patrick.net

indigenous says

How many countries can say that their government supports 150 million to one degree or another?

you . . . have a point : )

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=FHk

shows per-capita gov't spending is $24,000 or $2000/mo .

But to count DOD as part of socialism is stretching things, since socialism requires public provision of wealth, and there's no wealth being created there.

Now that, that's a remarkable graph.

Strategist says

California is the 8th largest economy in the world, and soon we will be overtaking France.

Very arrogant.
I'm counting CA is 10th at $1.95T

1 United States 16,244,600
2 China 8,358,400
3 Japan 5,960,180
4 Germany 3,425,956
5 France 2,611,221
6 UK 2,471,600
7 Brazil 2,254,109
8 Russia 2,029,812
9 Italy 2,013,392

And soon India will overtake you.

Heraclitusstudent says

Strategist says

California is the 8th largest economy in the world, and soon we will be overtaking France.

Very arrogant.

I'm counting CA is 10th at $1.95T

1 United States 16,244,600

2 China 8,358,400

3 Japan 5,960,180

4 Germany 3,425,956

5 France 2,611,221

6 UK 2,471,600

7 Brazil 2,254,109

8 Russia 2,029,812

9 Italy 2,013,392

And soon India will overtake you.

Old data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California

We are #8 folks. We will soon conquer France, then UK.

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

Eventually the top economies will be:
China
India
USA
EU

Strategist says

Old data.

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

The link says $2.05 trillion in 2013.

- The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Italy was worth 2071.31 billion US dollars in 2013.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/italy/gdp
- The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Russia was worth 2096.78 billion US dollars in 2013
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp
- Google lists Italy at $2.19 Trillion US dollars at current prices - 2011

But anyway, you might over take these 2.
But who knows what might happen before you overtake France?

Bellingham Bill says

But to count DOD as part of socialism is stretching things

They certainly would have in the USSR or China?

Strategist says

Eventually the top economies will be:

China

India

USA

EU

I would not count on China being number 1, they have some major hurdles to get though.

indigenous says

Strategist says

Eventually the top economies will be:

China

India

USA

EU

I would not count on China being number 1, they have some major hurdles to get though.

India
China
EU
USA

How does that look? Eventually it will all be based on population.

Mark D says

they are slowly running out of colonial loot.

Which reinforces my statement that Italy has gone steadily downhill since the fall of the Roman Empire.

zzyzzx says

How does that look? Eventually it will all be based on population.

Don't know but China will have a demographic problem that is huge compared to Japan.

They have devalued their Yuan for so long and deprived their people of so much they Have to revalue their currency to create their own consumption.

If they pull an FDR on this they are fucked. They need to create a middle class.

The other potential problem will be war as that is the usual bone head solution that the US uses.

Any of you know how game theory applies to this?

Call it Crazy says

Strategist says

Eventually the top economies will be:

China

India

USA

EU

I told you to start learning Mandarin...

If they want to be #1 they will need to learn the #1 language - English.

indigenous says

Don't know but China will have a demographic problem that is huge compared to Japan.

They have devalued their Yuan for so long and deprived their people of so much they Have to revalue their currency to create their own consumption.

If they pull an FDR on this they are fucked. They need to create a middle class.

Eventually they will have a demographic problem, after they get up there.
They buy more cars then we do. Looks like a booming middle class to me.

indigenous says

The other potential problem will be war as that is the usual bone head solution that the US uses.

Any of you know how game theory applies to this?

I don't think there will be major wars besides the looney Mid East and Africa.
Game theory......Yeah I remember taking a class on that. That's all I remember.

Strategist says

Eventually they will have a demographic problem, after they get up there.

They buy more cars then we do. Looks like a booming middle class to me.

Got a link on that?

Game theory might be handing in understanding the likelihood of war?

indigenous says

Don't know but China will have a demographic problem that is huge compared to Japan.

distribution wise, I don't see the problem. In 2050 their median age will be what Japan's is now, ~45, with their dependency ratio also rising to just about what Japan's is now (~60).

Japan's dependency ratio is going to rise to near 100, i.e. parity, almost 1 dependent per working-age person by 2050. China and Japan are nothing alike here.

Size-wise, sure, China is going to be big. But not much bigger than it is now, thankfully for them. China is so big it boggles the mind, growth is almost stopped but they still may add another 100M mouths to feed.

indigenous says

Strategist says

Eventually they will have a demographic problem, after they get up there.

They buy more cars then we do. Looks like a booming middle class to me.

Got a link on that?

Game theory might be handing in understanding the likelihood of war?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aE.x_r_l9NZE

indigenous says

They need to create a middle class

They have one -- Apple's sales in China are 2X that of their Japanese sales, and that's with Apple owning the Japanese phone market -- but another 1 billion people with an American standard of living ain't going to happen, or god help us if it does, since their consumption will come out of OUR current consumption.

This is a finite world for a lot of things; hell, we might even be seeing Peak Food right now for all we know.

I don't pretend to understand China, never been there never want to go there.

But knowing all the utter shit they've been through over the past 200 hundred years, man. The Japanese invasion '37-'45, horrific as it was, wasn't the worst they've gone through. I wish them the best, but damn it's not in our own national interest for them to take our place in the world.

I'm already afraid of seeing more food inflation as the yuan gets stronger and sucks more of our ag production over to them, taking food from our mouths as it were.

shows some of the FX shenanigans have been rolled back. China has a very large trade surplus still, though, indicating the necessity for greater strengthening. How much, couldn't tell ya.

The yuan might have to triple to 2 again, like what happened with the yen 1973-1988, but the global economy could handle a nation of 100M+ getting so much more buying power like that, especially since the Indians and Chinese were still largely sitting things out in the 1980s.

Now, things are different.

zzyzzx says

Which reinforces my statement that Italy has gone steadily downhill since the fall of the Roman Empire.

You never heard of the renaissance?

Bellingham Bill says

A demographic problem: whether the population keeps growing or shrinks, that's a demographic problem.

Bellingham Bill says

distribution wise, I don't see the problem.

Me neither by looking at those graphs. But I have read that it will be a problem. Just like I have read that it is a problem in Japan? It does not appear the one child policy made much of difference in any particular age bracket.

Bellingham Bill says

This is a finite world for a lot of things; hell, we might even be seeing Peak Food right now for all we know.

That is Malthus BS, he said that world growth would be constrained by food production. Or course he was projecting this through 1800 crop yields.

The whole idea of scarcity comes about through this idea of peak oil or peak what ever. Technology changes the peak.

The other thing that needs to be considered is that human knowledge grows geometrically.

The important thing to do is allow that nascent change be allowed to grow as that is where the solutions come from.

indigenous says

Bellingham Bill says

This is a finite world for a lot of things; hell, we might even be seeing Peak Food right now for all we know.

That is Malthus BS, he said that world growth would be constrained by food production. Or course he was projecting this through 1800 crop yields.

The whole idea of scarcity comes about through this idea of peak oil or peak what ever. Technology changes the peak.

The other thing that needs to be considered is that human knowledge grows geometrically.

The important thing to do is allow that nascent change be allowed to grow as that is where the solutions come from.

Right on dude.

Strategist says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aE.x_r_l9NZE

That is a trip I did not know the Chinese bought that many cars.

indigenous says

The other thing that needs to be considered is that human knowledge grows geometrically.

Human knowledge actually shrinks. We are acquiring false knowledge at an alarming rate.

Heraclitusstudent says

A demographic problem: whether the population keeps growing or shrinks, that's a demographic problem.

Since when is a shrinking population a problem???

Peter P says

Human knowledge actually shrinks. We are acquiring false knowledge at an alarming rate.

I hear you, but I'm not talking conjecture.

zzyzzx says

Heraclitusstudent says

A demographic problem: whether the population keeps growing or shrinks, that's a demographic problem.

Since when is a shrinking population a problem???

That would depend on which demographic population is shrinking and which demographic population you belong to. There is potential strength in numbers, as they would have a seemingly endless supply of replacement soldiers. Though we might save resources by reducing our population, I could see where we'd run the risk of having those resources stripped by a country with enough manpower to simply take what they need, assuming they have the political will and organization to do so.

indigenous says

That is Malthus BS, he said that world growth would be constrained by food production. Or course he was projecting this through 1800 crop yields.

The whole idea of scarcity comes about through this idea of peak oil or peak what ever. Technology changes the peak.

The other thing that needs to be considered is that human knowledge grows geometrically.

Malthus was absolutely right.

There is no amount of technology or knowledge that could sustain an exponential growth of population perpetually.

If you don't believe this is true, you don't believe in arithmetic.

zzyzzx says

Since when is a shrinking population a problem???

Since a shrinking economy is a problem.

The demographics will change. As the educated and civilized have fewer kids, the rest are reproducing like rabbits.

The Armageddon will not be a mass extinction event. It is simply the intellectual de-evolution of the species.

indigenous says

The important thing to do is allow that nascent change be allowed to grow as that is where the solutions come from.

Soylent Green here we come . . .

Sure we can make more food, maybe. But not necessarily of the quality or at least form we've grown up with.

Drop the yuan to 2 and we'll see a lot more exports to them

Maybe we can make the CAFOs to fulfill this new demand. We've certainly got the land, but we also need feed and water . . .

not seeing much upside growth in corn

unless we develop new ways of producing it, or other animal feeds

Or eat less and stop using food as transportation fuel.

Bellingham Bill says

Drop the yuan to 2 and we'll see a lot more exports to them

That will be part of re-balancing.

Bellingham Bill says

not seeing much upside growth in corn

Simple quit using it to make ethanol.

Heraclitusstudent says

Since a shrinking economy is a problem.

The economy is 80% bullshit of artificial scarcity.

The economy is a means to an end, not the end. It can "shrink" without affecting the actual welfare -- aka "wealth" -- of the people.

shows a quarter of economy is simply housing and health care now, sectors rife with rent-seeking.

Even capital improvement is a means to an end, not the end. ISTM with Japan's shrinking population they no longer have to break ground on new infrastructure; they only have to maintain and recycle what they've already built (in general).

e.g.. they need to think about closing schools, not building new ones.

This affects job growth etc. but if they can manage to somehow "plan" the transition, they'll all be better off with a much smaller population. More stuff, more economic opportunity, for fewer people.

Japan still has an underemployment problem . . .

so their problem is not just one of falling working-age. They have the people, they just have to figure out how to employ them best.

Bellingham Bill says

The economy is a means to an end, not the end. It can "shrink" without affecting the actual welfare -- aka "wealth" -- of the people.

Maybe but unlikely in a capitalist world. Stocks shrinking = no investment.

Heraclitusstudent says

If you don't believe this is true, you don't believe in arithmetic.

I believe the world is a bigger, and deeper, place than we currently think.

I don't see why it can't support 100 billion people eventually. Don't expect grass-fed beef burgers unless you're part of the 1%, but technology will advance and the Earth does have the stock of stuff we'd need to feed, clothe, house, entertain ourselves, given sufficient technology advances.

But getting there from here is the tricky bit. There are other futures, too, one where climate change and drought really fuck our shit up before we can figure out new wealth-creation modes to replace what would be failing us.

Heraclitusstudent says

Stocks shrinking = no investment.

Japan's stock isn't shrinking. It's got the same stuff it had 20 years ago, modulo what has been extracted.

and I argue that since it doesn't have to worry about infrastructure expansion any more -- breaking new ground for housing etc -- it can focus more on creating actual wealth, though with the yuan still at 6 it's tough since that puts Chinese wages at 1/3 their wage level.

Japan still has millions of young people looking for work.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=FKv

even though they've lost 40% of their incoming population

turtledove says

Strategist says

In the good old days conquering distant lands made you a "Great Empire"


Today the same thing makes you an "Evil Imperialist"

Those were the good ole days! Conquering and pillaging... Just taking all the resources and enslaving whoever... Those were the days when you got something for winning. Now, you get nothing but some moral obligation. Then you have to twist yourself into knots figuring out how to get the loot while still appearing to have the moral high ground. If only things could be simple again.

Ah yes, like teh good old days when a man would find the woman of his dreams, club her on the head and drag her off to the cave.

Why oh why did we ever deviate from that perfect life?

Bellingham Bill says

I don't see why it can't support 100 billion people eventually.

Depends - is everyone willing to spend their lives treating the earth like the spaceship it is? That is existing on the absolute minimum of space, calories, oxygen and possessions then sure.

But would you really want your kids to have to exist like that?