[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by IamIan

The graph you link to of TMS combines government and non-government factors ... I don't see how you can pull out of the combined graph just the government aspect of it ... and if you can't pull out the government aspect of it ... How do you know what % of the graph is from non-government?

This question is a bit easier. No one but government can legally create new money. The mechanism they use is called fractional reserve banking, which allows banks to lend more money than they have actual assets on deposit. Double the "lending," double the money supply. The rest is simply sleight-of-hand tricks.

Doubling the money supply alone by itself does not necessarily mean lowering the value of the money... The raw amount is only one part of what determines the supply ... and supply is only part of the supply and demand relationship that determines the value.

There is a slight amount of statistical variation so it isn't 1:1 - but in fact changing the money supply does have a major impact on the "value." Think of it like a stock split - when a company doubles it's stock by simply declaring that every outstanding stock is now two stocks. For a healthy company, the stock price usually ends up slightly higher than 1/2 of the value prior to the split - but it's never equal.

Control by myself , after the government has it , no ... but ... I can influence my government... my own personal % of influence is very small because I share influence with millions of other people ... but shared influence does not = no influence... and being part of this system is also my choice ... I can choose to leave and go to a different country / system.

Thus my point. YOU may personally be happy with how it is spent; I and others are not. Economically, the entire economy suffers greatly due to the mis-appropriation of my money. In any event, even though you may be happy with it today you are simply saying you are happy being a slave under the current master.

#1> From my perspective , what you are using the word slavery to describe ... trivializes what actual slaves went through ... and as such is describing and entirely different thing than my perspective of actual slavery ... and I suspect when what most people think of when you ask them what is a slave.

A gilded cage is still a cage. The principle is the same. Again, if you are happy being a slave good for you - but I gotta tell you that that simply makes me disrespect you for imposing your slave-utopia on me and others who disagree. it tells me you are unethical, willing to enslave others for your personal benefit. That is not simply a perspective, it is an objective fact - that you, and other like-minded people, have conspired over decades to destroy my god-given rights for your gain.

#2> From my perspective , hard choices does not = no choice ... consequences to my choices does not = no choice... thus from my perspective , what you outlined , simply is incorrect to claim that it is not mine to direct ... just because there are consequences to the actions I might take in one direction does not remove my ability to direct it there anyway.

Even slaves in ancient Rome had some choices. They were still slaves.

#4> From my perspective, What you describe is more like indentured servitude than slavery ... you owe ___ and a % of your pay at whatever job you work will be deducted until you pay ___ off.

Nope. You can never reach a point where you don't have to remit any new productivity you choose to create. It's perpetual.

#5> From my perspective , Even if we ignored 1-4 above ,your suggestion seems to require that the majority ( over 50% ) of my earnings get paid out involuntarily to the government ... I know I don't pay out that large of a % myself ... and I know I have options about paying it out as well ( so it isn't involuntary ) ... and I know the % varies from person to person ... some people paying out much lower % than I do ... what you describe does not seem to apply to any of these people who are themselves being taxed less than 50% of their income.

The Founding Fathers of my country understood all too well this trap in thinking, that once you accept government as "natural" and "good" it can excuse all kinds of violations of our rights. Government is not good; it is a necessary evil. Such a thing is never improved by growing it.

#7> From my perspective it is the will of the collective majority that are the source of power and control in a society ... that we collectively choose to share with or temporarily give some of our power and control with our government ... this does not change that we are the source... and we collectively can choose to take back any power or control we gave , or shared ... not you or me individually ... but the collective majority.

Sorry, that is simply mob rule, elevating the parasite to the same stature as the productive. There is no such thing as "the collective," it is a lie sold to the likes of you to help rationalize your immoral choices to collaborate in stealing.

"very nearly a straight line" is the key part of that statement ... it is not a straight line ... is has a curve to it ... a curve that might be easy to miss if some refuses to look at the data points the graph is made from ... but when you look at the data points and see 19% to 15% to 11% ... that is a curve and the rate of positive growth is decreasing.

Put a ruler over it - you will see it has a slight upward trend.

I did not intend nor post that the total population was in decline ... that would require a negative growth rate ... which is different from a declining yet still positive growth rate ... the positive rate of population growth decade to decade has been in decline for 30+ years... and has been lower than is was 50 years ago every decade sense.

Problem is, there is no trend downwards in the linear growth to justify portraying it as a trend that will lead to ZPG.

At the start of the graph between 1960 and 1970 there was a ~28% increase in total population ... which effectively means every couple was giving birth to an average of something like ~2.56 children.

The more you use percentage growth to analyze the graph, the more you will delude yourself. The answer lies in absolute population growth each year, which if you plot those on a graph will create a virtually straight horizontal line.

The rate is clearly decreasing.

That's not what the figures show.

[quote]using firefox here ... your link with the text "Look at this chart"
has the url address of :

"http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=t rue&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+population#ctype=l&strail =false&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y =false&rdim=country&ifdim=country&tdim=true&hl=en& dl=en"

[quote]Maybe it is routing to a different page from your location. We saw that happen before with Dictionary.com between two posters on this forum.

19% , 15% , 11% is decreasing... like it or not.

You used the decreasing percentage to suggest we are progressing towards ZPG. I showed you that it is not true. It still isn't true.

He might not like the math ... but he needs to back to math class if he thinks 19% to 15% to 11% is not decreasing.

If the world gains 50,000,000 people each year and that number never changes, the percent increase will decline over time but the population will never stop growing. I don't know why you are arguing this. It is not evidence that population will ever decline until we see a steady drop of the number of new people per year over many years; otherwise, any apparent change is simply a statistical deviation.

I will agree with the concept of more humans = less valuable each individual human could be ... but I don't see where you make the jump to ripe for tyranny?

Study history. It will come to you.

Since you like trends so much, why don't you plot the progression of total government spending vs. GDP over time. It is alarming.

[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by IamIan

I thought it might be useful to see an actually straight line of consistent growth ... Bellow is a graph showing the same World Bank global population data ... in the Blue Line ... the Red Line is an actually straight 18% population growth each decade starting in 1960.... I think putting a straight line next to it helps to see the actual curve to the World Bank data line.

10 years is not sufficiently significant in terms of census to determine a trend. Back near the beginning of the 100 year chart there was a more dramatic uptick in the straight line.

Choosing a period of time like that to justify your opinion that population growth will level out is a bit like charting temperature across short periods of geologic time to suggest the world is warming - it's bad science.

Off to vacation for a few weeks, won't be posting. Have fun all, and please solve world hunger while I'm gone!

[Duncan]

There is no such thing as "the collective,"

There is a technical term for a single human in nature "Cat Food"

Our nearest relatives demonstrate the effectiveness of our human cooperative nature,
Chimps like other primates form a "collective" for group defense (and offense) - but that's all

Early pre-humans started to cooperate in other ways,
this drove a need to communicate
which rewarded larger brains - which in turn improved communication

Cooperative humans (the collective) out competed everything!

From Cat Food to cats in cages

If you want to see how a "Randian" society would work out - visit the zoo!

[Duncan]

Population Growth

Looking at world population is difficult

You get a better idea what is happening when you look at countries.
(without immigration)

There is a pattern;

Relatively slow growth,

Modern technology (sewers) reduces the infantile death rate - growth speeds up (a lot)

As affluence increases the rate slows dramatically - to less than replacement numbers

This pattern is constant - religion/race don't seem to make a difference

When you look at the world you see more and more countries moving into the low/zero growth mode,
The overall numbers are muddied by the surges that precede the drops

The best way to control or reduce the world population is to spread the affluence and reduce the number of people who are very poor.

Incidentally this may be why the USA has an increasing population while Europe is reducing, the USA has a high average income but a lot more poor people than Europe

Also the "European poor" may be above the affluence line while the "American poor" may be below the affluence line

[david85]

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Off to vacation for a few weeks, won't be posting. Have fun all, and please solve world hunger while I'm gone!

Have fun. No promises on world hunger since we still have to fix global warming.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Off to vacation for a few weeks, won't be posting. Have fun all, and please solve world hunger while I'm gone!

Have fun.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

This question is a bit easier. No one but government can legally create new money.

Federal Currency is government controlled ... not money ... the money chart you showed includes things other than currency ... and you give your own example of non-government making money ... so I fail to see why you would still claim this???

At least in the U.S. ... yes non-government people can even print their own currency ... what they are not allowed to do is to duplicate or replicate or pass their own currency off as U.S. Federal Currency.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

The mechanism they use is called fractional reserve banking, which allows banks to lend more money than they have actual assets on deposit. Double the "lending," double the money supply.

Which would be a direct example of the non-government bank effecting the money supply.

This statement of yours violates your own previous statement about government control of money.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Thus my point. YOU may personally be happy with how it is spent; I and others are not.

Correction ... I am not personally happy about many of the ways it is spent ... I don't recall ever saying I was ... and I suspect there are likely many other individuals that are not happy with how it is spent... some might even agree with me on a few things.

But that just gets back to what I already said ... the whole of the country is not under my personal individual control ... I share influence with millions of other people ... all of us wanting different things and having different individual priorities ... what we get out of the entire mess of millions of individuals pulling in different directions ... collectively is our collective will ... which many times does not agree with my own individual likes or dislikes.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Economically, the entire economy suffers greatly due to the mis-appropriation of my money. In any event, even though you may be happy with it today you are simply saying you are happy being a slave under the current master.

see above... I did not and do not say I am happy with it as it is... And I am not saying I am happy being a slave either... I am not a slave and would not want to be one.

Although I do recognize you seem to have a completely different definition of what it means to be a slave than I do... so the word does not mean the same thing when you use it vs when I use it.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

The principle is the same.

That is your perspective ... and one of the places where your perspective and my perspective are different... I don't think the principles are the same... I see significant differences.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Again, if you are happy being a slave good for you - but I gotta tell you that that simply makes me disrespect you for imposing your slave-utopia on me and others who disagree. it tells me you are unethical, willing to enslave others for your personal benefit. That is not simply a perspective, it is an objective fact - that you, and other like-minded people, have conspired over decades to destroy my god-given rights for your gain.

You are incorrect about me conspiring over decades to destroy your god-given rights for my gain.

You are incorrect about me imposing my slave-utopa ( whatever that is ) on you.

You are incorrect about me enslaving others for my benefit.

You claim this is a fact ... I'm calling you out , on that ... prove it ... prove all these things you claim are facts about me.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Nope. You can never reach a point where you don't have to remit any new productivity you choose to create. It's perpetual.

Not quite ... it is possible to reach that point in our current system ... just very few people even try to ... much less actually do.

One example off the top of my head ... I'm sure there may be others ... the government issues interest on several different types of investment with the U.S. government ... the taxes you pay on any interest you collect from such investments is less than 100% ... therefore there does exist a finite set amount of money you could invest in the government that the interest the government paid would not only pay the taxes on that interest but it would also have enough surplus for you to live off of... thus there does exist a finite amount of money I can pay to the government , and be done with it ... as bizarre as it is.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

The Founding Fathers of my country understood all too well this trap in thinking, that once you accept government as "natural" and "good" it can excuse all kinds of violations of our rights. Government is not good; it is a necessary evil. Such a thing is never improved by growing it.

I don't see how this relates to my quote you applied it to?

If your concept of slavery depends on greater than 50% taxes ... anyone who pays less than that is not a slave by that standard.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

There is no such thing as "the collective," it is a lie sold to the likes of you to help rationalize your immoral choices to collaborate in stealing.

My immoral choices? ... What specific choice have I made that you qualify as immoral by your personal moral standards?

I disagree with you about the existence of 'the collective'... I more agree with what Duncan posted.

- - - - - - - - -

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

If the world gains 50,000,000 people each year and that number never changes, the percent increase will decline over time

exactly , give that man a cookie.

In order for the WorldBank lowering % change ( 19% to 15% to 11% ) to happen ... it requires that the birth rate is not keeping up with the death rate ... one of two things must be happening:

• Either the death rate is increasing faster than the birth rate is increasing.
• Or the birth rate is dropping faster than the death rate is dropping.

The growth is still positive even at the 11% point because the birth rate is still larger than the death rate ... but the ratio between births and deaths is different from when it was with 19% growth.

Just like 11% interest from a bank is a slower rate of growth than 19% interest is... 11% population growth is a slower rate than 19%.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Put a ruler over it - you will see it has a slight upward trend.

My bad/error in wording ... it is a consistent 18% each decade ... instead of the varying % change the WorldBank data shows ... I should not have used terminology like straight to describe the consistent 18% line.

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

You used the decreasing percentage to suggest we are progressing towards ZPG. I showed you that it is not true. It still isn't true.

I don't think you have showed that.

Correction ... My initial reason for pointing out the decreasing % was not about the future or a potential ZPG point ... it was to disagree with prior comments about the population growth rate increasing ... the decreasing % shows it has been decreasing for the last 30 years.... then later when you made the comment quoted bellow , I brought it back up and asked you if you had a different source of data?

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

I'm not convinced that global population growth will slow

The data clearly shows that in the last 30 years the rate of population growth has slowed ... 19% to 15% to 11%.... that was the reason for me posting about the decreasing % ... to show you there was a decrease.

I have also repeatedly posted several issues with extrapolating the 30 year trend out into the future toward a ZPG type point... those issues do not change the existence of the last 30 year trend... they just help to put it in a more proper perspective.

Here I'll repeat the same kinds of things I have said several times before ... just for fun / to refresh your memory.

This doesn't change the other issues about this 30 year trend already posted ... it might not continue ... it might not continue at this rate ... it might not happen fast enough ... there could be population related issues even if it does continue and even if it does happen fast enough for long enough ... that data might not be 100% accurate data to begin with.

[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by Duncan

There is no such thing as "the collective,"

There is a technical term for a single human in nature "Cat Food"

Our nearest relatives demonstrate the effectiveness of our human cooperative nature,
Chimps like other primates form a "collective" for group defense (and offense) - but that's all

Early pre-humans started to cooperate in other ways,
this drove a need to communicate
which rewarded larger brains - which in turn improved communication

Cooperative humans (the collective) out competed everything!

From Cat Food to cats in cages

If you want to see how a "Randian" society would work out - visit the zoo!

Not necessary - just go back 50 years in the U.S. to see a nearly ideal Randian society. Runaway socialism has perverted that ideal, running up a crushing debt just like all of the other socialistic economies do when the reality of the impact of their policies on productivity makes it impossible to keep the promises of payouts while maintaining anything resembling a balanced budget.

It will only get worse the longer we pretend Perpetual Motion can be made real if "we all just believe hard enough."

[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by Duncan

Population Growth

Looking at world population is difficult

You get a better idea what is happening when you look at countries.
(without immigration)

There is a pattern;

Relatively slow growth,

Modern technology (sewers) reduces the infantile death rate - growth speeds up (a lot)

As affluence increases the rate slows dramatically - to less than replacement numbers

This pattern is constant - religion/race don't seem to make a difference

When you look at the world you see more and more countries moving into the low/zero growth mode,
The overall numbers are muddied by the surges that precede the drops

The best way to control or reduce the world population is to spread the affluence and reduce the number of people who are very poor.

"Best" is such a subjective word....

Incidentally this may be why the USA has an increasing population while Europe is reducing, the USA has a high average income but a lot more poor people than Europe

The U.S.A. has an increasing population only because, unlike it's European sister-socialist countries, we refuse to enforce immigration laws. Absent the flood of illegal immigrants (now estimated at as much as nearly 50 million) we have negative population growth."

Also the "European poor" may be above the affluence line while the "American poor" may be below the affluence line

Backwards - the "average American poor person" lives in a home that is better by pretty much every objective measurement (more square feet per person, better heat / AC, bigger TV, Game Boy, etc.) and eats better food than the "Average European" (NOT "Average Poor Euoropean").

They (liberal politicians) have successfully falsified the definition of "poor" hear to push their socialist agenda.

[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by david85

Have fun. No promises on world hunger since we still have to fix global warming.

Hehe - as long as we focus your energies on non-problems, it is certain that world hunger will have to wait...

In Venice right now, just had to poke my nose back in for a few...

Ciao!

[Duncan]

Phantom said

just go back 50 years in the U.S. to see a nearly ideal Randian society.

1950's -1960's

Very high taxes on the rich,
strong unions,
CEO's get about 8 x average wage,
good infrastructure,
high minimum wage,
good SS safety net
Government takes a larger slice of the national pie (GDP)

Does NOT sound very Randian to me!!

Does sound good though!