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Kind of a whimsical "what if" question, but I will bite...
First of all, if the US has 1B people the rest of the world probably has 20B. World population is now around 7B, so that is a huge increase. I would worry more about the global population than I would about the fraction of that that the US has.
We have already shown an inability to meet the resource demands of 7B people, at least not without significant environmental problems, so I would imagine things will be pretty grim. I am talking about energy needs, water, arable land, food, and housing. With global warming a potentially significant problem, there will likely be mass migrations of people out of areas that become inhabitable due to scorching temperatures or rising sea. Migrations are always destabilizing so we can expect some political chaos to go along with that. Current geopolitical tension over oil will be replaced with geopolitical tension over water which is already more expensive than oil in some places and unlike oil, is something we cannot live without.
In other words, I am not worried at all about the job situation when the US has 1B people. I am more worried whether humanity had outgrown this planet. People will not be worried about jobs, they will be worried about survival.
Kind of a whimsical "what if" question, but I will bite...
First of all, if the US has 1B people the rest of the world probably has 20B. World population is now around 7B, so that is a huge increase. I would worry more about the global population than I would about the fraction of that that the US has.
We have already shown an inability to meet the resource demands of 7B people, at least not without significant environmental problems, so I would imagine things will be pretty grim. I am talking about energy needs, water, arable land, food, and housing. With global warming a potentially significant problem, there will likely be mass migrations of people out of areas that become inhabitable due to scorching temperatures or rising sea. Migrations are always destabilizing so we can expect some political chaos to go along with that. Current geopolitical tension over oil will be replaced with geopolitical tension over water which is already more expensive than oil in some places and unlike oil, is something we cannot live without.
In other words, I am not worried at all about the job situation when the US has 1B people. I am more worried whether humanity had outgrown this planet. People will not be worried about jobs, they will be worried about survival.
indeed you do have a point. Actually read an article about can we truly sustain 7B people as of now? They estimated by 2025 things are going to get ugly. Makes me wonder how would we shop for food and/or water?
I mean will we enter walmart and see a bunch of empty shelves? What would even be the prices of food?
Sure seems like a long time from now and would it even happen in our lifetime? it is pretty scary to think about though. I mean its not like we can just go out and hunt our food anymore - so where would we get it from if the markets just cant keep up
I am actually starting to see some of it now...I enter walmart and some parts of the shelves are always empty...food is obviously getting more expensive because the amount of people buying. i go through the vegetable section and I see a lot of it being sold out. 1/2 the times I cant find green peppers or some other veggie
We have already shown an inability to meet the resource demands of 7B people, at least not without significant environmental problems, so I would imagine things will be pretty grim. .
It's not going to happen any time soon, so why think about it?
because I am curious about it. Whats wrong thinking about it? I know it wont happen in my lifetime and probably not yours. Next generation? Probably so.
Without immigration, the United States would already be seeing the population contraction Northern Europe, Japan, and South Korea are seeing. The United States already has such a glut of unskilled and semi skilled labor that the immigration that has so far prevented population contraction will end. The US will grow to about 450 million people and then start contracting in the 2nd half of the 21st century.
The US is big enough that it can handle the 30% population growth. It will cause growing pains in parts of the country. Water is going to be a huge issue in the west. Epic traffic jams are pretty much going to force big investment in public transportation in sun belt cities. I don't see much changing. There will be continued wealth and income stratification from automation. We will have 100 million largely unemployable adults. That will have big political implications.
What would you guys think on what would happen to our economy?
Personally, more crime (obviously)
but what would happen to our job markets? What about extra people signing up for school and flooding majors?
opinions?
If the us had 1 billion, how many would the world have? 20 billion?
We'd be SOL.
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