free trade: too good to be true

Did you parents ever warn you of deals that are too good to be true? Well, "free trade" is one such deal. Its main benefit is low prices and as we saw earlier, low prices are bad for people.

Free trade is, as the ads say, good for consumers. Consumers being the mindless automatons that consume things. This is how large multi-national companies think of you, the American citizen. They think of you as the American consumer, the last step in a long process that destroys value and shifts money into their pockets.

You are the last step in a long process, but fear not, you are also the top line in their spreadsheet. Because they are the bottom line and we all know what that means: it is the bottom line that counts. They are the main beneficiary of the long chain of consumption. You are just a line item, a cog in the big machine of consumption.

Free trade is only good for consumers to the extent that it induces them to consume more. Consumers are only valuable if they consume items. And what that means is nothing more than incessantly buy and throw away stuff. The throw away step is an integral part of the equation as it is necessary to make room for new stuff. If consumers do not throw out old stuff or if they do not throw it out fast enough, then the final step in the process will jam up and the reaction will stop. And when the reaction slows down or stops -even temporarily- then the flow of wealth into the pockets of the rich slows down or stops.

Free trade is intended to keep prices low, or below real cost, so consumers find it easy to buy more. They are lured into buying more because prices are constantly dropping as goods get commoditized. Commoditization, although "feared" by companies is a key step in the "value chain." Value chain is a misnomer and the process should be called "destruction of value chain" but not only does that sound bad, it is also a mouthful. So we prefer the shorter and crisper label, value chain.

Free trade destroys local economies by finding cheaper items and especially cheaper labor abroad. It can do so because one key cost factor is conveniently ignored: the cost of transportation and shipping. If one can find cheaper labor on the other side of the globe then go for it, because you can ignore the cost of shipping. One can fish salmon in Norway, ship it to China to clean and bring it back to Norway and sell it for less than it would cost to have it cleaned locally.

We are told this benefits the Norwegian consumer. Never mind the Norwegian worker who just lost his or her job. They can be retrained for another job.

Such miracles are possible because of cheap oil. Oil is cheap for several reasons: first, because we choose not to pay the cost of pollution and cleanup. We only pay the cost of exploration and pumping. Second, because we guarantee cheap access through our military.

Let there be no mistake. The main function of our military is "to protect our freedom to access cheap oil." Note that that too is a mouthful so we like to shorten the message. We simply state that the goal of our military is "to protect our freedom." That sounds better too. And it is easier to remember. Besides, the latter part is self-evident. You only have to look at the wars we fight. We fight wars for oil. It is as simple as that.

The military is but one tax we all pay so we can buy more gadgets and eat more food. But it is a tax we willingly pay because we know that "freedom is not free." Neither is free trade.

low prices: good for consumers, bad for people

You always have to wonder when people repeat something over and over again. They must be trying to make you accept something that does not make sense. And low prices don't make any sense. Low prices not only send the wrong message, they are downright harmful for your health and your environment.

At first it seems like a no-brainer. Why would you not buy something for less money? Why would you pay more? Why would you not buy the same thing cheaper? Would that not be a stupid thing to do?

There is a catch of course. But let me first say this. Let's take a look at those examples where people prefer to pay more money and buy items that are more expensive and let's see why they do it. There are items, such as soap and toiletries that people will gladly pay more money for. There are also services, some of which are free, like education, that people will pay a lot for. And in both cases, people will pay more because they think the more expensive product is better. While that may not always the case, in many instances you really do get what you pay for.

You get what you pay for in two ways. If you pay fair value, you receive a lot of value. And if you paid a lot of money, you will value what you got more. Not only will the seller be satisfied and able to make an honest living, which contributes to the good of society, you will be more satisfied too. You will truly feel that you acquired something of value and cherish it as such.

That is not all. If people are able to sell you items at rock-bottom prices, there has to be a catch somewhere. Nobody can sell items below cost. In essence the sellers are "stealing" from somewhere to support their business. And when they do, nasty consequences are likely to follow. Unfortunately, it is not always obvious where the damage happens.

If a food corporation can sell you calories below cost, it isn't just due to "efficiencies." It is due to heavily subsidized petroleum and wanton environmental destruction. To say nothing of worker exploitation. You could shrug and say our environment is alright, and the immigrant workers make a better living here than they would in Mexico or South America. Or you may not care about what goes on as long as you get food for less.

However, I can assure you that you will pay for those "savings" many times over. And the destruction that goes on is in many cases irreversible.

Already we have a situation where over half the population is overweight or obese. Soon up to 1/3 will suffer from metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hypertension and other chronic ills. These conditions will extract an immediate price in medical care, and a long term price in lower life-expectancy, amputations, kidney failure, and blindness. The money we saved on food is going to be spent many times over on medical care. And even if we are personally unaffected, we all have to pay for the ballooning medical costs.

Mass production of food is also wrecking the environment and contributing to global warming, ocean and air pollution, and other ills that make our survival on the planet more precarious by the day. Already a huge area in the Gulf of Mexico is so polluted that no fish can survive there.

We also pay direct costs. We support an enormous military and fight endless wars just to ensure access to cheap petroleum. The cheap petroleum is what keeps our economy humming but because it is so cheap, people do not value it either. They waste it in enormous amounts. In doing so they once again pollute the environment, contribute to inactivity and obesity, To say nothing of the many accidental deaths from traffic accidents.

There are simple ways to make a difference in this madness. You can get a smaller car and drive less. You can have your kids walk to school. You can bike to work. You can buy and eat only locally produced foods. You can stop wasting energy unnecessarily. You can do what is good for you and your community.

mental breakdown

According to the census bureau, the US has 217.8 million adults, ages 18 and over. California has the highest number of adult resident at 26.1 million, followed by Texas, at 15.9 million and New York at 14.7 million. Florida has 13.1 million. All other states have less than 10 million.

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, there are approximately 14.8 million adults suffering from Major Depressive Disorder in the US. That is more than the entire adult population of New York. Another 3.3 million suffer from Dysthymic Disorder, a milder form of depression. 5.7 million suffer from Bipolar Disorder, formerly known as manic-depressive illness.

These numbers are confirmed by medical prescriptions. Of all prescription drugs issued in the US, anti-depressants make up the largest category with almost 120 million scripts per year. Anti-hypertensive medication is second at 113 million. Even if you don't believe Americans are depressed, you better believe they are under the influence of some pretty potent psychoactive medications.

It gets better, approximately 40 million American adults suffer from an Anxiety Disorder. That is nearly as many adults as live in California and Texas combined. Almost 9 million suffer from the adult form of ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

That brings us to a whopping 72.8 million American adults (33%) suffering from a major psychiatric illness in any given year. NIMH is a bit more optimistic and puts the total figure at 1/4 instead of 1/3. They perform this magic by claiming many people suffer from more than one mental illness at a time. A quarter of the adult population is mentally ill and half of those have more than one mental illness. That sounds even more comforting!

But we are not done yet. An estimated 4.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's Disease and one million suffer from Parkinson's Disease. Count a few other miscellaneous brain disorders and that brings another million to the table. All in all the number of adult Americans with a diseased brain is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3, but probably closer to the latter. That means that if you have three adults in your household, one of them is mentally disabled. Or if you and your wife, meet up with your neighbor and his wife, one of you is mentally ill.

Now it is up to you how to interpret these data. Either a quarter to a third of the country is mentally ill -which can help explain why some incredible things happen in this country and because of this country- or the pharmaceutical industry has got us all by balls. There is no clearer way to put it.

Borlaug

More than half the country is overweight or obese, yet one in seven Americans goes to bed hungry at night. According to the FAO, the number of malnourished people worldwide rose to over 1 billion this year. That is roughly 1/6th of the world population. Meanwhile that population is on track to grow to 9 billion by mid-century. The only problem it seems, is where will the food come from?

Now that Norman Borlaug, the Nobel laureate widely known as the father of the Green Revolution has died it may be time to ponder this question. Borlaug's introduction of high-yielding plant varieties, combined with very generous helpings from petro-calories, has been credited with making Mexico a net exporter of wheat in 1963, and doubling yields in Pakistan and India. There is little doubt that the Green Revolution caused the enormous population boom that occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. As a result of that boom, both India's and China's populations passed the 1 billion mark.

Many believe Borlaug saved over a billion people worldwide from starvation. For that reason, and for his contributions to world peace through increasing food supplies, Borlaug received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. One thing Borlaug certainly contributed to was to grow a lot of people.

And a lot of these people are now very fat people who are increasingly unhealthy and unhappy. When it comes to peace, it has now been amply documented that all of Africa's incessant wars, genocides, revolts and carnages are due to resource limitations and climate effects that follow directly from overpopulation.

Sadly enough, world hunger has not declined. Instead the number of hungry people has only grown. Last year millions more were added to list of the starving and millions will be added every year in the foreseeable future.

One can only wonder where the contributions to world hunger and peace lie? To say nothing of the enormous damage done the environment. The rapid population growth has led to a resource depletion of unheard of scope. Nearly every food source on the planet is at, or over capacity. It has been estimated that the world's oceans will be depleted of edible fish species around 2030. Agricultural land is likewise near capacity and only widespread rain forest destruction is staving off the inevitable, Last year's cereal crop was the largest on record. It could barely sustain the present population, let alone an additional 50%.

However, fear not. our white knight Bill Gates is coming to the rescue. Recently he addressed the first United Nations food summit since 2002. Pretty soon all aid workers around the planet who aren't yet using Microsoft OS's will be outfitted with the latest version of Windows 7. Needless to say the fabulous features of Windows 7 will enable great strides in the war on hunger.

If you think that is a silly or overly cynical statement, think again. When is it finally going to dawn on people that modern technology has yet to solve one problem it did not create? And it has created plenty.

Before we go too far off the deep end here, let me remind you that I do not oppose technology. As a matter of fact I love technology. But I also see the limitations of technology. And one key limitation is that too many people believe technology is the solution to all our problems. No doubt, Borlaug believed technology would end world hunger, when all it has done is exacerbate the problem. He probably believed it would lead to peace, when all it has done is promote genocide in Rwanda, and Darfur.

So far, technology has done nothing but accelerate things.

Technology does speed up life, but more than anything, it seems to speed up our demise.

value

The holiday season is upon us and in America that means we must buy new stuff. For the retailers in America, the holiday season can make or break their year. Because it is now that the public (aka the consumers) will be hitting the stores to buy more. Not that they need anything anymore, but they are still driven to buy more. Like the rats that self-stimulate.

Unfortunately -or fortunately for retailers if you like- most of the new stuff will end up in the garbage before summer. That is right, the half-life of consumer items in America is three to six months. Consumer items have no value to consumers. After the thrill of buying, they are nothing but useless tokens of past "fun" that need to be removed to make room for newer tokens and future fun.

We are constantly told how low prices "benefit" consumers. And that is technically correct. If you are a consumer, i.e. a person who consumes goods, the the lower the prices, the more you can consume or use up or totally destroy. Yes the latter two are synonyms of "to consume."

If you want something of value, then low prices do not benefit you. Low prices mean low value.

Low prices to not benefit people, either rich or poor. They do not benefit the environment either. Perhaps you understand why low prices do not benefit the environment, but why should you worry? The truth is that low prices do not benefit people either. They will not make you satisfied or happy. They will just leave you hungering for more.

Food is very valuable to people. It is one of the most valuable items on the planet. It sustains life. Yet do people value food? They don't. They have access to cheap food and they consume it, adding on layer upon layer of fat. America is overweight because America does not value food, America consumes food.

When you buy something cheap you do not value it. It becomes cheap. It is easy to replace and you don't think much of throwing it out or losing it, or just trashing it. And that is exactly what we see happening. People surround themselves with cheap items and then quickly lose interest in them and thrash them -or push them into the forgotten corner. Sadly, they are also left unsatisfied and longing for more. That too is something retailers love. They even have a name for it, it is called commoditization.

Retailers know people want new things. So they constantly change what they have even if no changes are warranted. The overwhelming majority of changes are meaningless or trivial. Some are annoying and others represent a step backward. But that does not matter so much as long as the new things are different from last year's things, so people will want them in an attempt to satisfy their never ending hunger for value.

There is one very simple remedy to this madness. If you want value, stop consuming.

walmart

Walmart Stores Inc. is the world's largest public corporation by revenue. Many also see it as the quintessential American enterprise. It was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and today it has a market cap of $208 billion. It operates stores all over the nation and in many foreign locations as well.

You don't get to those kinds of numbers selling trinkets unless a whole lot of people love your stores. And what is it that people love so much about Walmart? Look no further than low prices. Walmart is all about cheap stuff. Almost anything you can think off is cheaper at Walmart. And that, we are told is "good for consumers."

Not surprisingly, there are also many who hate Walmart. Walmart has been accused of racism, sexism, resistance to union representation, pressuring employees to vote for specific parties during national elections, and many other not so nice things. Walmart has over 2 million employees, not an insignificant number. However, even if half of them were unhappy, the number of unhappy people would be very small compared to the tens of millions of shoppers who want to get things cheaply. It should therefore not surprise you that actions against Walmart have not been very successful.

Furthermore, Walmart has regained support recently due in large part to the economic crisis. That has led to a much more favorable public opinion than was the case only a few years ago. Back then it seemed that Walmart was the corporation people loved to hate. Now its low prices are a godsend to many families in trouble. Unfortunately, Walmart and what it stands for, is precisely the reason why these families find themselves in their current predicament. Greed and over-consumption are at the core of the current crisis.

Walmart is all about excessive consumption. Excessive consumption "on credit." Not the type of credit you charge to your visa or mastercard, although that too is an issue. No, credit as in not paying true value for goods and services. It starts with paying low wages and meager benefits to workers in order to outcompete local stores. This behavior impoverishes neighborhoods all around the country. But it doesn't stop there. There is also the credit as in not paying the true cost of items, especially the environmental costs. That is done by making extensive use of oil to ship in items from low cost producers who are often not subject to environmental regulation. It is augmented by forcing cut throat arrangements with producers. Such arrangements force them into even worse arrangements with their workers (who thankfully are in foreign countries so we don't see them). Ultimately the weak pay the price.

The whole philosophy of paying less, especially paying less than fair value is what will ultimately destroy our environment. If we really want to get control over issues such as global warming, greenhouse gas accumulation, widespread destruction of rain forests and other valuable habitats, we will have to go back to basics. That means we will have to be willing to consume less and pay more for what we use. We will have to stop roaming around the planet in search of whatever it is that we think we lack, and focus on local communities and locally produced goods.

Don't hold your breath.

armistice for phony wars?

On Veteran's Day it is perhaps appropriate to take some time to think about all the phony wars we are fighting. A phony war is any conflict that does not involve two opposing armies. Calling such a conflict a war is more than just a misnomer. It is an intentional semantical ploy with very serious consequences. We all remember how the Bush administration used to insist we were fighting a war on terror. This was not a police matter they said, it was a war. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has persisted in this folly.

The war on terror is just the latest incarnation of a long series of phony wars. The war on cancer comes to mind. It is a prime example of a condition where declaring war has led to much waste and ill-directed effort. Like all phony wars -and I am not the only one, or even the first one to point this out- it has not produced results.

Calling something that isn't, war is always counterproductive. It leads to misdirected efforts, unrealistic expectations, and an avoidance of the real problem. Not surprisingly that means we keep turning corners until we go around like a dog chasing its tail.

The "other" popular phony war, the war on drugs is a case in point. It has not solved any problems, has led to prison overcrowding, a lost generation of minority youth, and more crime. America does not have a drug problem, it has a gun problem. But nobody wants to see it. Guns are a sensitive issue in America, like sex. That should tell you something!

The war on terror is a phony war too. You can't fight wars with terrorists. The reason why people resort to terror is often because they want something but they are not capable of mounting an outright war to get it. So they resort to terror.

These days terror is a much abused term. Basically we call anything we don't like terror, and anyone perpetrating it a terrorist. It is a very broad and very unilateral view that is not conducive to a solution. Terror should be redefined to its original meaning: the use of fear to accomplish a goal. Sometimes the goal is real and people strongly believe in it, but at other times the goal is delusional. That is why psychotic individuals often become de facto terrorists.

A terrorist causes physical damage but always far less than a regular army attack would. The greatest damage is psychological. A terrorist chooses his or her targets to inflict damage but also a maximal amount of fear. That is why civilians are often targets. In regular warfare, civilians are not or should not be the primary target -although every war has had many instances of deliberate attacks on civilians and we Americans are certainly no better than anyone else here.

In any case, the true reason for the war in Iraq is control over massive oil reserves. To do so, we destroyed a well established dictatorship that maintained peace and a relative calm over an ethnic and religious fire pit. We are now left with the consequences, i.e. a very bloody civil war that will last for years to come. Maybe Bush believed he could bring freedom and democracy but then again, Bush runs around with a bible too. A little too gullible I am afraid.

It seems clear that the war in Afghanistan is no different. Although it was said to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9-11, the true reason for the war was to get rid of the fickle and untrustworthy Taliban rulers and to protect gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea. I am not sure we were ever serious about Bin Laden, certainly not serious enough to put boots on the ground. However, we have now dug ourselves into the quagmire of a civil war whose roots are no less deep than the Iraqi civil war. We are also on track to destabilize Pakistan.

All the while we "are fighting the terrorists over there so we won't have to fight them here." That is the mantra at least. If you believe that you may as well believe in Santa Claus and I guess a lot of people do. Because the terrorists (the real ones that is) are here as the Ft Hood massacre shows. Nobody in Afghanistan is a threat to us. Nobody there would stand a chance if they came over here to blow things up. These Afghan war lords would stick out like sore thumb and be arrested before they could board a flight. Leave that level of sophistication to Westernized Arabs from Saudi Arabia.

Does anyone remember 9-11? It wasn't the Afghan Pashtuns that came over here.

It would therefore be good if we, on this day of armistice, declared an armistice on all phony wars. There are better ways to spend our energies and our money.

freedom

Today we celebrate the Fall of the Berlin wall. Not that wall building has necessarily stopped, mind you. Just today the BBC had pictures workers sitting by the Israeli wall. It appears walls are alive and well. To say nothing of the wall America is building on its Southern border to keep the hispanics out. For good measure we called that one a fence instead of a wall.

Why then is the Fall of the Wall such a big issue? For many it signifies the fall of Communism and the victory of Capitalism. But what fall of Communism? China shows that Communism couldn't be doing better, decades after Ronnie the vanquisher apparently "did away with it." Just like he did away with the wall I guess?

The collapse of the Berlin wall means freedom, but what exactly is freedom other than a slogan? Are we truly free? Do we even want to be free? Who says freedom is what people want?

Apparently not the people! A cursory look at humanity will reveal how eager people are to give up their personal freedom, while at the same time singing its praises. It is only a little ironic that America, the most religious of all advanced nations, calls itself the land of the free. Because submitting oneself to religious teachings is one of the most common ways to give up a whole lot of freedom. And people willingly and eagerly submit as we can all witness.

Americans give up freedoms all the time. They join home owners associations to protect the value of their property, giving up the freedom to do with it what they would want. They submit to random drug testing at work. They let the government eavesdrop on their phone conversations or check their library records without a warrant. They let themselves be bombarded with advertising on a daily basis until they are no better than brainwashed automatons.

And look how readily the people were willing to give up even more of their privacy and personal freedoms in the wake of 9/11. The country did away with habeas corpus and nobody seemed to care. The government can lock you up and throw away the key. They never have to charge you. Does anyone care? Far from it! They think it is a good thing.

Everyone gladly submits to all kinds of searches in the name of security, even when there is no evidence that such searching is effective and even when the potential for abuse is well documented. When protections were in place, government officials managed to break the rules and spy on citizens. Do you think it is better now that these protections are no longer in effect?

America supports pre-emptive strikes. That is tantamount to validating thought crimes. 1984 anyone?

When it comes to freedom, all the evidence points the wrong way. People it seems, do not care much about freedom, just as long as they can shop and indulge in other excess. Maybe that is the meaning of freedom? Consumption!

Land of the consumers!

double dipping

Unemployment hit 10.2% nationwide, a number not seen since 1983. In some states, like California and Michigan, it is much higher. And for those unfamiliar with the "US method" of calculating unemployment, or those eager to compare unemployment across different countries, it is good to point out that real unemployment in the US is much higher than 10.2%. The real number probably hovers well over 15% and in some states it may top 20%.

The discrepancies arise because the US jobless benefits are very short term compared to those of other countries. The US has the smallest safety net of any developed country. Many people do not qualify for unemployment benefits and have to make do with part-time jobs or employment that is much below their skill and competence (and pay) level. In other countries citizens are far less likely to be forced into such situations. The US also does not count people who have given up looking for jobs altogether.

Although the rate of unemployment is slowing, I predict that a pickup is to be expected. Foreclosure rates are still quite high and new foreclosures are likely now that people are losing employment. Many odious ARMs are also expected to reset leading to further foreclosures. It seems very likely that the Christmas shopping season will be another dismal failure and when that happens more retailers are expected to go out of business. At the very least new rounds of layoffs are coming.

So why is the stock market rallying? The reason is rather simple. There is tons of money sitting on the sidelines. Many have made fortunes in the bubbles and a lot of money is constantly added to retirement plans (even though it is decreasing now that jobs are lost). The money has to go somewhere and there are few palatable options. Investors have been waiting for (what they consider) a long time and so a rally was unavoidable. Unfortunately this is just more churning and it will lead to further losses which may end up damaging the "recovery" even more.

It is obvious that the stimulus package was way too small. Unfortunately the appetite for more stimulus money is gone. What that means is that the recession will last much longer. But given how destructive our economy is and how it is threatening our long term survival on the planet, that may well be a good thing in the long run. If people were rational, one could hope for a two-pronged solution, where people agree to change their destructive lifestyles in return for help from the government. That seems about as unlikely as convincing an alcoholic to stop drinking. All the money that is put in will quickly go to feed further addiction. And so it is that we, like the drug addicts that we are, will rather go down in flames, than wake up and change.

collapse in Peru

Wonderful piece on the Nazca collapse on BBC news. You may not know the Nazca - it was the first time I heard about them- but I am sure you have seen their most famous works. These were the people that lived in Peru more than 1,500 years ago and left enormous drawings on the desert floor. These drawings are many kilometers in size and they have made that particular desert very famous. A desert of the Nazca's own making, I am afraid to say. The images can be seen from very high up and they have featured prominently in books on UFO's and extraterrestrials. The German UFO man par excellence, Erich Von Daniken was very fond of the Nazca drawings.

However, perhaps more surprising is that the Nazca once lived in a fertile landscape protected by forests of the huarango tree. This rather bizarre tree is one of the few that can fix nitrogen -through a symbiosis with micro-organisms-. Even so it is a rather rare skill in nature. The huarango tree protected the land where the Nazco thrived and where they built a very sophisticated society that came to a rather sudden end about 1,500 years ago. If this sounds familiar you are absolutely right. Many advanced societies have abruptly disappeared leaving nothing but enormous deserted artifacts behind.

These great mysteries have always intrigued people and they have led to much speculation. How can an advanced society at the height of its power abruptly fall apart? Recently we have uncovered much evidence to elucidate these questions. And time and again the answer has been very simple indeed. Those very smart and advanced humans destroyed the habitat they lived in. The process often took a long time and no doubt many in those societies must have seen it coming. However, their warnings were unheeded. Worse than that, in many cases there is clear evidence that the destruction accelerated prior to the collapse. The society's prominence was often at an all time high right before it fell apart. The Nazco are a chip off the old block.

For many years the Nazco demise was attributed to a strong El Nino event that took place about 1,500 years ago. However, as you can surely imagine, sophisticated and well-run societies are rarely wiped out by a single catastrophic event, no matter how big. Unless they live on an island that blows apart and disappears, people will survive and the survivors will rebuild.

One thing humans are very good at, and have always been very good at, is dealing with catastrophes. There is ample evidence for example, that ancient Alexandria survived many disastrous floods before it finally collapsed. Even in "primitive" times, people were smart and ingenious enough to deal with such events and they would quickly manage to rebound, much like we do today.

New evidence has been presented that the Nazca brought about their own demise through deforestation. The deforestation left them very vulnerable and turned their once fertile soil into desert. It also exposed them to flooding and other destructive events. It now appears that a big El Nino became the straw that broke the camel's back.

The Nazca are yet another example of an advanced society that dug its own grave. The unfortunate fact is that we seem to learn very little from what happened in the past. As the saying goes, he who ignores history is bound to repeat it. And repeat it we will, only this time on a much larger scale.

biology a la Economist

It always surprises me how little people know about biology and the natural world. No wonder then that nearly half of the population thinks humans and dinosaurs coexisted at one point in time. Or that the planet is less than 10,000 years old. What is truly shocking however, is that even the well-educated are so ignorant of the basics. Below is another gem from this week's Economist.

Before we go there it is perhaps good to point out that much ignorance is due to propaganda from people who have an agenda. The agenda is often religious or couched in religious terms, but in the case of the Economist it is likely to find its origin in the capitalist dogma. The capitalist dogma that says private enterprise is the only road to happiness and prosperity. Here we go.

From the Economist, on fertility: "Malthus himself thought richer people would have more children and, as any biologist will tell you, animal populations increase when there is more food." So far so good, although if you are an astute fan of Hollywood movies you can already see who is being set up for later destruction. This time it isn't just Malthus but also "the biologists."

We go on:"To understand why wealthy people differ from well-fed animals, imagine yourself..." and it continues to give the most common rationalization as to why richer people have less offspring. I am sure you heard this before. When you are poor you need children to help you work the land or take care of you when you get older. That must be the single-best example of an after-the-fact rationalization ever. Can you imagine two young people having sex and thinking about this?

First, let's point out the obvious error. The reason the world population increased so quickly starting in the 1950-60's, doubling in a mere 44 years, is clearly due to more food. Everyone knows the poorly- named "green revolution" is to blame for the rapid rise. "Improved" agriculture with better yields made the boom possible. It had a dramatic impact in Europe and the US but even more so in Asia. China grew so quickly that it felt compelled to institute a population-control measure that even the Economist acknowledges was very effective at preventing disaster.

Yes well-fed people reproduce more quickly. Not in the least because most of their offspring survive when well fed. That is no different from well-fed animals. We are -horror of horrors- animals like all the other animals. However distasteful this may sound to religious zealots and wealthy capitalists alike, we are animals and our behavior is very similar to that of other animals.

Second, only after the population started growing and overcrowding became a problem, did fertility start to drop. If you look at it closely you can also see that the more urbanized a group is, the more its fertility drops. Urban populations experience more overcrowding. Ironically enough, the very same Economist article provides ample evidence for this. It points out how many societies saw enormous drops in fertility and how cities (Tehran is used as a prime example) saw larger drops than rural communities. All places with large drops that are mentioned are urban and overcrowded.

And that too is something we see in animals. When populations are stressed and overcrowding occurs, fertility drops.

Despite all the great rationalizations presented, (if you are a poor farmer, blah blah, but if you are a wealthy city dweller, blah, blah), this is not how people behave. They don't think, I am a poor farmer, I will need kids to help me work or take care of me when I am old. As bankers should know because they often say it when peddling 401ks or IRAs, young people never think about being old or what will happen to them when they are old. Young people just love to have sex, consequences be damned.

And so it is time for an immutable law on human behavior: humans don't act rationally, they rationalize their actions.