Demographics Is Destiny
The Market Ticker - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Login or register to improve your experience
Main Navigation
Sarah's Resources You Should See
Full-Text Search & Archives
Leverage, the book
Legal Disclaimer

The content on this site is provided without any warranty, express or implied. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and may contain errors or omissions. For investment, legal or other professional advice specific to your situation contact a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.

NO MATERIAL HERE CONSTITUTES "INVESTMENT ADVICE" NOR IS IT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO STOCKS, OPTIONS, BONDS OR FUTURES.

Actions you undertake as a consequence of any analysis, opinion or advertisement on this site are your sole responsibility; author(s) may have positions in securities or firms mentioned and have no duty to disclose same.

Market charts, when present, used with permission of TD Ameritrade/ThinkOrSwim Inc. Neither TD Ameritrade or ThinkOrSwim have reviewed, approved or disapproved any content herein.

The Market Ticker content may be sent unmodified to lawmakers via print or electronic means or excerpted online for non-commercial purposes provided full attribution is given and the original article source is linked to. Please contact Karl Denninger for reprint permission in other media, to republish full articles, or for any commercial use (which includes any site where advertising is displayed.)

Submissions or tips on matters of economic or political interest may be sent "over the transom" to The Editor at any time. To be considered for publication your submission must be complete (NOT a "pitch"), include full and correct contact information and be related to an economic or political matter of the day. Pitch emails missing the above will be silently deleted. All submissions become the property of The Market Ticker.

Considering sending spam? Read this first.

2023-11-06 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Macro Factors , 1330 references Ignore this thread
Demographics Is Destiny *
[Comments enabled]

There is a collapse coming.

We can either try to mitigate it or not.

Either way its going to be bad, but if we do nothing -- or worse, do more destructive things or continue those we're doing now, it will be catastrophic.

Its simply the mathematics of the problem; at a 1.6 fertility rate (when 2.0x is required) in 20 years you're in trouble, and in 40 you're in really, really serious trouble.

No, you can't fix it with immigration. That's a trope and it doesn't work because if the situation that led to it is still present bringing in more, new people simply result in them making the same decisions in a generation or two and you've accomplished nothing.

You have to change the paradigm in a way that reverses the disincentives and threats.

It takes a full generation before what you do will bear fruit.  Why?  Because that's how long it takes for the generation growing up now to reach adulthood and have a good childhood themselves, and thus want to have children.

Musk is crowing about screwing like a rabbithe has the analysis correct but he's one successful sperm in a vagina and thus the odds of him personally making a difference, even if his mantra was to catch fire with every other billionaire, is zero.  He'd do a lot more for humanity if he managed to get every such billionaire to tell the government of the United States to stop importing people via both illegal immigration and H1b/H2 visas and shut down all deficit spending, collapsing both asset prices and the cost of living or else he and the rest of the billionaires will take their money and production to a nation that does.

Of course he won't do that because his little fiefdom and billions requires said outside people and schemes, all of which are a disincentive for ordinary folks to have kids as those "imported" bodies compete for jobs, drive up housing costs by presenting additional demand for same and slam downward wages -- and every one of those actions makes the calculation for all thinking people of ordinary intelligence and gifts, when it comes to the decision to have kids, worse.

But for those things he wouldn't have any money at all -- and he knows it.

Let's face facts folks: Nobody who you want to have children will bring said children into a world where they believe said kids will get screwed.

That doesn't mean kids won't come anyway; they will, for some.  Some adults don't care what happens to their offspring, some actually use them as meal tickets and more.  Some people are also always going to be eternally optimistic and therefore none of this will factor into their decisions.  And some will have "accidents" and for personal or religious reasons decide to bear and attempt to raise said kids.  But none of that changes the basic facts: People who are of decently-competent intellect and of good character, in a world of technology where one can choose when and whether to reproduce, will only do so voluntarily if they believe it makes sense AND their offspring will get a fair shake.

Destroying the fiscal health of the nation by emitting 8% of GDP in unbacked credit via deficit spending is the exact opposite of such.  Simple mathematics tells us that this results in you losing half your standard of living in less than ten years and it takes about 20 years to decide to have a kid, have said kid and raise him or her to adulthood.  Run those fiscal deficits and you've told all the thinking adults that child's standard of living, when they reach adulthood, will be one quarter of yours today assuming your children are as competent and intelligent as you are.

Would anyone who has two IQ points to rub together have children in that situation, when the options facing said kid 20 years hence are privation to this degree or civil war (and the attendant risk of being dead!) to overthrow said government?

NO.

Importing millions of unskilled workers who then drop kids who have parents with no skills, and thus no realistic means of learning much from said parents yet are citizens in the gambit to cheapen labor screws the next two generations sequentially.  Oh sure, in two generations or so those kids having their own kids will "outgrow" that but then they are able to compute the same odds and they won't have children either!  Think I'm wrong?  The data says I'm not; within two generations those who were the children of illegals stop having lots of babies too and its for the same reason, I'll wager: They're convinced their children will get screwed and have one quarter of THEIR standard of living -- and they remember living eight to a one bedroom apartment!

You think all those glorious "vacation venues" bringing in H2 workers, and all those "tech" places with H1bs, mean parents have a great experience for their kids at lower cost?  Maybe, but in addition they have seen the destruction it wreaks on said kids.  Please explain how many of Americans you saw of college age working scooping ice cream or similar this summer to make enough money to go to college in the fall.  Zero -- or nearly so -- right?  That's what I saw all over the country.  Now if I'm 20, and thinking about making some kids, where are my kids going to be in 20 years?  Unable to get a summer job and unable to afford college too.  Many see this, keep their pants on and both Trojan and the birth control pill companies keep having decent quarterly reports.

Good jobs with nice pay tend to be concentrated around cities.  How's Chicago doing these days?  Yeah, getting mugged while walking around North Michigan Avenue (assuming you don't get shot, which is of course even worse) is great.  Do you want to expose children you might have to that risk?  Hmmmm..... probably not.  Oh, and speaking of which how are you going to afford a place to live with said kids when the cost of housing and property taxes have skyrocketed by more than double over the last decade or so -- and there's a new round of screwing headed for you in this upcoming year's bill, all so you can be a "sanctuary" for a bunch of Venezuelan fighting-age men who illegally came to the US!  All of this is very conducive to choosing to bear children, right?  I mean its not like you're going to have to pay those property taxes at an ever-escalating rate for the next 20 years if you choose to have kids, right?  Oh, wait.... you are!

Think about the process of bearing said kid as a microcosm of the hosing you may well get on an entirely-arbitrary and 100% out of your control basis.  You (or your wife if you're a guy) is facing an unknowable bill from the hospital for having said kid and you will get GRILLED about whether you own a car seat before the child is even toweled clean!  Answer "wrong" and CPS gets called and crawls up your backside.  Oh, and they will jab said newborn before you can object yet if what they give that kid seriously screws him or her they're immune from being sued over if it and you are forced to pay that bill too.  That's the first of seventy such immunizations you must give to said child or they cannot go to school at all, the manufacturer and the doctor are absolutely immune from liability if said drug seriously injures or kills your child and of course you get the bill and possibly a lifetime of needing to care for and support said child if that injury occurs.  If something goes wrong during birth you are looking at an instant six-figure bill and the possibility of being financially ruined; if you already have a kid that event will wreck their life too.  Yes, the risk of injuries or worse is always part of having children and we all know that, but this is a thumb on the scale and a demand that you accept the risk of someone else screwing up and then abusing you financially because they can -- not because you did something stupid or accepted a reasonable cost for what was bad luck came your way.  Does that put a thumb on the scale when it comes to your decision to have the child in the first place?

Said child gets to be about six and its time for school.  You've been paying property taxes funding said schools all along except..... the kids in said schools are not managing to learn anything.  This isn't new, by the way -- in the 1990s more than eight out of ten who came to try to get a job at MCSNet, all holding High School diplomas or better, couldn't perform basic arithmetic with a paper and pencil nor write a simple basic English language business letter explaining that a customer had to pay their bill to restore their service.  I gave all applicants those two basic tests and kept all of them in a large file cabinet as it was the only reasonable way to guard against being unjustly accused of "discrimination."  What is the forward earnings capacity of an 18 year old who can't do both of those things -- other than gang-banging related criminal activity, of course.  Blame this on whatever you'd like but the facts are what they are, so your options are to suck it up and take the risk that your child fails to learn or you pay twice -- once in the property taxes and then again for private education.  Meanwhile your neighbor is a school teacher who gets paid and has a nice house to live in irrespective of the fact that you can't trust your kid to actually learn anything in that classroom and whether its because she can't kick out the three little monsters who like to throw chairs in class or that she herself can't make change for a $20 doesn't matter -- she gets paid anyway and so does everyone else who works there even though they repeatedly fail to teach anyone anything at all.

Then you think about the child getting older.  He or she is rather bright and would perhaps like a college education.  You see the bills pile up on those who are there now, and the growth of that price over the last 20 years.  You see $100,000 or more in debt larded up on someone who studies gender or black history and a "professor" who claims that capitalism is horrible -- while pulling down a six-figure salary and forcing your child to pay the next kid over's tuition in Calculus class because you, not your child, have more money than his parents do.  You think "oh, my kid is a math whiz and will study programming" which sounded great 20+ years ago but then you remember the many H1bs that multiple large firms brought in to replace all of their American citizen programmers, forcing said Americans to train their replacements before being fired in order to get any severance at all!  Thus that $100,000 taken on in debt to go to college, you realize, can be rendered worthless by said corporations even if your kid makes good choices as soon as someone from India will do the work for less money.  This wild escalation in the cost of an education is not by random luck either, which would be a risk everyone has to take -- three decades ago there was no Internet and colleges were the only real place you could learn a lot of things.  Today anyone can learn anything from literally anywhere with nothing more than a $50 cellphone, a $200 laptop and $50/month for Internet service so why has the cost of learning and proving it at a college level of competence gone up by five or more times in the last 30 or so years instead of costing almost nothing to simply take a set of proctored tests and prove competenceReality is that all of this is due to the deliberate policies and actions of universities, governments and corporations which will screw your child without any possibility of redress when he or she grows up -- and there is no evidence that it is slowing down or will be stopped.

You buy another box of Trojans.

You walk into the grocery store and see a single woman with four kids, no Dad, and she whips out her EBT card at the checkout.  She's got a nicer car than you do and she pays nothing for her residence, nor for her phone and Internet service -- all because she dropped four kids with no father she'll name.  Of course there is a father, probably a different one for each kid.  She gamed the system by using children as an ATM machine.  Even worse the kids are all obese and the cart is full of sugared soda and Doritos, all of which you are being taxed to pay for and she's probably on six prescription drugs which you're paying for too.  You contemplate that your skin is the wrong color to get away with that and you recognize that children are best-served by having two parents in the home but actually striving to provide the best possible environment for children to be born into and thrive means you won't get the EBT, free housing, free medical care or free phone and Internet service and in addition you have been forced to pay for her four births, all the economic tyranny imposed by your local hospital on society for each on top of everything else and thus you don't have the money to put extra groceries in your cart to reasonably feed even one child.

You buy two more boxes of Trojans and your girlfriend renews her birth control prescription just to be sure.

Never mind the sociological factors -- like the quality of the dating pool due to self-inflicted personal health damage that those on both sexes have inflicted on themselves.  In the extreme we have young people being encouraged to take drugs or undergo surgeries that are likely or even guaranteed to permanently destroy their fertility and adult sexual function, but it hardly beings or ends there; that's just an extreme example but one that we're all expected to support and acknowledge as "normal" and "good."  If you don't "affirm" someone ruining their capacity to ever have an ordinary adult sexual relationship even before they reach adulthood and thus can possibly contemplate what they're giving up (and produce children, I remind you), in many cases while forcing the costs on either their parents or society as a whole you're called a bigot.

Look back at the last three years and I'll give you just one tiny example I can personally cite.  On Halloween night in 2020 a neighborhood girl I'd seen around here, I would guess 10 years of age, came up trick-or-treating.  She had a mask in her hand and asked me (unmasked, handing out candy on the porch -- better than half the houses were dark with the people cowering in fear inside!) "Sir, you're not scared of me?"  I told her "Not in the least; my health is my business and, if it fails me that's my issue."  Her reply back to me?  "Its all bullshit."  Realize that she was being force-masked in school here in this county, in a "red state" and county that is so red you're wasting your time running as a Democrat, for nearly two years and the people who did it to her, six years from now when she reaches adulthood, will still not have lost a thing.  Some of those in higher office and thus in position to make policy for HER KIDS will likely have been the very teachers and school administrators who forced this ignobility on her; some of them even got commendations for bravery.  Will her knowledge of this and the screwing she personally took with such mandates by those very same people make her more or less-likely to have kids as an adult and will she assume that if she has children her kids are likely to get screwed in the same sort of way or even worse?

What could reverse that belief?  We might decide to hold those people who did all of that accountable by ejecting them from public office and any seat of power on a permanent basis -- or even jailing them and confiscating their assets along with passing iron-clad laws prohibiting anything of the sort with a private right of enforcement.  In other words we could give that formerly-screwed kid and now adult woman confidence her kids will not be screwed as she was without warning or cause.  We haven't and won't do any of that so there will be another generation of lower birth rates.  This outcome in another five or six years is our responsibility as the adults of today because we're not about to hold anyone accountable for those last three years!

Now add to this that there are two groups of politicians in "high office": Those who are geriatric and thus will be dead before the really bad outcomes from their policies occur and those who are narcissists and thus don't care if you and your kids get hosed as they believe they'll be immune from the bad effects even though they know you and yours won't.  If you think that's just a lawmaker thing you're dead wrong; my own father, who was a CPA and thus knew darn well what he was advocating and voting for and what it would mean, ran that crap on me during Thanksgiving one year while his grand-daughter was still at the age of crawling around on his living room carpet.  I was disgusted enough to get up from the table, gather our things, along with my kid, and immediately drove a few hours to get back home.

I could go on for hours with this but I think you get the point.  People don't choose to have fewer or no children because "that's how it is" as technology improves.  Technological improvement adds choice but society molds opinions and incentives -- for good or bad, like it or not.

People make the decision to not have children not because they're "selfish" but rather on an entirely-rational basis because they look back at their childhood for the baseline and then forward in time and what they see is not improvement but impoverishment, not prosperity but privation, forced compliance and costs shoved upon them while the mandating parties are immune from consequence even when they're later proved wrong or worse, someone is injured or killed, rampant illegal immigration and destruction of the common person's standard of living without boundary along with a documented history of forcing the voluntary costs taken by others down their throats along with myriad scams across the board.  When projected forward 20 years they recognize that any child they produce today is highly likely to be screwed blind and has a very low probability of having a good life, say much less a better one than they had.

Indeed if they judge that their childhood sucked they may well expect their kids' childhoods to suck worse and nobody who actually cares about a child they're contemplating bringing into the world voluntarily signs them up for that.

The people you want to bring children into the world are those who value children and have reason to believe their children will have at least as a good a life as they grew up with and enjoy now, with hope for even better, never mind a belief that their kids will have a fair shake and rational odds of success if they choose to apply themselves.

All of the policies of the last few decades of both government and industry have demonstrated beyond doubt that none of this is likely to be true and thus only those who don't give a wet crap about their children's future, or are so rich they believe they can guarantee it even if everyone else has their standard of living go straight to Hell, choose to reproduce.

Then there's the inescapable fact that a woman has a window for fertility that peaks in her late teens and early 20s.  By age 30 fertility is on the decline and by the time she's 35 that decline becomes precipitous; a woman who wants more than one child and is 35 is odds-off to be able to have both, and by 40 you may as well forget it entirely.  Leave aside the fact that most 55 year old people of either sex today can't possibly keep up with a teen, especially when they have an extra 100+lbs on their body and the risk of death due to said lifestyle choices before you can raise said child to adulthood begins to rise at an unacceptable rate as you pass your 50th birthday.  That, in turn, means that no, you can't wait another 5 or 10 years to fix this stuff because the women currently of child-bearing age won't be able to have children by then and if we don't cut the "healthy at any size" and "destroy your fertility on purpose by surgery or drugs" crazy nonsense today too many of those women who are of reproductive age at that point will be incapable of bearing children anyway.

That's why we're where we are, and if we don't stop it now in another 20 years it won't matter because for those who today are in their 40s and 50s, say much less older (many of the folks in my bracket will already be dead) there won't be anyone to pay the taxes that keep the government operating, there won't be any federal money for health care subsidization (e.g. Medicare) and there won't be anyone willing to wipe your butt when you can't do it anymore on your own.

Go to responses (registration required to post)
 



 
Comments on Demographics Is Destiny
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 6  First123456Last
Orangecrush 238 posts, incept 2018-09-29
2023-11-06 08:29:45

If I had it all to do over again I would have zero children. I have learned much about myself and the world (far too late) to undo my actions, but with a time machine I would have acted entirely different.

Our first child was born in the "golden days" of 1989. If I could have foreseen what a crap sandwich the US and the world was going to be by 2023 I never would have reproduced.

I can't blame anyone with common sense who chooses to not have kids at this point. For those brave souls still having kids in 2023 they are trying to culturally and financially swim upstream from the bottom of Niagara Falls.
Cmoledor 3k posts, incept 2021-04-13
2023-11-06 08:29:51

Hows that saying go? Civilization was nice? Yeah. Much to ponder in this ticker. Except the people who really need to ponder this wont.

----------
The whole world is one big fucking scam

God will NOT help anyone. Prayer is only worthwhile as a boost to personal fortitude just prior to what needs to be done. KD 10/05/2023
Thelazer 1k posts, incept 2009-05-11
2023-11-06 08:30:01

If I did NOT already have kids, I'd be in the bucket of fuck population growth.

One thing is for sure, when I look around these day's I'm quite jelouse of the DINK's and singles out there. Living there best life, hooking up, bonking anyone and everyone and party'ing. All while I've got to worry about if my kid's are going to make it to the bus stop on time.

Perhaps it's the best way, we can't fix humanity.
Better for it to die out.
Ramrod1776 34 posts, incept 2014-08-15
2023-11-06 08:55:04

This discussion reminds me of a scene from True Detective....Rust Chole (Matthew McConaughey) explains his pessimistic world-view concluding that men and women should agree that reproduction is futile and join hands as they march toward extinction.

It is about the money/resources and I frankly didn't get that when I heard about Musk's views. If we plan on going extinct, we better damn well back off on all the projects that the future is asked to pay for. Down-size now!

Here in the real world, Louisville, KY schools have faced the second consecutive day of bus drivers calling in sick to protest the unsafe work environment caused by a refusal by administration to discipline rowdy students. We need to admit the root of this problem and fix it rather than trying to paper over the mess.

One quarter of drivers out....this will be a wasted instructional day....as if anything useful would occur anyway!
Russell 30 posts, incept 2022-02-27
2023-11-06 08:56:16

Learned this morning public schools are closed Monday and Tuesday for Election Break. I simply can not wait for the coming furloughs.
Shadowmask 6k posts, incept 2021-05-24
2023-11-06 09:02:47

I wanted kids but it never worked out.

Not the worst thing in today's environment. Still be nice having them though.

The DINKs are going broke slower, they'll get there.

----------
The learning curve for being dead is steep, but everyone gets it down pat on the first go usually.--Thystra, March 28, 2023
Radiosity 1k posts, incept 2009-03-05
2023-11-06 09:05:35

"simply result in them making the same decisions in a generation or two and you've accomplished nothing."

Suppose that depends. If your goal is replacement of the native population, then I can't really say you achieved nothing.

----------
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Tickerguy 200k posts, incept 2007-06-26
2023-11-06 09:05:54

But then said "new natives" eat you.

Oh, you think not?

Well, how's that working out over there?

----------
"Anyone wearing a mask will be presumed to be intending armed robbery and immediately shot in the face. Govern yourself accordingly."
Ndp 187 posts, incept 2021-04-21
2023-11-06 09:27:10

On the bright side, think of how much this demographic shift will reduce greenhouse gasses! The planet will cool, endangered species will flourish, polar bears will roam free, and mother earth will shine forth in radiant beauty. In the end, isn't that what we all really want?
Joancrawford 855 posts, incept 2013-10-14
2023-11-06 09:27:18

It's easier to understand our current situation when one realizes the people controlling this shit show are utterly and completely bat-shit crazy. Perhaps it's been this way for decades, I don't know and frankly don't care.

I grew up in the '70s and that was enough for me to get what my best friend said to me at the time when I lamented the sad state of the world (circa 1973), "Joan, NOBODY cares!" and he good naturedly laughed at my melancholy and introspection.

And as fucked up as things were back then, they didn't hold a candle to the wild-eyed perversity we see around us today. Indeed, why bring a child into the world when it's not remotely possible to provide the standard of living i enjoyed as a child?

Consider that my family was middle class. My dad was the wage earner who provided an upper middle class life for his wife and four children. We were not rich, but we had a summer house at the beach-an old Victorian chopped up into 4 apartments which he and my mom rented out weekly, or ideally, for the entire season. My mom dutifully kept the place up and, although hiring and keeping a maid to help clean the apartments after tenants moved out was a challenge, she managed to do it.

My dad was fairly astute when it came to property, and he purchased other rental properties as well. He was not wealthy but held a fairly high position in the State Department, managing to provide a Catholic school education for 3 out of 4 of us-the public school system sucked even back then.

Today, the price of that summer house we owned is well over two million dollars. Our primary house in Arlington was just sold for over $800K. The Catholic high school I attended has a tuition of around $20k per year-that's BEFORE you even THINK about college.

How do you make those numbers work today? Answer-You can't. No surprise as to why I chose to be childless, despite earning a middle class wage myself in my working career. My folks grew up in the Depression/WW2 era, so it pretty much went without saying that even if they were royal fuck ups, their kids would STILL have it better than they did. Today? Not so much.

I don't see any answers, indeed, not even a rational discussion of these matters. To suggest some folks become responsible, get married BEFORE shitting out some kids, try to focus on becoming educated and working on self-control and you get tagged "RAYCISS!", or even more comically, "WHITE PRIVILEDGED!"

No, the current strategy seems to be a Thelma and Louise one - floor the gas as you head toward the Grand Canyon. We are ruled by infantile, selfish, spineless, narcissists who focus on their own gratification and they shit out assholes EXACTLY like themselves-Hunter Biden, anyone?

My advise to smart, like minded young people today would be to live off grid as much as possible. That means living a frugal existence, home-schooling children you choose to have, and raising them to be self-sufficient. That also means, NO television (gasp!), judicial, supervised internet access for the kids. Build small communities with like minded people who share your values. Don't rely on government for anything. Shop thrift stores when you need clothes and contribute to local food banks if you can afford to do so.

Nobody is coming to save us. As my wise friend told me more than 50 years ago, NOBODY cares.

----------
Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.-Dorothy Parker

Boys don't make passes at girls with fat asses.-slightly modified DP

Reason: spelling
Mjeff87 3k posts, incept 2021-11-22
2023-11-06 09:28:32

My mother had six miscarriages. My brother who just passed away was her first, and I was her last. When I carried to term she decided to not temp fate anymore. I could have had seven brothers/sisters but that didn't work out. My brother had one child, a girl who is a married lesbian and my wife and I decided back when we were dating that neither of us wanted to have any kids. That in fact was one of the major reasons we decided to marry each other. My family name ends with me. Of all my grade/high school friends, only three of them had any kids. Two of them had two boys and another one boy. Another friend desperately wanted to have kids, he would have been a terrific father but his (now divorced) wife miscarried as well and they quit trying. And another funny thing, my wife and I are the only couple that didn't divorce and/or remarry out of about ten other couples. Funny that.

@Russell, I did also notice a complete lack of kids this morning as I was getting ready for work. The road directly in front of my house is one of the main busstops in the neighborhood, so it's easy to tell if there's no school. I couldn't believe the schools around here are closed today. Ridiculous.


----------
Si Vis Pacem, para Bellum

You'll get less than you desire, but more than you deserve
Iou 1k posts, incept 2009-03-16
2023-11-06 09:48:39

This country won't make it for another 40 years. 2024 is right around the corner.
smiley

----------
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-11-06 10:13:23

For the past 50 plus years we've been told (and lectured to) about how overpopulation was going to destroy the world, and it did not. I think it the same for the baby bust. Both are nothing sandwiches. The other reason why I think so is Japan. Japan had this level of fertility 30 years ago when I lived there. Yet today their electricity is still on, their utilities are stable, and Tokyo is remarkably affordable to live in, even central Tokyo. Indeed, the area of typical apartment has more than doubled since I lived there and they no longer have "pushers" at the major train stations like Ueno. I have not been there since 2005. But my wife has been back since then, last time in 2017. She says its better than it was in the 90's.

----------
Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-11-06 10:13:50

Aaron Clary (Cappy) says the baby bust is no problem either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B87sr4bB....

----------
Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!
Tickerguy 200k posts, incept 2007-06-26
2023-11-06 10:15:52

Well the bust itself isn't the problem.

The problem is the policies that government is employing here. Japan did not throw open their borders nor hand out unlimited funds to anyone who wanted to come across said open borders.

We have and that's the problem.

The bust is a function of policy. If policy changes then yes, there will be decline in population for a while, but it will stabilize because without the finger on the scale it will make sense again. Perhaps not immediately, but that's ok.

But you have to stop the policy otherwise the decline in working-capable and willing population into the ramp in handouts collapses the government, and when it goes so does civil order.

----------
"Anyone wearing a mask will be presumed to be intending armed robbery and immediately shot in the face. Govern yourself accordingly."
Dingleberry 887 posts, incept 2011-11-06
2023-11-06 10:48:38

A complex issue for sure, but between the economy, feminism, and society plunging headlong into the moral abyss.....the decline is baked into the cake. And picking up speed.

Enjoy your modern, post-western/Christian, humanist utopia.

It should be just peachy.

Skybluepink 978 posts, incept 2007-10-20
2023-11-06 10:49:27

Grand slam Karl. The vaccine thing is why we stopped at one kid 20 years ago. We didn't have family support available to come stay with a hypothetical newborn while we were at the hospital overnight with our actual seizing toddler. The thought of one of us staying home, while the other was at the hospital, was a no go for us. So, one and done. Our girl prefers dogs to "crotch goblins" so that's the end of our line. So be it. I have 3 similar stories within my small group of friends and family friends.
Ptjim 434 posts, incept 2013-06-26
2023-11-06 10:50:13

For a deep dive into international demographic and economic analysis and predictions, I can recommend Peter Zeihan's books (there are four now). His first, published in 2014 I believe as Russia grabbed Crimea, had as aside prediction that Russia would invade the whole of Ukraine by the end of 2022 at the latest, based almost solely on the demographics of the Russian population and driven by a cultural desire to restore the Soviet borders to deter future invasions - Ukraine isn't the goal, as he puts it "Ukraine is on the WAY to the goals."

Yeah, he seems to be the hot ticket on the lecture circuit these days, but I've been reading his stuff for a while and he makes a lot of good points if you assume his sourced data is accurate. As Karl also said above, "it takes 18 years to grow an 18-year-old" so deciding to change now would still take a while. But politicians don't look forward 18 months, much less years, when it comes to their own benefit.

Zeihan's making the most of a hot cycle in his career; he has some very watchable short videos on current events almost daily on YouTube from his own home as well as from longer presentations to others in business and government; the one to the Eisenhower School in DC (a poorly-lit hotel room Zoom call, but the content is excellent) is a good one.

----------
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. - The Declaration of Independence

Reason: added 2014 prediction note, fixed location of Zoom video
Radiosity 1k posts, incept 2009-03-05
2023-11-06 10:58:35

@Tickerguy "But then said "new natives" eat you."

Yep, which is of course always the part they gloss over or ignore in their plans. "Oh, we want an easily-controlled brown mush instead of all these inconvenient white people, let's import millions of Africans and Muslims!"

Uh-huh. Who and what are you going to use to control them? The latter especially, who are happy to accept free shit being thrown at them, but will always be Muslims first, and they ain't going to tolerate Globalist bullshit being imposed on them after all the free shit dries up. They'll just take over using their superior numbers and willingness to fight/kill.

We're not dealing with sane or rational people when it comes to Globalist types :/

----------
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Shadowmask 6k posts, incept 2021-05-24
2023-11-06 11:16:03

@skybluepink that's really sad that there were no grandparents available to look after their grandbaby. I've heard the same thing from my friends. And sometimes it's because Grandma is too busy living her best life to spare a week to help out with the new family member!

----------
The learning curve for being dead is steep, but everyone gets it down pat on the first go usually.--Thystra, March 28, 2023
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-11-06 11:16:25

Karl, having read your post carefully, I agree 100% with everything you say in it. You are the only person on the "pro-natal" side who has carefully spelt out everything that is screwed up with regards to having kids today. Jonathan Last in his book "What to Expect When No One is Expecting" is a relatively close second.

If we want to encourage people to have kids, we need to remedy every issue you discuss in your post. Otherwise, no game at all. My irritation with the pro-natalists ranting and raving about the coming population decline is because of their failure to address the issues you mention, as well as the fact that it requires about a million dollars to raise each kid today. The indisputable reality today is that having kids before age 30 and/or not having your financial ducks in a row is the perfect recipe for lifetime financial penury. This is reality. Deal with it rather than deny it. It is this reality that the "pro-natal" conservatives are in total denial of. This, of course, means that people like me will tune them out as being in dreamland as the liberal-left.

----------
Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!
Boredfree 2k posts, incept 2021-09-15
2023-11-06 11:17:01

In the early Eighties when I was between the age of 10-12 y.o. my mother convinced the school district I was 'gifted' and I had a high enough IQ to partake of a special gifted student weekend camp held at the community College.

The final experience for the weekend event was a lesson about world population. The organizers created a political map of the world on the massive gym floor using masking tape.

As we entered the gym we were handed a slip of paper with a region or nation and told to go and stand in the area of the gym the paper referred to. Lucky for me a kid traded me his Australia paper for my Asia paper.

When everyone was in the gym and arranged into their areas the staff began passing out cookies representing the reletive wealth of each nation.

Trading places worked out very well for me. We had plenty of elbow room on our continent; the Asians were crowded.
Australians had three cookies each. The Asians as a whole received very few cookies which were then split amongst the kids. Crumbs are what they ate.

The American group received eight cookies per kid and also had plenty of room.

After the organizers explained population growth, GDP, ect they had the entire population go stand in Texas, which we were able to do, barely. We were physically smashed together with the kids on the perimeter forced to hold onto each other. It was unpleasant, but it was a example of the discomfort overpopulation brings.

This exercise cemented my desire to never breed. Unfortunately, the example was lacking in accuracy. They should have had the populations of the groups who received few cookies come to places with a lot of cookies, and begin taking the cookies from those already there.

They could have chosen one percent of the kids to control the distribution of ninety percent of the cookies. This would have been more honest.
Maybe the organizers represented that one percent? They laid down the boarders and they handed out cookies and when they asked we moved to a new location.

We didn't choose them either, hmmm, I guess the exercise was far more accurate than I remembered.

As I said, this was the early Eighties in Northern California at a weekend camp for the 'gifted'. How many children were indoctrinated into hating their culture at such events that were paid for with tax dollars?

They might as well given us guns so we could shoot ourselves that weekend and been done with it. Instead we're dying from the cultural blood letting of a thousand cuts.

I doubt I would have been a good parent. I remembered too well the emotional baggage from my childhood and I'd hate to subject my progeny to the same(or worse).

We have a cultural death wish. Human life is just another commodity, one we must have in excess because of how little it's valued.

----------
The problem is most people want to point a finger rather than their thumb when dealing with challenges.
Flashy 24 posts, incept 2018-07-07
2023-11-06 11:28:23

Collapse early, avoid the rush.

I have no children and I can testify to the basic premise of the article, a really unpleasant childhood, and although as I made my way in the world and my fortunes changed significantly for the better, beyond my wildest dreams in fact, my mindset re becoming a father never changed because I always felt that society was always on the wrong path with little chance of it turning around.

If society was on the right path then I think my mindset would have changed, adversity and struggle would have made me a good father, I'm sure of that.

Where is the brighter future?

I don't know if at the very top of the pyramid the motivation is money / greed or something more sinister, but if it is sinister and these people think that they will avoid the consequences of societal collapse then they really are insane or delusional, as has been pointed out by our host.

Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-11-06 11:29:01

One more point. I appreciate that you talk reality on the issues of having kids and why people (like myself) don't have them, Karl. I just wish that the social conservative "pro-natal" people would address the issues you bring up, especially the fact that it costs nearly a million dollars to raise each kid.

I think the difference is that you actually want to solve the problem. Social conservatives, just like their liberal-left counterparts, are peddling an ideology (religion and ideology are interchangeable terms to me) and using the baby bust as the means to do so, just like the liberal-left use climate change to peddle their ideology.

----------
Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 6  First123456Last