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One billion people on planet earth make less than $1 per day. Perhaps you are not the target audience...

I make enough from Google Adsense on my blogs/sites DNAhack.com and Econotarian.Org to pay for the DNS registration, and I could probably pay for nicer hosting if I wanted to as well and still come just a bit ahead in the end.

cuba has been under attack, both active and passive, for decades now

No argument from me. It is insane that the U.S. does not trade with Cuba, and encourage exchange of people and ideas as we do with China.

However, the real news is that US/Cuba trade is rising, now at $400 million per year.

Indian IT wages rise 14%.

India is a democracy. What has happened over the last 20 years is that socialism is being defeated at the ballot box. During that time hundreds of millions of Indians have left abject poverty.

You can read about the booming Indian middle-class. There are now 500 "middle-class" Indians, with at least 30 million who would pass for middle-class in the US.

The truth is the same thing is happening in China without much democracy...yet I believe there will be a tipping point of political revolution there soon.

Indeed, labor price differentials across borders are mich higher than goods price differentials. Liberalizing world labor flows would bring far more global wealth increase than just liberalizing world trade flows.

The Temporary Movement of Natural Persons (TMNP) is a mechanism to provide some liberalizing of labor flows by allowing guest workers into countries temporailly. There is a TMNP bill with Mexico, the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act, introduced by Senator McCain and Congressmen Kolbe and Flake.

Indeed, labor price differentials across borders are mich higher than goods price differentials. Liberalizing world labor flows would bring far more global wealth increase than just liberalizing world trade flows.

The Temporary Movement of Natural Persons (TMNP) is a mechanism to provide some liberalizing of labor flows by allowing guest workers into countries temporailly. There is a TMNP bill with Mexico, the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act, introduced by Senator McCain and Congressmen Kolbe and Flake.

You can read about Robert Reich's views on offshoring, and he is definately not a Republican.

The US faces a massive current account deficit with the rest of the world. There are three solutions. #1 is to start a massive global trade war, just like before the Great Depression. #2 is to devalue the dollar, leading to massive US inflation.

The third solution is to recognize that some industry will grow in India and China, and that people there will finally be able to afford more American products. 40 million Chinese now have $1000 or more per year to spend on home remnnovation, hello Home Depot China!

You can read about Robert Reich's views on offshoring, and he is definately not a Republican.

The US faces a massive current account deficit with the rest of the world. There are three solutions. #1 is to start a massive global trade war, just like before the Great Depression. #2 is to devalue the dollar, leading to massive US inflation.

The third solution is to recognize that some industry will grow in India and China, and that people there will finally be able to afford more American products. 40 million Chinese now have $1000 or more per year to spend on home remnnovation, hello Home Depot China!

You can read about Robert Reich's views on offshoring, and he is definately not a Republican.

The US faces a massive current account deficit with the rest of the world. There are three solutions. #1 is to start a massive global trade war, just like before the Great Depression. #2 is to devalue the dollar, leading to massive US inflation.

The third solution is to recognize that some industry will grow in India and China, and that people there will finally be able to afford more American products. 40 million Chinese now have $1000 or more per year to spend on home remnnovation, hello Home Depot China!

The temporary movement of labor is known better as Temporary Movement of Natural Persons. It turns out that the price differential for labor between developed and undeveloped countries tends to be much larger than the price differential for goods, thus is more important for a global marketplace than free trade of goods. TMNP allows for flexible labor movement without worrying about sovereignty issues (as permanent movement would).

Studies show that by increasing developed economies' quotas on inward movements of both skilled and unskilled labour by just 3% of their labour forces, world welfare would rise by $156 billion - about 0.6% of world income.

Further liberalization of labor movement could double world income and imply proportionately even larger gains for the developing countries.

Gasoline prices at the pump in the US are actually below all-time highs. You can read more about the details here.

In a nutshell, today's US gasoline pump price, in inflation-adjusted dollars, is as cheap as it was in 1986, and cheaper than it ever was before 1969. And when you consider that gasoline taxes have been raised continuously over the years (now to $0.43 per gallon), gasoline itself seems very cheap.

If you want to look at inflation-adjusted crude oil prices, look at this. More recent crude oil prices ($27-$30 / barrel) are up a bit above the hundred-year median price, but still below the highs of the late 70's/early 80's.

Crude oil cost makes up about 40% of gasoline prices, manufacturing and distribution makes up 37%, the rest is taxes.

Should oil prices ever rise, I would expect that plastics would be made with biotechnology, indeed there could be a carbohydrate economy using biotech enzymes to convert cellulose to sugar and then to ethanol.

You can find out more here about how advancing economies tend to have reductions in fertility rates, and that the UN now thinks global population will only be 8.9 billion by mid-century.