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The replacement rate has been plunging on every continent except for Africa, and is dangerously lower in places such as California.
This state certainly won't have nearly enough working taxpayers to pay the legacy costs of its seniors within the next 20/30 years according to an extensive study on a forthcoming shortage of children done by the Lucile Packard Foundation For Children's Health at USC; her late husband was the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard.
The fact that over 3,500,000 Californians have left the state over the past 20 years for other states where the middle class actually has a shot according to Joel Kotkin certainly isn't good either.
Irrelevant, as programs like Medicare and SS are Federal programs and tax payers from all states pay in for the elderly of our whole nation.
California doesn't have a low birth rate either. The only states with very low birth rates in America are the very white states in the Northeast.
Of course, its also possible that this demographic problem will not be as bad as we think. With the obesity rate as high as it is, its quite possible that the life expectancy of people will decline. This is already taking place in some states. Women are living, on average, 5 years less.
Links please?
Overall, life expectancy in the U.S. is still going up.
No its not a bad thing. Population reduction is necessary for the life of the planet. Humans are slowly destroying the world. The earth is merely a small farm with only enough acres and resources for a limited amount of farm animals to co exist. Once the max capacity has been breached the 'farms' crops/resources/livestock will slowly and eventually deteriorate completely.
The same overpopulation disaster happened in ancient times. Turning a once fertile tropical Egypt into desert wasteland. The same results will happen in 'modern times' if affirmative action is not taken place.
This 'problem' needs to be taken care of before the giving mother planet is destroyed.
Egypt wasn't tropical.
Its fertile farms were along the Nile, which was prone to farming. Early Egyptians learned to take advantage of the flooding.
I don't think Egypt was ever "tropical", although there is evidence it was wetter in the distant past.
Much greener because of Aswan High Dam since 1960s. Atleast agriculture farms increased instead of sand dunes. otherwise it was sand dust for thousands of years.
I think that declining population is bad because it leads to waste. When there's a bunch of shiny new homes built for a booming population, and those homes are abandoned years down the road because everyone has left, it's a waste. The resources required to make that home were used up and can't ever be used again. What happens when those resources are no longer available and we can't make those big nice houses again? Hell, this is why I'm so opposed to suburban sprawl, too; not only does it mean that people are leaving the city and perfectly good homes (often with architectural and historical value), but they are building new suburban homes that will no longer be needed 50 or so years down the road when the demographics change. So you basically have two abandoned buildings and twice the wasted resources.
I've seen this first hand close to home; I live less than 2 miles from Crestwood Plaza in St. Louis County (do some searching if you're unfamiliar). It was once built to keep up with suburban demand for retail and was a bustling shopping center. But of course, nobody bothered to anticipate demographic changes that would take place; now it's 50 years later and Crestwood Plaza is no more, we just have a massive hulking eyesore that takes up a huge chunk of land. It took money to build that, and now it's going to take money to bring it back down again. What the hell? Can't we actually build things with the future in mind, for once?
Anyway, negative population change is bad because it is the cause of this waste. When the population grows, these aren't problems. But when the population shrinks, the cities have to contract and then have to start building all over again when growth returns. It's redundant and it leads to waste; and while I think that we should change our methods so that shrinkage doesn't translate to demolition, that task is easier said than done.
I think the more pertinent question is not how you get the lower economic classes to breed less, but rather how do you get the higher income classes to breed more. We do need a certain birth rate in order to pay for our social programs, but we don't need more fast food workers.
... my first thought was the Nazi breeding program to produce a "master race." But on reflection, I always try to reflect reality. And whether white, brown, black, etc., "Obama Says" that the dream of entering the middle class, is just that, a dream, since we have economic stagnation in the US. He said this in the passive voice since he apparently just learned about it and he is upset about it. So I know its important because it on his mind.
What I know for sure is the middle class pays the bulk of federal income taxes. So , "Yeah," this is a crisis that Obama can trumpet, since he has over-borrowed by a factor of 7,000,000,000,000 X 1 and he is now looking to put his hands into the pockets of the middle class where ever he can find them to weaponize the federal government against its enemy (Us).
Off Topic,
If The 900 million dollar TARP program was spent as investments in banking systems, AIG, GM, etc., and we were told by Barney Frank that we are and will be paid back, does this affect the7 trillion national debt?
Last edited by Mistermobile; 02-21-2014 at 05:45 PM..
Reason: mistake
... my first thought was the Nazi breeding program to produce a "master race." But on reflection, I always try to reflect reality. And whether white, brown, black, etc., "Obama Says" that the dream of entering the middle class, is just that, a dream, since we have economic stagnation in the US. He said this in the passive voice since he apparently just learned about it and he is upset about it. So I know its important because it on his mind.
What I know for sure is the middle class pays the bulk of federal income taxes. So , "Yeah," this is a crisis that Obama can trumpet, since he has over-borrowed by a factor of 7,000,000,000,000 X 1 and he is now looking to put his hands into the pockets of the middle class where ever he can find them to weaponize the federal government against its enemy (Us).
Off Topic,
If The 900 million dollar TARP program was spent as investments in banking systems, AIG, GM, etc., and we were told by Barney Frank that we are and will be paid back, does this affect the7 trillion national debt?
What I was leading to is there doesn't matter how many babies are born by any group in the US. Why? Because there is no where for them to go. The new normal is that our kids will not have the same life prospects as we did.
I read a little bit on demographics when I can find something. Its interesting that the natural assumption is that declines in population are always bad. I don't think governments like them because it means fewer taxpayers. I don't think business likes it because it means fewer customers. But I guess there are some advantages to a declining population. Less need to use up natural resources. No need to build a lot more schools, homes, roads etc. I know Japan is going through this, and certain intellectuals are upset about it, but I'm not sure the common folks are. The more I think about it though, I don't see a problem with a shrinking population. Anyone want to set me straight.
Decide for yourselves. It's happening in Japan now, where the birth rate has been below replacement level since 1975:
I wish this thread would die. I find the notion of living people feeling so high and mighty that they can decide that future people don't deserve life because they deemed that enough people have lived already. its very convenient for you to take that position that you are one of the privileged living people.
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When I first read this reply ....
