. . . and I'm pretty sure the answer is zero. However, if what you are doing is futile and you have a better than average chance of being killed while doing it, why would you continue if you had a choice?

I wonder how many people serving in Afghanistan actually have the option to resign and come home--to just say "this is FUBAR, I'm leaving"? -- orbitboy

And thanks to stop loss, even the enlisted people who supposedly have a choice have been gang-pressed into additional duty.

. . . cold fusion work?

We have to change the way ordinary Americans think about food, eating, and cooking before we will see Foodzillas like McDonalds take a hit. -- Rosenkavalier

. . . if he hadn't become such a freak and had been at the height of his, actually, limited creative powers as opposed to more than a decade and several rhinoplasties past his prime.

. . . RedState has no influence on Rethug policy?

The blog is essentially the right's equivalent of DailyKos -- not as big or as influential, . . .

They make a lot of serious noise over there at Daily Kos, but given how thoroughly middle of the road the Obama administration has been to date, I fail to see how any of the liberal web sites or opinion makers are having the least affect on Democratic policy.

. . . is your friend. (Either that or some codeine cough syrup.)

China's growth will soon be limited by resource scarcity, and it's economy will never produce wealth sufficient enough to attain a middle-class proportionally as large as S. Korea's. So, it doesn't matter whether switches from and export oriented economy to increasing domestic consumption. If we get 50% of the Chinese and Indians consuming like S. Korea (let alone the U.S.), we'll strip the Earth bare in a couple decades.

While people lament the declining population in Europe and Japan, if they can "tough-out" the next twenty year (a blink of an eye for cultures over a 1,000 years old), they will be fine, but only if they resist calls for increased immigration, and only if the Japanese finally put their women to work as something other than office clerks, saleswomen and restaurant workers. Japan has been wasting 50% of it's labor force since the dawn of the industrial age.

The U.S. is in a much tougher position because we waste so much money on an unnecessarily huge military, foreign wars and drug interdiction that we don't have the resources to control our border with Mexico. Mexico (as well as most of the nations in Central America and the Caribbean) is almost a failed state. Rather than worrying about whether the Islamic fundis gain control of Pakistan, we'd be better off worrying about what's directly south of us. If the a bunch of atavistic 14th century clerics want to lob nukes at Israel, they can take care of themselves, and it will happen only once.

A bit off topic, but it's best to get back to taking care of our own first rather than trying (are listening you Wilsonites and neo-con idealists?) to right a world that doesn't necessarily want to be righted or, quite frankly, doesn't, here and there, deserve to be righted.

2. In the 90's people we're writing similar articles saying that we didn't have enough people in the US to do all IT work and we needed to import them. . . -- holaamigo

We produce IT people by the boat load every year. The problem is that MS and the rest don't want to pay the people our universities are producing. Instead, asshole Bill "I'm saving Africa from malaria buy can't bother to employ more Americans" Gates would rather go to Capital Hill and argue for more H1 visas to bring in Indians at 1/2 the salary that Americans expect to be paid.

Okay, let's try and understand how rail really works - the money is all in hauling coal.-- limiting factor

For every tonne of coal being hauled East (the West uses virtually none), we've got hundreds of piggy-back cars hauling containers for inter-modal transport. If Buffett is betting on anything, it's the eventual return to a more robust domestic economy. Increased consumption means more imports. Imports arrive containerized and thousands of these containers need to be moved to distribution points in the Midwest and East. You don't do that with a tractor-trailer.

. . . is not shrinking. U.S. population was approaching ZPG in 1970. Then we liberalized immigration law not once but twice. Add to this probably 10-15 million illegals, and it is easy to understand how U.S. population has doubled in less than 50 years.

Beyond the added crowding, the main problem is that only a small percentage of legal immigrants bring any wealth or skills with them and the illegals bring nothing.

@HarlotBug3 Given that the article specifically relates to industrialized economies in the west where the native born population is shrinking population growth really isn't an issue.-- Clockwork Smurf