drove the decision to locate the new facilities in the US rather than the third world country was the quality of the product produced- much of the product of the third world facilities required significant rework (which could be accomplished without significant loss of raw materials). At the end of the day, although there was a factor of 8 difference in the salaries paid to the workforces, the final cost to us of the product delivered to the customer was virtually the same. Therefore, the value to the company of the third world workers was 1/8th the value of the US based workers.

This, of course, was a single incident, involving a specific set of work skills (semi-skilled, not requiring significant investment in education). One could argue that there was a difference in work ethic between the two candidate societies as well. But in this particular case, it hardly makes sense to pay the third world workers the same that one would pay workers who demonstrated an 8-fold productivity increase...

It is worth topic to discuss on a global basis. For Highly populated countries ,the China's role model of population control[ one family one child] , can be put forward to save earth from over crowding. In most of the developed countries the trend is towards minimum off springs, that the parents being aware of limited nature of resources and competitions

The most successful tact ice is about breaking out religion and anti population activities in a convincing way.

It is the sole responsibility of each and every human on the planet to sustain.

Isn't worldwide depression and lack of resources what led to WWII? My history professor told me that history has been fairly cyclic. There is a time of great prosperity followed by depression followed by a war which tends to lead into times of prosperity.

You Wrote:"My history professor told me that history has been fairly cyclic. There is a time of great prosperity followed by depression followed by a war which tends to lead into times of prosperity."

No, that's just how it happened for WWII. Take for instance the "Long Depression" from 1873 to 1879. It was longer than the Great Depression by 22 months. It was only 8 years after the Civil War, so obviously the Civil War didn't produce "times of prosperity" and it didn't end in a due to a war.

The Long Depression was caused in the U.S. by the governments tight fiscal policy in order to get back to the gold standard (which it had to suspend during the civil war). They actually took money out of circulation, which, including increasing production as the U.S. rebuilt factories caused in the Civil War, led to severe deflation and reduced trade.

Didn't we have prosperity in the 50s followed by a recession in the 60s? Vietnam war in the 70s followed by an economic upturn? I know we had another recession in the 80s followed by what is loosely called a war. Weren't we prosperous in the 90s?

This isn't an exact science just an observation that my professor made.

The Civil War? Could it be that we didn't have prosperity afterwards because it was civil war? Well, at least I understood the meaning of what my professor was saying.

"The Long Depression was caused in the U.S. by the governments tight fiscal policy in order to get back to the gold standard." Didn't realize I was dragged into this conservative vs. liberal debate. Or better yet I didn't think the op wanted it to be a conservative vs. liberal debate.

You Wrote:""The Long Depression was caused in the U.S. by the governments tight fiscal policy in order to get back to the gold standard." Didn't realize I was dragged into this conservative vs. liberal debate. Or better yet I didn't think the op wanted it to be a conservative vs. liberal debate."

How is that a liberal vs conservative debate? I'm quoting the historical reasons for the recession. I took that verbatim from Wikipedia:

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

Also, the Vietnam War ended in the early 70s, yet the U.S. remained in a recession till the early 80s. So your history professor's theory doesn't work there either. In fact, the U.S economy was great in the 1960s, until 1969 that is. So I'm not sure what you're talking about in your previous post.

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

I'm sorry history is getting in the way of your little theory, but either get informed or get over it.

By the way, the story that WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression is a myth. Here is a graph of GDP growth, notice that it grows through most of the 1930s. The decline occurred from 1928 to 1933. But hey, why bother with facts when you've got such terrific opinions.

"I'm sorry history is getting in the way of your little theory, but either get informed or get over it." Don't understand the reason for the insults but OK?

"The decline occurred from 1928 to 1933." So Japan didn't attack China in the 30s to gain more resources?

Yes, resources were the main reason Japan started the war with China, seeing as Japan is a rocky island nation with little resources of its own. I don't see how that justifies your original statement though.

At this point you seem more intent on winning an argument than admitting that maybe the depression-war-prosperity idea is a myth, so I don't see the point of discussing this further.

Roger-

At least in one sense, war could be considered good for prosperity...Consider the number of people killed in the two great wars of the last century. At least in the US, production capacity was increased to meet demand for war materials, and after the wars, the facilities were used to produce civilian goods once again. Since much of the manufacturing capability in the rest of the world had been pretty much blown to bits, American prosperity was guaranteed. More capacity, bigger market = more for everyone to share.

Somewhere, some time ago, I read a similar theory that the European Renaissance was the direct result of the Black Death- over a third of the European population dead of the plague. When it was all over, there was still the same amount of wealth available, but fewer people sharing it, so everyone seems wealthier...

War is good for prosperity only if you win the war and as long as your infrastructure remains unharmed while everyone elses is destroyed, a fairly unique set of circumstances.

France was devastated financially after the Franco-Prussian war, part of the reason they were so hard on the Germans afer WWI, which of course destroyed the German economy in the 1920s (Hyperinflation).

Wake up to yourself, I did NOt write that.

Overall I consider the two main reasons for poverty to be War and Corruption.

The US History is unique due to the conflicts between the states most notable in what I call The Civil War, and some call The War Between the States.

"My Past, Is your Future." is oddly enough something the US can say to others out of its short history.

Sometimes France can turn to the US and say: "Been there, done that." in relation to Vietnam and Algeria, I in particular see French warnings to have fallen on deaf ears.

US Postwar WWII, was characterized by a number of surprises. The US was the major winner because its infrastructure was least touched.

The role of the GI Bill ought not be underestimated for it maintained a national internal market, and created a well educated labor force during a time when threads of the Social Contract were still inplace.

I posit that if the GI Bill regarding educational opportunities had really been what GI had won for all Labor of the US, this current precipitous fall of US power influence and leadership would not be occurring to the level it is.

Let us consider that we ought to think that there ought not be too many ignorant people, and if there is a standard by which to limit growth of a population nationally, or internationally it total, limit by knowing how many you can teach, as if schools were the most important resource, not oil in the ground, or trees in the forest.

These "bubbles" have occurred in the past. There is evidence of a massive die-off that is linked to a meteor crater in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. Wars have done their part to limit population, until we found ways to put some limits with the UN. Pestilence, such as the Bubonic plague did its share, until we developed medicine. Natural disasters such as storms like Katrina, tsunamis, earthquakes, and others do temporary reductions, But we have yet to face the most horrible of the Horsemen on a Global scale. When Famine saddles up to ride roughshod over the planet, with no respect for wealth or position, then, indeed will be seen the "abomination of Desolation" referred to in the Christian Bible. If we do not find the solution for third world starvation soon, it will come to our own front door. I am doing my share with a balanced food/energy/water/education/medicine program that can be implemented almost anywhere. For details: oertg@aol.com.

My opinion is that if a global plague doesn't drastically reduce the population in the next 30-50 yrs, mother earth will take revenge on us for overheating her.

Unless of course some despot get hold of a few nukes and creates some mischeif between a couple of powerful countries.

Either way the laws of nature will reduce the world population despite man and his technology advances.

Here's two recent opinion pieces from New Scientist on resources and global population.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327271.700-population-overconsumption-is-the-real-problem.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327271.600-population-technology-will-save-us.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Here's another op ed piece from New Scientist with an opposing point of view. What the hell is going on at New Scientist? Are all their op ed pieces about population?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327271.500-population-enough-of-us-now.html

Interesting bit of trivia .... the world's population given 1100 square feet of land each and they would fit within the state of Texas.