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As you've pointed out before, owning seed means control over that part of the food chain. I find the idea of multinational companies having that kind of power over staple crops and who can grow them and how much the seeds cost absolutely abhorrent.
Population is another issue - where we have decling populations in some European countries due to a lower birth rate, why then do Governments insist on encouraging people to have more children purely to solve the pensions crisis and welfare costs associated with the eldery population? Can Government policy be adjusted to take a longer term and more sustainable view on wider issues?
Other selfish and unnecessary use of land and water resources includes golf courses, as well as the alarming trend to grow crops for fuel even though it's apparent that there is not enough space for both fuel and food to be grown as crops.
How about WTO/WHO leading the way on encouraging Governments to encourage people to cut down on eating meat? This ties in with the preventative health agenda, to increase physical activity and healthy eating. Maybe we need to bring rationing back in?!
Thanks for putting this together, afew. Ad astra per aspera
where we have decling populations in some European countries due to a lower birth rate, why then do Governments insist on encouraging people to have more children
Economists often ask for lower barriers for highly qualified immigrants, but at the same time will tell you that low qualified immigrants are a bad for the economy.
But in a democratic frame work it is unlikely that you get majorities by telling the people you can come along with less even if you could have more.
Why shouldn't a car last 20 yrs, and you not have to be continually buying one? Why should a factory, like the one I used to work in, that needed 4,000 people and now needs only 1500 to produce the same output, still have 4,000 people working less hours yet receiving good benefits. We shall have less, we had best learn to make better use of what we have-it can easily be sufficient. "I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson
And if we could have references for the "careful analysis" it'd be helpful.
Not like the traditional pyramid. but more like an obelisk.
Why do qualified immigrants need to stay after they retire? If qualified immigrants go back to their countries of origin they pay taxes into the system when they're working and don't draw benefits when they're old. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
| ||| ||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||||||| age phase out ||||||||| ||||||||| ||||||| ||||||| ||||| ||||| reduced base, making up for increased lifetime
However, fertility was not always the same. So there are e.g. babyboomers. There outphasing has not yet really started, so at the moment the number of children makes nearly up for the number of dying people (partially less than expected because of longer life spans), but when the baby boomer generation dies, there most likely won't be a baby boom of corresponding magnitude.
In the meantime, the "pensions crisis" might be a political problem, not really an economic impossibility to provide a dignified standard of living for everyone. All economics is political economy. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
More concrete I have from destatis the picture below. It shows in blue the number of people older than 65 years per 100 people between 20 and 65. In green the number of people below 20, as the sum of these people is expected to be those who can't earn their own income. For the modelling it is assumed, that net immigration will be around the value of the last ten years (so slightly higher than currently), constant fertility and some reasonable assumption about life expectancy.
What makes economic stress is not the absolut level, but the change, if one assumes productivity gains. So from the mid 20s to the mid 30s Germany will suffer, but untill about 2020, there it will be less painfull than the last 15 years. (In Germany the baby boomers started later than in the US, only around the mid 50s, so they start to ordinary retire around 2020)
I don't know if you want to strip people from their social security retirement payments, just because they leave the country. But there is certainly a level of qualification and earnings, where you have contributed your share by having paid taxes, yes.
And we should not do unnecessary things, even when they are fun, relatively healthy and practically without environmental consequences.
Do our Constitutions protect the right to behave unsustainably? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
If really Spain or Arizona was meant I apologise for my overreaction, but it is not untypical for ET to accuse something as wasteful, which is not more wasteful than other things done, because it is overproportionally done by relatively rich people.
It's like grass football/rugby/cricket pitches: here in London they're everywhere. As are grass outdoors tennis courses. Every wondered why Wimbledon is played on grass while Roland Garros is played on dirt? At least regulation tennis can be played on dirt where the climate doesn't support it. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Thus exacerbating the drought conditions. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Water shortages in Ireland are pretty much due to poor infrastructure investment - as of a few years ago Dublin was losing more water from its old water distribution system then was being used by households.
Sounds like the situation in London, which leads to a situation where they have to impose hosepipe bans in the summer but at the same time the Victorian water mains are leaky and household water consumption is not metered but paid on a flat fee. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
And, from a global point of view, you and I are rich and wasteful. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
practically without environmental consequences
So 90% of what all people in the west do in their daily jobs is just done because of we are so selfish idiots?
After the fight against golf coruses, and residences and wasteful agriculture we are having here because we DO NOT have water.. i repeat we do nto have water..., check the diaries or the newes about Barcelona getting ready for water restrictions AT HOME (we have water restriction in resdiences, golf and soem agriculture for months now) this summer if it does not start raining and fast).. how can you say that golf courses are not wasteful?
here they are seen as a sin..pure evil..
It is true that you might be overreacting..but oh boy I think you should live in bartcelona right now.. with the perspetive of not being able to a shower for days to change your opinion.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Procedural level: under the current agreements in force, can they revise the way they enforce those agreements to permit ...
Huh, I don't know. I have been more focused on what horrible protectionism corporations are trying to smuggle into the Doha round, marketed as "property rights protection to enable free trade in Intellectual Property".
It is straightforward that if the individual member states where IP has been granted elect to exclude something from their IP system, then that flows through to whatever WTO agreements are in place to respect the IP entitlements granted in other member states. That's how the agreement on AIDs drugs in low-income nations was arrived at ... the member states that had granted the Intellectual Property arrived at an agreement on the terms and conditions where a less restrictive freedom of use would apply. Once the member states have agreed to that, there is no longer an IP infringement to bring up through the WTO mechanisms.
Off the top of my head, though, I do not know how much leeway the WTO itself has to step in and exclude something in particular. It probably has more rights than are exercised, because WTO trade tribunals have a history of absurdly restrictive interpretations of public interest exceptions.
The second level is the technical possibilities of what the agreement itself can do. Since they are arrived at by consensus, they can only be changed by consensus, which means getting this kind of agreement as part of the Doha round. The Doha round is such a stinker that we would probably still be better off if it fails to get through then getting it through with that concession ... but in any event, if its agreed to, which means a new consensus, then yes, automatically the WTO would no longer be available to try to enforce Intellectual Property in the areas that are excluded.
The third level is whether something is politically possible ... that is, whether there is any bloc that might be able to present this as an item it would like to see added, and in return for which it would be willing to accept something that it has refused to accept to date.
That would, I think, be the bloc that contains China, India and Brazil (and a host of others, but those are the three driving forces in the bloc). And, yes, they might be willing to take this on board, but only if they are seriously interested in the Doho round going anywhere. They might just be playing a delaying game, hoping for a Democratic administration in the US to allow them to stand down from guarding against the threat of Doha for a while. Utsukushii kereba sore de ii
