Say Anything Blog

Troy, get off that wagon and take a look at places like Western Europe, Japan and even the United Stated (minus immigration from abroad) ..in Russia, Italy and many other countries the government actyally offers to pay women to have babies, yet not enough take the offer.

anonomisly:  According to the book “Menace in Europe” Italy has no such program.  In fact that’s a political taboo to even talk about because Mussolini did have such a program.  Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the developed world.

I don’t have such a source for Russia but I doubt they still have that program.  I did just read that they do have a very generous maternity benefit.  However their population is crashing also.

The US nearly stands alone for developed countries having an internal growth rate.

The European countries have a huge problem as when the current workers retire there will be on one to replace the workers.  Who pays Social Security.

I have no idea what Troy’s point of the article was.  However I must point out that we are not running out of resources or room.  If his point is that we need to control populations, I disagree with him.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

its in great part the local governments that are doing it in Italy,

Italian women shun ‘mamma’ role
Birth rates in the European Union are falling fast. 

Last year, the government introduced a “baby bonus” to try to encourage families to have more children.

Since then, more than 600,000 mothers have each received 1,000 euros from the government towards the cost of their new-born babies.

Here’s the online version of an article I recently read in the WSJ-dead tree edition

Even widely considered poor/third-world countries in Europe are doing it, ..

Wall Street Journal recently:

Population Control: In Estonia, Paying Women to Have Babies Is Paying Off; As Low Birthrates Threaten Growth, Developed Nations Watch Incentive Effort; $1,560 a Month for Annaliisa

..Australia are has an extremely proactive program of trying to atract foreigners and paying womens to have babies too.

Here’re some excerpts from of the Wall Street Journal article, in case you’re not a subscriber:

Population Control: In Estonia, Paying Women to Have Babies Is Paying Off; As Low Birthrates Threaten Growth, Developed Nations Watch Incentive Effort; $1,560 a Month for Annaliisa

Pia Kurro sat cross-legged on her bed in a drab, Soviet-era maternity ward that smelled of detergent and old linoleum and breast-fed her two-day-old daughter, Syria, who owes her existence to state subsidies.

In return for having the child, Ms. Kurro will receive the equivalent of $1,560 a month from her government for over a year, a lot of money in a country where the average monthly salary is $650.
...

A handful of developed countries, including the Nordic nations and France, have stable populations thanks to a long tradition of financial support for families. But for other countries in Europe and Asia that have already seen steep falls in birthrates..

The fertility rate in the 30 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of the world’s leading industrialized democracies, was only 1.6 in 2005, down from 2.4 in 1970. Mexico, at 2.4, is the highest, with South Korea the lowest at 1.1. Demographers say the decline is due to fundamental changes in society. They include: greater economic opportunities for women; advances in birth control that have made reproduction a matter of choice rather than accident; and the spread of ideas about individual freedom and happiness that are hard to reconcile with caring for a large family.

..

Some European countries are experimenting with monthly cash compensation to women who leave work to have babies, including Lithuania, Austria and Slovenia. Starting next year, Germany and Bulgaria plan to pay new mothers benefits linked to their previous earnings. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who bemoaned his country’s lack of children in his last state-of-the-nation speech in May, has also promised more aid to parents.

Elsewhere, Australia introduced in 2004 a one-time bonus per baby, currently worth about $3,000. The fertility rate is believed to have risen slightly thanks to a combination of the incentive and a booming economy, but is still around 1.8. Australia’s finance minister has even exhorted parents to “do your patriotic duty tonight,” echoing similar campaigns in the city-state of Singapore, which is still struggling with a fertility rate that hovers barely above 1.2. South Korea has introduced several policies this year, including more financial aid for day care and for fertility treatment

.

France and the Nordic countries suggests that incentives can have an impact. For example, women in Sweden and Norway, which support families with generous benefits, labor laws and child care, have close to two children on average. “Where there are consistent family-oriented policies in place for a long time, people have more children,” says Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography.

The main exception to the rule is the U.S., where the average woman has two children, despite only modest public support for families, largely via tax breaks. Demographers say America’s tradition of mass immigration and its large minority populations make it unusual among developed nations. Hispanics, in particular, boost national fertility, with more than three children per woman. The U.S.’s population passed 300 million this week, according to the Census Bureau’s estimate. About 55% of America’s population growth is due to legal and illegal immigrants and their children, according to the Population Reference Bureau in Washington

(I believe the White population in the United States is actually declining too)

...we can hope that the population growth rate will slow to zero (no net growth) within the next 100 years.

I don’t hope for that. I hope humanity increases it’s numbers by many billions. I hope that we have some kind of base on the moon and on Mars within the next 100 years.

Think big Troy. It won’t hurt you.

I hope that we have some kind of base on the moon and on Mars within the next 100 years.

What will this achieve?

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams

What will this achieve?

Nothing, I mean - we all die in the end, right?

But seriously, it achieves a chance at humanity surviving and going beyond this world onto other worlds. We’ve got about four to five billion years to figure things out before two things simultaneously happen: 1. our sun dies. 2. our galaxy crashes into Andromeda.

Another thing that it achieves is that it allows for untold riches and higher living standards and it would put your silly concerns solidly into the silly category.

At least that’s how I look at it. I don’t share your foreboding outlook. I say: bring on more people, and with it, all of the knowledge, arts, and general good fun that they provide.

Another thing that it achieves is that it allows for untold riches and higher living standards and it would put your silly concerns solidly into the silly category.

It doesn’t put any concerns to rest. Play it out… If the world population continues to double every 50 years in one hundred years from now our planet could have a population of 24 billion people. Can the earth support that. Lets say yes.  After another 50 years could the planet support 48 billion, probably not.  So lets make the assumption that earth can support 24 billion people. Within 50 years of reaching this hypothetical population or 150 years from now, we would need to colonize another planet; be it Mars or some new planet, but what next.  After another 50 years the population of earth would be 24 billion and the poputlation of Mars would be 24 billion. So we (the human race) would now need to colonize two additional planets, and 50 years later another 4, and then 8, etc. 

I did some research on a group of people that lived in a remote mountain valley in Switzerland. They called their valley “Loetschental” and have been living there sufficiently and sustainably for about 1250 years, and they still do. This society performs a special form of agriculture that is not totalitarian, yet has been a sustainable kind. And this small civilization runs very differently from ours. They raise three livestock animals--cattle, goats, and sheep (for wool, meat, and dairy) on the same pasture, hence no need to change the contents of the diversity of the pasture. Also, pasture is only around during the growing season--about 4 months a year--so hay grown there is used to feed the cattle the rest of the year, and food is stored for winter feeding. They plant salad greens in gardens together, NOT on monocropped fields, and although they have single rye fields, they rotate their crops. Since the valley is about 7000 feet above sea level, they have a very short growing season. Where they plant rye and hay one year they do not plant rye the next year. They do not attempt to invade and conquer any neighboring villages, and do not try to make more of anything. They have a complete sense of limit. They grow the same amount every year--the amount needed to sustain their fixed population of 2,000--and no more. Also, the wooden buildings in their valley never are torn down, the ones that exist now have existed since the dawn of the settlement. They also use no pesticides or hormones to raise productivity, they let Nature take its course to feed their livestock and they feed whatever the pastures offer. They may water their crops, but they do not try to control nature. They have made no attempts to hunt down the competitors (Wolves or foxes). They may try to defend their livestock if attacked, but do not try to kill off the attackers. They have no hierarchal systems. Everyone shares the good times and the bad times together in the village. Yet they have all the good artifices of civilization--a culture, recorded history, an annual holiday celebration, and the ability to communicate ideas to the whole village.

Now I am not advocating this system, but a similar system in theory.

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams

TP: Do you know what an “irrational extrapolation” is?

BTW, you may choose to limit yourself all you want; it is totalitarian to impose that on anyone who does not choose it freely.  Your plan might work for a very small group who all feel related to each other, and who have little individual variation among them.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

TP: I don’t appreciate your using my writing to advance your agenda; you did not ask my permission, and I do not grant it.  Please remove it, because I don’t support any of your ideas at all.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

my writing to advance your agenda;

I just wrote in response to something you wrote

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams

TP: False; you used it to head your personal post.  A response would have been in a thread.  Please remove my words from your article; you do not have my permission to use them in that way.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

R108-

What about this do you not agree with?

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams

It is easier to say what I don’t agree with: 100% of it.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

let play a game of dynamics. I go first, ..
..50 years from now we will have the technology to turn the Sahara green ..

R108 -

You don’t agree that over time the population of the earth is going to increase?

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams

TP: I agree that it will continue to increase at an ever diminishing rate of increase.  At some point, if conditions continue to be roughly similar to the way they are now, it will reach an equilibrium point, then possibly start to decrease absolutely.
The very first paragraph of your post contained some faulty reasoning about rates and numbers, and so I didn’t have a good impression of it.  The rest sounded like scareology based on the faulty premises in the first paragraph, combined with some additional faulty premises based on what I referred to as “irrational extrapolation”.  I’m a bit under the weather with some nasty bronchitis, and so don’t have the energy to do a point by point for you.  This partial synopsis is the best I can do right now.  Sorry.  A lot of the article you used sounds like similar reasoning to the Y2K fiasco.  My conclusion in general is that population is a self-limiting situation.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.