Stupid World

[mashman]

I dunno where you are but in everyone else's world there's been less war, poverty and social unrest in direct proportion to the unprecedented success created by democratic capitalist economies.

So if you insist that there's a relationship between evel money and bad shit then I got news: No money = dark ages. Successful monetary economy = good times.

Let 'em roll.


And if you can't find that fact amongst your thoughts then you should probably stick to your fantasy world and let the grownups handle the real one.

It's the success of the people you fuckin muppet.

Absofuckinlute propagandist bullshit, fuckin muppet.

It's not a fact you fuckin muppet... just the opinion of some scared old white man with an entitlement complex and shit for brains. Time for the kids to take over is this current array of shit is led by the grownups.

[mashman]

Fractional reserve banking is indeed different, as the fractional reserve target limits how much the money is leveraged (plucked out of thin air). For a fractional reserve of 20% you have a money multiplier of 5x across all banks, ie, 1$ of real money deposited can only ever be lent out to 5$ value. FRB is probably the part of the financial institution that has gotten the most carried away and courting of disaster. But interestingly, if we all cooperated, or if resources were plentiful, or any other W.B.E foundations were a reality; we could maintain a fractional reserve of <1% easily.

Resources are plentiful, they always have been and always will be, tis merely the logistics of money that causes scarcity. So the way money is printed means that it isn't money?

[Scuba_Steve]

I dunno where you are but in everyone else's world there's been less war, poverty and social unrest in direct proportion to the unprecedented success created by democratic capitalist economies.

So if you insist that there's a relationship between evel money and bad shit then I got news: No money = dark ages. Successful monetary economy = good times.

Let 'em roll.


And if you can't find that fact amongst your thoughts then you should probably stick to your fantasy world and let the grownups handle the real one.

I'm sorry, but that right there ^ sounds like something sourced from Fox News

[bogan]

Resources are plentiful, they always have been and always will be, tis merely the logistics of money that causes scarcity. So the way money is printed means that it isn't money?

Land, oils, fresh water, etc are all finite things, population continues to grow so the inescapable conclusion is that the resources earth can provide will not always be plentiful.

No, money is representative of wealth, always has and always will be. This is why banks can only turn 1$ into a maximum value as defined by the fractional reserve; and because it is not created from nothing it has value. You speak of situations like Zimbabwe's hyperinflation where money was indeed created out of nothing (by the govt, not the banks, cos they can't do that); it didn't go well for them at all. To equate that with our banks is very stupid.

[mashman]

Land, oils, fresh water, etc are all finite things, population continues to grow so the inescapable conclusion is that the resources earth can provide will not always be plentiful.

No, money is representative of wealth, always has and always will be. This is why banks can only turn 1$ into a maximum value as defined by the fractional reserve; and because it is not created from nothing it has value. You speak of situations like Zimbabwe's hyperinflation where money was indeed created out of nothing (by the govt, not the banks, cos they can't do that); it didn't go well for them at all. To equate that with our banks is very stupid.

I agree, and yet here we are wasting them willy nilly as if they are infinite. We can do better.

Money is also a weapon and limits human potential, always has been always will be. Sure, hyperinflation happens purely because money is printed without anything backing it . A bank is a bank, they print money out of nothing.

[Ocean1]

It's the success of the people you fuckin muppet.

Absofuckinlute propagandist bullshit, fuckin muppet.

It's not a fact you fuckin muppet... just the opinion of some scared old white man with an entitlement complex and shit for brains. Time for the kids to take over is this current array of shit is led by the grownups.

I'm sorry, but that right there ^ sounds like something sourced from Fox News

And if you have a problem with that then I suggest you go find some actual numbers rather than fall in for the local "revolutionist" circle jerk.

'Cause you're wrong.

I'll just let Mr Ridley show you where to look. Again. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog...;s-digest.aspx

1. We're better off now

Compared with 50 years ago, when I was just four years old, the average human now earns nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), eats one third more calories, buries two thirds fewer children, and can expect to live one third longer. In fact, it's hard to find any region of the world that's worse off now than it was then, even though the global population has more than doubled over that period.

2. Urban living is a good thing

City dwellers take up less space, use less energy, and have less impact on natural ecosystems than country dwellers. The world's cities now contain over half its people, but they occupy less than 3 percent of its land area. Urban growth may disgust environmentalists, but living in the country is not the best way to care for the earth. The best thing we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.

3. Poverty is nose-diving

The rich get richer, but the poor do even better. Between 1980 and 2000, the poor doubled their consumption. The Chinese are ten times richer and live about 25 years longer than they did 50 years ago. Nigerians are twice as rich and live nine more years. The percentage of the world's people living in absolute poverty has dropped by over half. The United Nations estimates that poverty was reduced more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500.

4. The important stuff costs less

One reason we are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer-lived, and freer than ever before is that the four most basic human needs-food, clothing, fuel, and shelter-have grown markedly cheaper. Take one example: In 1800, a candle providing one hour's light cost six hours' work. In the 1880s, the same light from a kerosene lamp took 15 minutes' work to pay for. In 1950, it was eight seconds. Today, it's half a second. In these terms, we are 43,200 times better off than in 1800.

5. The environment is better than you think

In the United States, rivers, lakes, seas, and air are getting cleaner all the time. A car today emits less pollution traveling at full speed than a parked car did from leaks in 1970.

6. Shopping fuels innovation



Even allowing for the many people who still live in abject poverty, our own generation has access to more calories, watts, horsepower, gigabytes, megahertz, square feet, air miles, food per acre, miles per gallon, and, of course, money than any who lived before us. This will continue as long as we use these things to make other things. The more we specialize and exchange, the better off we'll be.

7. Global trade enriches our lives

By 9 a.m., I have shaved with an American razor, eaten bread made with French wheat and spread with New Zealand butter and Spanish marmalade, brewed tea from Sri Lanka, dressed in clothes made from Indian cotton and Australian wool, put on shoes of Chinese leather and Malaysian rubber, and read a newspaper printed on Finnish paper with Chinese ink. I have consumed minuscule fractions of the productive labor of hundreds of people. This is the magic of trade and specialization. Self-sufficiency is poverty.

8. More farm production = more wilderness

While world population has increased more than fourfold since 1900, other things have increased, too-the area of crops by 30 percent, harvests by 600 percent. At the same time, more than two billion acres of "secondary" tropical forest are now regrowing since farmers left them to head for cities, and it is already rich in biodiversity. In fact, I will make an outrageous prediction: The world will feed itself to a higher and higher standard throughout this century without plowing any new land.

9. The good old days weren't

Some people argue that in the past there was a simplicity, tranquillity, sociability, and spirituality that's now been lost. This rose-tinted nostalgia is generally confined to the wealthy. It's easier to wax elegiac for the life of a pioneer when you don't have to use an outhouse. The biggest-ever experiment in back-to-the-land hippie lifestyle is now known as the Dark Ages.

10. Population growth is not a threat



Although the world population is growing, the rate of increase has been falling for 50 years. Across the globe, national birth rates are lower now than in 1960, and in the less developed world, the birth rate has approximately halved. This is happening despite people living longer and infant-mortality rates dropping. According to an estimate from the United Nations, population will start falling once it peaks at 9.2 billion in 2075-so there is every prospect of feeding the world forever. After all, there are already seven billion people on earth, and they are eating better and better every decade.

11. Oil is not running out

In 1970, there were 550 billion barrels of oil reserves in the world, and in the 20 years that followed, the world used 600 billion.

So by 1990, reserves should have been overdrawn by 50 billion barrels. Instead, they amounted to 900 billion-not counting tar sands and oil shale that between them contain about 20 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Oil, coal, and gas are finite, but they will last for decades, perhaps centuries, and people will find alternatives long before they run out.

12. We are the luckiest generation

This generation has experienced more peace, freedom, leisure time, education, medicine, and travel than any in history. Yet it laps up gloom at every opportunity. Consumers do not celebrate their wonderful field of choice and, according to psychologists, say they are "overwhelmed." When I go to my local superstore, I do not see people driven to misery by the impossibility of choice. I see people choosing.

13. Storms are not getting worse



Not at all. While the climate warmed slightly last century, the incidence of hurricanes and cyclones fell. Since the 1920s, the global annual death rate from weather-related natural disasters (that is, the proportion of the world's population killed rather than simply the overall number) has declined by a staggering 99 percent.

The killing power of hurricanes depends more on wealth than on wind speed. A big hurricane struck the well-prepared Yucatán in Mexico in 2007 and killed nobody. A similar storm struck impoverished Burma the next year and killed 200,000. The best defenses against disaster are prosperity and freedom.

14. Great ideas keep coming

The more we prosper, the more we can prosper. The more we invent, the more inventions become possible. The world of things is often subject to diminishing returns. The world of ideas is not: The ever-increasing exchange of ideas causes the ever-increasing rate of innovation in the modern world. There isn't even a theoretical possibility of exhausting our supply of ideas, discoveries, and inventions.

15. We can solve all our problems

If you say the world will go on getting better, you are considered mad. If you say catastrophe is imminent, you may expect the Nobel Peace Prize. Bookshops groan with pessimism; airwaves are crammed with doom. I cannot recall a time when I was not being told by somebody that the world could survive only if it abandoned economic growth. But the world will not continue as it is. The human race has become a problem-solving machine: It solves those problems by changing its ways. The real danger comes from slowing change.

16. This depression is not depressing

The Great Depression of the 1930s was just a dip in the upward slope of human living standards. By 1939, even the worst-affected countries, America and Germany, were richer than they'd been in 1930. All sorts of new products and industries were born during the Depression. So growth will resume unless prevented by wrong policies. Someone, somewhere, is tweaking a piece of software, testing a new material, or transferring the gene that will make life easier or more fun.

17. Optimists are right

For 200 years, pessimists have had all the headlines-even though optimists have far more often been right. There is immense vested interest in pessimism. No charity ever raised money by saying things are getting better. No journalist ever got the front page writing a story about how disaster was now less likely. Pressure groups and their customers in the media search even the most cheerful statistics for glimmers of doom. Don't be browbeaten-be right!

[yokel]

Land, oils, fresh water, etc are all finite things, population continues to grow so the inescapable conclusion is that the resources earth can provide will not always be plentiful.

No, money is representative of wealth, always has and always will be. This is why banks can only turn 1$ into a maximum value as defined by the fractional reserve; and because it is not created from nothing it has value. You speak of situations like Zimbabwe's hyperinflation where money was indeed created out of nothing (by the govt, not the banks, cos they can't do that); it didn't go well for them at all. To equate that with our banks is very stupid.

Money is energy, That wealth being the energy output or resources from people efforts the sun eg tress, crops and what comes out of the ground.

what's printed on money is what it represents , numbers symbols and images

[mashman]

And if you have a problem with that then I suggest you go find some actual numbers rather than fall in for the local "revolutionist" circle jerk.

'Cause you're wrong.

I'll just let Mr Ridley show you where to look. Again. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog...;s-digest.aspx

1. We're better off now

Compared with 50 years ago, when I was just four years old, the average human now earns nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), eats one third more calories, buries two thirds fewer children, and can expect to live one third longer. In fact, it's hard to find any region of the world that's worse off now than it was then, even though the global population has more than doubled over that period.

2. Urban living is a good thing

City dwellers take up less space, use less energy, and have less impact on natural ecosystems than country dwellers. The world's cities now contain over half its people, but they occupy less than 3 percent of its land area. Urban growth may disgust environmentalists, but living in the country is not the best way to care for the earth. The best thing we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.

3. Poverty is nose-diving

The rich get richer, but the poor do even better. Between 1980 and 2000, the poor doubled their consumption. The Chinese are ten times richer and live about 25 years longer than they did 50 years ago. Nigerians are twice as rich and live nine more years. The percentage of the world's people living in absolute poverty has dropped by over half. The United Nations estimates that poverty was reduced more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500.

4. The important stuff costs less

One reason we are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer-lived, and freer than ever before is that the four most basic human needs-food, clothing, fuel, and shelter-have grown markedly cheaper. Take one example: In 1800, a candle providing one hour's light cost six hours' work. In the 1880s, the same light from a kerosene lamp took 15 minutes' work to pay for. In 1950, it was eight seconds. Today, it's half a second. In these terms, we are 43,200 times better off than in 1800.

5. The environment is better than you think

In the United States, rivers, lakes, seas, and air are getting cleaner all the time. A car today emits less pollution traveling at full speed than a parked car did from leaks in 1970.

6. Shopping fuels innovation



Even allowing for the many people who still live in abject poverty, our own generation has access to more calories, watts, horsepower, gigabytes, megahertz, square feet, air miles, food per acre, miles per gallon, and, of course, money than any who lived before us. This will continue as long as we use these things to make other things. The more we specialize and exchange, the better off we'll be.

7. Global trade enriches our lives

By 9 a.m., I have shaved with an American razor, eaten bread made with French wheat and spread with New Zealand butter and Spanish marmalade, brewed tea from Sri Lanka, dressed in clothes made from Indian cotton and Australian wool, put on shoes of Chinese leather and Malaysian rubber, and read a newspaper printed on Finnish paper with Chinese ink. I have consumed minuscule fractions of the productive labor of hundreds of people. This is the magic of trade and specialization. Self-sufficiency is poverty.

8. More farm production = more wilderness

While world population has increased more than fourfold since 1900, other things have increased, too-the area of crops by 30 percent, harvests by 600 percent. At the same time, more than two billion acres of "secondary" tropical forest are now regrowing since farmers left them to head for cities, and it is already rich in biodiversity. In fact, I will make an outrageous prediction: The world will feed itself to a higher and higher standard throughout this century without plowing any new land.

9. The good old days weren't

Some people argue that in the past there was a simplicity, tranquillity, sociability, and spirituality that's now been lost. This rose-tinted nostalgia is generally confined to the wealthy. It's easier to wax elegiac for the life of a pioneer when you don't have to use an outhouse. The biggest-ever experiment in back-to-the-land hippie lifestyle is now known as the Dark Ages.

10. Population growth is not a threat



Although the world population is growing, the rate of increase has been falling for 50 years. Across the globe, national birth rates are lower now than in 1960, and in the less developed world, the birth rate has approximately halved. This is happening despite people living longer and infant-mortality rates dropping. According to an estimate from the United Nations, population will start falling once it peaks at 9.2 billion in 2075-so there is every prospect of feeding the world forever. After all, there are already seven billion people on earth, and they are eating better and better every decade.

11. Oil is not running out

In 1970, there were 550 billion barrels of oil reserves in the world, and in the 20 years that followed, the world used 600 billion.

So by 1990, reserves should have been overdrawn by 50 billion barrels. Instead, they amounted to 900 billion-not counting tar sands and oil shale that between them contain about 20 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Oil, coal, and gas are finite, but they will last for decades, perhaps centuries, and people will find alternatives long before they run out.

12. We are the luckiest generation

This generation has experienced more peace, freedom, leisure time, education, medicine, and travel than any in history. Yet it laps up gloom at every opportunity. Consumers do not celebrate their wonderful field of choice and, according to psychologists, say they are "overwhelmed." When I go to my local superstore, I do not see people driven to misery by the impossibility of choice. I see people choosing.

13. Storms are not getting worse



Not at all. While the climate warmed slightly last century, the incidence of hurricanes and cyclones fell. Since the 1920s, the global annual death rate from weather-related natural disasters (that is, the proportion of the world's population killed rather than simply the overall number) has declined by a staggering 99 percent.

The killing power of hurricanes depends more on wealth than on wind speed. A big hurricane struck the well-prepared Yucat�n in Mexico in 2007 and killed nobody. A similar storm struck impoverished Burma the next year and killed 200,000. The best defenses against disaster are prosperity and freedom.

14. Great ideas keep coming

The more we prosper, the more we can prosper. The more we invent, the more inventions become possible. The world of things is often subject to diminishing returns. The world of ideas is not: The ever-increasing exchange of ideas causes the ever-increasing rate of innovation in the modern world. There isn't even a theoretical possibility of exhausting our supply of ideas, discoveries, and inventions.

15. We can solve all our problems

If you say the world will go on getting better, you are considered mad. If you say catastrophe is imminent, you may expect the Nobel Peace Prize. Bookshops groan with pessimism; airwaves are crammed with doom. I cannot recall a time when I was not being told by somebody that the world could survive only if it abandoned economic growth. But the world will not continue as it is. The human race has become a problem-solving machine: It solves those problems by changing its ways. The real danger comes from slowing change.

16. This depression is not depressing

The Great Depression of the 1930s was just a dip in the upward slope of human living standards. By 1939, even the worst-affected countries, America and Germany, were richer than they'd been in 1930. All sorts of new products and industries were born during the Depression. So growth will resume unless prevented by wrong policies. Someone, somewhere, is tweaking a piece of software, testing a new material, or transferring the gene that will make life easier or more fun.

17. Optimists are right

For 200 years, pessimists have had all the headlines-even though optimists have far more often been right. There is immense vested interest in pessimism. No charity ever raised money by saying things are getting better. No journalist ever got the front page writing a story about how disaster was now less likely. Pressure groups and their customers in the media search even the most cheerful statistics for glimmers of doom. Don't be browbeaten-be right!

As I said, it's the success of the people. I'm sure if I hunted hard enough I could find some commentary using stats that would say the opposite and you'd call bullshit. There has been plenty of figures floating around recently that state that our economy is in a worse state than it was 100 years ago, with reports being written on record levels of poverty etc... so telling me that some scared old white man can find figures that, as a ratio of good v bad, shows that we're doing ok won't not wash as it proves that we are letting record numbers of people suffer whilst thinking happy happy thoughts. Whatever appeases you dude.

[Brian d marge]

Money is energy, That wealth being the energy output or resources from people efforts the sun eg tress, crops and what comes out of the ground.

what's printed on money is what it represents , numbers symbols and images

Subject to the laws of entropy

[Scuba_Steve]

And if you have a problem with that then I suggest you go find some actual numbers rather than fall in for the local "revolutionist" circle jerk.

---

A lot of straw-man arguments

That list appeared to be missing your "war decreasing" don't worry I have a graph here from the University of Warwick and Nikolaus Wolf from Humboldt University



As for poverty I notice they decide to look at candle vs lightbulb rather than something useful like bread, milk, even water in some places... Anyways I was more about the war comment, to think war has decreased as money has increased is just fucking stupid to say the least, hell the "war economy" is one of the most profitable & stable

[bogan]

I agree, and yet here we are wasting them willy nilly as if they are infinite. We can do better.

Money is also a weapon and limits human potential, always has been always will be. Sure, hyperinflation happens purely because money is printed without anything backing it . A bank is a bank, they print money out of nothing.

Wastage is a different topic, usage is something an R.B.E is unlikely to lower; wasteage perhaps, but the number of people sacrificing their resources they have worked for for an iphone 6 suggests the wastage is in the mindset, not the financial cost.

Yet it is also a tool doing good, and increasing human potential. It is how you choose to see it Me, I'm a positive bloke, making the best of the situation, no sense dragging myself down by a negative view of the world.

A bank is a bank, they cannot print money at all, and they cannot create money from nothing; stop being willfully ignorant mashy.

[Brian d marge]

That list appeared to be missing your "war decreasing" don't worry I have a graph here from the University of Warwick and Nikolaus Wolf from Humboldt University



As for poverty I notice they decide to look at candle vs lightbulb rather than something useful like bread, milk, even water in some places... Anyways I was more about the war comment, to think war has decreased as money has increased is just fucking stupid to say the least, hell the "war economy" is one of the most profitable & stable

Hahahahaha great graph must photo copy that to show her my performance behind closed doors

[bogan]

There has been plenty of figures floating around recently that state that our economy is in a worse state than it was 100 years ago, with reports being written on record levels of poverty etc...

That'll be a relative measure though, those in poverty today have it better than the ruling class of 100 years ago.

[Brian d marge]

That'll be a relative measure though, those in poverty today have it better than the ruling class of 100 years ago.

I present

Shortland street


Destroying the social fabric since after 100 years ago

[Brian d marge]

And if you have a problem with that then I suggest you go find some actual numbers rather than fall in for the local "revolutionist" circle jerk.

'Cause you're wrong.

I'll just let Mr Ridley show you where to look. Again. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog...;s-digest.aspx

1. We're better off now

Compared with 50 years ago, when I was just four years old, the average human now earns nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), eats one third more calories, buries two thirds fewer children, and can expect to live one third longer. In fact, it's hard to find any region of the world that's worse off now than it was then, even though the global population has more than doubled over that period.

2. Urban living is a good thing

City dwellers take up less space, use less energy, and have less impact on natural ecosystems than country dwellers. The world's cities now contain over half its people, but they occupy less than 3 percent of its land area. Urban growth may disgust environmentalists, but living in the country is not the best way to care for the earth. The best thing we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.

3. Poverty is nose-diving

The rich get richer, but the poor do even better. Between 1980 and 2000, the poor doubled their consumption. The Chinese are ten times richer and live about 25 years longer than they did 50 years ago. Nigerians are twice as rich and live nine more years. The percentage of the world's people living in absolute poverty has dropped by over half. The United Nations estimates that poverty was reduced more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500.

4. The important stuff costs less

One reason we are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer-lived, and freer than ever before is that the four most basic human needs-food, clothing, fuel, and shelter-have grown markedly cheaper. Take one example: In 1800, a candle providing one hour's light cost six hours' work. In the 1880s, the same light from a kerosene lamp took 15 minutes' work to pay for. In 1950, it was eight seconds. Today, it's half a second. In these terms, we are 43,200 times better off than in 1800.

5. The environment is better than you think

In the United States, rivers, lakes, seas, and air are getting cleaner all the time. A car today emits less pollution traveling at full speed than a parked car did from leaks in 1970.

6. Shopping fuels innovation



Even allowing for the many people who still live in abject poverty, our own generation has access to more calories, watts, horsepower, gigabytes, megahertz, square feet, air miles, food per acre, miles per gallon, and, of course, money than any who lived before us. This will continue as long as we use these things to make other things. The more we specialize and exchange, the better off we'll be.

7. Global trade enriches our lives

By 9 a.m., I have shaved with an American razor, eaten bread made with French wheat and spread with New Zealand butter and Spanish marmalade, brewed tea from Sri Lanka, dressed in clothes made from Indian cotton and Australian wool, put on shoes of Chinese leather and Malaysian rubber, and read a newspaper printed on Finnish paper with Chinese ink. I have consumed minuscule fractions of the productive labor of hundreds of people. This is the magic of trade and specialization. Self-sufficiency is poverty.

8. More farm production = more wilderness

While world population has increased more than fourfold since 1900, other things have increased, too-the area of crops by 30 percent, harvests by 600 percent. At the same time, more than two billion acres of "secondary" tropical forest are now regrowing since farmers left them to head for cities, and it is already rich in biodiversity. In fact, I will make an outrageous prediction: The world will feed itself to a higher and higher standard throughout this century without plowing any new land.

9. The good old days weren't

Some people argue that in the past there was a simplicity, tranquillity, sociability, and spirituality that's now been lost. This rose-tinted nostalgia is generally confined to the wealthy. It's easier to wax elegiac for the life of a pioneer when you don't have to use an outhouse. The biggest-ever experiment in back-to-the-land hippie lifestyle is now known as the Dark Ages.

10. Population growth is not a threat



Although the world population is growing, the rate of increase has been falling for 50 years. Across the globe, national birth rates are lower now than in 1960, and in the less developed world, the birth rate has approximately halved. This is happening despite people living longer and infant-mortality rates dropping. According to an estimate from the United Nations, population will start falling once it peaks at 9.2 billion in 2075-so there is every prospect of feeding the world forever. After all, there are already seven billion people on earth, and they are eating better and better every decade.

11. Oil is not running out

In 1970, there were 550 billion barrels of oil reserves in the world, and in the 20 years that followed, the world used 600 billion.

So by 1990, reserves should have been overdrawn by 50 billion barrels. Instead, they amounted to 900 billion-not counting tar sands and oil shale that between them contain about 20 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Oil, coal, and gas are finite, but they will last for decades, perhaps centuries, and people will find alternatives long before they run out.

12. We are the luckiest generation

This generation has experienced more peace, freedom, leisure time, education, medicine, and travel than any in history. Yet it laps up gloom at every opportunity. Consumers do not celebrate their wonderful field of choice and, according to psychologists, say they are "overwhelmed." When I go to my local superstore, I do not see people driven to misery by the impossibility of choice. I see people choosing.

13. Storms are not getting worse



Not at all. While the climate warmed slightly last century, the incidence of hurricanes and cyclones fell. Since the 1920s, the global annual death rate from weather-related natural disasters (that is, the proportion of the world's population killed rather than simply the overall number) has declined by a staggering 99 percent.

The killing power of hurricanes depends more on wealth than on wind speed. A big hurricane struck the well-prepared Yucatán in Mexico in 2007 and killed nobody. A similar storm struck impoverished Burma the next year and killed 200,000. The best defenses against disaster are prosperity and freedom.

14. Great ideas keep coming

The more we prosper, the more we can prosper. The more we invent, the more inventions become possible. The world of things is often subject to diminishing returns. The world of ideas is not: The ever-increasing exchange of ideas causes the ever-increasing rate of innovation in the modern world. There isn't even a theoretical possibility of exhausting our supply of ideas, discoveries, and inventions.

15. We can solve all our problems

If you say the world will go on getting better, you are considered mad. If you say catastrophe is imminent, you may expect the Nobel Peace Prize. Bookshops groan with pessimism; airwaves are crammed with doom. I cannot recall a time when I was not being told by somebody that the world could survive only if it abandoned economic growth. But the world will not continue as it is. The human race has become a problem-solving machine: It solves those problems by changing its ways. The real danger comes from slowing change.

16. This depression is not depressing

The Great Depression of the 1930s was just a dip in the upward slope of human living standards. By 1939, even the worst-affected countries, America and Germany, were richer than they'd been in 1930. All sorts of new products and industries were born during the Depression. So growth will resume unless prevented by wrong policies. Someone, somewhere, is tweaking a piece of software, testing a new material, or transferring the gene that will make life easier or more fun.

17. Optimists are right

For 200 years, pessimists have had all the headlines-even though optimists have far more often been right. There is immense vested interest in pessimism. No charity ever raised money by saying things are getting better. No journalist ever got the front page writing a story about how disaster was now less likely. Pressure groups and their customers in the media search even the most cheerful statistics for glimmers of doom. Don't be browbeaten-be right!

Hahahahaa thats the biggest load of bollox Ive read , since the last time I posted ....




Stephen