Malnutrition costs the global economy over 3 years’ GDP growth

The Global Nutrition Report said that  globally, malnutrition led to “11% of GDP being squandered as a result of lives lost, less learning, less earning and days lost to illness.” And the numbers are made more appalling by the fact that they cut both ways: not enough food and too much food.  Every nation except …
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Data shows global growth now past tipping point. Global collapse occurring. Whole systems change imperative.

Economic research published by the University of Melbourne analysed the predictions made in the ground breaking 1972 book Limits to Growth, and notes that the actual trajectory followed in the four decades since has followed the worst case scenario. The 1970s computer model has proved remarkably accurate in predicting developments in the world economy, population …
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Population and wealth – a picture of the sad, obvious inequality.

This graphic from The Economist sums up what we all know but don’t like to face (as @RustyRockets just pointed out). So 0.7% of the people have 44% of the wealth, and 68.9% of the people have 2.9% of the wealth.  That doesn’t sound fair, or like democracy, or Christian/Islamic/Bhuddist, or … anything to be …
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Yellen about the benefits of education.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a speech yesterday that “public education spending is often lower for students in lower-income households than for students in higher-income households.” The Fed’s unusual comment on education came in a speech, delivered at the Conference on Economic Opportunity & Inequality sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and …
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Asset prices down, money chasing security. What’s the problem?

While there has been enthusiasm for a recovering global economy, optimism is being dampened by market movements. There are some fundamental concerns about projected consumption levels and production costs. There are a number of geopolitical risks festering around the world: The strife in Hong Kong is being calmed by force.  That will be re-assuring now, …
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Weak and uneven global economic recovery? Like the remedies applied to the financial system.

The IMF has slightly downgraded economic forecasts and highlighted regional stagnation in its latest World Economic Outlook. It certainly seems that some regions are more positive than they have been, and that seems related to good economic management. It is not easy to be prescriptive in this increasingly complex world, but economic growth rates of …
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Poor in America: conditions influence behaviour too.

Try being poor.  OK, that’s not going to happen.  The closest some people come of us come is “slumming it”.  Or maybe we eat at a roadside kiosk while backpacking during a year “off” before or after college. Actually not having resources, no cash, no car, no home, no job, no education, no family, no …
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Another billion poor people arrived on earth today.

According to the Asian Development Bank, 1.5 billion people live below the poverty line, not the “official figure” of 0.5 billion., so the Asian poverty rate is 41.2% not 12.7%. The explanation is that the officially set poverty line of $1.25 a day is too low and by increasing it by 25 cents, to $1.50 …
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A world without growth – IMF.

Well that doesn’t seem natural because the plants grow every year and add to the planet’s biomass. When the IMF talks about no economic growth for years, it should raise concern.  The head of the IMF talks technically about inflation and capacity but irrespective of accounting, laws and economics, the natural resources of the planet …
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A minimum wage stimulates the economy?

I’ve always been against the hand of the state in private decisions and forcing a minimum wage is one of those interferences which has always grated.  However, in a world where technology is raising productivity and reducing the demand for labour there ought to be a popular desire for everyone to have the ability to …
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