Trust me, I am no economist but why do we need to keep growing ?
Especially, when infrastructure can't keep up with the growth (due to lack of foresight by governments and/or unwillingness to spend past the next election).
I can under stand Harry Trigaboff pushing for growth as he can build more aparment blocks to house the increase in population and Gerry Harvey wants to sell more fridges BUT there must come a time when we have to stop.
"Populate or perish" ?????
Since the M5 in western Sydney was built in 1992, cars have more then doubled on this motorway. It's a carpark from 6am in morning peak and from 2pm in arvo peak.
Can somebody explain to me why the growth ?

Nice reply Cisco, pretty close in reality.

But The simple economists answer would be something like....

The idea is growth, or increasing national wealth maybe be a better term, is sought by governments as it is believed to increase the quality of life within the country. This results in increasing wages and low unemployment of its residents. There are whole lot of other effects for business and governments but basically growth is to facilitate better quality of life within the country. As it provides funds for investment, infrastructure, better health services etc which all improve people quality of life


And let's not forget when people are happy politicians get voted back into power..

As for Harry, Gerry etc they are capitalists, what the are after in effect isn't growth in the same sense as a politicans, they ar looking to make $$$

cisco said...

Apparently it is needed to create more money=debt so the mice stay on the treadmill and the cats get fatter by eating the mice that fall off.

So do the cats want the mice on the treadmill or off?

People keep breeding = natural growth. More consumers, more workers, more product etc.

I think what scotty is asking is why does the Govt try to force economic growth or even worse population growth when existing infrastructure can't keep up. That's wrong

I'm reading a book by Pat Buchanan called "Death of the West".

Part of the book's thesis is political parties of western countries, including Australia, have been hijacked by ethnic minority lobbyists who want to turn their ethnic minority in the western nation into a ethnic majority. He mainly talks about how the Mexicans/Latins are taking over America, especially the south and western America. He also discusses how Muslims from Africa and the Middle East are taking over Europe.

So if you are talking about population growth then we can look at our politicians and bureaucrats to answer the question why our population keeps growing. Population growth does fuel economic growth but its a lazy way to achieve growth.

Business people and financial types lament how Japan has stagnated for the last 20 years with no growth. Perhaps they are showing the way that a post growth society will go and there is life after growth. Japanese seem to say they are happy with their level of wealth and don't need to keep growing.

The following is an interesting read (see link below as well)


Is Population Growth a Ponzi Scheme?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2011-09-16 01:28
According to Ponzi demography, population growth - through natural increase and immigration - means more people leading to increased demands for goods and services, more material consumption, more borrowing, more on credit and of course more profits. Everything seems fantastic for a while - but like all Ponzi schemes, Ponzi demography is unsustainable. Joseph Chamie | Thursday, March 04, 2010

Article Link:
www.theglobalist.com/is-population-growth-a-ponzi-scheme/

Jradedmondo said...

totally agree, we barely have the infrastructure to handle the amount of people that we have now,

By infrastructure I suppose you mean planet. They say that to house all 7 billion people in the cushy lifestyle we have over here, without pushing a planet's biosphere to complete ruin, we'd need 4 of them. Even if that's an overestimate right now, we'll need 4 planets before long if we don't change from a growth economy.

The only solution to the 7 billion-into-one-planet-won't-go equation is to breed smaller people. An average of 15kg should do it.

GDP.... I'm going to go with Agent Smith on this one.......human race is growing and devouring like parasites....

Rapa Nui anyone.

Mark _australia said...

well the solution is sure as hell not to import more people into Australia when we can't get the existing ones a hospital bed when needed, or onto a train to go to work, and they keep tacking transportables onto schools and the P&C have to pay for stuff etc etc etc etc

I think that is what is meant by infrastructure.

What you need to appreciate Mark is that, generally the Govt of the day in Oz will continue to encourage growth even if it means more on welfare because they know that most on welfare will probably vote for the sitting Govt and both major parties will continue to belt the middle to upper income earners with obscene taxes to fund the welfare. IE-: if you earn over $80K (which is quite a few people now)forget any assistance with the Carbon Tax

evlPanda said...

cisco said...

Apparently it is needed to create more money=debt so the mice stay on the treadmill and the cats get fatter by eating the mice that fall off.

So do the cats want the mice on the treadmill or off?

hang on, so there's mice and cats.....and sheep, wolves.......and sheeple.

Mobydisc said...

I'm reading a book by Pat Buchanan called "Death of the West".

Part of the book's thesis is political parties of western countries, including Australia, have been hijacked by ethnic minority lobbyists who want to turn their ethnic minority in the western nation into a ethnic majority. He mainly talks about how the Mexicans/Latins are taking over America, especially the south and western America. He also discusses how Muslims from Africa and the Middle East are taking over Europe.

So if you are talking about population growth then we can look at our politicians and bureaucrats to answer the question why our population keeps growing. Population growth does fuel economic growth but its a lazy way to achieve growth.

Business people and financial types lament how Japan has stagnated for the last 20 years with no growth. Perhaps they are showing the way that a post growth society will go and there is life after growth. Japanese seem to say they are happy with their level of wealth and don't need to keep growing.

Your reading a book by Pat Buchanan????

dinsdale said...

Mark _australia said...
Happy Days

Or is it a different Ponzi?

I think you're confusing him with Fonzi.

today 200+ people arrived on boats, plus the 10 fulongong now not going to NZ

natural birth rate exceeded by many. South Australia has 6 births a day overall

the state......It seems The Silent Invasion!

Maybe because economic growth is measurable it's what everyone tries to maximise.. quality of life is too subjective (read: too hard) to measure..

Its much easier for politicians to focus on quantitative figures like economic growth and argue that they have had an effect than get stuck in a subjective argument about changes in the quality of life of the average citizen..

I think outside of textbooks though, economic growth is probably only loosely correlated with quality of life..

We'll send Bob Brown over he will take care of any growth single handedly

evlPanda said...

gibberjoe said...


today 200+ people arrived on boats, plus the 10 fulongong now not going to NZ

natural birth rate exceeded by many. South Australia has 6 births a day overall

the state......It seems The Silent Invasion!

South Australia has about 50 births/day overall. I'll let you Google that.

C'mon six? SIX? Think. Does that seem reasonable? All those maternity wards for six babies a day?

...that said unlimited growth is impossible and a system based on it is bound to eventually fail. Unlimited growth is as unreasonable an idea as six babies a day. I think the effects have already started, even though Australia is in a truly awesome position compared to the rest of the world nobody is enjoying this ride.

43% of statistics are made up on the spot.


The idea of unlimited physical growth is indeed ridiculous, even Blind Freddy can grasp that concept. A concept that is a bit more interesting is growing our intellectual, technical, scientific, social, spiritual* and creative ability as a society on geological timescales (if not quite forever). The idea that we might become ecologically stable and continue some sort of 'economic' growth, or distribution of wealth, based on advances of society that don't send us towards environmental ruin.

* - whatever that may mean.