Comments on: An Interesting Choice for Agriculture Secretary

By: jchem

jchem — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:26:34 +0000

I was under the impression that former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack was in the running.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/20...

Seems to me we should just start up a pool, something similar to the NCAA Final Four. How about we each all throw in a virtual dollar and toss a name out there? Winner take all!!

By: DLS

DLS — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:13:40 +0000

We need someone sensible, not an activist. (That's true for all Cabinet positions, in fact.)

"Exploding world populations"

Fertility has been greatly reduced in modern times almost everywhere, which is leading to global aging, not limited to the developed nations. There is no human pestilence of overpopulation, no Malthusian horror, no 1960s excuse for environmentalist and socialist attacks on true progress.

Only a relatively few nations (guess where -- it's where development has stalled and even reversed or declined, despite huge fortunes and efforts by the rest of the world to promote progress) continue to present the specter that is fictitiously in the minds of the lefties and has been since the 1960s ("leading" to the "need" for the developed nations to submit to guilty feelings and reverse progress). Fertility decline and population aging are the problems we expect to see in the future. (The developed world's retirement-related welfare programs are unsustainable and will be part of this aging problem.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9...

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=xx&v=31

http://www.ageworks.com/course_demo/200/module2...

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldgr.gif

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpch.gif

THIS IS NOT EXPONENTIAL. There is no demon.

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpop.gif

By: Silhouette

Silhouette — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:40:31 +0000

You know, people like to downplay the position of Ag Czar. Or at least give it a passing glance. What Americans need to understand is that food and our arable lands are going to be the new “oil” of the 21st Century. For one thing, we need conservation of prime ag-soil regions, especially in areas of urban sprawl. Hundreds of acres near where I live, due to bribing, are being paved over. Topsoil, black and three feet thick now lies with an overlay of asphalt or concrete as far as the eye could see in a town that used to be the bread-basket of our County.

Exploding world populations will mean that our arable lands will enable us to trade off our debt. I would say that the Sec. of Ag will be one of the most helpful people to the recovery of the US economy that we'll have in DC. What does America have if not large reserves of essential crude? Essential food… People can live without transportation or even plastics. But they cannot live without food.