New Zealand. What a back water shit hole.

[onearmedbandit]

By what metric are you ranking America as the wealthiest country in the world?

[F5 Dave]

I used to identify as capitalist but now I'm centrist, if that's a thing. Clearly Socialism is a failed social experiment. That's obvious.

But rampant Capitalism has almost as many problems. We need to try stitch together a compromise for a society that is viable in the long term.

5 million and counting, we went from 4 to 5 in record time.

What will the country be like when it's 10 million? And those immigrants have just retired?


Ooh! I know! Let's get some more people in. The Waikato river will be like the Ganges.

[Al Bundy 4eva!]

By what metric are you ranking America as the wealthiest country in the world?

Economy is my metric, you can't compare China, they still have 300 million people in rural China living well below the poverty line, happy none the less

[mashman]

Economy is my metric, you can't compare China.........

...........

[R650R]

I used to identify as capitalist but now I'm centrist, if that's a thing. Clearly Socialism is a failed social experiment. That's obvious.

But rampant Capitalism has almost as many problems. We need to try stitch together a compromise for a society that is viable in the long term.

5 million and counting, we went from 4 to 5 in record time.

What will the country be like when it's 10 million? And those immigrants have just retired?


Ooh! I know! Let's get some more people in. The Waikato river will be like the Ganges.

It used to be China that would run the world next... but international demographics are fast changing. China’s one child policy was used for too long, in the coming decades not enough young people is going to cause many problems and their influence will diminish.
India will actually surpass China and become the dominant country in that region.
But slowly in background Nigeria of all places is set to be an economic powerhouse in about 50 years time. They are the only large population whose birth rate is leading towards large population increase.
Hopefully they will be exporting something better than telemarketing scams by then.
As for NZ we will prob be rainbow central, drinking Bud lite instead of speights. Massive immigration by Asians/Indians and Muslims after WW4 will rewrite the political establishment. National, Labour, Greens, Māori party will all be irrelevant as the likes of TOP.

[TheDemonLord]

I used to identify as capitalist but now I'm centrist, if that's a thing. Clearly Socialism is a failed social experiment. That's obvious.

But rampant Capitalism has almost as many problems. We need to try stitch together a compromise for a society that is viable in the long term.

5 million and counting, we went from 4 to 5 in record time.

What will the country be like when it's 10 million? And those immigrants have just retired?


Ooh! I know! Let's get some more people in. The Waikato river will be like the Ganges.

Well, Capitalism is an Economic system, not a political system...

[onearmedbandit]

Economy is my metric, you can't compare China, they still have 300 million people in rural China living well below the poverty line, happy none the less

Would you use the GDP then?

[mashman]

Would you use the GDP then?

Why not poverty?

"As per China's national poverty line, 8.5 percent of people were in poverty in 2013, which decreased to 1.7 percent in 2018."

"In 2013, about 48.8 million people or 15.8 percent of the U.S. population had income below the poverty level."

"There are 37.9 million Americans living in poverty, accounting for 11.6% of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau."

[Al Bundy 4eva!]

Why not poverty?

"As per China's national poverty line, 8.5 percent of people were in poverty in 2013, which decreased to 1.7 percent in 2018."

"In 2013, about 48.8 million people or 15.8 percent of the U.S. population had income below the poverty level."

"There are 37.9 million Americans living in poverty, accounting for 11.6% of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau."

None of this matters, all that matters is the USD is the Reserve currency of the world so they can print as much money as they need and they have the largest most modern military machine in history to defend the dollar.

[mashman]

None of this matters, all that matters is the USD is the Reserve currency of the world so they can print as much money as they need and they have the largest most modern military machine in history to defend the dollar.

Nothing quite says capitalism and the free market like the threat of violence using the most destructive tools available, coz money. And yet, poverty, GDP, biodiversity and so on all seem to be thriving in a communist state... enough so to be the worlds leading producer. There's a kind of poetry in that, almost as poetic as trying to avoid the economically inevitable given the amount of production that got shipped offshore a long time ago. Oops.

[Al Bundy 4eva!]

Don't get me wrong, I like poor people, I mean who else can change the oil on my motorcycle? Me? I don't want to get my fingernails dirty.

[mashman]

Don't get me wrong, I like poor people, I mean who else can change the oil on my motorcycle? Me? I don't want to get my fingernails dirty.

Maybe the "man" of your house will.

[MD]

I used to identify as capitalist but now I'm centrist, if that's a thing. Clearly Socialism is a failed social experiment. That's obvious.

But rampant Capitalism has almost as many problems. We need to try stitch together a compromise for a society that is viable in the long term.

5 million and counting, we went from 4 to 5 in record time.

What will the country be like when it's 10 million? And those immigrants have just retired?


Ooh! I know! Let's get some more people in. The Waikato river will be like the Ganges.

Funny I have not gone near this thread before. Dave has hit the nail on the head of all the world's problems. Over bloody population.
People starving- well some landscapes simply cannot support millions of fast breeding people. Let's say Sudan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia for starters. Pollution, Climate change- well maybe 7 billion people driving cars isn't helping. Running out of clean water, running out of oil, running out of food, running out of native wilderness, running out of diversity of animals, running out of oxygen producing forests (Amazon springs to mind). Destroying the very atmosphere that has allowed life to exist on Earth. Nations going to war over this and that. None of this would have happened if we had never exceeded 1 billion people on Earth.

I get sick of science experts saying global warming and all these problems are caused by this and that (fossil fuels, pollutants etc). No it's not. The root cause of most of Life on Earth's problems is over population by humans. I expect that at some point in the future our self-indulgence with breeding will wipe most of mankind out and life on Earth will finally be allowed to heal itself.
I cannot see how NZ with 6 million people, then 8, then 10 million then... can be a nicer place. It was wonderful at 3m.

[Al Bundy 4eva!]

^^ sounds like your solution is maybe a vaccine that could sterilize us, or perhaps increase our cancer rate, if only there was a way 90% of us could take it with us knowing..hmmm food for thought

I actually think the world is under populated, perhaps instead of wasting money on think tanks, or trans gender eco friendly black life matters or whatever is the next woke craze, how about we invest in some of our smartest minds on Earth to figure out how to make the planet more sustainable, most of the land in New Zealand and the Earth doesn't have anyone living on it, yes for geographical, weather or just not practical reasons , but instead of taking the easy way out with mass genocide of 50% of the Earth's population, why not let the thinkers, dreamers, engineers, scientists figure how too re locate the rest of the planet, he'll even cities on the oceans would be a start...

[mashman]

Overpopulation?

8 billion people. 1.7 sustainable planets. Oxfam reported 20% consuming 80% of production, so let's say 30% consuming 70% of production, just coz.

You end up with 2.4 billion people consuming 1.19 sustainable planets with the other 5.6 billion somehow managing on 0.51 sustainable planets.

If consumption was linear, yes, over population would be the primary candidate for production overshoot. It isn't.

The world produces enough food for 10 billion people, has enough property to house everyone, and there's more than enough fuel to go around, but instead that useful stuff is being wasted for Non-Essential purposes simply to create the 1's n 0's that fund Essential production. COVID showed us just how much of what we do is Non-Essential.

So you're gonna have to kill the majority of the western world to make a dent in sustainability and resource use in general. That's what the numbers say... and the sustainable planets number, 1.7, is considered by all who play with the metrics that make up these calculations to be on the low side in terms of estimation.

Turns out capitalists are leaving a billion or so in poverty despite abundance and then blaming those people for existing despite their lack of means to acquire anything and the exceptionally basic standard of living available... but hey, the numbers must be wrong.