Pericles, told ya I didn’t believe ya, old chap.

But I do thank you for coming back for a bucketing!

<< Off you go. Fill yer boots. >>

Don’t worry, they are full, after sloshing around in the mud puddle of your previous post!

<< A shortage of water… >>

It may be a tad surprising to you to learn that lots of places in this country have major water issues. Perth, Adelaide, Southeast Queensland, lots of smaller towns, whole agricultural and pastoral regions.

There was a major expression of concern about water in SEQ a little while ago, before the big rains (and floods). Remember the mooted Traveston Dam?

And yet, despite this critical concern our amazing governments, Federal and Qld state, continue to pack em in to the southeast corner! They are making NO attempt to slow this population growth down, other than to meekly suggest that perhaps people should go to other places, like Townsville or Cairns or Longreach or Urandangie instead.

But they are imposing permanent water restrictions on us and trying to make us feel guilty if we use any more water than the minimum that we could possibly get away with.

What they are actually doing is trying to reduce the per-capita water consumption so that they can pack ever-more people in, into areas with obvious and quite critical problems with the supply capability of one of our most fundamental resources.

And yet conventional economic analyses don’t indicate any problem at all!

What they do (falsely and gravely) suggest is that the economy in water-stressed cities and regions is just fine thankyou very much, for as long as there is high population growth and hence high economic activity!!

Pericles, I find it staggering that you would support any type of economic analysis that does this, or question something as obvious and important as the problems we have around the country with water-provision!

There you go; a whole post, and I’ve only addressed one of your terribly wrong points!

[the word limit and 4-posts-in-24-hour limit is really going to hang me up on this thread!]

Alan

I was going to read your article, but thought why bother. It will only be the usual labor spin. Hate Abbott, Love Labor. We are good and the Liberals bad.

How's inadequate Bill travelling?

How about an article criticising the gerrymander in SA.

Labor wins with 47% two party preferred and support from another former liberal now obviously just another labor stooge.

What he should have done is said I'll support the Labor caretaker government until the other independent returns to the house or there is a by election in his seat. Then I'll decide who I'll support to form a new government. Instead he fell over himself to accept a cabinet position and make an illigitmate government. Watch the debacle over the next couple of months/years.

So it would appear that you have no problem at all with the statement that I made about Sydney, Ludwig. You instead chose to reference places whose government haven't either the foresight or the political will to do anything about the problem.

>>It may be a tad surprising to you to learn that lots of places in this country have major water issues. Perth, Adelaide, Southeast Queensland, lots of smaller towns, whole agricultural and pastoral regions.<<

Given that you are forever heaping scorn on Sydney, and what you have previously described as its "runaway population growth", is it not completely obvious that the problem is not the population, but the politics? As I took care to point out to you,

"...we Sydneysiders have at least planned ahead on that front. We have full dams at present... and a desalination plant in mothballs, ready for the next down-cycle."

All this in the face of, according to you, population growth that is out of control.

It is patently obvious to even the most casual observer that it is not the lack of money to build infrastructure that is the issue, but the decisions of governments to spend our money elsewhere. And don't even get me started on the massive levels of corruption that clearly pervert the process.

>>There you go; a whole post, and I’ve only addressed one of your terribly wrong points!<<

And the saddest part is, that you have actually failed to address it at all!

Not even the slightest objection to the tiniest detail of what I wrote, only a diversion into irrelevancies. Which, given your claim that you were going to "write a book in response" indicates that such a tome would only ever pass muster as fiction.

None down. Still five to go.

Good morning all,

@Arjay, a couple of those points are sound, though some seem not. But all are way off topic.

The IAREM seeks to rank all the world’s economies in order to determine which governments have put in place appropriate policies for the times.

@YEGIBA, yes, agree entirely. The reason this formula was invented was precisely because hitherto there has been none available to rank overall economic performance.

@Imajulianutter, good morning to you.

Also well off topic. No, the SA election result is democracy in action. The Howard Government in 1998 was re-elected with 49.02% of the two-party-preferred vote, with the ALP gaining 50.98%.

Was that an illegitimate government, Keith?

Just on the intriguing discussion between Ludwig and Pericles, and to return to the topic, it may well be that the IAREM does shed light on the thorny population growth issue. If we look at the countries which did and didn’t expand their populations between 2007 and 2013 we can now verify whether their economic wellbeing overall rose or fell.

Cheers, AA

Hey, look!

It appears that the Center for American Progress and its co-chairmen former US treasury secretary Larry Summers and Britain's shadow chancellor Ed Balls all read On Line Opinion.

They made this announcement the day after this OLO article was published!

Coincidence? I think not …

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/ex-treasurer-swan-gets-new-honour/story-fnihsfrf-1226866287948

<< Re: “Your IAREM determination of economic wellbeing is completely detached from reality”.

…not at all...…The figures are those relied on and awaited eagerly by business, treasury, academia, the media and the citizenry to know what is going on. >>

Alan, yes the figures are eagerly awaited by business, government, academia and the general community.

But they don’t reflect the relationship between supply and demand. They appear all the more positive if the demand is high and the amount of effort being put into supply is thus high, regardless of how well supply is keeping up with demand.

Thus, if population growth is high, the burden on existing infrastructure and services is constantly rapidly increasing, and the demand for the duplication of I & S is forever high, your IAREM will look very rosy indeed!

Meanwhile, real improvements in I & S, over and above the constant pressure being placed upon them, and over and above the constant duplication of it all for evermore people, are very small indeed, if not in the negative.

So….we’ve a got an indicator which shows the economy to be doing very well indeed…when it is not providing significant improvements for the general community!

And when you consider the other things that it doesn’t take into account – environmental quality and the reduction of our non-renewable resource base, then it is indeed a very gravely false indicator.

One thing that it very clearly suggests is that high population growth is good and higher is better! This terribly wrong! Your indicator not only misses some of the most vital factors, it very strongly supports rapid expansionism and antisustainability, which are enormous negative factors!

The more I think about it, the worse it appears to be.

Crikey, we just so totally need an indicator which everyone hangs out to hear about, which takes into account the things that I have mentioned, and thus gives us a realistic view of where we are economically with full regard to real improvements in quality-of-life factors and consideration for the sustainability of it all.