Recent comments by Jephtah Lorch

• Hard Truths About Global Growth

  Post 2nd WW, US deficit was similar to todays deficit. At that time US was a major development and manufacturing power house. Most US manufacturing has been 'sold cheap' to south east Asia, exporting jobs to enjoy low cost (not to say cheap) products. We are now paying the bill.

• Small Farms’ Large Benefits

  Thank you for a positive outlook on Africa's ability to feed itself.
  
  For a people, or rather a culture, to feed itself it needs dicipline and willing leadership. At least the leadership of many countries is unwilling to create real advances due to a highly tribal culture and certain corruption that minimizes the amount of real aid that reaches the farmers.
  
  In Africa it is easier to become a pirate than a farmer. This should be changed to achieve such hopeful success.

• The Narrative Structure of Global Weakening

  If narrowing economy to data extrapolation would have been realistic, the world would be rich (or bankrupt). The current crisis is a result not only of over spending and unwarranted reliance on stock markets, it is a result of under-production and inability to recreate jobs due to mass "job export" to China, India and south-east Asia.
  
  In addition, non producing populations are growing much faster than producing economies. This is especially true in terms of food and water. Yes, 'growth' is in terms of electronics, weapons, oil consumption and other non food products. Foodstuff is becoming scarce, raising food prices and distanceing them from poor countries.
  
  

• The Wrong Austerity Cure

  I beg to differ with Ms Tyson on the basics of the European (and not only) fiscal problem.
  
  The term 'growth' is used far to easily. Growth depends on household consumption, what is manufactures, shipped, serviced, etc. Yet, household spending is shrinking and has been doing so for many years. This is especially true in Europe where the population is getting older, birth rates are under 1.8 pointing at an inevitable future shrink, many immigrants are net expenses and, very important, a massive shift of jobs to SE Asia took place.
  
  I fail to understand how investments in infrastructure will provide more future jobs: people lack financial resources to use such infrastructure, it creates only short term government spending (serving very specific sectors), boosts profits of infrastructure contractors and return some of the government's funds as taxes. This will not create long term increase of all households income and respective cosumerism that fuels growth.
  
  Issuing EURO Bonds is another laundered way to increase public debt. Public debt is huge as is, especially when compared to long term earning potential in shrinking populations and economies. These will affect GDP's mostly due to internal cash transfer 'inside the family', rather than from real manufacturing, production and exports.
  
  Economists, who don't want to be carriers of bad news, need to face the fact that this balloon has inflated to its limits much like Japans 1990s' real-estate crash which froze the economy for over a decade. A new order will come to life and should be put in place. It should avoid repeating the errors that brought us to where we are. It should consider the realistic posibilty that economies will shrink, standard of living will be reduced and that globalization shifted riches from west to east.