Try not to misinterpret me, Divergence.

>>Pericles, Your rosy picture of uniformly far-sighted and socially responsible business leaders is far from the reality<<

I am not claiming that all businesses are uniformly far-sighted. Merely pointing out that to take these factors into consideration is a sound business practice, that is adhered to by the vast majority of companies. While there may be some who operate on the fringes, I have yet to hear of any that have created problems of the kind you and Ludwig seem to fear. Do you have any examples?

Talking of Ludwig...

>>You’re moving into quite loopy territory. Can you really say that our highly unillustrious government is not facilitating the movement of more people into cities that have stressed water supplies and major traffic congestion problems? No of course you can’t.<<

I most certainly can. Through the complete absence of any form of coercion, or "push", to use your own words. As far as I can tell, people choose where they live. Any evidence to the contrary? Once again, I expect either a) you to answer a different question entirely, b) ignore the question completely or c) wave your arms around emphatically.

>>All you can do is play with words and try and make out that my statements have different meanings to what they obviously have.<<

That won't work either. I have taken your words at face value. Show me where I have not, and I will apologize immediately.

>>They wouldn’t be getting reduced demand. If population growth was less or the population was stable, they’d be getting a smaller growth in demand or a stable demand, all else being equal.<<

Highly, highly unlikely. Take a look at what has happened in Japan over the past twenty years or so, and explain how you would avoid those problems. Your approach will start a deflationary spiral that will eventually our standard of living settle at a much lower level.

Economic and population growth will eventually plateau under its own steam. Your want to throttle it at birth, in case it might become unhealthy later.

But wait, there's more.

On the subject of

>>All you can do is play with words and try and make out that my statements have different meanings<<

Here's an example of exactly that.

>>But yes, you can see why businesses push for continuous population growth<<

Nowhere did I suggest this. What I actually said was that you won't see a business actively supporting a reduction in their demand base. There is a difference, you know.

We still disagree on this basic point:

>>And every business puts themselves at a higher priority than the long-term wellbeing of the country…. and leaves the hard judgement calls up to government.<<

On the contrary, every business states in its annual report what steps it is taking to preserve its access to its raw material inputs. Which, in at least 99 times out of 100, will coincide with the well-being of the nation.

And if they left the "hard calls" to the government, whether Federal, State or Local, no business whatsoever would ever be transacted in this wide brown land of ours.

Ludwig

If the government has a Department of Unicorn Policy, does that mean unicorns exist?

Nobody can be as dumb as you're pretending to be. If you can't recognise the blatant illogic of what you're saying, you have no right to tell other people what to do and back it up with force.

"I said that I’d answer your questions if you answer mine. You haven’t done that. "Why is it so important to you that wants and needs be separated out?"

I've answered it several times. The problem is that, even after having read it, you not only don't understand what I'm talking about; you still don't even understand what you're talking about.

(Hint: your belief system has been totally disproved both in theory and practice over and over again at a cost of tens of millions of human deaths. The fact that you circularly persist in not understanding this, doesn't make your beliefs true!)

Get a clue:
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
Only after you have read, understood and refuted Mises arguments will you be in any position to try re-erecting the edifice that he has demolished.

I wrote:

>> Can you really say that our highly unillustrious government is not facilitating the movement of more people into cities that have stressed water supplies and major traffic congestion problems? No of course you can’t. <<

Pericles, you wrote:

<< I most certainly can >> …followed a by whole lot of meaningless babble.

I don’t know where we go from here, if you are going to insist on upholding this blatantly false assertion!

An example...

OBVIOUSLY, both federal and Qld state governments are facilitating rapid population growth in southeast Queensland.

A couple of years ago, before the big rains (and floods) this whole region was in a critical water-supply situation. The long-term water-supply outlook is precarious. And yet people keep pouring in and constantly increasing the demand.

And this is happening with the apparent full support of the business community.

What more can I say?

.

.

Oh look, I found something else to say….

You wrote:

<< And if they left the "hard calls" to the government, whether Federal, State or Local, no business whatsoever would ever be transacted in this wide brown land of ours. >>

Wow, isn’t that a tad over the top, Pericles? An absurdly polarised statement if ever I heard one!

Dear Is Mise…er…. I mean, Jardine, that’s a great post. Thankyou. It does…um… precisely NOTHING to further this discussion.

My old namesake; Luddie von Mousetrap never did win much popular support. I’ve tried a few times to get the gist of his writings, but alas, it just leaves me bewildered! I guess this has been the case for most people who have tried to understand him.

I find it quite amazing that you so strongly hold him up as the great guru, and yet I have not noticed one other single person even refer to him at all, as far as I can recall.

Why are you so different?

What is it that you find so appealing about von Mises?

And um…. you still haven’t commented on this:

>> Hey, our government is doing a really good job of managing a paradigm of antisustainability. But, wait a minute, that is just as hard to totally define as sustainability. So by your 'logical' reckoning, our government should therefore be incapable of managing antisustainability! And yet they are doing a damn good job it!! <<

If you find it so illogical and hence impossible for a government to manage sustainability, then you can only possibly, logically, think that they do manage antisustainability (or unsustainability). If you think they can’t manage anything, then they are in effect managing antisustainability, yes?

How does this sit with your assertion that they need to know every little detail before they can manage it?

It completely trounces this weird notion of yours, doesn’t it. Come on, admit it.