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WillieWonka said:
I equate prosperity with whatever a person say is prosperity. That means the aggregate of 300 million Americans. It happens that a huge component of that is material prosperity we can measure. Material prosperity is the proper stuff of economics since economics deals with allocation of scarce resources. I have no reaosn to think non-material prosperity is scarce, so it is not the stuff of economics.
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**I was wondering if you were an economist or not. There is nothing on your profile.

This also tells me that you have a mechanical view of reality and a subjective view of morality. Somewhat inconsistent. But, prevalent in todays society.

The measure of a person is not in what he owns but in what he says and does. It is not in how much money he has, but in how he treats others.

Do you believe in absolute truth? Or is truth inconsistent? **
 
Bill_Cherry said:
**I was wondering if you were an economist or not. There is nothing on your profile.

This also tells me that you have a mechanical view of reality and a subjective view of morality. Somewhat inconsistent. But, prevalent in todays society.

The measure of a person is not in what he owns but in what he says and does. It is not in how much money he has, but in how he treats others.

Do you believe in absolute truth? Or is truth inconsistent? **
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It doesn’t matter if one has a subjective or objective view of morality when determining what someone else values. Their value exists regardless of the views of the observer. If you value a flat screen TV more than a hike in the mountains, that’s just a fact. It doesn’t matter what I think.

Economics is not about measuring the value of people. It is about measuring how those people value and allocate scarce resources. The value of a person, say an employee, is considered, but only in terms of how someone else values him as a scarce resource.

Truth is simply an expression of what exists. Sometimes we know what exists. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we can accurately express it. Sometimes we can’t. But our ability to express in no way effects what exists. Is there a difference between truth and absolute truth?
 
WillieWonka said:
It doesn’t matter if one has a subjective or objective view of morality when determining what someone else values. Their value exists regardless of the views of the observer. If you value a flat screen TV more than a hike in the mountains, that’s just a fact. It doesn’t matter what I think.

Economics is not about measuring the value of people. It is about measuring how those people value and allocate scarce resources. The value of a person, say an employee, is considered, but only in terms of how someone else values him as a scarce resource.

Truth is simply an expression of what exists. Sometimes we know what exists. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we can accurately express it. Sometimes we can’t. But our ability to express in no way effects what exists. Is there a difference between truth and absolute truth?
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We are getting way off topic and if the moderators catch it the will close the thread down. But since this seems to be your field of expertise perhaps you could start a new thread on the subject of perhaps morality and economics. i would certainly join you there, as I am enjoying our discourse. Please go to your user control panel and accept my friend request. Here is a link that may interest you vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html
 
Bill_Cherry said:
**Hey! That random orbital sander helps me to make money! …sometimes. sometimes It just helps me with projects around the house. If I earn money with it, however. Then I can pass on that money to someone who has a commodity or service I need. And then I increase his prosperity. Seems pretty objective to me. as a matter of fact it sounds like you are equating the concept of prosperity with materialism. **
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Need a web-site, I’ll objectively let you give me some of that orbital sander cash for a web-site.
 
Bill_Cherry said:
:nope: nope
There are a lot of proponents promulgating this pretty popular preposterous proposal.(words with a “p”) But I am pretty sure that you will only hear it from folks who believe in abortion and euthanasia.(at least the majority of the time) I think the word for these folks is “MISANTHROPISTS”. And even though I generally shy away from folks who use the word “conspiracy”, it is also possible that the other proponents promulgating this pretty popular preposterous proposal (I just love saying that!) is none other than the cattle industry. Do you know why?The vast majority of the earths surface that is not water is used for (get this…) That’s right ! You guessed it! Cattle!:bigyikes: And land to grow food for cattle.:cool:

newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cattle

"Pasture land for cattle grazing is now the largest agricultural land use worldwide. The conversion of natural environments to pasture land has threatened native plants and animals in many places; this is especially a problem in Brazil where large areas of rainforest are being cut down for cattle pasture. Cattle naturally produce methane gas though their digestive process and, because of their large numbers, this is thought to contribute to the process of global warming. Cattle keeping also can contribute to water pollution, air pollution, and soil degradation (Clay 2004). Feral cattle, domestic cattle which have returned to the wild, are also an environmental problem in many places (ISSG 2005).

A large part of the grains, legumes, and other crops grown worldwide are used to feed cattle. Cattle keeping is also a big user of water, gasoline, and other energy sources. It has sometimes been asked if it would benefit humanity more if the cattle population was less and more of these resources were used to feed people directly."
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I would take exception to your proposition, at least in part.

There is not the least doubt in my mind that some portions of the earth are misused, if they are used to raise cattle. I have seen it myself. Doubtless, feral cattle, like feral horses, are problems somewhere. No doubt some cattle raising is wasteful and environmentally damaging.

However, I will also say that misuse does not prove that proper use is impossible.
I raise cattle, and use very little energy in the enterprise. That’s because I live in a climatic zone in which one simply does not need to. Certainly cattle can use a lot of water, but again, I live in an area where we get about four feet of rain per year, and streams run year round and end up in the Mississippi, thence the Gulf of Mexico. So where’s the waste in that? Also, because of the human preference for deep wells, upper strata are (I am told by the Geological Survey) fuller than they have ever been in modern times. So, where’s the waste in using it? Ultimately, it flows out of the strata, into streams, and, yes, into the Gulf of Mexico. Some, doubtless, finds its way into the deeper horizons.

The American bison was nothing but a “feral cow”. Doubtless those herds of millions broke down creek banks, befouled water holes, overgrazed some places, etc. I would certainly say my own practices are a lot easier on the environment than a migrating herd of millions would cause even passing through the area.

Now, in my state, there are lands that are good for row crop agriculture. Nobody uses them to raise cattle. There are lands that will support no food enterprise other than cattle, and they do that admirably. Even then, though, there are climatic limitations that make it good in one place and not in another, and current land use pretty well demonstrates it.

I might mention that there are state programs to encourage reforestation, segregation of forests from pastures, utilization of water systems that keep cattle out of rivers, creeks and springs, etc. There are programs to encourage the use of practices that virtually eliminate the need for hay. Since those things generally pay off economically, (The details are probably boring, so I won’t go into them.) people adopt them.

Personally, I never much cared for the prodigious use of grain for cattle. It’s not necessary. And it’s diminishing in the U.S. on a per head basis, due to grain prices. (Another long story, probably too long)

But again, there are places on the earth well suited to cattle raising, just as there are places well suited to row crop farming, date palms, rice farming, goats, camels, poultry, etc. I can’t speak for whatever they do in Brazil, and if they have bad practices, that’s something they need to address. In some places, and this is one of them, it’s well suited.
 
I might add that I’m not sure anyone knows what a “natural state” of any particular place, other than perhaps Antarctica and some tundra areas, actually is. I doubt that any human being, in recorded history, has otherwise ever seen one, anywhere.

That’s because humans have altered the landscape for millenia. In my area, for example, nobody knows what it would look like if abandoned for, say, several thousand years. The Indians altered it a great deal. They liked to hunt wild ungulates, so they burned off the whole countryside every year. That discouraged hardwoods and other woody plants, and encouraged grass and pines in many places, some of the more fire-resistant hardwoods in others. When whites first came to this area, they farmed every square foot they could imaginably farm. Ultimately, they gave it up, because the area isn’t suitable for it. But in the meanwhile, they cut the pines (which don’t sprout from their roots if cut) and vast tracts became hardwood forests (many hardwoods do sprout from their roots). Presently, the conservation dept, encourages pasture on lands suited to it and forest on lands suited to that. In some places, a mixed pasture/forest is recommended. They really encourage the planting of pines (not exclusively), particularly on droughty slopes. And they encourage burning. But to the extent people do, they’re really only returning the configuration to something closer to the one the Indians had; variable forests on the lands suited for particular species, and pasture for ungulates. This is not a return to some “pre-human” state.

Some species thought of as 'wild" and “native” to this area are not, and never were. I was amused, for example, when the forestry service was so proud of its groves of “native pecans”. Genetic research, however, ultimately revealed that the “native” pecans were actually brought by Indians from Oklahoma, and the latter came from Texas to begin with, brought from there by Indians as well. Nobody knows whether they planted the pines. Nobody knows whether they planted white oaks, whose acorns are edible, or whether they were “always” here. But the Indians certainly valued white oaks, and utilized them extensively for a lot of things, as they did the pines.

I have read it argued that, lacking domestic animals, Indians essentially turned most of the United States into big “orchards” interspersed with big “pastures”, and lived off the produce and the animals in a way not entirely dissimilar from the way we do with domestic animals and individually-owned farms. In so doing, they altered the landscape to fit their needs. Bison, elk and deer were their “cattle”. They were just unfenced and wild.

A lot of the Amazon Basin, I have read, is essentially a “depopulated orchard”. According to some historians, the “wild” areas there were once much more populated than they are now, being later decimated by Eurasian disease. Some areas were farmed. They have found vast “wild” tracts in which the inherent laterization process was successfully combatted with buried charcoal and deliberately broken pottery shards, bespeaking very significant agriculture and knowledge of the needs of the soil. Many areas once thought “primeval” are suspiciously dominant in fruit-bearing varieties of trees, many of them not truly “native”.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I might add that I’m not sure anyone knows what a “natural state” of any particular place, other than perhaps Antarctica and some tundra areas, actually is. I doubt that any human being, in recorded history, has otherwise ever seen one, anywhere.

That’s because humans have altered the landscape for millenia. In my area, for example, nobody knows what it would look like if abandoned for, say, several thousand years. The Indians altered it a great deal. They liked to hunt wild ungulates, so they burned off the whole countryside every year. That discouraged hardwoods and other woody plants, and encouraged grass and pines in many places, some of the more fire-resistant hardwoods in others. When whites first came to this area, they farmed every square foot they could imaginably farm. Ultimately, they gave it up, because the area isn’t suitable for it. But in the meanwhile, they cut the pines (which don’t sprout from their roots if cut) and vast tracts became hardwood forests (many hardwoods do sprout from their roots). Presently, the conservation dept, encourages pasture on lands suited to it and forest on lands suited to that. In some places, a mixed pasture/forest is recommended. They really encourage the planting of pines (not exclusively), particularly on droughty slopes. And they encourage burning. But to the extent people do, they’re really only returning the configuration to something closer to the one the Indians had; variable forests on the lands suited for particular species, and pasture for ungulates. This is not a return to some “pre-human” state.

Some species thought of as 'wild" and “native” to this area are not, and never were. I was amused, for example, when the forestry service was so proud of its groves of “native pecans”. Genetic research, however, ultimately revealed that the “native” pecans were actually brought by Indians from Oklahoma, and the latter came from Texas to begin with, brought from there by Indians as well. Nobody knows whether they planted the pines. Nobody knows whether they planted white oaks, whose acorns are edible, or whether they were “always” here. But the Indians certainly valued white oaks, and utilized them extensively for a lot of things, as they did the pines.

I have read it argued that, lacking domestic animals, Indians essentially turned most of the United States into big “orchards” interspersed with big “pastures”, and lived off the produce and the animals in a way not entirely dissimilar from the way we do with domestic animals and individually-owned farms. In so doing, they altered the landscape to fit their needs. Bison, elk and deer were their “cattle”. They were just unfenced and wild.

A lot of the Amazon Basin, I have read, is essentially a “depopulated orchard”. According to some historians, the “wild” areas there were once much more populated than they are now, being later decimated by Eurasian disease. Some areas were farmed. They have found vast “wild” tracts in which the inherent laterization process was successfully combatted with buried charcoal and deliberately broken pottery shards, bespeaking very significant agriculture and knowledge of the needs of the soil. Many areas once thought “primeval” are suspiciously dominant in fruit-bearing varieties of trees, many of them not truly “native”.
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  1. A very interesting book that deals with this is 1491. It desribes North and South America before Europeans. And those close-to-nature indians? Pyromaniacs.
  2. When Europeans began to move west form the Atlantic coast, they simply took over abandoned indian fields. There are varius theories of where the indians went.
  3. The Americas haven’t been natural for 15-20 thousand years.
 
**Since this thread is on the speculation of overpopulation of the planet, I will do my best to tie this in with the topic.It is relevant, and I will do my best to show you why.For the sake of brevity and staying on topic, I have chosen just the first part of his first post.
Ridgerunner said:
I would take exception to your proposition, at least in part.

There is not the least doubt in my mind that some portions of the earth are misused, if they are used to raise cattle. I have seen it myself. Doubtless, feral cattle, like feral horses, are problems somewhere. No doubt some cattle raising is wasteful and environmentally damaging.

However, I will also say that misuse does not prove that proper use is impossible.
I raise cattle, and use very little energy in the enterprise. …

Now, in my state, there are lands that are good for row crop agriculture. Nobody uses them to raise cattle. There are lands that will support no food enterprise other than cattle, and they do that admirably. Even then, though, there are climatic limitations that make it good in one place and not in another, and current land use pretty well demonstrates it.

Personally, I never much cared for the prodigious use of grain for cattle. It’s not necessary. And it’s diminishing in the U.S. on a per head basis, due to grain prices.
Thank you, Ridgerunner! :tiphat:
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**
:okpeople:Ridgerunner, ladies and gentlmen! How about a nice round of applause! :clapping::clapping:
According to an article in “ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 1997)”
sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/08/970812003512.htm

“The American system of farming grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the yield, accelerates soil erosion, affects world food supply and will be changing in the future.”

“If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated.

With only grass-fed livestock, individual Americans would still get more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of meat and dairy protein,

Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein.

“More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans,” Pimentel said. “Although grain production is increasing in total, the per capita supply has been decreasing for more than a decade. Clearly, there is reason for concern in the future.”

**I commend Ridgerunner and others who have chosen to grass feed their cattle for the reasons mentioned above. “Backgrounding”, I believe was the term he used.

How does this tie in to the “OVERPOPULATION MYTH”?
The land that is used to grow soybeans, corn and grain could be used for people. Maybe not THAT particular land. But it would open up space for building and fruits and vegetables and grains, corn and soybeans, etc. for human consumption instead of cattle.

I will be back after these posts from our readers.**
 
“Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated.”

Who would be buying all that grain, and what would they pay? With such a huge increase in supply on the market, prices would fall so low farmers wouldn’t even bother to plant.

And feedlots for people where they all get stuck in Texas and get fattened on grain? Maybe the advocates can set up a pilot project so we can all see how well it works and how long they stay?
 
WillieWonka said:
“Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated.”

Who would be buying all that grain, and what would they pay? With such a huge increase in supply on the market, prices would fall so low farmers wouldn’t even bother to plant.
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I would wonder about this as well. We are hardly the only grain exporting nation. The U.S. does not export a lot of beef (about $2 billion/year, the biggest customer being Mexico) because the U.S. and Canada have seen barriers to their beef due to one BSE cow in the U.S. that almost certainly came from Canada. Trade wars can be ugly things. The EU discourages grain exports from the U.S. because they feel the U.S. grain subsidies give U.S. producers an unfair advantage. Never mind that EU countries also support grain-growing.

Interestingly, the poultry exports from the U.S. are about $20 billion, poultry growing being far more grain intensive than is beef. Whether those chickens eat $20 billion in export value of grain may be questioned. It’s a whole lot easier to export grain than it is to raise chickens, process them, freeze them and export them. Who would bother if they could make the same money simply exporting the grain?

As I mentioned before, it is more likely than not that the U.S. could feed less grain to cattle; a process that’s already going on due to the price of grain. But, then, it’s likely the high use of grain in the past was actually occasioned by its lower price in the past. I remember times when it was cheaper than hay.

Pasture land in the U.S. far exceeds cropland. Still, about 10% of farm land sits idle in the CRP program. Grain farming is also limited by the government in other ways. Nobody today really knows what the grain-producing capacity of the U.S. is.

Inasmuch as competition among food exporters is keen, (even China now exports food) it must be questioned whether hunger in the world is due more to population than it is to other things. It does seem to me that the breadbasket that was once Zimbabwe being now a net importer of food, is illustrative of at least one of those “other things”.
 
Indeed. The US produces so much grain that we give away millions of tons of it in food aid annually. I used to work for a shipping company that carried food relief cargoes to Africa [mostly], and we would be carrying 80 thousand tons at a time. And, as noted, we produce so much that the government has to pay farmers not to grow more.

That alone would seem adequate to refute the argument that we are somehow suffering in our grain productivity by raising cattle. The discussion of potential revenue earned by exporting excess grain, although slightly interesting, is entirely irrelevant to this original premise: if anything, it argues against it.

Further, it must also be noted that the grain which is fed to cattle, and other livestock, is generally not of a quality which the USDA would be approving as market quality. Like grain sold for brewing/distilling, and given to food relief programs, there is nothing wrong with it as food,but there are usually some sort of essentially cosmetic issues which render it unsellable or at least undesirable. This is something which would probably be going to waste otherwise.

Finally, on a world scale, a lot of the land criticised as supporting animals rather than grain just is not fertile enough to support crops, it is pasturage because it will not support anything more robust than simple grasses or other forage. The vast Australian cattle ranges specifically come to mind. Again, no human food is being lost.

The stridency, shrillness, even hysteria which seems to accompany many of these ‘anti-cattle’ diatribes serves only to underscore the weakness of the argument itself: I think it is clear that although there may be some sincere proponents, much or most of this is simply political posturing intended to wield power: it is the same old bunch who despise the idea that people should be allowed to do as they wish with their own property, and so conjure some greater good to rationalise the extinction of liberty. Doesn’t matter if it is what you want to raise on your farm, or deciding what doctor is going to treat you for your broken arm. Big Brother is watching you, and he knows best.

Oh, and just in case anyone considers the last remark to be fishy bit of disinformation about Obamacare, please feel free to report this post to Big Brother:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/
 
thegreypiper said:
Indeed. The US produces so much grain that we give away millions of tons of it in food aid annually. I used to work for a shipping company that carried food relief cargoes to Africa [mostly], and we would be carrying 80 thousand tons at a time. And, as noted, we produce so much that the government has to pay farmers not to grow more.
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** The USDA distributes between $10 billion and $30 billion in cash subsidies to farmers and owners of farmland each year.1 The particular amount depends on market prices for crops, the level of disaster payments, and other factors. More than 90 percent of agriculture subsidies go to farmers of five crops—wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton.2 Roughly a million farmers and landowners receive subsidies, but the payments are heavily tilted toward the largest producers.**
cato.org/downsizing/agriculture/agriculture_subsidies.html
That alone would seem adequate to refute the argument that we are somehow suffering in our grain productivity by raising cattle. The discussion of potential revenue earned by exporting excess grain, although slightly interesting, is entirely irrelevant to this original premise: if anything, it argues against it.
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Further, it must also be noted that the grain which is fed to cattle, and other livestock, is generally not of a quality which the USDA would be approving as market quality. Like grain sold for brewing/distilling, and given to food relief programs, there is nothing wrong with it as food,but there are usually some sort of essentially cosmetic issues which render it unsellable or at least undesirable. This is something which would probably be going to waste otherwise.
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Finally, on a world scale, a lot of the land criticised as supporting animals rather than grain just is not fertile enough to support crops, it is pasturage because it will not support anything more robust than simple grasses or other forage. The vast Australian cattle ranges specifically come to mind. Again, no human food is being lost.
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** “Technology, by improving the productivity of the cattle herd, has thus helped to reduce the impacts of beef production on land use and the environment. Technology in many other aspects of agriculture, especially grain production, has also improved the efficiency of land use.
As has been pointed out, if we were to attempt to produce the current beef supply with 1955 technology, we would need a cattle herd about 80 percent larger than that of today.”
beeftechnologies.com/environImpact/impact-resources-land.html**
I know this actually supports your argument.:blush:But, I am paying attention.It was just releasd today BTW.
The stridency, shrillness, even hysteria
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which seems to accompany many of these ‘anti-cattle’ diatribes serves only to underscore the weakness of the argument itself: I think it is clear that although there may be some sincere proponents, much or most of this is simply political posturing intended to wield power: it is the same old bunch who despise the idea that people should be allowed to do as they wish with their own property, and so conjure some greater good to rationalise the extinction of liberty. Doesn’t matter if it is what you want to raise on your farm, or deciding what doctor is going to treat you for your broken arm. Big Brother is watching you, and he knows best.I have highlighted certain words or phrases which illustrate this paragraph.This is the sort of speech which generally causes me to shy away as it sort of taints the credibility of the speaker. otherwise, everything else you have posted has got me thinking a little.
Oh, and just in case anyone considers the last remark to be fishy bit of disinformation about Obamacare, please feel free to report this post to Big Brother:
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** :bluelite:Big Brother. Come in Big Brother!:onpatrol:
Don’t feel alone in your paranoia.Vegans are compared to Nazi’s and terrorists sometimes.**
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
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whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

Perhaps we should report his own Proposal.😛
 
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