World population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 – UN report

reply to post by BinxieTrollestia

Thanks for a thorough and well thought out post.

I do have a couple of questions though.

If we spent as much on funding rebel armies, subjugating Iraq and developing weapons as we did on the third world we could house feed and educate the people in the third world today, and then they wouldn't need to have eight children.

But we're not fighting in Iraq, and Afghanistan is shutting down as quickly as Obama can manage it. Further, the American defense budget has been, and will continue to be, cut sharply. Cutting DoD has gone just about as far as it can.

As for foreign aid, there is a large number of ATSers, and regular citizens, who believe the money should be spent at home. Most of our foreign aid is humanitarian anyway.

In fiscal 2013, U.S. government funding for humanitarian assistance and international development will total around $23 billion. (Back in October, I included spending on diplomacy in the numbers that I reported. In order to directly address the question of how much we give in aid to other countries, I'm now leaving out diplomacy and operations of the State Department.)

Foreign Military Assistance

In addition, the U.S. will spend around $14 billion in fiscal 2013 for foreign military assistance – that's money spent on training foreign armies and providing them with weapons.

nationalpriorities.org...

We need to target religion into making the necessary changes to society. For Catholics to still be saying that contraception is wrong, is wrong.

Sorry, in the US the government dosn't tell churches what they should teach.

Christ if we wrote off all debt and began anew, and paid the third world fairly for their resources we could be out of this situation within a few generations - we could then turn our attentions to something more worthwhile, like space exploration.

So, it's a question of money? Not education? Like Gadahaffi and his solid gold bathtub? Besides, how much debt are we talking about? if you don't count China, Uk, Brazil, Japan, and the oil exporting countries, we owe all the rest of the world combined $1.587 trillion.
www.mygovcost.org...

Did you know China owes us somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 1 trillion?

But what we hear over and over again is that much of this debt has been backed by China.... that they exert power over us, because we owe them so much money. Think again! In reality, it is China that owes... and it owes America close to $1 trillion.

As pointed out by Richard Parker in an article on the McClatchy-Tribune, China sits in default of bonds purchased by Americans as well as governments around world.

www.gopusa.com...

Does all this change your opinion somewhat?

reply to post by Cabin


And this is why I don't support charities in 3rd world countries .. we honestly don't need that much growth of our species, we could use a natural balancing out as the old Boomer generation dies out.

And for those saying "donate more" .. intervening in the 3rd world is what caused the population boom to begin with.

Originally posted by charles1952
I do have a couple of questions though.

I'll try! lol

But we're not fighting in Iraq, and Afghanistan is shutting down as quickly as Obama can manage it. Further, the American defense budget has been, and will continue to be, cut sharply. Cutting DoD has gone just about as far as it can.

Fair comment, at the moment they are trying to cut spending of regular forces, but research and development still takes a large amount of money. I'm from the UK so I don't know much about American spending, but I do know that in Europe we are currently cutting back on regular forces. Probably because they know the next 'proper' war will be more or less autonomous. I just wonder how we far we could advance were all those scientists working on space programmes rather than weapons.

As for foreign aid, there is a large number of ATSers, and regular citizens, who believe the money should be spent at home. Most of our foreign aid is humanitarian anyway.

In fiscal 2013, U.S. government funding for humanitarian assistance and international development will total around $23 billion. (Back in October, I included spending on diplomacy in the numbers that I reported. In order to directly address the question of how much we give in aid to other countries, I'm now leaving out diplomacy and operations of the State Department.)

Foreign Military Assistance

In addition, the U.S. will spend around $14 billion in fiscal 2013 for foreign military assistance – that's money spent on training foreign armies and providing them with weapons.

nationalpriorities.org...

At one point I used to be against foreign aid, and I understand why most people would see it that way, but I've come to see it in a different light. I think the only reason they offer aid is (aside from bribery to gain access to materials) to attempt to get contraception and sterilisation programmes in.

The UK was even printing up 'Womens Choice' leaflets to hand out which explained the process. I think its good that population control is being attempted in some way, so long as all the men and women are in full knowledge of what that entails. We can't keep letting people breed like rabbits, the third world in particular. This is why I think if we are going to spend any money at all it either has to go the full hog and fully aid the development of Africa so they are healthy and have prospects so they stop having so many kids, or we do the opposite, pull out completely and let them all starve.

Sorry, in the US the government dosn't tell churches what they should teach.

I wasn't talking about any country in particular, but I do think religious organisations should start to do the logical and right thing by promoting contraception at least. (I know its a lot to hold out for.)

So, it's a question of money? Not education? Like Gadahaffi and his solid gold bathtub? Besides, how much debt are we talking about?

I wasn't making an educated statement, but I'm sure if all debt was wiped, or at least the monetary system changed to favour the many instead of the minority, we could start a proper aid programme where money was less of an issue and we could concentrate on the human aspect of these problems.
I'm not going to hold my breath with this though obviously, lol.

As for China and others, I was unaware to be honest that they owed us so much money, I was under the impression that we owed China a great deal more.

My view hasn't changed, I still think more should be done, but I don't know what to suggest. My theory is that the more we spend now the less we have to spend later, I know to our ridiculous financial system that seems like heresy, but I'd rather we developed Africa on plastic credit and have it take a thousand years to pay back on a fair interest rate, than do nothing and deal with overpopulation and a trashed planet in the next fifty years.

It is of course just a theory, and there are more than one way to crack a nut, but I'd just rather see things such as population control done in an ethical manor rather than have some world Government set draconian measures.