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Matt Yglesias has written a book titled One Billion Americans. I've not read the book. The basic premise is larger families and more immigration to juice the population in order to maintain US hegemony, primarily against the rise of China.
As an immigrant myself, I'm broadly in favor of the idea. In a typical year the US issues 1M+/- green cards, divided roughly 50/50 between students already here who want to stay, and new arrivals. Between 6-8M a year apply for green cards, and the 1M noted are granted.
The last major immigration reform was in 1963. I once calculated that if everyone who applied since then had been granted, they plus their offspring, would have the country close to 1B today.
Keep in mind that the US is one of the least densely populated countries in the world, and could easily support 1B.
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Population should only increase at an incremental rate, assuring that the needs of the direct future generation are met. The US, currently lacks the infrastructure to support a billion people. Global population trends, suggest that birth rates are decreasing overall. In the US, fertility rates are already below replacement levels. The only way the US can maintain it's large population is via continuous immigration. That's not likely to stop anytime soon.
We don't need a billion people to compete with China.
China has between 100 and 200 million people in rural areas not connected to global trade networks. Those people don't count except as a reservoir for internal migration.
China's workforce has already peaked and they are well on their way to having Japanese and Korean birthrates. Combine a shrinking workforce with the 4-2-1 problem (4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child) and a lack of retirement savings, and most of China's surplus in the coming decades will be spent on elder support.
The US is the only large, developed country projected to grow in population this century. I think we're fine on our current trajectory of having between 400 and 500 million people by 2100.
If the USA wants to go big, I'd favor a political union with Canada and Mexico. Why bring people to America when you can bring America to the people?
We don't need a billion people to compete with China.
China has between 100 and 200 million people in rural areas not connected to global trade networks. Those people don't count except as a reservoir for internal migration.
China's workforce has already peaked and they are well on their way to having Japanese and Korean birthrates. Combine a shrinking workforce with the 4-2-1 problem (4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child) and a lack of retirement savings, and most of China's surplus in the coming decades will be spent on elder support.
The US is the only large, developed country projected to grow in population this century. I think we're fine on our current trajectory of having between 400 and 500 million people by 2100.
If the USA wants to go big, I'd favor a political union with Canada and Mexico. Why bring people to America when you can bring America to the people? :cool:
What do you mean by political union here? The countries merging into one?
As an immigrant, I think it was stupid for the US to let me in, and stupid to let most others in.
No, the opposite is needed globally, the population needs to shrink.
In many places, urban areas, there is a housing crisis, too many jobs and resources centered in small areas, not enough housing, prices skyrocketing. You cannot on one hand advocate for affordable housing, more options for affordability, and on the other advocate for more people to flood in.
For the environment, and lets just say climate change, the US is among the top per capita polluters and is second overall in pollution produced, bringing more people in to live the American way of life, is just going to add more pollution. As above, you cannot on one hand advocate for more people, but on the other rally for action to deal with climate change.
Wages in the low end has pretty much been stagnant, very slowly growing, and the value of the dollar decreasing with inflation. The more people that have been flooding in, especially noticeable over the last 20 years with NAFTA and the relocating numerous labor jobs out of the US, the more the wages are just going to stay depressed. Idiots like me come here and take the bare minimum, do not complain, do not run to the gov for labor/safety violations, work under the table, and no benefits. US born people cannot compete with this, many business will not even consider a US born worker now days for these low end, no skilled jobs. As with the above two, you cannot on one hand advocate more people, yet on the other hand advocate wage growth.
You look at "the US can support 1B" in terms of physical land, what you do not address is if the US can support that many with the current quality of life people here have now, and if the planet can support one billion people living a US lifestyle, or can support without taking from others and incurring the costs of numerous conflicts while doing so.
I have seen and lived in a country, India, that cannot support its population, and not only no, but hell no. India is a prime example of a country that its population has far outstripped its ability to support.
I have seen and lived in a country, India, that cannot support its population, and not only no, but hell no. India is a prime example of a country that its population has far outstripped its ability to support.
The USA can support a larger population than India, both because we have more savings to invest in infrastructure and because we have more arable land. A billion people in the USA would be nothing like, say, the Ganges river plain which is ridiculously overpopulated. The eastern two thirds of the USA are one of the largest tracts of arable land in the world, probably only exceeded by Brazil and western Russia.
You raise a good point that populations worldwide are starting to decline, so I'm not even sure if there would be immigration pressure to achieve 1B people in the US. For example migration from Mexico to the US has mostly stopped because quality of life has improved in Mexico and birth rates have fallen.
The basic premise is larger families and more immigration to juice the population
in order to maintain US hegemony, primarily against the rise of China.
Nope. The US needs FEWER people. A whole lot fewer. China does too.
Not schemes to pack and stack ever more warm bodies.
At the rate we humans are gobbling up the world's resources and polluting as we go, I think we need fewer of us...or a way of living lighter on this small, fragile planet of ours...
I'd remind people that a shrinking global population and a rising US one are not mutually exclusive. There are lots of smart young people in Asia, Africa, and M.E. who would jump at the chance to move somewhere. Why not the US? I like Mike Bloomberg's idea of stapling a green card to the certificate of every overseas college graduate.
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