links on the population debate

the L.A Times articles on population ( No comment required)
An article on where population is headed and another.

The uTube videos
   Overpopulation is a Myth   - a video arguing the 'no problem' case (and my summary and response to that video)
   Overpopulation is not a Myth - a video arguing the 'yes a problem' case (and my summary and response to that video)

  The science of overpopulation  (no comment required)
  Overpopulation is not a myth (another response)
 

A high profile group focused on addressing the issue of global population. This group is London based and has high profile members including David David Attenborough.  Articles on sustainability and sustainable consumption are very informative and generally the complete 'issues and solutions' section presents a very clear picture of the issues.and



Organisations:
In Australia
Canada
New Zealand
United Kingdom and United Kingdom 2

USA

Population: Do we face Under-population, just right population or Over-population?

I have heard the claim that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time. Well I strongly suggest it is population, not climate change, that is the greatest moral challenge facing humanity.

Firstly, for background, here are the three positions that can be taken on human poluation.

1. Under-population – the world needs more people.

Well, in truth, this argument is presented more often as a 'we need population growth' argument than as a 'the world is under-populated' argument. The main argument is that population growth generates positive economic outcomes. Simplistically, the argument is that more people equals greater wealth and that a growing population generates a higher ratio of young people to help look after old people.

Strangely, everyone I have seen arguing this case seems to declare that even though they are arguing the case for growing the population, that the world population will stop growing and start declining anyway and there is no need to prevent this happening. So the argument ends up retreating into 'lets grow now, but soon we can stop growing and start declining'.

2. The Global Population is just right.

Well in truth, I have not heard this as the initial position of anyone. The actual argument seems to go 'we need population growth as pollution decline is an economic disaster, but do not worry as we will soon have population decline and return to current levels'. The argument is for a rise then fall back to current levels. Which may seem strange as the argument starts with the position that the population decline would be an economic disaster.

3. Over-population.

The global economy does not have anywhere near the capacity to supply the current 7 billion people at the rate of resource consumption per capita by people in Europe or America. More alarmingly, the argument is that we only manage to maintain current global capacity through the non-sustainable consumption of resources some of which are nearing exhaustion. In short, we are eroding the ability to even feed the current global population and are on track for disaster. Against this argument run previous 'doomsday' dates that have passed without the predicted apocalypse.

So which argument is correct? And more significantly, what action should we take about all of this? While I will examine all the arguments further, I will spoil the conclusion by saying that all groups seem to agree that global population decline at some point is inevitable. The reality is that population decline at a global level is an inevitable but huge challenge no matter what perspective you hold.

The Harm Hypothesis - Revenge

The Harm Hypothesis proposes three reasons that someone may harm you, and revenge is not one of them.  But isn't revenge a basic motivation for someone to harm another?

My suggestion is that revenge is not a primal motive for harm, and instead is a motive underlined by fear. The counter argument to this is the proposal that people seek revenge with fearing those who are the target of the revenge.  However is it not true that if whatever triggered the need for revenge is something warranting fear? Without having suffered harm in some way wouldn't we have no cause to seek revenge?  And suffering harm is something that we should fear.

Testing the Harm Hypohesis- The Animal Kingdom

This post attempts to apply the rules of the harm hypothesis.

The three rules look quite clear when applied to any species other than people. At fist I had only eat you, but then I considered the case of the malaria mosquito and realised that the growth and reproduction cycle of a creature may make use of another creature in more complex ways. Even when applied specifically to humans, a variety of creatures from parasites to plants simply benefiting from seeds being relocated make use humans in their life cycle. Whilst benefiting from another creature does not require harming that creature, it can provide sufficient motivation to cause harm where necessary.

The Harm Hypothesis – the origin of conflict.

Our planet is home to a significant amount of turmoil and our lives are plagued with the concerns of others harming us. Refrains from 'it is not safe to walk the streets at night' through to concerns of terrorism and national disputes that threaten, and sometimes even lead to, war play a negative role in our existence.

Essentially we are often faced with concerns that others may harm our existence. But why would another wish to harm our existence? Well here is my harm hypothesis:

Another living thing will only cause you (or any other living thing) harm for one of the following basic reasons:

1) The creature causing harm wants to eat you, or utilise you in order to reproduce.

2) The creature causing harm wants to take something from you.

3) The creature causing harm is afraid of you.

The purpose of breaking down the causes of harm to root causes is to try and develop a greater understanding of those may cause harm in order avoid the need to cause harm.

Now one possible criticism of the list is simply the suggestion that there are reasons that are not on the list so the list is incomplete and so does not correctly provide the understanding it is intended to provide.

As arguments for different root causes of harm are proposed I will attempt to address each one individually and examine whether every situation we can imagine can genuinely be attributed to one or more of these three principals. Additionally, and most importantly, I will examine if a possible understanding of a source of harm in terms of these basic principle appears instructive and can assist in preventing harm occurring.

Testing Harm the hypothesis.

The animal kingdom.

 Revenge

Legal actions against companies- and how this applies to Olympus

Someone suggested to me that Olympus shareholders should sue the company in view of recent events. (search Olympus, fraud). I will get back to Olympus, but first some general background on companies in general.

Who Pays?
If a law suit is filed and against a company...who is actually being sued and why?

It is the shareholders (in terms of people) who are actually being sued when a claim is made against a company. The wealth of the company is all owned by the shareholders, and if some of this wealth is paid out as a result of legal action, it is the shareholders who as a result, become less wealthy.

This may not seem fair, as whatever the company did that was wrong was done by people who work at the company, not by the shareholders. However office holders (CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Boards, are not the company, even though it often seems that way. These people operate the company on behalf of the shareholders. Ok- sometimes these same people are also shareholders, but the important point is that if action is sought against a company, the people who work in any capacity at the company will only be 'paying' as a result of the claim to the extent that they are shareholders, and made to 'pay' exactly in the same manner as all other shareholders. Of course the 'payment' of each shareholder is limited, at most, to the value of the shares they hold.

Ok, so if it is officers of the company who make the companies decisions, why is it that shareholders are the ones to pay out? In the end, there are two available arguments as to why this can make sense:
1) If the company actually made financial gain from whatever wrong doing took place, it is in theory the shareholders, as the company owners, who have profited from that gain.
2) The shareholders are responsible for appointing the board, who in turn appoint the other officers of the company. So in the end, 'the buck stops' with the shareholders as far as choosing the people who made the bad decisions of the company.

Who is really to blame?
If it is the company who is the subject of a lawsuit, then it will effectively be the shareholders who pay any damages. But what if it really isn't the shareholders fault or the shareholders gain?
While in theory every action of a company is done under guidance of a shareholder elected board for outcomes to the benefit of shareholders, in practice the shareholders or the board may be deceived. If there was no negligence by the shareholders or board then it should not really be the company that is the subject of legal action, but rather the officers of the company or individuals within the company who caused the problems who are the subject of legal action. Of course, such individuals are a less attractive target as the capacity to pay damages is less, so it will generally be argued that no only are the individuals at fault, but the framework provided by the company should have prevented the problem, so, in the end, the shareholders also should pay.

A further reality is that senior staff of public companies are almost always covered by professional indemnity insurance which protects against unintended transgressions so there are cases where action against the company officers can call on insurance the achieve substantial payouts. Of course, the shareholders also lose in this case as it is the company paying for the insurance of these officers and premiums will rise substantially following any payout!

What about Olympus?
In the case of Olympus, there appear to be no other victims that the shareholders. Shareholders suing the company makes no sense as the shareholders are the ones funding any payout. They would have to pay themselves!
It also seems a strange case in that so far it has not emerged that the people employed by Olympus who were responsible have actually profited themselves, beyond delaying a loss of face. It may emerge that bonuses and even tenure were protected but there is little to suggest the funds were siphoned out of Olympus for personal gain.

XX billions dollars slashed from the stock market! Is this real?

You will quite often hear that either across the entire stock market, XX billion dollars has been slashed from value of the stock market in a single day!

Or it can also happen with one individual stock, where the share price has fallen, for example, 25% in a single day. The headlines report that the company value has thus fallen by 25% in that day!

This is really a distortion. This often can take place with no such change in real value has occurring at all.

Common practice is to speak of company 'market value' by taking the price a share last sold for, and multiplying this by the number of shares.

This can give a very distorted view when things change.
Imagine a company with a share price of $100. If I own one share and sell it for $1, then by this same calculation, I have caused all investors to lose 99% of the value of the asset they hold. Of course these other shareholders have only really lost all this if they also sell their shares for $1 because I sold my share for $1.

In reality the price will only stay depressed if others also decide to sell, but all it takes is a small percentage of shareholders to decide to dump their stock to force a much lower price. If most shareholders still have a view the price is closer to original price, then nothing much has really changed apart from the 'market cap' figure. Every sale requires not just a seller, but a buyer. On a day of bad news buyers may be scarce and can offer really low prices in the hope that someone will need the money and be forced to sell. It is possible for the price to move a very significant amount on the sentiment of a very small amount of people. Sometimes in these situations the company will still be paying a dividend just as before so while there can be very few buyers for a while if you keep the stock nothing has changed. Note that those who do buy, buy because they also think the stock is worth more than the price they are paying.

Note also that the company itself is not really affected by the share price, unless they are in the rare situation of planning to offer more shares, or planning to issue shares, using them as currency to buy another company. In normal day to day business, share price has no impact on the company itself.


Further, a change in the share price may have little or no impact on the cost of buying the company. Certainly a lower price means some shareholders were prepared to sell for less, but how many shareholders? In a negative mood some will sell shares at any price (and without a buyer who conversely feels the price is good no sale will occur) but at this point all you are learning is the price the most negative of all stockholders will sell for, not the price the vast majority will sell
at. Even the person who bought this 'last trade' clearly expects a profit so now will only sell for a higher price.

Next time I am on this topic I will look at some the triggers for misleading falls (and rises) in share prices.