Global Poverty Declining?

There is no one definition of poverty. Poverty in the US is defined by the federal government and what you are calling "real" poverty is really defined in economics as "Absolute" poverty. Just because someone doesn't fit the definition of absolute poverty does not mean that they do not live in poverty. In fact the article talks about wages and not accounting for anything like people selling public trash or bottles. It is talking about people who earn less than $2 a day. With minimum wage laws, we cannot earn less than $2 a day without earning nothing and because of these laws, many people who could be paid more than that are kept in poverty earning nothing except what is received from charity.

One fact about the world that is not nearly well-known enough is how much things are improving across most of the developing world, and how fast. China alone has lifted several hundred million people - more than the entire population of the U.S. - out of extreme poverty, and even more into the middle class. India continues to do so as well. Most of the fastest-growing economies in the world are actually in Africa, where living standards are rising rapidly. Permanent, structural improvement does not happen in great leaps. It happens over time, with slow, gradual growth, with hiccups along the way. That's how it happened in every developed country in its own history. That's how it's happening today in countries that are just now developing. And their development is a win-win for them and us. Don't be seduced by the foolish "us or them" economic growth narrative - as India, China and Brazil thrive, their newly open markets provide opportunities for us as well. Good news.

[Economist]

How "The Pirate Bay" Operates

The Pirate Bay doesn't operate by actually hosting the files, yet neither did Napster and look where they ended up. The Pirate Bay was designed for people who actively go looking for free copyrighted material and actively encourages it.The Pirate Bay is a platform for people to search for pirated material. There's a big difference between most torrent sites and TPB: most sites use ad revenue to pay for hardware costs, and have little left over for anything else; TPB is commercial site that uses others IP's for its own profit, and solely for its own profit. It's made a business out of duping people into believing that it agrees with their "cause".

I am not trying to defend the record or production companies. I think their business models are completely useless, they are slow moving and the way they treat their low-profile artists is really bad. However, I do not condone piracy. Although, unless the record and production companies start to pull their weight and work with companies such as Apple who are innovative and who do understand the internet or invest money in creating a service themselves then they are just going to keep shooting themselves in the foot. Piracy will never be dead, but the majority of people will pay for content or accept advertising if it is easy to get to, it is a reasonable price and there is plenty of content without any restrictions so people can move their media around to the devices they choose. DRM is just ridiculous, it's a restricting way to limit use of content and only hurts the people with only good intentions. The people that want to share it for free ARE going to find a way. The war on piracy and thepiratebay will be, in my opinion, an eternal one.

Trade With North Korea. Beneficial?

While many people see North Korea as a horrible country, businesses may not, cost of labor would be cheaper than China and North Korea is supposedly rich in natural resources so mining companies could benefit. From a business point of view North Korea is fantastic, here you have a bunch of citizens who don't have a minimum wage, don't have safety requirements, and have no idea what's going on in the outside world. To a business this means extremely low wages, cheap quality equipment, and no possibility of uprising. While this may sound sadistic, it's unofficially/unfortunate that that is how many companies think. So my opinion is yes, Trade with North Korea would be beneficial

Trade inevitably opens lines of communication between cultures. History shows many examples. At one time we had isolated ourselves from all of Eastern Europe and China. Once we began to interact commercially, slowly our peoples began to become less fearful of one another and the changes that occurred you can see today. I don't see anything positive in isolating North Korea. Their starving people are unwilling or unable to overthrow their government. Letting them see how the rest of the world lives will bring the changes we seek. Cuba is another example of how economic isolation accomplished nothing of value. You'd think we'd learn but here we go again with Iran.

igolder.com

Quote Taken from "Not A Zero Some Game" by Manuel F. Ayau
"...comparative advantage is fundamental to any human economy-not just to market economies or only to international trade, but to human society itself."(15)

Ron Paul Promises Better Economy

Ron Paul has promised voters that with him as president, citizens could see the economy improving within 12 months of him in office.

Ron Paul says that, realistically, we cannot end the Fed right away. Too much of our economy is tied into the system, and ending it outright would deflate currency so fast that the only people who would be okay are the wealthy. It has to be done incrementally (but purposefully) over time, in a process that helps to reverse the bad policies without putting all the strain on the average American.

CNN kinda danced around the legitimate point that this would eliminate a bunch of jobs Ron Paul rightly categorized as "non-productive" .. We kinda can't have our cake and eat it too here, though. People that are totally out of work would have to be a moron to turn down a public sector job. People really do need jobs TODAY. Not when an economic plan starts to take effect... public jobs, private jobs, non-productive jobs (might as well be paying taxes on their welfare)

You must remember though, our taxes are paying 100% of public job wages. You could use your extra money (from tax savings) to hire someone for your personal use, SAME effect! If the government is going to tax, it should do so to provide for the common social good. Keeping unnecessary beuracracy just so people can have jobs is really doing nothing except taking from people who do have jobs, in order to hide how bad the unemployment problem is.

I guess what I'm getting at is Ron Pauls plan needs to outline and quantify the savings in cutting the regulatory burden to small business that I guarantee will create jobs. Business is not content to stagnate but will surely hunker down when the anti-business policies of this country threaten their very existence. There's no substitute for man hours in growth so give business the room to grow, the incentive is already there and they will hire.

The Euro Needs to go!

I am of the opinion that the Euro was created to consolidate the assets and debt that countries such as Greece, Italy and France had so that they could fund their bloated and broke governments. What I found interesting was that Great Britain did not join the Euro dance when this occurred which to me was a telling example of the strength of the Euro.

New York Times

The only country that had some liquidity was Germany: an economy I will add that was subsidized by the US government for over forty years as our forces occupied their country for that length of time. Many Germans rejoiced as US service members were leaving only to realize the economic impact we had in their country while we were there as their jobs disappeared as a result. But kudos to them as they adjusted well; after all like the US, Germany was always been known to manufacture great products. So it was just a matter of time before they dug themselves out of the hole. Now they have the dubious responsibility of helping other broke EU nations that were always broke and needed handouts in order to sustain their worthless governments.

A great deal of economic maneuvering is needed to reduce the debt issue the broke Eurozone countries have Currency will only retain its value if the consumer believes it is worth something. Once it loses that trust, the whole system will collapse.The economy of the European Union stands for almost 1/3 of the worlds´s economy. It is even larger than the US´s. I know that a lot of people talk about the rising Chinese giant, but the real economic giants right now are the US and the EU. If either fails the world is in for a huge depression. It is in the interest of all to wish for the best of our neighbors. And in today´s world we are more and more like neighbors. It is interesting to see how some users from the US speak negatively about the EU. I wonder why?

Who needs Black Friday!

Cyber Monday is the only holiday that makes sense to me any more. It is by far the most logical holiday. It combines all the fun of shopping with all the fun of sitting. Go shopping on Black Friday, and you will get pepper sprayed or beaten. I wish I were joking. The worst that will happen is an unwanted pop-up ad. If it were possible never to show up anywhere again, we’d all be tempted. Even on Black Friday, some of us opted to do our shopping online. Everything we need is online, or if it isn’t, it will be soon. We can “hang out” with our “friends.” We can date, and we can download our favorite movie!

Monday analysis of cyber monday found that Amazon was the top visited, followed by Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Apple. Amazon had over 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer. The company announced Monday that it had sold four times as many Kindles this year as it had last year, and saw strong sales for its new Kindle Fire tablet. Estimates say that Cyber Monday generated around $1.2 billion in sales! ComScore reported that e-commerce spending was up 26 percent online for the days following Thanksgiving. An estimate from IBM research found that online shopping was up 20 percent.

Life seems designed to discourage us from showing up. On the Internet, we can have whatever we desire, be anyone we want to be. The cyberworld indulges us. If we want someone to paint us a portrait of Lady Gaga riding a unicorn, we can arrange it!

Dispute about renewable energy opens up between the U.S. and China

The U.S. solar industry is divided over a petition by a handful of companies aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to impose duties on Chinese solar imports.One of the companies alleges that China is flooding the U.S. market with under priced solar panels and subsidizing its solar industry in violation of World Trade Organization rules. China’s efforts, the company says, are burdening U.S. solar manufacturers and are partly responsible for seven U.S. companies going out of business or downsizing in the last year.

Unfortunately these complaining companies can't compete. So as their last "hurrah", they are trying to go the route of protectionism. They don't care about the thousands of jobs in the service end of the business installing these cheap Chinese panels. Nor do they care that the biggest problem of solar is price, and getting cheaper panels allows for wider adoption of the technology.

The Chinese are serious about solar energy, at the moment, the USA is not. We need to get on board and support the sector with a feed in tariff ASAP, not try to pick winners