Slow learner?

AMY GOODMAN: Where do you get the money [to stimulate jobs]?

PAUL KRUGMAN: [Nobel winning economist] Borrow it, and then repay it later in better times, which is not at all --- that may sound funny, but that's exactly what we've done in the past. --"End This Depression Now": Paul Krugman Urges Public Spending, Not Deficit Hysteria, to Save Economy

So, Mr. Krugman, what about the ~$16 trillion or so "national" debt that has NOT been "repaid later" -- and has increased every year since the Eisenhower Administration -- not to mention the approximately $100 trillion in Social Security and Medicare owed to old folks since they paid in advance?

And you think Uncle Sam knows better what people want than they do themselves as determined by their voluntary buying decisions in markets? And so Uncle will spend that money -- removed from those voluntary markets by coercive taxes and borrowing -- on products and services that folks will prefer to buy instead? And Uncle will provide these products and services at reasonable prices from lasting enterprises? Solyndra for example? And the borrowing -- called "extortion futures" by some because it will be paid by extorting taxes from the kids, grand kids and the yet unborn -- isn't wasting our money, let alone the lives of the kids, grand kids and the yet unborn?

Really Mr. Krugman? OK. I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale - - -

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The Baby Boom is Busted

There's now a baby BUST in progress in most of the "developed" world, not a baby BOOM. AND the birth rate has been declining world-wide as even many "developing" countries decline toward the 2.1 babies-per-woman population replacement rate.

Birthrates are falling nearly all over the world, and the speed of this change is breathtaking. As the population ages, this is creating great challenges. The Fertility Implosion www.nytimes.com

--CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: Six Adults and One Child: The Coming Baby Bust

--Teen pregnancy rates decrease nationwide, increase in Amarillo area : News : ConnectAmarillo.com

--TONIGHT: Teen pregnancy hits record lows | KETK

And, the dirty little secret is it's putting the hurt on the world-wide social ponzis ...

--Ponzi Planet: The Danger Debt Poses to the Western World - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International Spiegel article, Ponzi Planet

You can see the recent world-wide "picture" of this phenom using "Gapminder's" graphical representation. HERE: GAPMINDER (World population -- babies per woman)

If you put your cursor point on any circle, you can see the country name. The "Children per woman" box is in lower right of the Gapminder window. The "children per woman" number for the country you have the cursor on pops up there.

Japan, Germany, Belaruse, Poland, Portugal, Italy, etc. all at about 1.4 children per woman are particularly interesting in the implications.  Other countries aren't quite so dramatic, but the trend is clear. 

Gapminder is a prize winning and popular innovation and can be used to graphically demonstrate all sorts of collected data. It also lets you go back in time to see how key ratios have evolved.  All in all, perhaps THE "killer ap." Hit 'Play' button at the bottom to see the population shrink over the years.

Governments Don't Facilitate Progress, they Retard it

"I really have no argument with someone who wants to believe that human existence c. 40,000 BC was better than today. I think virtually everyone on the planet would think that postion is insane, but I can't argue with such a person's *belief*. --Greg

You insist on assuming that without governments, modern conveniences wouldn't exist. I would suggest just the opposite: Governments, trying to freeze change as the name "State" confesses, actually retard progress.

For example, the research from Penn State that proves a certain virus kills all grades of breast cancer cells in 7 days. That's in vitro (in a test tube, etc.), which is significantly different than in vivo (live organisms). None the less, this seems to be a novel approach, and if I had terminal breast cancer (don't laugh, men DO get it) I'd rather try some version of treatment using the virus than just sit still and die.

That, of course, won't happen -- the FDA won't permit it, at least not in the open market. I might die quicker as an unexpected effect of the virus. Or it might do no good at all, but so what? Why should people with a death sentence according to the establishment be prevented from trying to save their own lives and at the same time, contributing to research which might lead to the proper way to use this virus to save later victims?

Lest you think this notion that "The State" retards progress is an original idea with me - - -

Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face of its constant and bitter opposition. --H.L. Mencken

"The objective of war is not to kill people; the objective is to obtain a political end," says John Alexander, a retired army colonel and former head of a non-lethal weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "In the current political situation, that end is to maintain stability." --A Fate Worse than Death?, Laura Spinney, "New Scientist" (science weekly), London, Oct. 18, 1997

"Any factors that could jeapordize our stability must be annihilated at early stages." --Chinese President Jiang Zemin to Chinese police officers, MSNBC Watch It, 28 Dec 1998, ~11:08:12 AM EST

~"Change has the effect of enlarging the state, not diminishing it." --well-known economist John Kenneth Galbraith, NWI Century, 09-22-97, 3:26pm EST

. . . What led the greatly advanced civilisation of China to fall behind Europe was its governments' clamping down so tightly as to leave no room for new developments, while, as remarked in the last chapter, Europe probably owes its extraordinary expansion in the Middle Ages to its political anarchy (Baechler, 1975:77) --F. A. Hayek, THE FATAL CONCEIT The Errors of Socialism, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1988), p. 44 & 45

As far as tribal life, which we're designed for, being better in general, even 40,000 years ago -- although you only have to go back maybe 13,000 years, if happiness counts for anything, it may indeed be better. No? Explain this:

The REAL Human Condition  http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/2011/08/29/white.html

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