An Analysis of Rights

Thanks to RJ for the comment on my healthcare post.  I wrote a response, and it ended up being so long that I figured it deserved it’s own topic.  Defining what is a right is a separate philisophical issue that isn’t jsut about healthcare specifically, and I wanted to do it justice in its own post.

So, here is is the comment from RJ to start things off:

Part of your arguement is based on rights not requiring intervention from others. I’m curious to know how you feel about education. I’m strongly of the belief that a child has the right to an education. Additionally I think citizens have the right to security hence the need for police and military.

I don’t nescesarily disagree with your agruements but I think you should consider ones rights a bit more carefully.

It indeed does need a more careful look, so I’m going to try and give a quick overview of how I see it.

I actually had a very, very long conversation with my wife about defining rights. It is incredibly hard to define and, I think, it is difficult to take a libertarian stance without sounding like a monster sometimes.

Part of the beauty of the United States Constitution is that the bill of rights is actually a set of negative rights rather than positive ones. That means that our rights are phrased as what the government CANNOT do to us rather than what we as people are entitled to under the force of government. The only one that is slightly different, I believe, is the right to trial by jury. But, that is even unique in the respect that even though it requires service from others, the idea behind it is still to protect againt government tyranny in trying cases against accused citizens.

I think Thomas Jefferson defined rights best (i.e., what we are entitled to): “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

With that in mind, I think education follows along the same analysis as healthcare. I really don’t think we are entitled to education. It again requires the services of other human beings to give you your entitlement, this time being teachers rather than doctors. Also, I don’t think I went into this issue with healthcare, but if it is a right, you have to define what is the threshold or baseline level of education to satisfy that right. I’m sure the students of Washington DC could sue the government over their rights being violated because their education is incredibly sub-par compared to a school in a suburban upper class neighborhood, even though they are all public schools. Are we then entitled to a certain graduation rate or the same number of classes offered no matter where you are considering it is an equal right of humanity?

Up until the mid-1800’s education was largely private. The first national census conducted in 1840 found a near universal literacy rate in the white population (slavery issues aside) at around 97% when schools were largely private, whether at home or private schools.

Now, here is the catch that caused the debate with my wife: this all goes back to the belief that rights are negative in nature per Thomas Jefferson’s definition, where rights are unobstructed actions (i.e. no outside interference) that are only limited by the rights of others. I think the hang-up is that, in my view, rights then differ with what human beings SHOULD do for others. I think that is entirely a moral question, meaning that our notions of protecting the dignity of the human person should draw us into voluntary charity, with the emphasis on the word voluntary. No one should force us to give something to someone else, but we should want to do it out of our free will and care for humanity. So, a homeless man might not have a right to shelter (who should be forced to provide him with shelter?), but we should WANT to provide him with shelter. In summary, rights revolve around the entitlement to free action, but morality revolves around wanting to help the common good with our free action.

So, how does that all connect with education? Well, I believe that the people best able to determine what is best for them is themselves. I think it should be left up to the local community to decide how they are going to educate their children, and that is further beauty of the Constitution where everything not specificially given to the the government is retained by the people (well it needs to return to that notion, but that’s a different topic). In other words, we shouldn’t be forced to pay taxes to fund schools, but we should rather voluntarily contribute to the education of our children by privately paying for their education. Imagine the money you’d save to pay for your children’s education if it wasn’t taken by force? Then you could have the free choice of where to send them.

As for those who could not afford the education that others have, then I’m not against helping them receive education at all. However, I think that should be done by free choice by voluntary charity. You need to foster an environment where that is possible, though. The people in the local community should be the ones to decide how to best accomplish that, and if that is through LOCAL taxes then I might consider that a necessary evil, but that should still be decided on a community level as the level closest to the people and not the federal government. The morality and loss of community issues are a completely different issue, though.

The point is that, even though education may not be a “right,” it is something we human beings should want to provide our children with through voluntary action for the sake of the “good” (in an Aristotlean sense). Healthcare is the same way. And that’s why most of the time some people feel called to be teachers and doctors.

As for police and military protection, it is the same analysis but again more of the necessary evil. In a perfect society which doesn’t exist, there would be no violations of our rights, but because of human imperfection it is sometimes necessary to have protection for our rights to free action. That’s why the military is something we specifically charged the government with providing. Still, the government has that ability because it is something that originates with the people and we are simply consenting for the government to do it on our behalf. Protection of the health and welfare of the citizens is the same argument.

Still, we are not entitled to police and military protection. That is why police and military service is voluntary in this country. They are not our permanent servants because we have a right to their services. However, in an imperfect world, the people have decided that we are best served letting the government provide that protection, but they only provide it because we said they could. We have the right to have our rights protected, but we decided it is impractical to do that on a purely individual level.

Long story short, as I stated before, rights are what allow us to have free action, and morality is what dictates how we should treat other people with our free actions. You can’t vioalte the free actions of all because some human beings are selfish and won’t help their fellow man. However, we can also determine that our voluntary charity is best served through an administering body, whether it is a religious charity, not for profit organization, or, in the case of military protection, the government. But that is all based upon the free action of the people, and the free action of the people should always be allowed to revoke that consent.  We should always rely upon voluntary charity rather than involuntary giving through force, governmental or otherwise.

I hope that makes sense. That’s just the way I see things.

My Analysis of the Healthcare Issue

Healthcare reform is front and center on the national agenda nowadays.  I’ve seen (and participated) in numerous debates on the subject; sometimes they were civil, sometimes not so much.  Still, one thing is for certain: the subject matter is hugely complex.  The other thing that is for certain is that places like Facebook are horrible for having these discussions.  Stupid comment text limits.

In any event, some preliminary terminology needs to be sorted out before anyone can discuss the subject.  You can’t be using the same word, but then debate when you don’t share the same definition.  First and foremost, using the term “universal healthcare” is a misnomer.  It does not describe our current situation or proposals at all.  The term is misused as a bludgeon quite often.  I mean, how can you NOT want everyone to have healthcare?

The truth of the matter is that, in the United States, we DO have near universal healthcare (quality arguments aside) in many ways, most notably in terms of emergency situations.  If a homeless man is hit by a car, for example, an emergency room isn’t going to turn him away because he has no money in his wallet.  There is a whole separate argument of whether he will be able to cover the bill when he is done, but there are many laws that require emergency rooms to take everyone that comes in with, well, an emergency.  And, although it is a separate argument, many hospitals, through charitable donations or otherwise, have funds to cover such cases so that certain people don’t have to pay (or simply that there is an understanding that certain people can’t pay).  The point is that Americans are not dying in the streets because they lack access to healthcare.

So, current proposals are more about universal health insurance, not universal healthcare.  Along those lines, another argument for reform is that there are a great number of “uninsured” in the United States.  According to the Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf), in 2006 there were 47 million people in the United States (16% of the population) who were without health insurance for at least part of that year.  That number gets tossed around a lot.  However, the number needs to be broken down by a few qualifiers.

First and foremost, about 37% of the uninsured live in households with an income over $50,000 based upon the same Census Bureau report.  Second of all, the 47 million uninsured is based upon only being uninsured at any time for that year.  That would include a person who had employer health insurance, was unemployed for a month and lost his coverage, but then got a new job with new health insurance (so, even though that person had health insurance for 11 months, he would be counted as uninsured).  These numbers were analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office in 2003 (http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4210&type=0&sequence=0), and they estimated that the number of people uninsured for an entire reporting year are somewhere between 50% and 75% of the actual numbers given.  Thirdly, the number includes illegal immigrants and young workers who are transitioning from high school/college to the working world.  When those numbers are combined, it should give pause to the reliability of the 47 million uninsured number and whether it is sufficient reason to drastically change our entire national system.

There is also a philosophical portion of the debate as to whether or not healthcare is a right of humanity.  Some people think that human beings have a God given right to healthcare.  However, I truly do not believe that is the case at all.  I can’t think of a single other right that REQUIRES the services of another human being.  My rights to free speech and free expression of religion, for example, do not require action on anyone else’s part.  They are both inherent qualities of the individual.  With healthcare, however, you would have to argue that a doctor, surgeon, nurse, or other healthcare worker has the obligation to serve your needs.  Any turning away of a patient, refusing treatment, other inaction, or misstep is a violation of the other person’s right to health.  And that isn’t even factoring in that sometimes the need for healthcare arises from an individual’s self-destructive habits or actions.

For arguments sake we will leave the philosophical portion out of it and assume that there are a decent number of uninsured Americans.  That aside, the real issue at hand is, therefore, not access to healthcare, but rather the cost of healthcare.  And within that realm there are two “costs” that need to be analyzed: cost of service and cost of insurance.  At the very basic level, cost of service is the key and influences the cost of insurance coverage.  As medical costs go up, premiums have to go up to be able to cover service costs in the event that something happens.  So, that is the real problem and the issue that our government is trying to tackle.  And, the current plan of the government is taking the route that they can control medical costs by controlling medical insurance.  In essence, it is a backdoor way of directly controlling costs by controlling the industry that is used to pay for the costs.  Call it whatever you want, whether brilliance or socialism, but that seems to be the basic simplified concept.

So, to do this analysis justice, it would be helpful to analyze, as best we can, reasons for the increasing costs of healthcare.  To that affect, I found a great article from 2006 that lays out ten reasons for high healthcare costs.  It is really a great starting point to analyze whether the government’s plan to provide universal health insurance by determining whether it will reduce the costs in these areas or if there are other market based solutions.  The full article can be found here (http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/2760), but I’ll reprint the various sections so you don’t have to read back and forth.

1.) Nobody shops for value.

When was the last time you heard someone say something like this: “You’re having chest pains, Al? Sorry to hear that. You should see Dr. Smith. He’s not as fancy as those cardiologists at the Cleveland Clinic, but you can’t beat his prices! In fact, I think he’s having a Presidents’ Day special on angioplasty right now.” There’s no medical equivalent of Wal-Mart. Everyone wants Neiman Marcus.

This is a definite issue at the basic cost level of medical services.  Everyone wants the BEST care available, and that costs money.  Other than allowing greater market competition for basic procedures or check-ups, the only way medical costs come down is when a procedure moves from being experimental to becoming routine.  And the only way that happens is if we foster an environment that encourages new procedures and further research on experimental procedures.  Heck, open-heart surgery was experimental not that long ago.

Does universal government coverage foster that environment?  Hardly.  First of all, it has been widely pointed out that an end goal of the current healthcare proposals is to limit new private insurance policies in the future (see the Investor’s Business Daily editorial http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333066661999894).  Even if the public option simply becomes a greater market share of the insurance industry, the government doesn’t need to make a profit or meet operating costs like other companies do (they can just get more money from the public some other way) and therefore other companies can’t compete.

One only needs to look at other socialized medicine systems to see what happens when the government decides what healthcare (whether directly on individual decisions or generally by a health board) is available.  Expensive, experimental procedures are not offered under such government plans because the bureaucrats in charge, in a sort of cold cost/benefit analysis, will decide it is not worth the government money to pay for such a procedure.  So, as President Obama said in a town hall meeting, sometimes you’re “better off just taking the painkillers.”  This most certainly doesn’t foster greater innovation in experimental, more expensive treatment.

What needs to be done is to create an environment where people still have the choice of going the experimental route if they choose to pay for it.  When the government won’t allow such procedures, the people willing to go the experimental route will find it increasingly hard to find experimental treatment in the first place.  And that leads to number 2:

2. Medical innovations are usually more expensive, not less.

Economic progress tends to come in two forms: Learning to do old things better and cheaper, or learning to do new things. Medical progress tends to involve the latter. A bone-marrow transplant may provide new hope for many cancer patients, but it’s not necessarily cheaper than the old alternative.

In the case of pharmaceuticals, we’ve explicitly designed the system so that new drugs will be expensive. We grant patent protection — a legal monopoly — to pharmaceutical companies for breakthrough medication. The more impressive the drug, the more the company can charge, regardless of the actual cost of producing the pill. Yes, those prices are high, and the profits can be huge — which is exactly what creates the incentive to discover such drugs in the first place.

I already touched on the first half above, but the same analysis applies to pharmaceuticals.  The reason most medical innovations come out of the United States is because we offer such protections of the innovations.  I know pharmaceutical companies are painted as evil, but they risk capital to produce innovation because there is a promise of a huge return if that pans out.  The profits then can pay for new research and development.

Again, will government insurance help lower those costs?  Perhaps in the short term, but to long term detriment.  Any form of price control, whether by legislation or indirectly by not covering certain medications and forcing them off the market, may reduce costs of current drugs in the short term, but it will greatly slow down future innovations in the field by creating disincentives to investing in a high risk field.  When a new drug comes out, it may be expensive and harder to cover at first.  When generics are eventually able to hit the market, however, we all benefit.

3. Health care is a “luxury good”.

Wait. Before you start sending me angry e-mails, please let me clarify. I’m not saying that health care is a luxury. I’m saying that health care is a “luxury good,” which is a technical term in economics. It refers to any good that wealthy people demand in disproportionately greater amounts than less wealthy people.

The opposite is an “inferior good”, which is something that people actually consume less of as they get richer. Ramen noodles, for example, are likely to be an inferior good. I’m certain that my graduate students eat far more of them than Donald Trump does, his capacity to afford huge quantities notwithstanding.

Richer societies, and richer people within a society, have higher expectations for health care than less wealthy people. We increasingly demand medical fixes — and have the technological capacity to provide them — for problems that our grandparents would have just tolerated. Think hip replacement, stomach stapling, Lasik eye surgery, and so on. Our spending a rising share of our GDP on health care as we grow richer as a nation is not inherently a bad thing.

Again, this reason for cost increases is what also helps foster innovation.  As long as we have expendable income, we will be willing to expend more on healthcare because we can.  As stated above, putting a roadblock between experimental treatments and paying customers by allowing the government to make cost/benefit analyses with your health will kill innovation even if it seems to stabilize costs.  It is always cheaper to give someone ibuprofen than to perform some kind of medical procedure.  If someone is willing to pay for a medical procedure because they can afford when the problem would have been tolerated in the past, why stop them?

4. We don’t pay for what we consume.

Health care is unique in that neither the service provider nor the patient gets the bill. For most people, the tab gets sent somewhere else. So nobody directly involved in the transaction has any incentive to control costs.

Imagine if you could buy a television that way. You would walk into a retailer and discuss your needs with the salesperson (working on commission), knowing that the bill for your eventual purchase would get sent to Aetna. Would anyone walk out of the store with less than a 60-inch flat screen with surround sound?

The insurance company will try to contain costs, albeit without the benefit of being in the office with the doctor and patient. So that may mean somewhat arbitrary limits on care or time-consuming hurdles for more expensive procedures — which is why everyone hates their HMO and doctors complain, rightfully I’m sure, about the staggering paperwork and bureaucracy associated with nearly all insurance plans.

Even then, it’s easy to game the system. Imagine the expert salesperson at the shop writing a letter to your insurance company explaining that you need a giant, high-definition screen because of your poor eyesight.

These are good points all around.  Although I think it needs to be put in a different light.

What would happen if insurance wasn’t involved at all and you, as the consumer, directly got the bill?  Some medical bills can be staggering.  However, in 2008 the annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,700. The annual premium for single coverage averaged over $4,700 (http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml).  It would take individual analysis, but I guarantee there are plenty of people that don’t use that amount in true medical costs every year.  If you don’t have any catastrophes and only go to the doctor’s office a couple of times, you would most likely only spend a couple of hundred dollars out of that $4,700 you spent on health insurance for the year.  When you are confronted with the bills directly, maybe you would be less persuaded to walk out with that 60-inch flat screen TV and you would actually control health care spending directly.  Paying for a new alternator for your car may hurt, but paying for it directly probably costs less than paying monthly for insurance for years in case your alternator goes bad. 

Now, that may not work for everyone, but that should be an option for anyone that wants to go that route.  Do you want to make your own decisions and pay directly out of pocket?  Fine.  If you want to be safe and get an insurance policy in case something happens?  That’s fine too.  However, the current healthcare proposal LIMITS your options rather than broadens them.  Heck, because of current government regulation people don’t even have the option to buy lower premium plans that only cover catastrophic health problems.  Also, the current bill will fine anyone who does not have health insurance.  Also, as stated earlier, it certainly seems like it will have the effect of forcing people into the public option.

And how would a universal public option contain costs?  Just like insurance companies attempt to control costs: by limiting service.  However, a market based solution that allows you to shop insurance companies would let you choose which company you want based upon the services they allow and pay for.  Those companies that cover more would have higher premiums, but it is your choice to make and you can control the costs.  If we all have public insurance, you have no say as to what you want to see covered and what you don’t and the only way they can control costs is by not covering certain procedures.  Those decisions will be made for you by bureaucrats and an unelected board of policy makers.

We need the greatest amount of options available.  Creating a system where there is only one option is the antithesis of that.

5. Baumol’s disease.

This is not something you should fear testing positive for at your next check up. Rather, it’s an important insight made by economist William Baumol: As societies become richer, labor-intensive endeavors, such as health care, become increasingly expensive relative to goods and services that can be produced using less labor.

Why? Because there are none of the cost savings that usually come from rising productivity. Compare farming to brain surgery, for example. A typical farmer today may grow 20 times as much corn as a farmer could 100 years ago. Thus, it’s possible for a farmer to be 20 times as wealthy without any increase in the price of corn. A brain surgeon, on the other hand, cannot see 20 times as many patients. (I don’t know if there were brain surgeons 100 years ago, but you get the point). Baumol’s famous example was that a string quartet will always require four musicians.

So, for brain surgeons’ income to rise at the same pace as the rest of society (a necessity if smart people are to be induced to enter the field), then the price of brain surgery must go up relative to less labor-intensive goods and services (like corn). In short, as long as the doctor-patient relationship remains relatively unchanged, health-care costs will rise faster than prices in general. (Baumol’s observation was described as a “disease” because it afflicts certain sectors of the economy, such as health care and higher education.)

Again, this is a cost where there is little you can do.  On the flipside, even though costs go up because there is a limit on the amount of services provided, costs can go down if there are more service providers.  If government limits procedures (some of which are experimental and more lucrative) and therefore has direct/indirect influence on pay to healthcare providers, it will not effect this kind of cost increase by creating further disincentive for going through the trouble of medical school through limiting the option of increasing costs.  Again, the only option to control cost is for the government to limit service.

6. The old.

I’ve written before about the “baby boomers”, the huge demographic “pig in a python” born just after World War II (see “Tackling the Social Security Mess” http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/economist/2415). This huge cohort of Americans is getting older, and older people have greater health-care needs. So even if nothing else on this list were true, an aging population would drive up the nation’s health-care spending.

Perfectly valid point.  Healthcare spending is increasing, but that can be skewed based upon the percentage of the population that is aging.  The older you get, the more medical care you generally need.

There isn’t a lot you can do about these increases in medical spending.  You need to give the aging population greater choices in regard to their medical spending.  Once again, the emphasis has to be put on this: the government, to control costs, would have to limit services.  That will assuredly affect the elderly more than anyone else.

7. The uninsured.

Quick quiz: Your child has a high fever and a scary cough. Do you (1) call your pediatrician or (2) take your child to the nearest emergency room? If you’ve got a pediatrician, you do (1). If you don’t, you do (2) — which is a very expensive use of a trauma center’s highly trained staff. Or maybe you never do anything at all, in which case five years later society is paying to deal with diabetes or asthma or some other chronic condition that could have been managed far more cheaply with better primary care.

I discussed the “uninsured” issue initially.  Although it is a different analysis than cost control.

And how will government healthcare affect those key areas?  If primary care physicians are limited in what they can provide by government mandate, you will either have to do nothing at all (definitively or by waiting) or go to the nearest emergency room, even with insurance.  And if emergency rooms can’t turn you away by law, and government is footing the bill, you aren’t going to see drop in costs.  You also won’t see drops in cost if you develop future chronic conditions, either.  The only cost control is, again, limiting service now and in the future (are you seeing a pattern here?).  Otherwise, government insurance isn’t going to be lowering costs any time soon.

8. The fat and lazy.

Most of us, in other words. We smoke too much, eat too much, and exercise too little. Why? I have no idea. A woman from Canada once asked me if fining Americans for unhealthy lifestyles might help. My off-the-cuff answer still rings true: “If someone is behaving in a way that’s going to prematurely end their life, do you think a $200 fine is going to make much difference?”

Once again, another cost that is hard to contain without lifestyle change.  Can the government force you to change your lifestyle? 

Still, the point rings true that universal health insurance would spread the cost of these “fat and lazy” people to everyone else.  Not the intention, I’m sure, because we’d like to think we are just helping the uninsured and attempting to control costs.  However, you are going to pay for those people that need the most care.

9. Because death is sometimes the low-cost option.

What happens to people who are miraculously treated for heart disease or cancer? They die of something else. Or of the same thing later. Any medical success merely begets some later medical expense, particularly if we continue to spend so much on end-of-life care.

Again, with government run health insurance, who is making these decisions?  Do you want to be the one that decides what medical treatment your ailing, sick mother gets, or do you want the government making the decision based upon the cost?  As I alluded to earlier, Obama responded to this very question that sometimes you are better off with the pain killers.  It may control costs by not treating them through end-of-life care, but at what price (pun intended)?  The theme of reduced cost through care remains.

10. Malpractice.

I almost didn’t add this to the list, as it’s more of a legal problem than an economic one. But then I began to anticipate all the angry e-mails from folks who are convinced (wrongly) that malpractice suits are the only reason that our health-care costs are skyrocketing. So I stuck it in.

And, in a sense, my behavior proves that it belongs on the list: By attempting to preempt angry e-mails, I’m acting like doctors who practice “defensive medicine.” Doctors seeking to avoid lawsuits have an incentive to overtreat all kinds of maladies — a rational, albeit expensive response to a highly litigious climate.

Jokes aside, this is an issue that no politicians want to address.  Too many donations from trial lawyers, I presume.  Still, passing malpractice reform that limits malpractice awards could go a long way in reducing costs.  Defensive medicine is expensive, and although it isn’t the sole reason for high costs by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly doesn’t help.  Current legislation doesn’t even touch this area, most likely for political reasons, but these costs can be addressed.

SO IN CONCLUSION, through a long winded analysis, there are some key types of costs.  There are direct costs that can be influenced by behavior or by choice, and there are indirect costs due to economic factors beyond our control.  Government health insurance does not solve ANY of the problems.  Direct costs are limited by choices being made for you or limiting service.  Indirect costs are actually negatively affected by government sticking their noses into areas that where they weren’t present before. 

Is our initial problem of high medical costs going to be solved then?  They will try to control costs through the methods I have stated above, obviously.  But when has the government EVER purchased things at market value?  All I can see is decreased services and overpayment for services that are rendered.  With healthcare costs nearing 20% of US GDP, giving control of that spending to the government is not going to make that number lower.

Is it socialism?  Is the government trying to gain more control of our lives?  Are they legitimately trying to help?  Call it what you want.  I think you can simply call it a terrible idea.

A critique of “WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?”: A look at morality

I came across this article by Jonathan Haidt during some perusing:

What Makes People Vote Republican?

The concept seemed interesting enough in the summary at the top of the article:

The second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. When Republicans say that Democrats “just don’t get it,” this is the “it” to which they refer.

I wanted to see where the author was going with his concept, and I thought I could stomach some of the blatant attacks and misconceptions at the beginning of the article.

However, it’s not just the start. His whole article is rife with ridiculous premises and attacks. He tries to tell a story of how he went from his “elitist” mindset towards an approach of objectivity, but it’s hardly objective to look at Republican voters like an enlightened anthropologist taking notes on a lost Amazon tribe. And that isn’t even discussing his presumptions that Republicans are “anti-progress” and fear driven. I would expect someone like him to realize fear of change is a pretty general human trait and isn’t localized to one group of people.

That aside, if he wants to reduce Republicans to a bunch of value voters who are “tricked” into voting a certain way, I still disagree with his whole theory and I think he misses an important part of the morality divide:

Here’s my alternative definition: morality is any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.

His whole definition doesn’t work when what constitutes “selfishness” itself is a moral question. It is akin to using the word you are trying to define in the definition. He has the system sort of backwards by saying morality regulates selfishness, where in actuality morality defines selfishness and a moral code is used to regulate it.

The “moral divide” is really more about the source of the morality. “Religious” voters have a definitive sense that morality stems from something above humanity, whereas, I would argue, secular morality ends at human intellect and reason. And that is where the problem lies, since the religious voter sees morality, as well as notions of selfishness and fairness, as concepts that arise out of both supernatural and natural order, and a moral code is presented through that lens.

On the flip side, if human reason and intellect is the source of morality, then humanity is the pinnacle of said morality. And, along with that source, the moral code with its regulations of selfishness and fairness would also need to be passed from humanity. This is usually the source of the “elitist” jab, because, if you subscribe to this secular morality belief, then you are simultaneously saying that those in political power are the pinnacle of disbursing moral judgment because they are the ones legislating what is selfish and what is fair. It may seem perfectly correct for someone that subscribes to a secular morality, but for those that do not agree, it sure seems to fit the highest form of elitism that you (meaning people such as politicians) are the source of morality.

The author’s definition of morality also insinuates notions of moral relativism, which is another point of contention. To the value voter, morality isn’t “any system,” it is “the system.” Injecting the idea that several systems of morality can exist at the same time, often times diametrically opposed to one another, doesn’t make sense. It is much like the relativistic claim that there is no truth, which is inherently a paradox because for that statement to be correct then there would have to indeed be an ultimate truth.  This is also why the author misses the point, because if humanity is the source of morality, then morality can change at the drop of a hat at the whims of those who are dispensing it.

I digress. He tries really hard to help liberals understand what makes the Republican voter tick, but I still think he misses the mark.

On a side note, if you want a real study about voter habits, morality, and psychology, I would suggest the author take a look at the inner cities. Some of the areas with the biggest issues, such as Detroit, haven’t elected a Republican mayor for, in some cases, between 50 and 100 years. There is a definite sociological and psychological phenomenon there. I would suggest that he go back to the civil rights movement and see why people like Martin Luther King, Jr. were Republicans and try to pinpoint the shift in voter habits.

Identity Crisis: The Problem With Being “American”

As those who are close to me would tell you, I have a large fascination with my family history. I love to find out new things about where my family came from, and each little bit shines a little more light on the picture that I’m trying to look at. It took me a while to realize, though, that I wasn’t trying to look at a family portrait in going about my search. I was trying to look at a self portrait.

The more I thought about it, the deeper I dug myself into an identity crisis. Coupled with my quarter-life crisis, I was in a big heap of crises. I struggled mightily to find out who I was, and I didn’t really come up with an answer. What I did come up with was more along the lines of the root to a bigger problem.

All in all, America is nothing more than an ideal. It is a set of philosophies that bound everyone together that came here. Chief among those is the notion of rugged individualism which, in of itself, is a stark contrast and near polar opposite of a common ideal. We all share a common ideal as a group, but being individualistic is to not be put into a group in the first place. It’s like “agreeing to disagree.”

Contradictions aside, since America is an ideal, it is not a culture or a true nationality. It is obtainable by anyone. Since it is obtainable by anyone, that is exactly why, after all these years, we are still bombarded with “hyphenated Americans.” The reason for that is actually quite simple due to the fact that the adjective “American” is not mutually exclusive from any other nationality. It’s different than someone who is, say, Russian. A Russian has a unique history, heritage, customs, traditions, etc. However, if that same Russian moves to the Untied States, he can be an American without losing anything that makes him a Russian. He can hold the American ideals and retain his Russian identity. However, try as he may, an American “mutt” can never truly be a Russian. The closest he can get is in the strict legal sense by gaining citizenship, but he’ll still forever be a tourist at heart in a foreign land.

These thoughts all brought me to the reality that I need to dig deeper and find the foundation of my identity, and the first thing that popped into my head was Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Except I’m not looking for needs. I’m looking for identity. So, putting my clever brain into action, I came up with my own hierarchy of identity. I have dubbed it…

SMITH’S HIERARCHY OF IDENTITY!!!

Clever, huh? I need to copyright that thing. Exclamation points and all.

Anyway, I tried to think of it in a top down approach by thinking of the ultimate goal of identity. I kind of borrowed from Maslow on that front for the tip of my hierarchy, but don’t tell him, ok? From there, I asked the question “If this was taken away, what would you have left?” to which the answer would be “At least I know ____.” This is what I came up with, from top to bottom:

1.) Self-actualization

2.) Personal Fulfillment

3.) Family

4.) Heritage

5.) Sex/Gender

6.) Human being

Probably not ground breaking, but it made sense when I broke it out that way. To reach the top, you need to have a firm grasp on your personality, beliefs, hobbies, likes, dislikes, and so forth. However, if you take that away (or if you are struggling to find those things out), you can say “Well, at least I know I’m a member of my family.” That is the start of the foundational levels of identity. If your family identity is taken away, you can rely on your heritage to help ground yourself as a person. However, stripping that away you’re really left with your most basic, fundamental element, which is your sex and your basic biological distinction of identifying as a human being.

Growing up in America and being a true American “mutt” has really stopped us at number 5. We have no cultural or true national identity. All that we have is a joint heritage of distant relatives coming to this place holding that contradictory idea of individualism. Without a true sense of identity through heritage, we can’t put our family meaning into greater context. There are no true traditions and they are not rooted in anything other than what a family has made up for itself. If you have strong traditions, they are most likely rooted in another culture or place and someone in your family is probably old enough or close enough to remember them, whether one kept with the tradition or broke from it. We are, therefore, forced to create our own identity.

And therein lies the problem: creating oneself. It is inherently American, and inherently meaningless. People came to this country to form their own identity through individualism. However, how can someone construct anything without a foundation or knowledge of how to make a foundation? It’s an endless, destructive circular logic. Can’t find yourself? Go to your foundation and build on it. What’s your foundation? Whatever you want it to be. It’s like trying to write a definition to a word using a language that doesn’t exist.

This is the reason why Americans fight so hard about ideas. Since being an American is nothing but an idea, if you tamper with it or take it away you are taking away their foundational identity. A Russian living under Soviet rule or Democratic rule is still a Russian. An American that has their vision of America stripped away is nothing. So, we, as a people, have very little to cling to at our foundation (and even something as simple as sex and gender is complicated).

So, here I sit without any answers and just further complication. Through my studies, I do know a little about my family history, like how my great-grandparents came here from Ukraine. I even found a Ukrainian Catholic Church nearby that I would like to attend and learn more about my heritage. But, try as I may, all I can do is sit back and envy. No matter how hard I try, I’ll always be a tourist there.

More Global Warming Induced Dizziness

Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study

 

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) – The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes.

And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of global warming, said the lead author of the report about the desert’s history published in the journal Science.

The study of ancient pollen, spores and aquatic organisms in sediments in Lake Yoa in northern Chad showed the region gradually shifted from savannah 6,000 years ago towards the arid conditions that took over about 2,700 years ago.

The findings, about one of the biggest environmental shifts of the past 10,000 years, challenge past belief based on evidence in marine sediments that a far quicker change created the world’s biggest hot desert.

“The hypothesis (of a sudden shift) was astonishing but it was still taken up,” said Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne in Germany, lead author of the study with scientists in Belgium, Canada, the United States, Sweden and France.

The scientists, studying the remote 3.5 sq km (1.4 sq mile) Lake Yoa, found the region had once had grasses and scattered acacia trees, ferns and herbs. The salty lake is renewed by groundwater welling up from beneath the desert.

A gradual drying, blamed on shifts in monsoon rains linked to shifts in the power of the sun, meant large amounts of dust started blowing in the region about 4,300 years ago. The Sahara now covers an area the size of the United States.

FORECASTS

Kropelin told Reuters that improved understanding of the formation of the Sahara might help climate modellers improve forecasts of what is in store from global warming, blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on human emissions of greenhouse gases.

The panel says that some areas will be more vulnerable to drought, others to more storms or floods.

The Sahara got greener when temperatures rose around the end of the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Warmer air can absorb more moisture from the oceans and it fell as rain far inland.

“Today I think we have the same thing going on, a global warming,” he said. And he said there were already greener signs in a huge area with almost no reliable weather records.

“I see a clear trend to a new greening of the Sahara, a very slow one,” he said, based on visits to some of the remotest and uninhabited parts of the desert over the past two decades.

“You go to unoccupied areas over a long time and you know there was pure sand there without a single snake or scorpion. Now you see tens of kilometers covered by grass,” he said.

In Darfur in Sudan, where U.N. officials say 300,000 people may have died in five years of revolt, slightly higher rainfall was more than offset by a rise in the human population to 7 million from 1 million half a century ago. People and their animals quickly eradicated any greenery.

Some very simple questions:

1.) Wasn’t global warming supposed to lead to desertification?  Yet the Sahara is actually reversing the desertification BECAUSE of global warming?

2.) Why are the shift in monsoon rains that caused the gradual desertification of the Sahara linked to solar activity, but mentioning the linkage between solar activity and modern climate change is largely scoffed at?

I simply have a really hard time putting these pieces of the puzzle together.  If everything is caused by global warming, you have to be right no matter what happens, I suppose.  Drought?  Global warming.  Storms and floods?  Global warming.  Ancient changes in rain patterns?  Well, THAT was solar activity.

Perhaps the problem is that the climate scientists really don’t understand all of this yet, either, and every new piece of the puzzle turns up more things that were never accoutned for.  That in of itself, though, should really caution people about any drastic actions.

If you needed proof that global warming is a crock…

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

“Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down. “

That’s right.  The drop in temperature over the past year is enough to erase all “global warming” from the last 100 years by virtually bringing us back to the “average temperature.”  And, like the reasonable scientists have stated, it is most likely solar related.

I can’t wait for the spin on this one.

Idioteque

Radiohead – Idioteque

Never before have I been so affected by a song. I have listened to this song practically non-stop over the past few days. In fact, I listened to it the entire time during a 30-40 minute car ride the other day.

I can’t really explain why it has hit me so hard, but for whatever reason I can’t get it out of my head. The lyrics don’t necessarily make sense to me at all, but they do at the same time. It’s like in my subconscious I get it, but consciously I can’t figure it out. And it’s ok that way. I don’t necessarily want to figure it out.

It screams of something impending, but at the same time gives off an air of the fact that you can’t do anything about it. It’s perfectly composed. It’s simple, yet complex. But, in any event, I love it, and it disturbs me at the same time.

Radiohead it quite possibly one of the greatest bands ever.

An article about food that ALMOST gets it right…

Late last week there was an article at the Financial Post about global food issues under the clever title “Forget oil, the new global crisis is food.”  Here’s the linky:

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=213343

This article was such a strange combination of fact and garbage that it made me want to jam a fork in my head.  The facts are all there, presented in decent detail, but you have to dig through the typical agenda-ridden spin to start to figure things out.  So, let’s go point by point.

ARTICLE: “A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.”

ME: So, in the opening paragraph doesn’t really tell you what is the problem about food.  But, the language is strong.  Catastrophe, more crippling than ANYTHING the world has ever seen, etc.  That is saying a LOT, so we’ll see how factual this prediction is.

ARTICLE: “It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”

ME: Actually, as will become clear later, this is a silly, useless statement.  The real question is “How long will it last?”  Predicting a sharp rise in food prices is one thing, and that may not be a matter of “if, but when.”  Whether or not that is a trend that will last forever and cause a “catastrophe” is something different altogether.

ARTICLE: “Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.”

ME: AHA!  Some facts.  How convenient.  So, one key fact is that food prices are rising to meet the meat and dairy needs of the growing middle class.  That shows a growth in wealth and an even further move away from global poverty, which is a good thing.  This growing middle class is able to afford more expensive food products, like meat, to go with their lifestyles, and this is causing a shift in grain use to feed more livestock.  So, this has led to a demand for meat that is outstripping supply because there is an increased number of middle class people that want it, which in turn increases demand on grain supplies to feed the livestock.

So, what we are seeing is the beginning of a market fluctuation.  Supply is low and demand is high, which causes higher prices.  But, as I’ve pointed out in my previous overpopulation blog with its associated comments, there has NEVER been a time where the market supply (specifically grains) has not been able to keep up with demand.  As demand increased, supply always dropped and then increased when prices were higher and grains were more profitable (which eventually leads to supply outstripping demand, price drops, etc.).  So, again, claiming food prices are going to be a catastrophe is ridiculous, since these simple economic forces have been going on forever.  If anything, the data points to the EXACT OPPOSITE of what this article is saying.  There will be an increase in price, supply will go up due to higher profits available, and eventually supply will meet demand again thus leveling prices until supply goes beyond demand with price decreases along the way.

Now, the second fact is the true problem: heavy demand from the biofuel industry.  Globally, especially in the US, biofuels are highly subsidized.  So, the government is willing to shell out more and more money to farmers to make biofuel instead of selling their food for consumption.  This is an “artificial demand,” because as long as the government shells out money and farmers can therefore make higher profits on fuel rather than food sales, the trend will continue whether consumers really want the product or not.  It would be different if the people clamored for biofuels, but I don’t see any long lines at the ethonol pumps anywhere.

Of course, all of this is being done to combat man-made global warming, which is another subject entirely that I don’t even want to touch here.  Still, the effect of this heavy artificial demand is clear.  For instance, not too long ago US corn use for biofuels met (and probably surpassed by this point) the amount of corn we exported.  So, we could get twice the amount of corn to the market for food than we do now simply by cutting back drastically on biofuel production.

With that in mind, the real question here is this: which is REALLY causing the problem, biofuel production or the growing middle class eating more meat?  Something tells me that biofuel production is by far the larger of the two issues and the real big contributor to food prices going higher.  The price of grain for livestock is rising because of biofuel production severely compounding the issue when there is an increase in meat demand anyway.

ARTICLE: “”The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.”

ME: That is a silly statement to make.  Apparently the concept of transportation was too much.  High oil prices most certainly contribute to the price of food.  Food has to get where it’s going somehow, whether by truck or by ship.  And, as fuel costs go up, so does the cost of transporting food an therefore overall food prices.  It is far from being a completely separate and independent issue.

Secondly, there is another example of missing simple supply and demand factors.  If the middle class eats the way it does, but then can’t afford it because supply is low and cost is high, they will simply find alternative food sources (other than meat) to fit the same bill, thus decreasing demand.  The middle class eats what they do more by choice rather than necessity, and eating by choice hardly leads to a lack of supply of food altogether.  Demand will simply shift to other items that the middle class can afford.  It’s not as if there is a shortage of hamburgers entire swaths of the middle class will starve to death.

ARTICLE: “The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.

Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.

Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.”

ME: Again, the question is how long it will last.  To assume costs will just keep going up for the rest of the foresseable future is an asinine prediction that ignores virtually all data.  And, food prices have increased by that much before.  It’s not rare.  They’ve also dropped by that amount of more in the past.  And it’s all because of, you guessed it, supply and demand.

ARTICLE: “At the centre of the imminent food catastrophe is corn – the main staple of the ethanol industry. The price of corn has risen about 44% over the past 15 months, closing at US$4.66 a bushel on the CBOT yesterday – its best finish since June 1996.”

ME: So, again, biofuel production is a huge culprit to all of this.  But, you’ll also notice that corn prices have been this high before, more than ten years ago.  Again, supply and demand.

ARTICLE: “You’re going to have real problems in countries that are food short, because we’re already getting embargoes on food exports from countries, who were trying desperately to sell their stuff before, but now they’re embargoing exports,” he said, citing Russia and India as examples.

“Those who have food are going to have a big edge.”

ME: And, again, biofuels are a big part of that problem.  These countries want to use more of their own supply to produce biofuels for themselves, and leaves less to be sent elsewhere.  US corn is a perfect example.

ARTICLE: “With 54% of the world’s corn supply grown in America’s mid-west, the U.S. is one of those countries with an edge.

But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America’s grain harvest in 2007.”

ME: Like I said several times.  And, that’s a scary figure.  One third of the US grain harvest being used for biofuels?  That’s insane.

ARTICLE: “The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.

“You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.”

He said there are about two dozen stocks in the world that are going to redefine the world’s food supplies, and “those stocks will have a precious value as we move forward.”

ME: The key thing here is that it is US stocks that are the “lowest ever recorded.”  However, that is not the case for all global stocks, which have been lower before.  Still, even if stocks are the lowest ever, the real question is if they are good enough for their intended purpose.  If they are above a threshold level, then it is not an issue.  It is only when they get below a certain point (stocks relative to consumption) that there is a problem, not that they are the lowest on record.  This is, again, an outcropping of low supply and high demand.  At risk of repeating myself, the trend will reverse when supply goes up and demand goes down, just like it always has.

ARTICLE: “Mr. Coxe said crop yields around the world need to increase to something close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces over 200 corn bushes an acre compared with an average 30 bushes an acre in the rest of the world.

“That will be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology,” he said.”

ME: So, let’s conclude here with the end of the article.

Like I stated in my overpopulation blog, science has come a long way.  The more freedoms humanity has been given, the more creativity and inventiveness springs forth.  As countries industrialize and the middle class begins to grow, which we are definitely seeing, we will see these things come to fruition.

Look at what technology and innovation has done for the US.  We produce 200 bushels of corn per acre as compared to an average of 30 worldwide.  So, the point is this: there may be price issues in the future, but there is no shortage of food.  There is no risk of overconsumption, especially when there is the potential to increase food production on land we already using nearly seven fold with new technology and scientific advances.

What we have is simple: increased demand from consumers, augmented by a huge artificial demand by the biofuel indsutry, causing higher prices.  And, as it has always been in the past, supply will catch up and prices will go back down.  It will happen even sooner if we get rid of this idiotic subsidized biofuel industry (which will hopefully happen once the climate change fad inevitably dies off).

But, if you want to think the sky is falling, feel free.

“Global Warming Will Save America from the Right…Eventually”

http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2007/122407Lindorff.shtml

I’m sorry, but you can’t help but laugh when reading opinion pieces like this.  Within the lifetime of his two cats, apparently:

1.) The southeast will be completely inundated,
2.) The midwest will be a massive dustbowl that can not support any agriculture, and
3.) The southwest will be too hot to sustain good living conditions.

And, all of those people that lived there will be fleeing Republicans!  Isn’t that great?  And “[t]hey certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.”

Not to mention, “[t]here will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can’t have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, ‘Shut up. We told you this would happen.’”

So, besides the insanity of suggesting that all of these disasters will happen within the next ten years or so, this guy can only think about getting Democrats back into power when all is said and done?

Global warming is a religion, folks.  These nutjobs are just waiting for their armageddon so that the “elect” can toss the sinners into fiery pits.  They, however, will be fine.  They bought indulgences from TerraPass.

The Overpopulation Myth

A young college freshman recently came home with some fun items from a campus “health organization.”  Included in the freebies, among other things, was a package of condoms and a t-shirt with some jokes about global overpopulation.  The issue of global overpopulation is not a joke at the UN according to its latest “Geo-4 Report,” but the subject is spurious at best.

I am fully aware that the notion that overpopulation isn’t a problem is hard to swallow, but that’s because we have been force fed this notion without reference or information since as far back as I can remember.  The reasons are numerous, and mostly it is all due to political agenda (which differs depending on the group you talk to and can range from benign to insidious).

One of the key statistics that is used is birth rate, where current birth rates are used to project constantly upward trends in population growth.  However, that’s an incredibly poor use of the statistics in front of us.  The real keys are fertility rates and population density.  Fertility rate is the best indicator of future population dynamics, and population density is key to seeing just how much space we are using on this planet in terms of available area.  Why these statistics, particularly fertility rates, are not discussed is beyond me.

Fertility rate is a simple statistic that tells you how may children each woman has during her fertile life.  If the fertility rate is at 2.0, then that means that the woman is only producing enough children to replace herself and the father.  Which, of course, means eventual and complete population stagnation.  Above 2.0 means there will be population growth, and below 2.0 means the population is actually going to shrink.

To use a simple example for this to explain it better, let’s say in our experimental population that each woman has 2 kids by age 20 and lives until she is 60 with a 2.0 fertility rate.  Also, we’re going to consider “incest” ok to avoid cross-population movement (although such movement would all equal out in the end).

1.) M1 and F1 have 2 kids, M2 and F2.  1’s are 20.  Population has doubled.

2.) M2 and F2 have 2 kids, M3 and F3.  1’s are 40.  2’s are 20.  Population has risen by 50%.

3.) M3 and F3 have 2 kids, M4 and F4.  2’s are 40.  3’s are 20.  But, 1’s have now passed away.  Population stagnates and there is no growth.

At this point, the population will remain constant until the fertility rate increases or decreases.  However, in the first two generations, if you only took birth rate into account, you could easily predict continuing future growth.  That’s why simply using birth rates is deceptive.

Now, look at global fertility rates.  You should see that nearly 40% of the world’s countries have fertility rates from 0 to 2.4.  That’s anywhere from near stagnation to actual population loss, especially when mortality is taken into account.  Because of mortality, a birth rate of 2.33 is generally seen as the replacement level (whereas 2.0 is theoretical), but it could be anywhere from 2.1 to around 3.3 depending on mortality and other circumstances.  And the global average?  2.9.  And, since the higher fertility rates are from third world and agrarian societies, it’s easy to see that currently we aren’t exactly going overboard.

The funny thing is that the UN has consistently for over a decade or more downgraded their estimates and predictions in terms of population growth.  And that is because there is a lag between birth rates and fertility rates.  As a fertility rate continues to reach the replacement level, the birth rate is still going to show increase consistently until, like my example showed, you reach the plateau.  And, in our case, the world’s fertility rate has been on a very steady decline.  I’m still baffled that the “experts” at the UN haven’t figured this out yet.

Now, look at population density.  You should see large swaths of land with 10 people per square km or less.  Even excluding the rain forests in South America and the Sahara, there is still a ton of land.  As we advance as a society, more and more land has (and will) become usable for human growth, and there is plenty of it.  If you also include the comfortable levels of 11-40 people per square km, then you should further see how much space there truly is on the face of this planet.  We are far, far away from ever causing a shortage of land for human existence, especially with fertility rates the way they are currently.

Take all of that into account when reading this article from Investor’s Business Daily.  The data is facinating:

“In “The Improving State of the World,” for instance, scientist Indur Goklany notes that worldwide life expectancies have more than doubled — from 31 years to 67 — in just the past century. In poor countries, the share suffering from chronic hunger plunged from 37% in 1970 to 17% in 2001, even as population soared 83%.

Even the definition of “poor” has changed, because average annual incomes in poor countries have more than tripled in real terms since 1950. Just since 1981, the share of the world’s population living in poverty has been halved, from 40% to 20%.”

So, the population has grown, nearly doubled, since 1970, yet life expectancy has doubled (which also contributes to population growth in the short term) and the population of hungry and poor in the world has dwindled significantly.  How can this be?  If overpopulation and over-consumption are problems, how can we feed more and live healthier, longer lives while the population is growing out of control?  You’d think it would be the opposite.  More mouths to feed and less resource availability, right?

The key to this is wealth and innovation, which are both fostered by greater individual freedoms.  This is why a place like Vegas, in the middle of a desert, Miami, in the middle of a hurricane zone, and San Diego, in the middle of a dry forest fire hazard, can house substantial human populations.  The more we move towards greater freedoms, the more this planet will be able to sustain us while we simultaneously stay good stewards.  But, with the current trend in fertility rates, it won’t even be necessary to take it to its furthest extreme because we’ll never arrive there.

And the UN’s answer?  The same socialist clap-trap.  Population control.  Extreme environmentalism.  Limitations on human freedoms.  It’s just so sad that so many fall for this ideology when it couldn’t be any further from the truth and any more wrong.