Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Reports of America's Demise Premature?
As RTP&GG readers know, one of my mantras is 'Demography is Destiny'. A website I like is New Geography because one aspect of geography is demographic analysis. Anyway, they have a neat article in the manner of 'America's future is dark, except when compared to all its rivals' that shows that we aren't quite the nation of eunuchs that most of our chief rivals, uhum China, uhum Russia, uhum Eurowusses, uhum Japan are.
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"Outside of the European and American academe, the only strong advocates of state socialism can be found in such economic basket cases as Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela."
ReplyDeleteI would say that state socialism is the trend in the world. The policies of the major econonmies are leading to state socialism; and in general, these policies necessitate more state control.
From the article, it seems like China and Japan are not going to overtake America to any great extent due to demographics. I think there is a general decline in the world as a whole. I would say that America is the beacon of freedom and its decline means a decline of freedom throughout the world. Some other nation will have to pick up the banner of freedom. And I don't see one to do that. I could be wrong
I think it's an excellant article although, the rationale for Japan's collapse is a bit off.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with China is that it can just as well relieve the heavily controlled "one child" policy and restart it's population boom. Certain portions of the population will respond like Americans and Europeans, the elite rich and relatively small middle class...but for the still large rural population a repeal of the no-child policy would be a huge boon for them. For the massive poor residing in the industrial slums, child workers would be a boon. Needless to say, China's negative demographic shift is artifical and has a massive population that generates it's own long momentum that gives plenty of time for leaders to engineer policies to influence change their fertility rate if conditions warrant...
Jeff, do you think we should get rid of the Federal Reserve?
I didn't think about China's population problem being man made and easily solved. There are going to be a lot of angry guys unless something is done.
ReplyDeleteI think the Federal Reserve is not effective in its original purpose and should have not been created. "The FR was established in 1914 as a result of fears of such economic consequences as deflation and bank failures. Yet the worst deflation and the worst bank failures in the country's history occurred after the FR was established. The financial crisis of 1907, which helped spur the creation of the FR, was dwarfed by the financial crises associated with the stock market crash of 1929 and the great depression of the 1930's.", (Basic Economics, pg 362) With that being said, the FR can not just be done away with. It would have to be slow and gradual and something would have to replace it. It is a tool for a government to control an economy by manipulating the money supply. It allows money to not be tied to any real asset. Going back on the gold standard would be good, but that won't happen. The GS prevented governments from printing money without anything back it up. Now the government can just print money and debase the currency through inflation, a tax. The FR and the current economic structure is here to stay until it collapses and something new arises. Government intervention requires more and more government intervention. I am still trying to completely understand the FR as I have only read several portions of books about it.
On the economy being uber alles, "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. (J. M. Keynes) The FR does this.