On Wed, 09 May 2012 09:53:04 -0400, Oscar wrote:

On 5/8/2012 10:15 PM, Wayne B wrote:
On Tue, 08 May 2012 16:26:29 -0400, wrote:

Is it good enough for man? Donny says his little island is suffering
from a population decline. That can't be good.

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Why not?

It's good for the folks who like things the way they are. The only
ones who need a steady increase in population are those who have
bought into the urban consumerist mentality. If you know how to
subsist from the land, and obviously the early settlers did, why do
you need a growing population? The early settlers in New England all
tended towards large families because that was the fashion of the day
and it was good to have extra hands working the farm. By the early
1800s however there was no longer enough land to go around and that is
when the great westward migration began. By the mid 1800s the
industrial revolution was in full swing and it was no longer necessary
to own land to make a living. That is when the notion of population
growth leading to economic growth began to take hold. If you reverse
all that and go back to an agricultural economy with a smaller
population, a state of equilibrium can be reached for those who are
happy with that life style.

That looks like where Donny's little island is headed. Donny might even
outlive the solvency of his pension fund. Should he obtain a plot of
land and start a potato patch to keep himself afloat?

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Couldn't hurt. Growing some of your own food (or catching it) has
sort of a very primal satisfaction associated with it.