"Brother hasn't heard of Thomas Malthus?"

I've about had it with what's going on in our country today.

I'm not talking about politics (yet). I'm talking about Avengers: Infinity Wars' complete ignorance of -- and disregard for -- basic economic principles.

-SPOILER ALERT-
[though if you haven't seen it by now you probably won't anyway]

If you're not familiar with the movie's premise, here it is: Thanos (the bad guy) thinks the universe is overpopulated, and the best way to fix things is to randomly kill off half the universe with one snap of his Infinity Gauntleted fingers.

My first thought to this was, "OK. It's a Thomas Malthus thing."

Malthus live in the late 1700s and theorized that -- since food production grows in a straight line, and population grows exponentially -- the world was going to end in a global famine. People were straight freaking out because he actually had data that backed it up (flawed data, it turned out, but still...) Bad governmental policies ensued. Some went so far as to forbid paupers from marrying. [Wry smile here.]

And yet, here we are, 200+ years later, and still no global famine. DESPITE -- get this -- having fewer people (as a percentage of the population) working in agriculture than ever before in human history. What gives?

For a thorough explanation (and the repercussions of Malthusian fears) I'll reference this -- LINK -- but the quick version is this: simple things that make sense only make sense when they are simple.

In this case, just as population increase doesn't automatically cause poverty and starvation, random depopulation doesn't automatically increase wealth. Just because your neighbor dies doesn't mean you get his stuff. If anything, depopulation causes inflation. [Source]

I realize not everyone has studied economics, but this kind of thing really shouldn't be news. That thinking is already over 200 years-old. It's like learning in the 21st Century that the Earth isn't flat or there's such a thing as algebra. We shouldn't still be here.

In other news, 1.) the Federal Reserve is under fire for fighting the inflation brought on by a huge tax cut in an already booming economy and 2.) we're considering subsidies for farmers hurt by the tariffs we've irrationally imposed. [Source]

I mean --