Not much for me to say;

-Some member of a lobbyist group composed mostly of libertarian activists, real-estate and industry lobbyists, is telling us that we need more people because a couple of industries simply want more customers and workers, and the public should pay to help them get it.

-Cue Cheryl joining the debate (mysteriously only when it involves population or real estate), saying the article is some kind of magic solution and "debunks" the evil "anti-pops"- even when it doesn't and she never explains why, hoping that if she simply says it people will believe her.
Followed eventually by a bizarre loony rant pointing out that "anti pops" are actually secret evil nazi jew zionist communist death-worshippers who want to commit genocide on everyone.

I must be clairvoyant- I can predict these (predictable) threads before they even occur!

King Hazza, I see you've worked "Cheryl" out to a tee.

As soon as I see the childish "anti-pop" appear in Chryl's rantings, I switch off and read no further. By the way, what is an "anti-pop?" The opposite, perhaps, to a "pop?"

I do believe our Cheryl has very vested interests, whereas I had none in offering the Stable Population Party as a possible alternative.

And PeterA, I would concur that the world has indeed reached the end of economic growth. It may flounder along for a few more years, but I expect very hard times to follow and there will be no return to 'business as usual.'

Looks like the usual anti-freedom, anti-human parrots are out in a veritable squawking flock today, fresh from the defeat of their morally and intellectually bankrupt arguments in other threads, re-running the same refuted arguments.

Ludwing
Who’s “we”?

Still under the false impression that you speak for everyone in the world including those who disagree with you; and that you are a better judge of other people’s happiness than they are?

I’m still waiting for your critique of my article on economic calculation and ecological sustainability which disproves your statist superstition btw. You went quiet on me there.

Pelican
Still under the false impression that shooting people who disagree with you is morally superior? Or perhaps you’re not in favour of enforcing any policy on population after all? You went quiet on me there.

BTW, notice how both the constraints on population you mention – infrastructure and environment – are controlled by government on the basis of your belief that only government can manage these goods unselfishly? If there’s an increase in the demand for water, private providers don’t declare that human beings are a species of noxious pest – they regard it as a good thing. The fact that government can’t cope at providing the services you think it is indispensable to provide, doesn’t prove that human life is a bad thing, it proves your theory is wrong.

Hazza
Still waiting for you to say how government is going to know how to combine the factors of production so as to satisfy the most urgent and important wants of the people, as judged by the people, without using economic calculation? You went quiet on me there.

Squeers
Still under the false impression that your desire to play on the internet is more important than other people’s desire to live? Still under the impression that those clever people in government can magically create an alternative economic system based on coercive central planning?

I’m still waiting for you to say what the alternative is to the private ownership of the means of production. Collectivization of agriculture? No? Gulags? No?

What? You went quiet on me there.

Grim
Perhaps if you keep repeating Malthusian fallacies, they’ll become true eventually?

“Any numbskull can find statistics to show that if the resource base stays the same and population increases then all hell will break loose.”
http://mises.org/daily/1675

Nicco
You have it back to front. Those who think every decision should be controlled by government are the ones running a political agenda, not the ones you point out the emperor has no clothes, and who deny the presumptive wisdom and goodness of the central planning power freaks.

* * *

So. What policy did you guys have in mind? Obviously not shooting people – unless they disagree with your policy of treating them like bacteria on a Petri dish owned by government, that is.

Indeed Aime- her posts are so repetitive and off-topic I'm almost convinced that she actually has a word document full of random remarks that she simply copies and pastes to these threads.
In fact I could probably create an "email reply wizard" program myself that could automatically reply to any thread alert in my email that mentions "population"; and strings together a barely coherent phrase picking some random sentences from a list and posting them- and nobody would even know the difference.

Hume- Sorry- "went quiet" about what exactly?
Increasing use of automated machinery in industry would be a painfully glaringly obvious solution to the inability for business to expand (but not actually operate- nor profit).
After all, if "Technology" is the magical panacea to the issue of a population increase (with absolutely zero mention how to apply it), then certainly the reverse is actually MORE true: finding ways to (continue) applying ways to utilize technology to (further) substitute a human workforce would be a lot more feasible- considering we are already, you know, actually in the process of doing it, with automated checkouts, increasingly advanced robotic production lines in factories, moving towards automated energy generators, we are already cutting the need to staff stores, factories AND electricity plants.
So to put it in simple words- as technology already IS phasing out the need for human employees in many fields of work, the "need" for more workers is simply not there. What people cannot presently be substituted technologically can be filled by people who were made redundant by a machine in another industry.
The result is that employers using the machines ultimately SAVE money (no wages or workplace safety/compensation/etc considerations), it is obviously a lot better for business.
Sorry to disappoint you.

It doesn't matter how you cut it, if Oz proceeds with even modest population growth without building infrastructure and industry now, and a future fund from the current mining boom, while it lasts, then come 2020 we may well see an Oz "Dutch Disease" which will make the original seem like a holiday on Dream Island.

All this talk of the inevitability of Big Oz is getting to be a big pain in the butt.