"The truth is, that many more people are living much longer in greater comfort and safety than is true in the entire history of the world"--Harold Bradshears. "Bullshit"--Jay Hanson From: "jim blair" To: jhanson@ilhawaii.net Subject: Re: Coming Soon to a Location Near YOU Hi Jay, Just what part of Harold's claim do you doubt? Name any time in history when you think MORE people were living than today. Obviously never. So it must be the comfort and safety part. I see from your BRAIN FOOD that you are (like me) frustrated with the newsgroup system as a way of having intelligent discussion of issues. Also (unlike me) you are very pessimistic about the future. So you are in the warm tropical paradise of Hawaii and depressed about the future while I fight off frostbite in Wisconsin and am (somewhat) optimistic. In the words of Jimmy Carter, life is not fair. See the attached from Hans. In Message Fri, 24 Mar 95 13:40:44 PST, Hans Lachman writes: >I agree that statistics are routinely misused and there's a lot of >sloppy journalism out there (or at least in the local paper here, >the San Jose Mercury News, also known as the Murky News). > >> Let me try it yet another way. It would be possible for EVERY WORKER in the >> USA to get a pay raise in excess of inflation next year, and for millions >> of new jobs to be created, AND for the AVERAGE HOURLY WAGE (inflation >> adjusted) to FALL!!! That is why it is NOT a reliable indicator of how >> individual workers are doing....jeb > >If we as individuals (or families) are all increasing our real incomes >from year to year and from decade to decade, that is a good thing, or >at least better than earning less and less. But, while this upward >climb sounds fine and dandy, it can also be true that the increases >are not enough to achieve the standards of living achieved by our >parents. We may have a situation like this: > > '@' = typical middle class family starting out in the 50's > '#' = typical middle class family starting out in the 90's > > std | @@@@ > of | @@@@ >living | @@@@ > | @@@@ > | @@@@ ###### > |@@@@ ###### > | ###### > |###### > | > +------------------------ > age > >If the above were true, and you told the GenX family "see, you're >doing better and better each year", I don't think they'd feel all >that comforted. To put it mathematically, people want to maximize >their standard of living, not just ensure that its first derivative >over time is always greater than zero. > >I think one difference between your persepective and mine is what >information we're interested in finding out. I'm interested in >knowing how good a deal the labor market is for most workers, and >whether that deal, on the whole, is better or worse than in the past. >Just like there's a Lehman Brothers Bond Market Index that gives you >some idea how much you have to pay to get a certain amount of >interest, and an S&P 500 Index that tells you how much you have to pay >to get a certain basket of stocks, there ought to be a Labor Market >Index that measures the rate of exchange between work and pay, or >better yet, between work and a standard basket of stuff. > But part of what makes a comparison difficult is that the "stuff in the basket" is not the same from one time to another....jeb >That's all I'm trying to get at -- a measurement of how good the deal >is that's offered in the labor market. Notice that the Lehman >Brothers Bond Market Index doesn't tell you anything about whether >individuals or families have been making money or losing money in the >bond market -- just how good a deal is available now; in other words, >what kind of opportunity is available. Statistics on how actual >people are fairing in this market might also be interesting, but it's >just not what I'm after right now. > >If a person is entering the job market from out of the blue, let's >say a random immigrant, the level of opportunity available at that >time in the U.S. job market will be a factor in determining his >standard of living. Thus, a Labor Market Index might be useful to >help us see whether that opportunity is better or worse than it >was for his random counterpart 30 years ago. > >However, since there are so many complexities in tracking things like >this, we may not be able to construct a statistic that tells us the >real story. Real Median Hourly Income, with all its faults, is >probably a better indication than any other published statistic I know >about, because it gives a truer characterization of the market as >give-and-take (i.e., work exchanged for pay), as opposed to the other >statistics that look only at one side, the flow of pay, and therefore >don't really measure how good the deal is. > >-- Hans From: jim blair Hi again, But the point of working is to be able to live well. I think you are still being misled by statistics into thinking that people today are worse off than people were 20 or 40 or 60 years ago: overall they are not, they are better off, at least from a material perspective. That is, the # and @ 's in your graph are reversed. What has happened (perhaps) is that the RATE of INCREASE has slowed down. Two points here. First, don't confuse figures about national averages with the way people actually live. A economist can probably present evidence that the "economy" was better in the 1890's than in the 1980's. Higher percent growth rate, lower inflation, greater percent increase in per capita income and in hourly wage, lower unemployment, etc. But you prefer to LIVE then? With that level of medical care, disease rates, work day, level of technology, etc. Second, to continue the point, did you see the article in the sunday paper (April 2) by David Wessel an Bob Davis from the Wall Street Journal? In our paper, the title was "life in the middle". It compares the life of a median income family today with a median income family of 1974. Selected two actual families, probably because few families would be in the mean income range for that long a time. In terms of material goods, the 90's family has more, and they travel more often and farther. They devote only 4 hours of income for food per week rather than the 6 of the 70's family and so can eat out more. Their CD player costs less (inflation corrected) than the record player of the 70's, etc. The only "negatives" noted are that in the 90's family the wife works, and they are said to have a harder time getting the money to buy a house. On the house, no figures are given, but I was left wondering if they would have the money for the down payment if they traveled abroad and ate out less, as the 70's family did. As for the wife working, recall that during the 1960's, feminists were criticizing American society because women were NOT encouraged to work: remember The Feminine Mystique? Also this topic of the AVERAGE wage declining in the late 70's to 90's must be seen in the context of the large influx of unskilled immigrants then (and now). One of 3 new workers now is an immigrant, and 40% of the US population increase is due to immigration. And most of them are less educated and have lower pay than the US average. See National Review, April 17, 1995 p44-50. Of course the immigrants are far better off here than in their native country, and the rest of us may or may not be better off as a result (that is a debatable point), but the US economic STATISTICS would look better if they stayed home.--jeb Jay,. Your recent "Coming Soon" post combined a lot of unrelated problems, some minor (in the GRAND SCHEME of THINGS) and some of which are potentially serious. But I have two general replies: on the newsgroup limitations, I hope to establish a homepage soon which will serve as a forum for serious discussion. Stay tuned. The rest of this is devoted to point two. ARE THINGS THAT BAD?? Harold's proposition is obviously true, both because there are more people today than ever before in history, AND, because of modern technology, more of them (especially in the industrialized world) have better food and medicine than ever before in history. This is so obvious that you look silly trying to deny it. Did you see the PBS program on TB (tuberculous)? In the last century one in four died from it, and no one knew how to prevent it. It was worse than AIDS TIMES TEN. People in Japan and much of Africa were small because of diet limitations, life span was short, etc. Of course they are better now. There are some places (Yugoslavia, central Africa, parts of the former USSR) where the average people are worse off than ten years ago, but for the vast majority things are better today than EVER. BUT WILL THEY STAY THAT WAY?? You are on much stronger ground when you claim that with ever more people, things can't keep getting better. That there is a limit. This is an open question, but until/unless we reach beyond the earth it seems to me there IS some limit on our growth. But I want to call attention to some of your claims. What does "living better" mean? While there may not be a precise definition, I think most people would agree on many of the factors that are measurable, and for all (or maybe almost all) of these, things are better today for a higher percent of people than any time in the past. LIFE: is Longer Better? Lifespan for one. Do you doubt that it is longer now than in the past, not just in the US but in most of the world (excepting Yugoslavia, parts of the former USSR and central Africa as I noted before). Notice your GPI factors in the lifespan of products but not of people. FOOD: Maybe we eat TOO MUCH! Nutrition for another. In Japan and much of Asia people are bigger than before WWII because now their growth is not stunted by limits on nutrition. Even in the US and Europe people are bigger (but not as much) for probably the same reason. When I was young it was common for people in the mid-west to have swollen thyroid glands (goiter) due to iodine deficiency, but this is very rare today. In every society in human history the rich tended to be over weight and the poor were under weight. Obesity has long been an indicator of wealth. But today, in the US at least, this pattern is REVERSED. This is the first time in history when the poor suffer health problems from overeating. Are People Getting STUPID? (or does it just SEEM like it?) Did you see the Knight-Ridder report on the World literacy survey printed in the Sunday paper (12/18/95)? There is much comparison between countries (the USA doesn't look very good) but as an aside they remind the reader of a fact well known in psychology: IQ scores have been rising about 7 points per generation for about as long as they have been measured. There has long been a debate over whether people ARE getting "smarter" or just getting better educated in "test taking". At any rate, they have to keep shifting the 100 mark to keep it as the "normal". COMMUNICATION and INFORMATION One measure of "BETTER" I think is access to information and the means to communicate with others: people don't like to be cut off or isolated. In this area, even you must admit that most are better off today than in the past. I mean could ANYONE talk with or send an instant letter to someone on another continent even 150 years ago? Now millions do this every day. And you can "surf the net" or go to any library today to get information that was not even known to ANYONE 50 years ago. BIGGER, FASTER & MORE SKILLED It is well known to coaches and sports fans that athletes are bigger and faster than ever. Mile runs and hundred yard dashes that won world records and Olympic Gold metals less than 100 years ago are routinely topped in high school track meets today. And in music, in the 1870's when Tchaikovsky wrote two concertos (one for violin and one for piano) they were rejected by the most skilled players of the day as being too difficult to perform. Today both are performed flawlessly by high school students every week. COMPARED to WHAT? Finally, did you see the essay for Thanksgiving by Hillary Clinton? She reminds Americans about life in the nations she recently visited. Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The title was "It's Easy to Forget How LUCKY We Are". (and even THEY live "better" than in the past!). I know that when ever I bring up this, the usual reply is that since we are AMERICANS, we can't be compared to ANY ONE ELSE in the WORLD. As if we were some sort of different species. But I claim that other countries today and other times in the past are the only meaningful standards of comparison! IS AFRICA THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE?? The Coming Anarchy item gives West Africa an the example of where the world is headed. But with a LOW population density (in the conventional units of people per unit area) and a rejection of free market economics and industrialization, you could as well cite that as an example of what the world has as a future if we REJECT capitalism and growth. That is, most of Africa is at the TRAILING rather than the LEADING edge. See below for a comment on the logic of "correcting" for technology when estimating carrying capacity. Another concern of yours has been the alleged drop in sperm count for men. Whether this is REAL or an artifact of the way it was measured is a matter of dispute. But my question is this. If population growth is our most serious problem, why isn't a drop in male sperm count a GOOD THING? GDP or GPI? I hope I have made it clear that I am not considering BETTER or WORSE in just economic terms. And I agree that economic parameters like GNP or GDP could tell only part of the story EVEN if they were an accurate reflection of the economy. And they are not. I read in the paper this week the GDP figures are being "corrected" to reflect a new way of including inflation based on the falling cost of computers. As a result, some of the much discussed "productivity gains" of the past several years didn't really happen! But the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) you mention is also very uncertain and very subjective in WHAT it considers and on how much weight it gives to the factors. I too am concerned about the breakdown in families and the selfish attitude many adults have about kids. (See America's War on Kids). This may well be worse than in the past. Crime is a problem but probably not more than in the past. Income distribution may be slightly more uneven than in the recent past, but this MAY be overstated by the increase in TAXABLE income (see my TDE ECONOMICS posts). At any rate it is LESS uneven than in the last century, or in most of human history. Resource depletion is more an indicator of FUTURE problems than a measure of the PRESENT and ignores the discovery (or creation!) of new resources. Notice that they include the lifespan of durable consumer goods but not of PEOPLE. Does this reflect misplaced values?? USA vs The WORLD The foreign assets opens a whole new issue: are we concerned with only the USA or with the whole world? The America-First Isolationists (Buchanan, Gephart, anti-NAFTA, anti-GATT types) may well have a point. In the SHORT RUN foreign trade and especially foreign investment may harm low skill US workers as it helps low skill foreign workers. Jobs shift from our poor to their poor, and living standards equalize around the world in part by increasing slower in the rich industrial countries. Lets face it our poor are much richer than their poor. I will have some information on this on the web page soon. This effect also increases the rich-poor gap in the US even as it reduces the rich-poor gap world wide, since the skilled (and rich) here have the inside track on a world wide market- Madonna sells her CD's worldwide. Remember that after WWII the US had almost all the industrial capacity in the world. There were relatively unskilled US workers with high paying jobs, largely because there was little foreign competition. Could we have kept it that way? Should we have tried to?? CARRYING CAPACITY With humans, unlike the situation with deer or birds, the carrying capacity of the land is a function of the level of technology. But the Ehrlich article turns this on its head. Yes, the earth would now be unable to support its current population if agriculture had not been "invented" and . we were all hunter-gathers. But we DO have agriculture. It does seem that as technology permits the land and resources to support more people, the population rises to keep the pace. Ehrlic seem to say "cut the population back to the most primitive technology." The "pro growth" crowd says "bring technology up to the level needed to support the population growth". I say advance the technology BUT restrict the population growth. There should be a margin of safety. I AM NOT POLLYANNA! Things are BETTER than EVER (now!). It may or may not continue that way. I think there are serious POTENTIAL threats. Ozone depletion from CFC's and CO2 release have the potential to be VERY SERIOUS. Read my posts. As I see it, THESE are the BEST of TIMES, but the future could go either way. Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 19:17:29 GMT Jonathan Maddox (jmaddox@neumann.une.edu.au) wrote: : ..... the `population explosion' would not happen without the : appalling inequalities between wealthy nations and poor ones, and : wealthy people and poor ones. It is a symptom rather than a : problem; the only people wo really suffer from it are those who : are crowded, and they (after all) did not choose to be born. : : Plaease do not hold the impoverished masses of India responsible : for their numbers;..... . : Look to the countries (like ours and our colonial parents) which : arranged for the poverty which is a major cause of the : population explosion before complaining too bitterly.--JM Poverty existed world wide BEFORE the industrial revolution and European colonialism. The only reasonable argument that I know of that links the industrial nations as a cause of population growth in the poor ones is that they supplied the MEDICAL technology (especially vaccines) that lowered the death rate of children in the 3rd world. Was this a mistake? ---jeb Bob Allisat: Hugh populations are the necessary fodder for a consumer/industrial society on many levels. Large numbers of potential workers mean an easily coerced labour force. It means the heavily processed foodstuffs and other goods will be appropriately consumed especially if governing organizations continue to manipulate all peoples into urban areas and the American model of a "New World Order". If ever we can begin to deflate the consumer inductrial society we will suddenly discover population levels plummet to more traditional levels. This is as much a prediction as a hope. For in ending the current wild epansion and frenzy of growth, development and exploitation our only escape from ecological catastrophe and extinction lies. Allisat You have it exactly backwards: Harold Brashears has it right. It is well known that there is a correlation between industrialization, higher living standards, and lower birth rates. The debate is about which is the CAUSE and which the EFFECT. Or is the relationship just a historical coincidence? See Scientific American December 1993 on this point.---jeb ,,,,,,, ____________________ooo__(_O O_)__ooo_________________________ (_) Jim Blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA). For a good time, call http://www.execpc.com/~jeblair/index.html "This message is brought to you using biodegradable binary bits and 100 % recycled bandwidth."