Should the US Strive to Increase Population Significantly? (Representatives, interstate, highway)

[TheseGoTo11]

Anyone ever notice that the parts of this country with high immigration are doing better than those with low immigration?

We need to manage the border chaos, which Biden and Harris don't seem to want to, but that can be done while also lifting caps on how many people we let in legally.

[AnnieA]

Originally Posted by 12-stringer

Why does the U.S. have to dominate the world? To make Americans feel good about themselves? This is a false goal. The U.S. can survive quite well without being the most dominant country on the planet, and it surely doesn't need "larger families and more immigration" just so we can feel all-powerful.

See below. I assume you are looking forward to speaking Chinese in the not too distant future. We will be rolled over like a bowling ball if we lose our competitive status.

Originally Posted by The Very Man Himself

Being #1 and "dominating" are not the same. There are only three entities currently capable of being #1US, EU, and China.
Remember George Orwell, 1984, written in 1948? The costs to the US of losing the #1 position are much greater than to any other country.

I wish the poster in the above post would read your post and think on it.

[The Very Man Himself]

Originally Posted by MinivanDriver

I'd say keeping the population near current levels would prove ideal. However, dropping fertility rates are making that problematic in another generation or so.



If you want to keep population growth or even stable, the easiest way to do it is to create some kind of partial amnesty for student loans. People don't start families when the owe massive amounts of money. The easier it becomes to have financial stability the more open people will be to having families.

No doubt financial stability plays an important part, but I think there are other cultural factors at play also that may be more difficult to overcome. Ever wonder why the age of marriage fluctuates up and down?

[The Very Man Himself]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

Anyone ever notice that the parts of this country with high immigration are doing better than those with low immigration?

We need to manage the border chaos, which Biden and Harris don't seem to want to, but that can be done while also lifting caps on how many people we let in legally.

Bingo! More immigration could juice those parts of rural America that complain about cities and towns dying.
I think most states, 40+, could easily handle another 5M+ people over a period of 20-30 years if carefully implemented.

[The Very Man Himself]

Two related pieces today in the WSJ, and NYT. Both are behind paywalls.

"Chinese officials*are drawing up plans to further loosen birth restrictions and transition toward policies that explicitly encourage childbirth," The Wall Street Journal scoops*(subscription).Why it matters:*The move reflects "increased urgency in Beijing as economic growth slows and China’s population mix skews older."Details:*"Policy makers are discussing the possibility of fully doing away with birth restrictions by 2025, the end of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s current five-year economic plan," The Journal says.One source expects*China to "begin by eliminating birth restrictions in provinces where the birthrate is the lowest before enacting nationwide changes."

The referenced maps that you can't see, compare data for the 10 years before and after the 2008 financial crisis. After 2008 much of the country experienced a 20% drop in birth rates.

Mapped: Delaying motherhood

Data: Analysis of CDC records by Caitlin Myers of Middlebury College. Graphic: Quoctrung Bui/The New York Times
The lower map shows that the U.S. birthrate fell fastest (brown scale) over the past decade "in places with the greatest job growth — where women have more incentive to wait," the N.Y. Times reports (subscription).

Why it matters: "[A]s more women of all social classes have prioritized education and career, delaying childbearing has become a broad pattern among American women almost everywhere."
See more maps (subscription).

ETA: See the maps at item #9 at the link.
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am

[The Very Man Himself]

The last graph, #4 in the linked post, shows the population decline in Ireland post famine. I don't know the source of the data, but it looks accurate to me. I'm Irish. I thought it was worth reposting here to demonstrate a couple of points associated with population decline. Ireland was an extreme case and I'm not suggesting that any/every country (much less the US), that suffers population decline will duplicate the Irish experience.

1: Ireland's population did not hit bottom until 75 years after the famine ended, and then rolled along the bottom for another 50 years, and now 180 years on has still not fully recovered.

2:The combination of population decline plus economic stagnation/regression is very difficult to reverse without immigrants. Were it not for the high fertility rate during this period, the numbers would be much worse

https://www.city-data.com/forum/61277165-post109.html

[CCrest182]

Originally Posted by The Very Man Himself

Keep in mind that the US is one of the least densely populated countries in the world, and could easily support 1B.

Not true at all, these are the least densely populated countries in the world:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...orld/39661109/

Not even talking about Canada and Russia, which both have far more open and unused land than the U.S., and both having a fraction the population.

Not only that, not all of the land in the U.S. is developable.

[The Very Man Himself]

Originally Posted by CCrest182

Not true at all, these are the least densely populated countries in the world:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...orld/39661109/

Not even talking about Canada and Russia, which both have far more open and unused land than the U.S., and both having a fraction the population.

Not only that, not all of the land in the U.S. is developable.

Two measurements from Wiki:

1: US ranks 185, out of 250 total.
2: Filter for only countries with a population of 10M or more, US ranks 72 out of 94.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...lation_density

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

Anyone ever notice that the parts of this country with high immigration are doing better than those with low immigration? ...

You're looking at it backwards. The parts of the country that are doing better attract more job seekers, including immigrants.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by MinivanDriver

If you want to keep population growth or even stable, the easiest way to do it is to create some kind of partial amnesty for student loans. People don't start families when the owe massive amounts of money.

Oh, yes, they do.

Additionally, the pandemic has pushed more millennials into homeownership, ending their well-documented delay and putting additional pressure on home prices.

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/ex...d-implications

Uh-oh....

People educated and informed on the subject of Student Loans vis-a-vis the Department of Education and not a Pukipedia propaganda post know that the average student loan debt is only $30,000. More or less a nice car.

It was Life-Style, not student loans that kept Millennials from buying homes.

While I'm on the subject, $1.6 TRILLION is a Liberal Lie.

The total amount of student loans issued between 1976 and 2019 is $1.56 TRILLION.

That is the amount loaned, not the amount outstanding.

If we believe Liberals, then not one single person in the US ever made a payment on student loans between 1976 and 2019.

Only about 10% of student loans are in default, so it isn't a "crisis" no matter how hard Liberals try to manufacture a "crisis."

Originally Posted by 12-stringer

Why does the U.S. have to dominate the world? To make Americans feel good about themselves? This is a false goal.

To maintain your Standard of Living and Life-Style.

That's also a false goal and the reason you murdered 79 heads-of-State in cold blood and illegally overthrew dozens and dozens of governments and attempted to murder in cold blood about 2 dozen other heads-of-State (but failed.)

Americans have never paid the true cost of their Life-Style and Standard of Living and if they had to do that, your Standard of Living would be on a par with Russia.

You paid 40% and the rest of the World, mostly 3rd/4th World Stats ponied up the 60%.

The conflicts with China and Russia have zero to do with your safety/security or being free or even ideology.

It's about your Life-Style and Standard of Living.

I'll let your own government explain it to you:

The costs of not implementing this strategy are clear. Failure to meet our defense objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living.

[emphasis mine]

https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Do...gy-Summary.pdf


Understand, you don't need control of the World's oil, natural gas, coal, timber and metallic and non-metallic minerals.

But -- and here's the thing -- those things have to be sold on the global market in US Dollars.

Enron. 'Member them?

Enron spent $100s Millions on natural gas refineries and distilleries in India.

The CENTGAS Pipeline from Kyrgyzstan to India never got built. So, Enron's facilities are sitting idle.

That's why Enron was cooking their books, to hide the losses on their overseas investments.

Now, that natural gas in Kyrgyzstan is running through the longest natural gas pipeline in the World to China.

China will sell it on the global market in Yuan and basket currencies, but not US Dollars.

Same-same for the oil in Kazakhstan, which is running to a port on the Black Sea instead of Karachi (Pakistan) and that oil will be sold on the global market in Rubles and basket currencies, but not US Dollars.

Note that immigration will not alter any of that.

Originally Posted by AnnieA

See below. I assume you are looking forward to speaking Chinese in the not too distant future. We will be rolled over like a bowling ball if we lose our competitive status.

Reality Check: It will take China's 8 shipyards running flat out 24/7 for 78+ years to build enough troop, vehicle, supply and cargo ships to invade the US.