Posted on 02/13/2008 7:10:01 PM PST by Lorianne
More countries are pulling themselves out of poverty, placing greater demand on food supplies and natural resources. ___ The middle class in poor countries is the fastest-growing segment of the world's population. While the total population of the planet will increase by about a billion people in the next 12 years, the ranks of the middle class will swell by as many as 1.8 billion -- 600 million just in China.
Homi Kharas, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, estimates that by 2020, the world's middle class will grow to include a staggering 52% of the total population, up from 30% now. The middle class will almost double in the poor countries where sustained economic growth is fast lifting people above the poverty line.
While this is, of course, good news, it also means humanity will have to adjust to unprecedented pressures. The rise of a new global middle class is already having repercussions. In January, 10,000 people took to the streets in Jakarta to protest skyrocketing soybean prices. And Indonesians were not the only people angry about the rising cost of food. In 2007, pasta prices sparked street protests in Milan. Mexicans marched against the price of tortillas. Senegalese protested about the price of rice, and Indians took up banners against the price of onions. Argentina, China, Egypt, Venezuela and Russia are among the nations that have imposed controls on food prices in an attempt to contain a public backlash.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
No, we need to euthanize 80% of the world’s population. </s>
The obvious solution is if all the liberals who are so concerned about overpopulation would just leave the problem would be solved.
20 years ago the world was going to collapse from the “population bomb.” That is now downgraded to the “middle class explosion” — so we should take comfort that the worst crisis the Los Angeles times (intentionally lower case) can muster is too many “un-poor.”
You know the one that would cost us .07% (about $90Bil) of our GDP anually and be administered by the UN... the one that gets voted on tomorrow...
The socialist mind at work.
You can’t explain the world with the “conflict theory” and that is what feminists, socialists and others attempts to do. These people believe ultimately that one group can be on top only because it holds another group down, and so flows the reasoning out of this article. Complete utter BS from the mind of an idiot that read to much Marx.
The answer is, yes it can. Humans use mathematics, science, and technology (more generally, reason and rational thought) to improve the quality and the quantity of life for everyone. Unfortunately, the liberals tend to be a few cents short of a dollar in this area.
...or the oceans will boil away...
...or the oceans will boil away...
...or the oceans will boil away...
Well, they will!
2) Curse the USA for buying all these goods from all these poor countries allowing the workers to join the middle class and giving them the opportunity to buy scooters, cars, refrigerators, TVs, computers,....
3) LATimes goes bankrupt, and all its employees join the rank of poor. Thank you US readers for.....
lol.... I can’t help but laugh at the libs every time they freak out and hide under their beds at the mention of “global warming.” It makes me wonder if they are gullible or just stupid. Perhaps a mixture of the two. I bet George Soros has a meeting every year with the heads of media and they discuss what new scare tactics to use for the next year.
Soros: “We’ll tell them that the Earth is melting because of their SUVs... and if they don’t give up their freedoms and throw tons and tons of money at it they are dooming the world!”
As usual, a satirical remark about liberals/marxists/etc. is a little too close to the mark for comfort. There are people that actually believe this sort of thing; they think the "carrying capacity" of the planet for the human population is about 100 million. So your 80% figure is low.
Is success tolerable?
Good luck bringing half your population into the middle class with that kind of economic policy.
I wonder why you posted this article.
If we win The War, the world will be a much brighter place. If we don’t it will be the opposite.
"We need our slaves."
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