Wealth Creators.

[realBabelfish]

That definition is completely arbitrary and has no economic basis. By that idea we have been getting poorer since the dawn of time when there only a handful of humans walking the earth.

Earth has more resources than we've managed to use in millions and years and will have more for millions to come.There are enough resources to cater for plenty more people on this earth. More resources are being discovered (or financially affordable to extract) all the time. Just look at the shale gas boom and the implications of it.

It is most definitely possible for everyone to become richer due to economies of scale at a national level. When GDP is growing then the average Joe is becoming richer indeed. For illustrative purposes, just look at the western world for starters, or look at Russia and compare it to where it was a few decades ago, or Europe during and post-WW2.

There are many people today doing worse jobs than their fathers, yet they are able to offer their offsprings a much higher quality of life. That goes against your theory on the world getting continuously poorer.

I believe the figures in the charts are net of inflation, hence everybody has got richer in real terms, not in absolute terms.


Are you certain about that? I have a different view, I'll try to find some sources.

i guess humans werent mining too much millions of years ago its hard to use things millions of years before we were around. not sure apes require gold that much or coal, gas etc. if we continue to grow at the rate we do and use ever more energy resources we will be screwed in the future. thats if a meteor doesnt kill us all anyway lol

also, most people nowadays have less kids. sure, its easier to provide for 1 or 2 kids than 5 or 6 (my wife's grandma was 1 of 16!!!) you couldnt afford that these days. bringing up one well costs a fortune. we also dont accept that '1 or 2 might die' like they used to and is still common in africa.

 

[elmarko]

Right, so you believe the only reason there is starvation in some parts of Africa and Asia is solely down to economics/money and not because there aren't enough resources on Earth to go round?

I urge you to watch David Attenbrough's 'How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?' programme. Here is the first part of 6....

He estimates that for everyone to live to the same standard of living as an Average American, the Earth could only sustain 1 billion people. Likewise if we (the 7 billion alive today) were to all share the resources equally (global communism) the standard of living in Western countries would have to drop dramatically.

Money is a man man concept and is nothing more than a temporary IOU to take a portion of the Earth resources and everything is relative. When people in the UK become 'richer' it has to mean that an equal amount of 'wealth' is lost elsewhere in the world (by wealth I mean the ability to obtain the Earth's resources).

We have nice lives in the West at the expense of the poorer countries, don't tell yourself it's just an economic thing and they could catch up with us without out standard of living dropping here at the same time.

Yes, some resources are sustainable but many aren't. There is only so much land on Earth suitable to grow crops or farm animals, oil is an obvious finite resource as well. If the whole world became 'first world' over night how much quicker do you think we'd get through the reserves for example?

To be honest,

My main criticism of capitalism is how wasteful it is of finite resources, the deliberate manufacturing of sub-standard items (with deliberately short life-spans) - the entire concept of making 720p TV's which take pretty much the exact same amount of materials to make as 1080p ones (for example) is utterly ridiculous in a system with finite resources.

While a resource may be abundant at the moment (meaning it's price is low) consideration needs to be made for the distant future, something which modern capitalism does not.

Global education of women is by far the best way of reducing population growth, in country's with a very high standard of education the indigenous population has either stopped growing or is shrinking.

Society should try to encourage people to have less children - as our population could do with shrinking, contraception should be provided for free globally for one.

While it may cost a bit in the short term, the long term gains of even reducing global population growth by a few percent would vastly outweigh the cost.

@kgi

You seem to be mistaking relative & absolute poverty, but one thing is certain - as relative poverty reaches extreme levels - you will start to see cases of absolute poverty crawl back into the UK.

For example, if we shut down the welfare state we would most certainly see absolute poverty return in the UK.

It's only redistributive systems like the welfare state which have effectively stopped almost all cases of extreme poverty in the UK (something we should be incredibly proud of).

 

[realBabelfish]

To be honest,

My main criticism of capitalism is how wasteful it is of finite resources, the deliberate manufacturing of sub-standard items (with deliberately short life-spans) - the entire concept of making 720p TV's which take pretty much the exact same amount of materials to make as 1080p ones (for example) is utterly ridiculous in a system with finite resources.

While a resource may be abundant at the moment (meaning it's price is low) consideration needs to be made for the distant future, something which modern capitalism does not.

Global education of women is by far the best way of reducing population growth, in country's with a very high standard of education the indigenous population has either stopped growing or is shrinking.

Society should try to encourage people to have less children - as our population could do with shrinking, contraception should be provided for free globally for one.

While it may cost a bit in the short term, the long term gains of even reducing global population growth by a few percent would vastly outweigh the cost.

@kgi

You seem to be mistaking relative & absolute poverty, but one thing is certain - as relative poverty reaches extreme levels - you will start to see cases of absolute poverty crawl back into the UK.

For example, if we shut down the welfare state we would most certainly see absolute poverty return in the UK.

It's only redistributive systems like the welfare state which have effectively stopped almost all cases of extreme poverty in the UK (something we should be incredibly proud of).

'let to poor die' coming from the right wingers in 3...2....1.....

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Apple are probably one of the only companies that can claim to 'create' demand by convincing us we need stuff we've never thought we needed before but the vast majority of products are invented to fulfil a need or want that already exists but no one is catering for.

You think Apple is the only demand creator?

lol

 

[estebanrey]

You think Apple is the only demand creator?

lol

"one of the only" != "is the only"

LOL

 

[elmarko]

You think Apple is the only demand creator?

lol

Companies don't create demand in the sense implied.

It's societies acceptance of the product/service as a class indicator or a "required good" (which is pushed by advertising) which creates the demand (same as branded clothing) - it's still not them who "created it" per-say.

If they could create it they wouldn't need society to accept the "push" for it to work (which they obviously do).

The demand is also independent of the company, if apple went bust tomorrow the demand would still exist for "trendy phones" (which another company could take).

It most certainly undermines the rhetoric peddled by the elite as being job-creators, when in reality if you want to create jobs you need to increase demand.

Increasing the disposable income for the population is the only way of truly increasing overall demand (as opposed to increasing demand for a particular good/service through advertising/promotion at the expense of others).