Population Issues Network Newswatch

Looking at the world through demographics. This blog covers population in the news. Accelerating demographic growth is now the main factor driving biodiversity loss, growing resource scarcity, poverty and social conflict. Over-production and over-consumption are worsening this ecological crisis. 7 billion in 2011 - 9.3 or 10.6 billion (UN high estimate) by 2050. 80 million additional people a year at current rates! Is it not time to rethink population growth?

Monday, May 23, 2011

Were The Last 300 Years An Exception To Economic Rules?

By Bill Bonner - Forbes

I’ve been wondering about the exhaustion of the industrial revolution innovation and the bankruptcy of the social welfare state as a result.

We take for granted that a healthy economy grows. Our governments depend on it to pay the bills. Our investments depend on it too; we buy investments that we hope will become more valuable as sales and profits grow along with the economy. But what if all of our assumptions about what is ‘normal’ are wrong? What if the growth spurt we have known for the last 300 years was the exception, not the rule? What if it were now coming to an end?

For full article:

http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/05/22/were-the-last-300-years-an-exception-to-economic-rules/