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Originally Posted by ifly
....and tell me we are not stretching resources as Living Standards increase across developing countries!
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Over the last 10 years, the average standard of living in most developing countries has declined. Yes, in China and Vietnam the standard of living has increased quite a bit, but those are communist countries where the wealth is divided among the population. In most other developing countries, whatever wealth is flowing into these countries is being aquired by a very small elite percentage of the population and this has no affect on the standard of living of the average person. Mexico and Indonesia are typical examples of this -- countries where manufacturing jobs are flowing to, but where the average standard of living has actually declined. What has increased in those countries is the number of billionaires.
As far as citing the demand for raw materials, many of these commodities are not needed, but an artificial demand is being created by the corporations that control them. Oil is a perfect example, and how the oil companies have gone through great lengths to squash research and development of alternatives.
Breathing air would be a commodity and they would charge you for it if they could figure out a way to put a meter on how much you breath, and if they could figure out a way to limit the amount of air that was available for breathing at any one time, in order to keep the price high. You would have companies claim ownership of the air and then economists would write articles about how the supply of breathing air is limited and there may not be enough breathing air to support the population of the entire world.
When increasing the average standard of living becomes an objective of the governments of the world, it will happen with no problem at all. But currently, the objective of most of the governments of the world, and organizations such as the World Bank and World Trade Organization, is to create a situation where the wealthy can continue to acquire more wealth at the expense of the rest of the population without the rest of the population being aware that they are being raped. As long as that continues to happen, the wealth gap between the rich and poor will continue to grow worldwide. Eventually there will be a breaking point, but who knows when that will happen....