The U.S. Economy's Big Baby Problem

The Atlantic ^ | MAR 5 2014 | DEREK THOMPSON

[MinorityRepublican]

Last September, the U.S. government announced that our birthrate fell to "another record low" in 2012, following a long, steady slide since the Baby Boom after World War II.

It goes without saying that, morally speaking, there's nothing wrong with this. It's natural, in a way. All over the world, birthrates tend to fall along with economic development, for numerous reasons including (a) the move away from a labor-intensive small-farm economy and (b) women's ascendance in the workforce, which uses time that used to be devoted to child-rearing. Families in richer countries tend to have fewer kids. In places like Japan and Western Europe, national populations are actually peaking.

[ClearCase_guy]

Golly. I wonder if abortion is a contributing factor ...

[Mastador1]

Gee I wonder how that could happen, with schools and the government trolling for women to not get married and throw away babies, along with pushing homosexual marriage which can never produce normal offspring.

[Oliviaforever]

The problem is the Birth Control Pill.

As soon as the Pill was introduced, birth rates plummet.

[DoughtyOne]

The group that better pull it’s collective head out and read the tea leaves, is the Caucasian. Unless it relishes the role of being a minority in the United States in short order, it better start raising a herd per family.

I am jesting to a certain extent, but this 1 to 2 kids per family idea, has really gotten us in trouble. Everyone else is pumping them out at the rate of five to ten per family.

Doesn’t take long to see where that puts us.

In short order, there won’t be one self determining nation on the planet for Caucasians.

Folks, that’s a very serious issue.

If you think things are upside down now, you just wait.

[ClearCase_guy]

Yes. I am a Protestant and I was not brought up to believe that contraception was bad. Abortion was bad, yes, but only Catholics thought contraception was bad. Well, I do not believe in contraception. It is bad. I no longer see any difference between abortion and contraception such as the pill. These things have done great moral and demographic evil.

[ConorMacNessa]

Of course, there's one group in which the birth rate is soaring - the Moslems. Their imams are clucking their tongues as they out-breed the infidel population.

Europe, as noted by many observers, is transmogrifying into Eurabia.

But the unrepentant hedonists in our benighted society continue to abort, euthanize and sodomize themselves into oblivion.

America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi!

O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their command.

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Oliviaforever]

From the Atlantic article. Two gay fathers!!!! It is like they are just trying to make us angry!!

[dr_lew]

... homosexual marriage which can never produce normal offspring ...

I shudder to think ...

[Mears]

“Everyone else is pumping them out at the rate of five to ten per family.”

---

I did my part,I had five. My kids aren’t following in my footsteps.

.

[A CA Guy]

Well Jesus H you-know-what...

First, you have about 90% of the births come through at least CA through welfare because the government pays for the births and the care.

The very wealthy can afford it, have 2-3 and care well for them.

The middle like me have one child or so because of limited means. My wife says she knows she will regret it but that we really can't afford another child. To raise another child. To pay triple Obamacare medical rates and so on.

Then we look at others on welfare and they are birthing them like breathing mints and it is all paid for by taxpayers. But IMO the breath mint parents are not all that responsible and don't live by the same common sense as we might.

Something is very wrong when the most responsible are not the ones growing the population IMO.

[Tzimisce]

If we’re going to scrape all our bills off onto the kids, I guess we’re going to need some kids....

[Pox]

Birth control is beside the point. Intelligent Americans have basically decided that they can only afford to properly raise 2 children, +/- 1, in the economy they live in. It's a conscious decision based solely on economics, period.

It is what they believe, not what is realistically possible from historical examples. I've been dealing with this reality from my own daughters over the last decade and no matter how much I advocate for them to have as many children as possible, the financial bottom line is their primary consideration.

[cherry]

don't you know that men don't want to be tied down in marriage?....don't you know that many young men consider their sex lives to be sitting infront of their computers doing God only know what?.....that video games pass for competition?.....

instead of fixing cars, or fishing, or hunting, or chasing girls, our young men sleep with their computers and their playstations....

its so pathetic....

women to blame too.....too much silly shallow kardashians in their lives...

the world belongs to those that populate.....

[Sequoyah101]

Five per family? What family?

Maybe 5 to 8 per baby momma or whatever she is called. More to become unproductive dependents of workers.

If it becomes a competition for procreation they win, we lose. The difference is responsibility.

The End

[Vince Ferrer]

This is the big issue for the next generation. The developed world's birth rate is falling, and there is nothing right now that indicates it will get up above replacement level. Having a falling population will cause an cascading economic collapse, where people will not want to have children, which will continue the collapse, all at a time when we are least prepared to deal with it.

The same thing happened to Rome.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If a capitalist economy needs an ever-increasing population in order to remain solvent, then it must be a form of Ponzi scheme.

But capitalism isn't a Ponzi scheme, so we don't need an ever-increasing population.

What's with all the Marxism? Marx was the one that claimed that capitalists depended on ever-expanding markets in order to exploit and succeed. The only other people that talk about the need for population to grow are the current set of companies trying to sell as much stuff as they can. If they can somehow convince governments to spend taxpayer money to create more consumers for them free of charge then they're all for that.

Those who demand that we grow our population will be more likely to start siding with the open borders crowd, i.e. better to have brown babies than no babies at all.

Let people be people and make their own free decisions. My understanding is that religiously minded folks tend to have more kids than liberal agnostics and atheists. So over time there will be more religious folks than agnostics or atheists. Hopefully there will be a fair share of Christians and Jews in the religious mix. My understanding is that Amish communities are growing like gangbusters so there will at least be that group of Christians for the Muslims to have to deal with.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Big-Baby is a problem...

[umgud]

I produced four great kids and they have made eleven grandkids and ole grandpa here is looking at my first two great grandkids pretty soon.

[stanne]

“...It’s natural, in a way. All over the world, birthrates tend to fall along with economic...”

Well...yeah. And then there’s contraception and birth control, abortion, and you know, burning babies for fuel and all.