More than five years after economists announced the end of the recession, fertility levels have still not recovered. As a result, more than 3.4 million fewer babies were born in the United States between 2008 and 2015 than would have been expected if pre-recession fertility rates had been sustained. In each of the last five years, this birth deficit has resulted in roughly 500,000 fewer births,” said the study.
Good ! Maybe we can begin an era of “responsible breeding” … where you don’t have a child unless you have the personal financial ability to care for it (and a father). Where you don’t have a baby as a means to get more government money.
The progressives will just use this to proclaim the need for more immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Prolonged Recession > Birth Deficit ? or
Birth Deficit > Prolonged Recession ?
I suggest the world wide deflationary syndrome we are experiencing (google ‘news for deflation’. No, it won’t auto-fill) is caused primarily by falling or about to fall country populations. This phenomena is easily observed in any small/medium sized town. No children = falling population = tanking economy in all ways.
And no, I do not for one minute blame the young women. It is a load in many ways but especially in keeping a child’s mind from being warped at the hands of the educational system, universities, politicians, hollywood and the media.
The total phenomena is easily observed in Venezuela today. A really really bad situation made worse through socialism. TFR dropped from 6.5 to 2.2 in the last 60 years. Their currency crash has been brutal. Currency debasement(aka money printing) keeps happening to counties all over the world but especially in South America. Will the people never learn? Have they never heard of Bitcoin, heh ??
Am I wrong ??
Must be all the green activists finally putting their wombs where their mouths are and not having any children at all to reduce resource usage by virtue of less people.
Kenji, I appreciate what you’re saying, but remember that whenever those in charge of a nation have tried to foster “responsible breeding” it always has ended in disaster (either slanted birth rates or mass murder or both). For most cultures historically the problem isn’t the breeding, it’s the lack of food to keep those who are bred alive. We had a nice thing going here in the west, and I’d rather not totally destroy it by having means tests before pregnancies. The declining birth rate when children were no longer a retirement necessity was a good thing. Unfortunately hedonism (and conservation – it’s tough to have kids if you drive a smart car) lead many to decide against having kids so that they could enjoy themselves without being burdened.
The welfare trap as a hammock is a bad thing, government deciding who should have kids is worse. Finding the balance between charity and supporting sloth is the hard part, but those who are fully dependent on the government without having personal risk should not, in my opinion, be able to vote. Public servants in the army, police, front line ambulance services, yes. Lifelong welfare recipients, no. Government bureaucrats or medical workers whose sole source of income is government (as opposed to some private, some public) shouldn’t either. In short form – if you are in the position where you can vote yourself a raise from public funds then you’re in a conflict of interest and should not be able to vote on it.
Ron – I think bitcoin are very bit as valuable as carbon credits, tulip bulbs, and gold. If you can get a majority to agree upon it as a medium of exchange then you’re good. If they agree for a short time then you get a bubble. If they never adopt it then it’s generally worthless. If things go south (solar flare with a big emp for a non-apocalyptic example) and the networks go down, how can you prove you have bitcoins to get food? The same is true of all non-physical assets. “That will never happen” is only true until it does.
Which is part of why some on here talk of stockpiling lead instead of gold. I’m not one of them, but that’s where the thought comes from – in a worst case, if you really need it, can you still use it?
Except that it’s the irresponsible who continue to breed, regardless of the economy, because the govt is their daddy in good times and bad. I didnt read the article but I would imagne it’s the middle classes who have been easing up on reproduction of pate.
Wish you were right though Kenji.
Much noise about nothing at all. The key sentence is this one.
“…if pre-recession fertility rates had been sustained.”
That’s the point. Fertility rates in all advanced industrial nations are falling on a year over year basis. Some of them, particularly France, Italy, Germany, have been falling for over a century. It has nothing to do with social or political conditions and everything to do with urbanization. ALL cities everywhere throughout history have had negative fertility rates. Children are not an economic advantage in urban living, whereas they are for rural agricultural families.
The huge underlying driver here is that urbanization has been increasing dramatically on a global basis particularly in the last 50 years. In 2005, for the first time in human history more than half of the human race lived in urban and not rural settings. And what should further be noted is that the rate of urbanization is accelerating. Hence an increasing rate of fertility decline on a year over year basis.
Yes, Ron, you’re wrong. The 60-year trend in Venezuela is simply a function of urbanization in that country as well. The abomination of the Chavez-Maduro tyranny is a temporary blip only. It takes a truly enormous event far beyond the scale of some local disaster to affect something as fundamental as fertility rates noticeably. Something on the scale of the Black Death or the 20th century global wars. Or urbanization to which I referred.
C-Miner: also wrong. Fertility rate has nothing to do with available food supplies. It affects infant mortality, a quite different statistic. Fertility only refers to live births, however long or short that may be.
TimR hit on the truth. The only thing sustaining population at current levels in advanced industrial nations is immigration. Those nations which have no immigration clearly demonstrate this. Japan has the lowest fertility rate in the world at just under 1. And its population is shrinking on a year over year basis. A fertility rate of 1 means the population halves with every generation. And Japan demonstrates this because there’s no immigration into Japan.
er, CGH, I said “For most cultures historically the problem isn’t the breeding, it’s the lack of food to keep those who are bred alive.” how is that different from what you said? They’re fertile, but infant mortality and young childhood mortality makes up for it.
Just combine GAI income with a flat tax, to simplify things: just take all you earn and give it to the State and we’ll give you “free” stuff back, and we’ll keep the change to “create jobs.” You know what, let’s cut out the middleman and keep all of it. No worries your life is handled, just do what we say.
While we’re at it, give us all your assets, they’re just vestiges of capitalism. They’ll be needed to ensure the health of the collective for your enlightened overlords to steal, I mean utilize wisely. If that bothers you, we can send you to camp for stimulating educational upgrading and comradeship.
It’s a good thing we eliminated cash transactions and made barter illegal. Now we can borrow more non money at non interest rates and thus deflate everyone to prosperity with inflation.
This bunch isn’t far removed from the autocrats and royalty of yesteryear, except for having no vision, ethics or consciences.
The fix is in folks – the media is pulling the same con they did here, appearing conscientious while incestuously prostituted to their fellow travelers, and close family members, where a statist boob is portrayed as a fresh face, and a corrupt status quo cabal sold as change from a false narrative.
My American friends – does this sound similar? Criminal Hillary, not failed billionaire Donald, has the necessary temperament for POTUS?
Witness Hillary the chameleon, open to discussion while not discussing; a fresh face but actually a seriously co-opted establishment figure; the proper temperament, as she tantrums her way though life utilizing her colossally bad judgment on security and international affairs, especially Libya, which she turned into a lethal gong show, which she wriggled out of through mendacity and obstinacy.
She intends to smoke it through on the idea only she is fit to lead, screw the FBI since Obama has confirmed her political cover, yelling over anyone who disagrees, with her CNN talking heads opining which telepathic Trumpian engram infected the otherwise peaceful minds of the violent do-gooders.
Remember if it sounds racist, then it is, unless a “progressive” says it. But, if it sounds criminal, that’s a right wing conspiracy. It was the same con here, where the majority of Canadians apparently appealed to their worst instincts on the media contrived & insignificant hijab issue, simply to discredit Harper.
We all know now Harper should have kicked butt, slapping back the cabin boy and sending him below deck without his supper. Trump knows what Harper didn’t. The media is your enemy, plain and simple. As for racist and charlatan and big meanie overall, the Dem script is in place for any GOP candidate.
Let’s stop pretending these folks give a hoot about democracy, or the environment, or the poor. It’s a power game pure and simple, and Lenin would be quite proud of this bunch, while Orwell would only shake his head at his disregarded warning to the people.
Unless you want the presidency of declines of liberty and prosperity, plus fake climate change profligacy, hopeless international judgment, along with pardons and hushed up criminal investigations, then the Donald is your only hope. Suck it up folks, get on board the Trump train. Nobody else will hold Clinton accountable for her gross misconduct. All GOPers are violent racists to progressivia, not just Trump.
Unless of course you want an administration that infects the political culture with corrupt statism, cover-up and mendacity. Don’t forget the CA appeal court ruling for concealed carry weapons and the deadlocked SCOC. Is that what Hillary means by reasonable regulation not infringing on the 2nd amendment? I’d love to see how she thinks that applies to other constitutional amendments.
A rather insightful pieceby Francis Menton on the ‘economic miracles’ as Naomi Klein’s fellow traveler David Sirota described the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and Lula’s Brazil. Not hard to see what’s coming for Ontario, Alberta and Trudeaupia.
Well worth the read.
http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2016/6/8/brazil-is-it-a-socialist-death-spiral
It was well worth the read, and I think almost everyone here would agree with what the author Francis Menton wrote.
Does what the author of the article below pertain to Canada? I think so. Just look at Ontario and Quebec. As soon as these two provinces run out of equalization payments or have killed their manufacturing base, they will go down like the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Venezuela, and take the rest of Canada with them. Like Margaret Thatcher said, “Socialism work great until they run out of other people’s money”.
On careful reading, you’re right, the two statements are not different, and we are both saying the same thing. Both of us are making a distinction between fertility and infant mortality. I retract my statement of you being in error.
The fact is that the cost of family formation has been perpetually going up. One can cite urbanization as a factor, but during the post-WW2 economic boom there was an increase in fertility as well.
If you need a two income household to sustain a mortgage, then it’s no wonder that having more than 1-2 children will be less of a priority.
Those charlatans who push for immigration to keep up the current consumer culture ponzi scheme going never deign to consider that if there was less population growth from immigration then the competition for jobs would be less fierce and the cost of housing would naturally go down. Then as a result, fertility among the native stock population would naturally increase (much easier to have a baby if you can afford to sustain a mortgage and pay the bills with the father earning the money while the mother stays at home).
I am entertained by the certainty of your argument, although it IS a rather broad generalization. There are multiple factors driving the reproduction rates of modern societies. However, in America, the breeding rates of Mexicans, Muzzlimms, Mormons, and Catholics FAR exceed all others … regardless of the zoning density where they live. The “family farm” is all but completely gone from the face of the earth. Yet, Catholics, Muzzlims, and Mormons … are all breeding “for their God” … and in the case of Muzzies … for explosive devices.
Ron,
You are completely wrong 🙂
Two of the largest, fastest growing economies in the world – India and China. The former’s TFR has dropped to 2.5 and the economy has boomed. China has had a 1 child per family for (how many decades now?) and it’s economy grows 3-4 times faster than those of Western Countries. Russia has low TFR and a declining population but when the price of oil was booming, so was the economy.
The world is not deflating, it’s just returning to a more natural growth rate, one that went on steroids from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Low interest rates, low returns on investments (4%) – these are common in history. Making a fortune off compound interest is not normal.
The problem with Venezuela is government corruption, not a declining birth rate.
The highest TFR’s are in Africa. The worst economies in the world are located in….
“The “family farm” is all but completely gone from the face of the earth.”
In the advanced industrial world, yes. Rural populations now account for less than 5% of total national populations. And modern farming is heavily mechanized, substituting machines for labour. In the third world, farming is still very much subsistence and dependent upon child labour. Hence children are an economic asset for them were they are not here.
There are indeed multiple factors affecting fertility as you suggest, but some of them are far larger in effect than others. Urbanization is the big elephant in the room and has been so for nearly two centuries.
steve, do you understand “logarithmic”
And the so called “booming economies” via $Trillions of dollars in gov’t debt to try and debase the currency in order to induce inflation is … sustainable ?? There is a difference between an economy that is in an inflationary mode because of strong demand and inflation that is induced through money printing. A BIG difference. The country with the fastest dropping population?? Japan. The country with the highest per capita gov’t debt?? Japan. The country with the most sustained deflation over the last two decades?? Japan.
[ The Chinese authorities don’t have a deflation problem as measured by their CPI. They do have one as measured by their PPI, which has been falling on a y/y basis for the past 51 months through May. They have been all too successful at pumping lots of credit through their banking system in the economy. Perversely, rather than fueling demand, much of it has financed more deflationary capacity expansion. China actually stands out as the one country where deflationary pressures may very well lead to lots of debt defaults and a severe downturn. However, easy money is exacerbating the problem rather than ameliorating it. Let’s dive into the widely feared sea of deflation and see what we can see:]
[ Inflation remains around zero. As shown above, Japan has had more durable goods deflation than other countries, and the least inflation in nondurables and services. In Japan’s case, weak demand certainly has contributed to overall deflationary pressures. Much of that can be attributed to the rapidly aging demographics of the country. There’s nothing the BOJ can do about that.]
http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/markets/articles/2523Deflation-2523Dollar-2523Economy/6/10/2016/id/57363
nature will take care of any excess population, that is a given.