Agriville forecasts of the end of the world have been greatly exaggerated

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Oneoff said "I see not enough potential tax payers to look after too many who should be retiring and turning the show over to younger generations. Maybe even the will to work as was work was seen to be in the past. "

That is exactly the problem we need to figure out how to solve. But here is where I disagree with conventional wisdom. Those few remaining taxpayers are capable of producing countless times more food, energy, manufacturing, infrastructure than ever in the past. We no longer need full employment to maintain our standard of living. Look at how much food each of us can produce compared to a few generations ago. The same is true in every industry. Look at the current glut of oil, grains or metals. All accomplished during times of high unemployment.

But we have government fighting this trend every step of the way. They are promising to create jobs, subsidizing obsolete industries, and inefficient businesses. creating more regulatory agencies to employ more people to be parasites on the few who genuinely produce something. Are we really better off having them in the workforce?

Is it a tax base that is not big enough, or is it the value we put on those tax dollars?

Would you and I be able to maintain the will to work, to provide food for thousands who might never do a productive thing in their lives, if we had the potential to earn a much higher standard of living? I would say that that is what we are doing right now isn't it? We all chose to be farmers instead of civil servants. No on assigned us to this profession then took away our mobility.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

cottonpicken, "Hope your right Sum but your not. The older people already ****ed the younger people. You borrowed from the future and standered of living has been in decline for some time. Minimum wage was around 20$ purchasing power of today in the sixties And there is no way in hell young people will get to enjoy the social programs the old gifted themselves.

And when the default and restructure comes which it sure the hell will who will take responsibility?"

Doesn't that just make it more likely that the young people will revolt and say we are not paying a debt which we didn't create? Ask why should we be living in a world awash in resources and labor, yet have a lower standard of living just because of numbers on paper? Won't they be the ones to revolt, screw the elderly who saved. And what are savings, just the other side of the debt that they accumulated to have their lifestyle.

[farmaholic]

AF5, Sometimes I think to myself, people should ask themselves if they actually "made a difference" at work today, were they productive, contributing, "earning" their wage?

Answer it honestly! Would have you been missed if you weren't there today, for a week, a year...

Could one person functionally and effectively do the job of two or three of the staff?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Again, I ask, someone show me one Fundamental limit to growth that humanity is up against today? I concede that exponential growth is mathematically impossible long term, but from where I stand today, we haven't reached the limits of any resources, or medical research or creative ways to predict or mitigate against natural disasters.

All I see are governments trying to eliminate the natural and vital business cycle. Causing untold unintended consequences. Namely debt and a prohibitive tax burden.

If a visitor from the distant past, or a foreign planet landed tomorrow, and we had to try to explain to them how terrible the economy is, and the explanation involved these arguements:
-We have too much energy, food, housing, etc.
-All of these necessities and a whole lot of luxuries can be provided by progressively fewer people.
-Everyone owes eachother arbitrary figures on paper, which they are equally unable to make good on. So we can't exchange these necessities and luxuries.
Do you think this visitor might be able to think of an easy solution?

[cottonpicken]

Have you ever tried talking to people about this. Nobody even knows how the system works let extrapolate logical outcomes which of course requires historical perspective.

Canada was minutes away from a fAiled bond auction in the nineties.

How many people out of a hundred no that and what it actually means.

Austerity had come and John and Paul where forced to act because our fiscal house was in shambles. Now we are much worse off but luckily everyone else is two and fiscal monetary policy has gone full retard.

The natural inescable forces of the market will overcome anything we have put off.

Like I've said before unless tech saves us. Theoretically we could get to near zero labour and completly money free with everything we want.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

cotton, I think your last line should be our goal. Perhaps unattainable, but if we did everything with that in mind, instead of with full employment as the goal, we would be in a much better situation today.

And as you say. One country alone running on borrowed money has a big problem. But it is every country. Like the saying, if I own the bank $1000 and I can't pay them, I have a problem, if I owe them $10,000,000 and I can't pay, they have a problem.

[farmaholic]

You bring up a point that makes my "simple" mind unable to figure out why people think "economies" have to grow forever, every year, or never suffer a setback. First of all at what pace? We all know the quicker the pace the more growth. It just can't keep ballooning for ever, and when its expected to and conditions aren't actually conducive to growth... it gets "forced"

The least we should be hoping for is stagnation.


WTF is the difference if you earn $20/hr and a beer costs $5.00 or you earn $30/hr and that same beer costs you $7.50? Why does everything always have to go up? So lets drop all wages to $10/hr and pay $2.50 for that beer. What keeps driving things up?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Farmaholic. I look at most offices and the answer to that question is crystal clear. IF one can take a sabatical, or long holidays and the world doesn't stop revolving, then that answers itself. I even look at myself, as a small/medium sized farmer, and realize that a BTO could cover my ground in a fraction of the time and wonder if I am not part of that same crowd that I am lamenting?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

farmaholic, regarding growth. We have this ridiculous idea that our success can only be measured by growth and employment. When it should be measured by productivity. And productivity should lead to deflation. Which should lead to an increased standard of living as products and services get more affordable over time. Which is what happened throughout the most of the 1800's thanks to the industrial revolution. Measuring success by growth is ludicrous. Exponential growth is mathematically impossible except for a very short time period. Did we really think China could grow at 10% growth for ever, look at an exponential growth curve for 10%, see how sustainable that is? The more natural dips, and shrinkage we have, the longer the game can go on. We will reach the limits of growth, earth is finite. I don't know when or how. But it is mathematically impossible to avoid.

[cottonpicken]

Well that sort of ties in with the frActional reserve banking world. It's hard to use as few as words as possible to describe complicated things.

When a bank takes in ten dollars it's allowed to lend out ruffly nine. This all set up around the bassel treaties which i wont go into but they where all sort of ignored anyway.

The remaining dollar is called the tier one capital reserve.

So you maybe need to pause and think about this.

So the bank lends out nine. Where does that go?maybe pays a wage to build a house?where does that wage go?back to the bank.

What if the government borrows to pay a wage?wage goes into the bank

See the complexity. Lots of things i still dont have my arms around.

Now apply international trade with balance of trade math.

Countries are desperate to keep positive trade. The money hits the banking system and gets leveraged up. Best example of this is japan. That's how they where always able to fund themselves. But they are completly ****ed fiscally.

Now through in carry trade. Very very large web.