If, then, else.

>>However if the supply of oil starts decreasing then the supply of food must also start decreasing and it follows the number of people must start decreasing.<<

It's a bit more subtle than that.

As we know, the more prosperous the country, the lower the birthrate. This has yet to become quite the trend in Burkina Faso, for example

So let's take a guess. If Bazz is right, and life becomes even harder, will the gut reaction be to have more, or fewer children?

I suspect that in the developed/richer/better educated countries, the answer will be "fewer". Conserve our "standard of living" as best we can. Share the decreasing loot among a decreasing population.

But out in the Burkina Faso, the instinct might well be to surround yourself with as many sons and daughters as you can. Children in these places tend not to be regarded as cost-centres, as we have come to view them. They are workers. Labourers. Foragers. Carers.

The "global economic" answer would be to turn all these folk into prosperous wage-earners, so that they don't need to drop a sprog every year. But that would require a level of vision far broader than we are capable of.

Just so long as they don't jump on their little boats and pester us, eh? We're all right, Jack.

I just notice something else, Bazz.

>>Pimco, so I read is the world's largest trader in bonds. They have sold their entire holding of US Treasury bonds... If the Us defaults we migtht not be the air raid shelter we think we are<<

What is the logic path that takes you from Pimco selling US Treasury Bonds, to the US "defaulting"? On what?

Further, how might any such default by the US affect Australia, in its capacity as the "air-raid shelter"?

You presumably have some kind of cause-and-effect in mind for that circumstance, I'd be interested to hear how you envisage that the dots are joined.

Incidentally, two things about Pimco's actions.

When they sold, someone else bought. With cash.

And the amount Pimco sold in this tranche was $28.6 billion. China alone holds nearly fifty times this amount. It represents 0.6% of the total.

Sounds to me more like an investment manager doing a bit of "ain't we great" grandstanding to his clients, than the end of the world as we know it.

Dickybird:>> Son of Gloin - Bazz has it absolutely right and has answered you already.<<

Dicky, Bazz is stating the ramifications of globalisation and the resultant debt due to the dismantling of tariff barriers in the first world. The subsequent lack capital and balance of trade issues are overwhelmingly flowing in the second and third worlds favour and Bazz is discussing what to do about a rising debt and no prospects to service the debt other than to borrow, or just print more money. So he is right but what he has answered regarding my post puzzles me.

Dicky if you do not know of the history behind the breaking down of the first worlds manufacturing base, and the role the UN, IMF, World Bank directed by the "money" has brought about do some research, you will find a thirty year plan to strip the first world of self sufficiency and deeply indebted to the two percent that own 90% of the assets on this globe.

Bazz I read a book from the late 1970's called "The Debt Trap". It outlined the ramifications of The Lima Agreement concerning the breaking down of tariffs and the flight of production to cheaper climes. It also covered the impossibility of the first world servicing a growing consumer debt with no exports to balance the trade.

I recall thinking at the time that our politicians would never let us become totally dependent on imports, but I was a kid and I was wrong, we were doomed to a service and mining based economy from the moment the Liberal coalition signed the filthy treacherous document in 1973, and I might add with the full parliamentary support of the Australian Labor Party

I would imagine that DS has emitted enough carbon through all his flying to equate to the amount that dozens of large muslim families would emit. He along with Gore, Flannery and others should stop preaching their unscientific dogmas and stop being such hypocrites.

Sonofgloin,you are right we should be the most prosperous country on the planet but alas we have lost the plot.When I bought my first house in Sydney in 1981,it cost 4 times my annual salary.In 1980 I came back from OS with nothing.Within 12 mths and hard work my wife and I had a 25% deposit for a house.That same house is now 18 times my annual salary and my children have little hope owning a house here.

This is all due to Govt policy of profiteering from land and selling off of Govt banks like the Commonwealth.Paul Keating has a lot to answer for.

Spn of Gloin said;
So he is right but what he has answered regarding my post puzzles me.

I think what I was commenting on was your concern on GDP.
Growth is ending so worrying about GDP is pretty much irrelevant.

To you all I recommend at least two books;
"Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller" by Jeff Rubin
and
"Blackout" by Richard Heinberg.
You can get them from Amazon for very cheap prices and usually a 2nd
one is discounted.
They can tell the story much better than I can.
Go to Utube and search on those authors and there are videos there
where they were addressing conferences.

Jeff Rubin is a well known Canadian economist and his story is that
globalisation is finishing up now.
The cost of shipping containers across the Pacific has been eating
into the wage advantage of China to the extent that steel bar
production has returned to the US as has furniture manufacture.
I presume this is because shipping charges are per box and those
goods have a low dollar/volume ratio.

Richard Heinberg believes that as peak oil has occurred and peak coal
is not all that far away, that we are at the limits of growth.
Growth is needed to produce the extra income to repay the loans and
interest on the plant that produced the growth.
Without the extra energy or the ability to pay the increasing cost of
energy then growth is impossible.

The big problem we face is that our intense farming is placing an
increasing demand on our energy supplies at the same time as
governments are giving incentives to produce biofuels usually from
grains.
We face the certainty of having to priortise the supply of fuel to
food production and ration fuel elsewhere.

Yes Jack, we might be alright if we can torpedo the hungry hordes
ships fast enough.