Is the REAL Problem Solvable?

In the end it's always about economics.

Hitler came to power by persuading the Germans that an international Jewish-banker conspiracy had robbed them of victory and prosperity.

NPR ran an interesting segment on Brexit and Trump this morning as I drove to work.  Many of the proponents of Brexit and Trump's supporters are people in pockets of England and the US that suffer from endemic depression.  The NPR piece focused on southwestern Pennsylvania and southeastern England.   In the former, the demise of steel and the decline of coal are the culprits.  In the latter, the demise of the tourist industry and an influx of immigrants are the villains.

NPR also did a piece on the Philippines, where hundreds of thousands have been arrested as small-time drug dealers.  So, it seems, a tenth of the country is selling drugs and the other 90 percent are high.  Why?  Poverty... no jobs... no opportunities.

So what's up?  Seems to me it's fundamental... simple... and intractable.

Too many people... too few jobs.

And as the world population continues to grow, scientists and engineers are working furiously to create more and better robots.  This contributes mightily to the widening gap between rich and poor.

The southern hemisphere pushes  relentlessly up against the northern hemisphere.  Is unrestricted immigration the answer?  No... it will only spread the southern hemisphere's troubles to the north, while failing to solve them in the south.   I saw this happen in my birthplace of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which became briefly famous in legal circles in the 1990s when it passed an ordinance to limit immigration, which became a cause celeb in the federal courts for a time.

There may be no solutions to humanity's fundamental problems.  Or the solutions may be so draconian as to be unpalatable to people with any humanity in them.

One thing for sure:  neither Brexit nor Trump is the solution.