Money travels, it seems . . .

INTERSTELLAR TRADE? THE ECONOMIST wonders, with an article "Exports to Mars". You see, when they totaled up all the balance-of-payments statistics for all the countries,

the world exported $331 billion more than it imported in 2010, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. The fund forecasts that the global current-account surplus will rise to almost $700 billion by 2014.

It explains a lot of the weirdness at Wal-Mart, though. But financial stats are always a problem, as Douglas Adams showed us so delightfully:

Robots are coming . . .

MARSHALL BRAIN IS AN ENTHUSIASTIC TECHIE who is the founder of How Stuff Works which has grown to be one of the top Web sites for that kind of knowledge. Well, Marshall has a page on his site called Robot Nation, and you should read it and ponder, especially if you have children, and care about their future. There is a companion page, Robot Nation FAQ, which also is worthy of perusal.

I firmly believe that the rapid evolution of computer technology (as described in Robotic Nation) will bring us smart robots starting in a 2030 time frame. These robots will take over approximately 50% of the jobs in the U.S. economy over the course of just a decade or two. Something on the order of 50 million people will be unemployed. 

Why should YOU care? Well, a 10 year-old can reasonably expect to live to 2080, and his/her children could live to around 2120, and Marshall expects robotics to be rockin' by 2050. Will North America have "socialist" systems for the life-time unemployed, or will they be left to starve, or be rounded up for "disposal"? Will there be a Luddite revolt? Makes the fixation of U.S. business on continuous quarterly growth irrelevant, dangerously so, considering the damage that mind-set has already caused.

We have seen the future, and it sucks . . .

NEWGEOGRAPHY IS A SITE DEVOTED TO THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT, with an article by Joel Kotkin, "The Future of America's Working Class". However, it's about the problems of white, blue-collar England, and what they portend for North America. Worth the read.

As you walk through Watford, midday drinkers linger outside the One Bell pub near the center of town. Many of these might be considered "yobs," a term applied to youthful, largely white, working-class youths, many of whom work only occasionally or not at all. In the British press yobs are frequently linked to petty crime and violent behavior--including a recent stabbing outside another Watford pub, and soccer-related hooliganism.

In Britain alcoholism among the disaffected youth has reached epidemic proportions. Britain now suffers among the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the advanced industrial world, and unlike in most countries, boozing is on the upswing.

Tony Blair's "cool Britannia,"epitomized by hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs and media stars, offered little to the working and middle classes. Despite its proletarian roots, New Labour, as London Mayor Boris Johnson acidly notes, has presided over that which has become the most socially immobile society in Europe.

This occurred despite a huge expansion of Britain's welfare state, which now accounts for nearly one-third of government spending. For one thing the expansion of the welfare state apparatus may have done more for high-skilled professionals, who ended up nearly twice as likely to benefit from public employment than the average worker. Nearly one-fifth of young people ages 16 to 24 were out of education, work or training in 1997; after a decade of economic growth that proportion remained the same.

Some people, such as The Times' Camilla Cavendish, even blame the expanding welfare state for helping to create an overlooked generation of "useless, jobless men--the social blight of our age." These males generally do not include immigrants, who by some estimates took more than 70% of the jobs created between 1997 and 2007 in the U.K.

An explanation . . .

It is a slow day in the small Minnesota town of Marshall, and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. 

A rich tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. 

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. 

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. 

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Farmer's Co-op. 

The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute. 

The prostitute, who has also been facing hard times, has had to offer her "services" on credit. She rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner. 

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. 

At that moment, the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill, and leaves town. 

No one produced anything. No one earned anything...However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a Stimulus package works.