Future infrastructure for residential electric service?

[Doug Garson]

Elephant in the room - there are way way too many people on the planet for sustainability. Nature will correct this eventually.

And yet our main economic model demands growth or the economy goes into a recession and the economy fails.

[Edward Weber]

And yet our main economic model demands growth or the economy goes into a recession and the economy fails.

Economy must grow,
oh wait, growing too fast,
inflation
must raise interest rates, that'll slow it down,
oh no recession
must increase job's & production,
economy grows,
oh wait, growing too fast,
inflation
must raise interest rates, that'll slow it down,

[Mike Henderson]

Economy must grow,
oh wait, growing too fast,
inflation
must raise interest rates, that'll slow it down,
oh no recession
must increase job's & production,
economy grows,
oh wait, growing too fast,
inflation
must raise interest rates, that'll slow it down,

Yep, it's tough. But a lot better than the depression of 1929 and the 30's. WWII pulled us out of that.

Mike

[Edwin Santos]

Yep, it's tough. But a lot better than the depression of 1929 and the 30's. WWII pulled us out of that.

Mike

The establishment of the Federal Reserve, reforms to the overall financial system, infrastructure investment and many other structural reforms had a big impact also.
The US financial system of today bears no resemblance to the conditions of the Great Depression era which is why I find it so puzzling when people worry about the Great Depression repeating itself. Not to say we can't experience a different type of financial crisis, like what happened in 2008, but a repeat of the Great Depression is very unlikely.
I like to complain about the Fed as much as the next guy, but truth be known, I definitely wouldn't want to live in world without them.

[Edwin Santos]

When countries become wealthy, the birth rate declines precipitously. For example, the US birth rate is about 1.6. Japan is 1.3. China is 1.28. South Korea is 0.84!

The thing that saves the US is immigration. It's very difficult to immigrate to Japan so they have some serious problems with declining population and providing for their elder population.

The countries with high birth rates (above 2.1) are mainly in Africa and the middle east.

Mike

This is all very accurate, and not widely known, especially the high value of immigration.
The non-partisan Cato Institute did a comprehensive study that revealed that immigrants as a group (we're talking legal immigrants here) pay in more in taxes than they take out. I think the factor was something like 1.27. Whereas native born Americans as a group pay in about .73 meaning they generally take out more than they pay in.
This is why some countries create incentives for immigration, especially for those that come with some level of assets and/or commit to starting a business. New Zealand and Portugal come to mind. Others like France have tried to create financial incentives for people to have children in their attempt to increase the birth rate.
Like Mike says, Japan in particular is facing a concerning trend.

[Mike Henderson]

If you have any interest in the projected population of Japan, here's an article about it. Japan had a population of 128 million in 2008, and is projected to fall to about 50 million by 2120.

If nothing changes, I'd expect land prices and housing to get fairly cheap Plus a lot of abandoned houses.

There are a lot of reasons for the falling birth rate in wealthy countries but a big part is the cost of raising a child. In poor countries, children are sometimes seen as an asset. Boys can work and girls are sold for wives. Additionally, in many of those countries women are tightly controlled and don't have access to birth control.

Mike

[Edwin Santos]

If you have any interest in the projected population of Japan, here's an article about it. Japan had a population of 128 million in 2008, and is projected to fall to about 50 million by 2120.


Mike

Very interesting study, thank you for the link

[Kent A Bathurst]

..... projected to fall to about 50 million by 2120.

If nothing changes.........

Well, projections about next week are tough enough to hit in the 10-ring, so a century out is a bit tenuous.

"If nothing changes" would mean buggy whips and horse manure throughout Manhattan. I'll take a shot on people rising to the occasion and devising solutions to the issues of the day. It will be ugly as per, but then when was it not?

[Mike Henderson]

Well, projections about next week are tough enough to hit in the 10-ring, so a century out is a bit tenuous.

"If nothing changes" would mean buggy whips and horse manure throughout Manhattan. I'll take a shot on people rising to the occasion and devising solutions to the issues of the day. It will be ugly as per, but then when was it not?

The thing that would have to change is for women to have more babies. For that to change, society would have to put a lot more free or very low cost child support in place. Could happen but I don't see it coming soon.

Mike

[mike stenson]

The thing that would have to change is for women to have more babies. For that to change, society would have to put a lot more free or very low cost child support in place. Could happen but I don't see it coming soon.

Mike

Populations are dropping in countries that have free to very low cost childcare, so I think there's more to it than that. In any case, fewer workers means lower production, and a shrinking economy. Even with keynesian adjustments.

[Doug Garson]

The thing that would have to change is for women to have more babies. For that to change, society would have to put a lot more free or very low cost child support in place. Could happen but I don't see it coming soon.

Mike

Or we could come up with an economic model that doesn't depend on continuous population growth. Eventually that has to happen or we need to find another planet to colonize.

[Tom M King]

Carrying capacity will be reached long before we master interplanetary travel, especially when war slows up production on the world’s most fertile soil. Carrying capacity is actually not that far off in this century in the best of circumstances.

[Edwin Santos]

Or we could come up with an economic model that doesn't depend on continuous population growth. Eventually that has to happen or we need to find another planet to colonize.

The economic model does not necessarily require population growth. It requires productivity growth, measured in GDP. In the past that has been accomplished more through innovation than population growth.

[Mike Henderson]

Or we could come up with an economic model that doesn't depend on continuous population growth. Eventually that has to happen or we need to find another planet to colonize.

It's pretty obvious that we won't have continuous population growth in the industrial nations. The industrial nations of the world, including India and China, are below replacement. The countries which have population growth are in Africa and the Middle East, and those are generally not considered industrial nations. If they every did become industrial nations, their birth rates would almost certainly fall below replacement.

The world population will continue to grow, but that's because we're living longer. For economic growth, we need to look at the population growth of people in their working (productive) years, and that's definitely declining in the industrial nations. Older people are generally a drain on an industralized nation - they receive money, goods and services and do not produce anything.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Carrying capacity will be reached long before we master interplanetary travel, especially when war slows up production on the world’s most fertile soil. Carrying capacity is actually not that far off in this century in the best of circumstances.

People have been predicting that for a long, long time. Years ago there was a prediction that we would not be able to grow enough food but the Haber-Bosch process came along and gave us lots of nitrogen fertilizer.

There's no shortage of food in the industrialized world. There in in Africa.

Just as a side note, there is so much waste in our food production. Farmers and processing facilities throw away an enormous amount of product because it is not cosmetically perfect. Drive by a packing plant and there's usually a mound of discarded product.

Mike

[A long, long time ago, farmers used to allow gleaners to go into the fields and collect product that they didn't harvest (after the harvest). I haven't seen that recently but it may still go on. For example, farmers who grew potatoes never got all the potatoes with their machine and it was not economically feasible for them to harvest that last bit. But the gleaners would collect them. It may be that no one in farm country is poor enough to do gleaning.]