Why Having Kids Is Not An Unambiguous Investment In Happiness - Yet More Reasons To Ignore Economists' Pleas To Make Babies

The face of a whiny infant screaming his head off.   And a major reason why many of us chose to never have these creatures.

There is a good reason why most physical scientists consider the majority of economists to be blockheads and simpletons: they don't use rational or testable models. One of the most irritating aspects of market economics posits that population growth is essential for future economics growth. The classic example of this simpleton proposition was expressed several years ago in a Wall Street Journal column (p. A1, 'Population's Flagging Growth Undermines Global Economy')

The author, Greg Ip, writing:

"Previous generations fretted about the world having too many people. Today's problem is too few. This reflects two long-established trends: lengthening lifespans and declining fertility.

Simply put, companies are running out of workers, customers or both. In either case economic growth suffers"


Which is total, unadulterated balderdash which no serious rational person should buy.  And indeed I lampooned it in a number of posts, indicating that in the OECD nations right now there are over 200 million unemployed workers who could do many of the jobs going unfilled.  Hell, in this country alone it appears that over 8 million willing workers over 65 years of age are finding a dearth of positions, opportunities to be hired e.g.

'Just Unbearable.' Booming Job Market Can't Fill the Retirement Shortfall

https://www.wsj.com/.../even-a-booming-job-market-cant-fill-retirement-shortfall-for-ol...

 

As noted in the above cited piece:

"For older Americans, the last few years of work can be a vital chance to patch up thin savings or pay down debt to ease their way into retirement. Many aren’t getting that opportunity.."


So clearly it is merely PR and propaganda to claim there aren't enough workers and we need to generate more babies.   How can any thinking person swallow this rubbish?    Especially given that adding more workers by birthing them is  a solution we simply cannot afford.  See, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html

There has been no lack of economic pushback on falling fertility in the U.S. ever since Ip's infamous piece appeared.  Thankfully, at least now many women are thinking two or three times before spawning more rugrats.  And merely because some pointy-headed wonk ensconced in an ivory tower Rightist think tank says they must.  Besides, more people today - one hopes - think long and hard before they have children, given the psychological as well as financial costs.

According to a recent NY Times piece on modern parenting:

"Parenthood in the United States has become much more demanding than it used to be. Over just a couple of generations, parents have greatly increased the amount of time, attention and money they put into raising children. Mothers who juggle jobs outside the home spend just as much time tending their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s.   The amount of money parents spent on children, which used to peak when they were in high school, is now highest when they are under 6 and over 18 and into their mid-20s."

Even before the modern era, parenting was not something I relished and fortunately, neither did Janice.  Hence we chose a child-free life.   This, despite the RC Church's edict that artificial birth  control is a big 'no-no'  and "mortal sin". All that codswallop did is provide one more reason to finally leave the Church by the age of twenty-nine.  

Of course, money is the other aspect which too few consider before they jump into parenting, given the costs  to raise ONE kid through college is roughly a quarter million smackeroos.  Let me put it this way: had we opted 40  years ago to have five offspring like my parents did , e.g.

We'd never have been able to save up enough to afford a decent retirement, including the ability to travel, work on our own creative projects and donate to multiple charitable organizations.  How did my parents do it?  Well, because in the 1950s, early 60s, the economy enabled a degree of support and the bank savings rate (4-5%) allowed families to save without risking money in the stock market.  Let's also record the high marginal tax rate,  targeting the richest,  was 91 percent  - not the 38.6% today.

Back to kids as a not so great investment.  According to former WSJ columnist Jonathan Clements ('Are Kids A Good Investment ?  Will They Make You Happier?', Market Watch, Dec, 13)there are still far too many Americans who don't think carefully enough before taking the parenthood step.  As he frames it:

"Prospective parents are convinced children will enrich their lives. The data suggest otherwise."

What evidence might that be?   He notes that many—perhaps most—U.S. parents spend more on their children than they end up saving for their own retirement. The Department of Agriculture estimates it costs almost $234,000 for a middle-class family to raise a child through age 17. If the kid goes on to an in-state university, that would add another $85,000 to the tab.  We are now talking about more than 300 grand per kid. Who today can afford that, even for two  kids, far less five?

Much of the problem is only seen in retrospect after a kind of "buyer's remorse"  sets in.  Thus, parents belatedly confronted with evidence that their choice wasn’t necessarily the right one rebel and resist using assorted rationalizations.  According to Clements:

"I see this with retirees who have already claimed Social Security—and are now told they would have been better off delaying. I see it with folks who lease cars or buy overly large homes. And I see it with parents who are shown the sorry data on children and happiness."


Clements says he first came across such data a dozen years ago. He references an  academic paper which charted satisfaction with life, as reported by parents who were approaching their first child’s birth. As the happy day got nearer, reported life satisfaction climbed ever higher—only to come crashing down in the years after the birth. By the time the kids were age 3 or 4, both mothers and fathers were reporting life satisfaction that was significantly below their long-term baseline. Well, think of it!  Faced with a screeching little rugrat such as the one shown, keeping you up all hours of the night, and making endless demands on your time and resources. Selfish? Of course!  That's what many of us knew about ourselves beforehand - we the child-free - which is why we opted not to have kids despite all the yammering of well-meaning outsiders.  (I still recall the Headmistress of Janice's Queen's College telling both of us at a cocktail party that we owed it to Barbados to have children to compensate for all the progeny generated by lower intellects.  Yes, seriously!)

I mean, let's be honest here, it isn't all about just sparing the planet more millions of resource-consuming American kids.  Another huge reason is self-interest and a stark honesty (and self-knowledge)  that includes knowing you are not a child person.  Clements goes on:

“It seems parental happiness has a lot to do with the amount of work and aggravation involved.  Indeed, countless studies suggest children either don’t have much impact on happiness or the effect is somewhat negative. One study even found that women rated child care 16th out of 19 daily activities, putting it just above commuting and just below housework.

The least happy parents seem to be those who have young children, are young themselves, are raising kids alone or have children with problems."

Again, this isn't rocket science or plasma physics.  Young children (2 - 5 yrs.)  are almost universally a pain in the ass.  Walking- talking Donald Trumps in miniature, grabbing, demanding, sassing and worse- crapping nonstop making endless messes to clean up - often requiring tons of disposable diapers to be added to already over strained landfills.

The most interesting Clements' observation of all, and one worth noting in the USA's individualist capitalist culture:

"That brings me to an intriguing study that looked at 22 countries. It found wide disparities in happiness: Parents in Portugal, Hungary, Spain and five other countries were happier than nonparents in those countries. But in the other 14 nations, nonparents were happier. The bad news: The U.S. sat at the bottom of this ranking, just below Ireland and Greece.

What drove differences in national happiness? The study’s authors conclude that the results were heavily influenced by government policies. Parents were happier in those countries with family-friendly laws that mandated such things as paid family leave, subsidized child care, and guaranteed paid sick and vacation days."

In other words, the democratic socialist nations like Denmark, Norway and Sweden assured parents the highest probability of being content because they knew they had state support and benefits - which the stingy U.S. refuses to offer.  Opting to confer most tax cut benefits on the wealthiest. I mean, given this is it any wonder young adults are choosing to have fewer or no children?  Why should they when the government inveighs against their own interests?

In this sick sort of society what are the options for those intent on still undertaking parenthood?  Clements' suggested strategy is to have plenty of moola saved up, say to afford expensive child care (almost as much as private school tuition) and also make sure to live close to "family" and hope they will provide support when needed. Well, good luck!

In the end, let's be clear the condition of lower U.S. fertility is a direct result of the U.S. cowboy capitalist system which demands citizens go it alone, stand on their own. What the child free citizens are saying is: "Fuck you! If you aren't going to support us we aren't gonna have kids to become your future precious consumers!"

In other words, why should they "invest" in having children if the government refuses to invest in their kids as essential future citizens, or consumers?  Can't anyone see that when the Neolibs demand higher birth rates - for whatever reason - they are insisting on having their cake and eating it? They want their precious Pareto-based economic system of endless consumption supported indefinitely by the "Proles", but they don't want to raise the Proles' wages (or social benefits via taxes)  to assist that endeavor. 

Why Is The Corporate Media Concealing The Over Population Threat?

Isaac Asimov lectures in Barbados, on Feb. 6, 1976. He focused on the Moon, but also touched on the dangers of overpopulation with respect to Earth and its finite resources.

As I read an article in the local paper (COS Gazette) from 15 years ago, by Mitzi Perdue, it again occurred to me how the danger of excessive population growth is being soft-soaped, suppressed as if our consciousness of it is being hollowed out.  Ms. Perdue's article ('Population Quietly Keeps On Exploding') began:

"If you're over 50 you may remember in the early 1960s, one of the hottest topics for discussion was the population explosion. You could read about it on the cover of TIME magazine", e.g.


"Or in a book by Paul Ehrlich that topped the best seller list", e.g.


as well as constant editorials and articles.   Fast forward to the present and you'll see a startling reversal has taken place:The subject is rarely mentioned in the popular corporate media or by political figures. And this is in spite of the fact that many scientists will tell you that the population explosion is the number one problem facing mankind."

Indeed, one of those scientists - Albert E. Bartlett- within one year of Perdue's piece, wrote a stirring article ('Thoughts On Long Term Energy Supplies - Scientists And The Silent Lie') in Physics Today July, 2004, p. 53):

https://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys4810/phys4810_fa08/4810_readings/bartlett.pdf

Writing that, in respect to why so many scientists remain silent on the issue:

 "Scientists’ general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population – at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise”.

Adding that whatever the reason, it is equivalent to perpetuating a “silent lie”, a term derived from a Mark Twain quote:

“Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them…I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion: we can tell it without saying a word.”

But while too many scientists have remained silent, the loopy bastion of neoliberal economists continue to chirp that more people are needed!  For example, The Wall Street Journal  article, Nov. 23, 2015, p. A1, 'Population's Flagging Growth Undermines Global Economy', wherein we learn:

Previous generations fretted about the world having too many people. Today's problem is too few. This reflects two long-established trends: lengthening lifespans and declining fertility.

Simply put, companies are running out of workers, customers or both. In either case economic growth suffers

Which is total balderdash given the World Bank and IMF at the time noted the OECD nations had well over 230 m citizens unemployed thanks to a combination of reasons including:   corporate restructuring, increased automation and offloading jobs to cheaper nations.  In other words, the adequate population to carry out whatever labor certainly exists, but just not in the same places!  The solution then isn't to produce more people but to move existing workers to places where jobs need to be filled.

And yet the propaganda that the world and most populous countries need more people continues to be piled on. Such as with the April 30 WSJ piece (p. A1) 'Limit  To China's Economic Rise: Not Enough Babies'.  - accompanied by the subsidiary header: 'The workforce is aging but Beijing's policies still discourage childbirth'.  And why shouldn't they? It was precisely those policies that have allowed China to compete with the industrialized West in terms of financial assets, including a large middle class.   As I've written before, castigating high birth rate morons like Bret Stephens (e.g. Nov. 5, 2015 post), after insisting China certainly has the "space" to pack another billion:

"The point is this numskull has no clue that supporting a massive population isn't simply based on finding the space in which to squeeze them. You also need to consider the support systems, for growing enough food to feed them all each day, as well as the water (clean water) to meet basic needs - not to mention an energy and transport infrastructure. And we aren't even going to get into the number of hospitals (or even urgent care centers) that'd be required to serve all their medical needs."

Then, taking on Stephen's criticism of China's "one child" policy:

"Nowhere in his little rant is Stephens honest enough to cite what China's fertility rate was in 1950. As per an earlier article in the WSJ (Nov. 2) it was 6.11 per woman.  (Compared to 1.55 now).

Does this bozo have any remote idea what such a birth rate would have translated into had China not acted? It would have meant a population exceeding 2.2 billion by 1990 and the Chinese never would have been able to support it, nor would the country have reached the near superpower status it has  - even being a creditor to U.S. bond debt. (Owning nearly $1.3 trillion of our bond debt). Further, China's trade capacity would never have evolved to what it become, nor would it have been able to support the military it has - now rivaling the U.S. in the Pacific.  For all intents, China would have remained little better than one of those poor, overpopulated African nations - from which hundreds of thousands are now trying to flee to get to Europe. "

Or, would have remained as generally impoverished as India in relative terms. (Difference of 10- 15 percent in economic growth, and ability to support a significantly bigger middle class.)   While it's true Indira Gandhi and others tried more coercive sterilization measures to halt India's exploding population, it never worked as well as China's one child policy. See e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRBxqDuPei4

The dirty little secret? As India's numbers continued to explode beyond 2000, the Indian government was hard pressed to keep up in terms of providing support, resources.  This is why, when the WSJ pressed China's Deputy Director of its Family Planning Commission (Wang Peian)  - on whether the nation had enough fresh blood to provide able workers, and didn't need more babies, Mr. Wang tersely replied:

"China doesn't have a population shortage. Not now, not in 100 years."

Which is true. Its issue is not in the numbers per se, but the distribution of workers. The worker deficit problem can be solved by allocating more workers, more people then,  where they are needed.  It isn't solved by reproducing more mouths to feed who then must be tended to in their old age! That is the classic definition of a pyramid scheme.

As I've noted already,

"Here is the essential axiom: a nation cannot at once have a vast  rapidly growing population and material wealth. If the population outstrips its available resources it is condemned to destitution. The Chinese themselves, if the earlier WSJ story ('Chinese Face Hurdles To Baby Boom After Policy Shift')  is to be believed, are in no hurry to make more babies via the revised policy either. (And if Stephens took the time to read "ambitiously" the articles in his own paper he'd see that - before writing a column full of codswallop)."

Adding:

"Maybe in Bret Stephens little pie-eyed capitalist clown fantasy world population can grow unabated with material wealth per person, and a family with seven or eight kids can afford "the best'. Alas, it doesn't work like that in most of the real world, by which I mean outside the gated enclaves of the rich.

The Cornucopians like Stephens get it wrong because they don't see population growth for the toxin it is, and can't put 2 plus 2 together to see how it leads to the Malthusian nightmare."

Which brings us to the issue of why the corporate media are so assiduously concealing or minimizing the problem of excess population. Well, first because they don't want you to know there is a problem!  How often, indeed, in the past ten years have you read anything concerning overshoot, i.e. that our numbers and their derivative consumption of existing resources is overtaking what is available? Even moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, then by the 2030s we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us.  This is shown in the following graph:

Which I doubt any major newspaper has published since it became available. Why not? Because it would cut through all the propaganda, PR and 'feel good' economic bunkum (e.g. about needing more people to increase global GDP) to show we are unambiguously in a crisis with regard to resource sustainability.

Second, there is no mention that every energy use and conversion pollutes and degrades the environment we depend upon. Hence, the more people, the more energy conversions and the more rapidly we descend into a high entropic, high waste world. (Already nations are refusing waste from the U.S,, e.g. piled onto ships and dispatched from NYC because it has insufficient landfill space). 

Too many of our citizens then fail to appreciate that every energy conversion process has as an accompaniment entropy, or disorder. In most cases this appears as waste heat, as well as pollutants. For example, a car engine produces carbon monoxide as well as carbon dioxide and waste heat generated via the internal combustion engine.  The 2nd law of thermodynamics or entropy law  states that the expelled gas constituents cannot ever be combined again to produce the original fuel. In other words, resource consumption here is a one way process. Resource extraction, such as oil shale fracking also has many adverse effects on the terrestrial environment, apart from the CO2 released when the stuff is burned (e.g. as kerogen)

Turning resources into waste faster than waste can be converted into resources puts us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.

Lastly, the hedge funds and corporations that own the newspapers and run the boards of directors are in thrall to consumption and ever more debt.  If they spilled the beans about too many people already, they'd have to admit to their agenda of not only exploding population and exploding consumption but exploding debt. Already, consumer debt of all types (including student loan debt) in the U.S. has hit $15 trillion.   The increasing debt itself is a pronounced signal that things cannot go on as they are, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

The astute and aware citizen must be sentient enough to know more people is not in humanity's best interest. Isaac Asimov, as part of his Barbados lecture (see top image), warned that humans had two choices: decrease their population to the carrying capacity limit to live in an equilibrium with the Earth and its resources, or let nature “increase the human death rate” (e.g. by starvation, pestilence, wars over resources etc.)

He also remarked:

"It is now the willingly childless woman who is the heroine of our planet. She is the one who now deserves all the kudos and praise, for helping to do what is necessary to spare humanity from the ravages of over-population"

Another Bloomberg 'Genius" Falls For The Myth That The U.S. Needs More People

Let's put it right out there in the open, that this country is bloody crowded with people. Here in Colorado if you decide to go to the mountains or Rocky Mountain National Park any given weekend, you are doomed to wait hours in long lines on the I-25. If you're in Miami or LA the highways are backed up 16 lanes with traffic almost all the time at peak hours. Here in Colorado Springs. unless you make reservations for most places - even 'Mom n Pop' cafes- you're likely to be out of luck. And woe betide you if you have to use an ER, you may wait for hours.

SO on basic observation the claim this country needs more people is bollocks. But here again, the economic eggheads who think they know better than anyone else, are convinced Americans need to make more babies given our decline in birthrate.  The latest one to make this argument is Bloomberg resident columnist Stephen Mihm whose piece 'Baby Bust!'  appeared in The Denver Post (front page Sunday 'Perspective', Jan. 8 )  He writes:

"Shortly before Christmas, the U.S. Census Bureau put some coal in the nation’s holiday stocking. It released data highlighting a worrisome trend: The population grew a subdued 0.7 percent, the lowest rate of growth since the Great Depression years of 1936 and 1937. Declines in the birthrate and the slowing pace of immigration are to blame.

Ask an economist why this matters, and you’ll get a welter of contradictory answers, as the relationship between population growth and economic expansion is a vexed and controversial subject. But if you sift through the historical data on the subject, it’s hard to deny that the demographic slowdown, should it continue, likely puts a damper on future economic growth."

Okay, two quick points to make at the outset. If the central argument is that the economy "needs more people" - which appears to be the case- then Mihm has already admitted (1st paragraph) that the cause need not be low birthrate, but  rather slowing immigration. This elides into another point I've made consistently in these economic arguments: that the world as a whole is overpopulated but any given nation per se may not be overpopulated. Thus, the world has more than ample people, but with different densities in different nations, regions. Hence, less densely populated places can make up for any perceived economic consequences by simply allowing more immigrants into their nations, while not increasing global population. I know this isn't popular with all the Reich wing populist nuts like Le Pen and Trump, but there it is. THAT is what you're going to have to do in an already overpopulated world.

In the OECD nations right now there are well over 230 m unemployed thanks to a combination of reasons including corporate restructuring, automation - and offloading jobs to cheaper nations.  So rather than add to the world's population burden (and the attendant environmental problems)  why not put these current unemployed back to work wherever needed? Make them 'citizen workers of the world' - since the whole market impetus is to globalization anyway.

Second, Mihm - like most of his economist brethren - misses the mark believing population is the major factor impacting economic growth. No, it is not. As I've noted before (Sept. 20, 2013), it is the decreasing energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of fuel sources. In other words, our energy-dependent civilization is becoming ever more impoverished as the efficiency of the energy to run it diminishes over time. Essentially, a nation which had become addicted to energy delivering 20 to 30 or even 40 times as much energy as it cost to extract, now faces a future with energy return 5 to 8  times less. This spells monetary-economic disaster because at the end of the day it is energy which  determines wealth of nations- money is only a medium to represent it.

A report issued by the London investment firm Tullet Prebon as recently as five years ago, and circulated via 'Strategy Insight' newsletter warned:

"For 2020, our projected EROEI of 11.5 to 1 is not as catastrophic as 5: 1 but would nevertheless mean that the share of GDP absorbed by energy costs would have escalated to 9.6% from about 6.7% today. Our projections further suggest energy costs would absorb as much as 15% of GDP (at an EROEI of 7.7 to 1)  by 2030."

This shows the trend in a nutshell and it has nothing to do with population, only that increasing it globally would make matters worse because all those added people would require much more energy to live, including for fuel, food cultivation, transport etc.. And 2b more are expected by 2030.

Again, this shows the problem is not too few people but too many and the core sane solution is to redistribute them for economic maximization. This as opposed to insisting all the more developed nations have more babies.  Not to sound too hyperbolic, but that's kind of like tossing cans of gasoline on a slow burning fire.

We don't need it. But don't try to tell that to these economists! Mihm goes on to admit, however:

"these declines in the birthrate — and the larger rate of population growth — weren’t bad news in and of themselves; if anything, they seem to have been quite positive, going hand in hand with dramatic economic growth."

Well, this is not really surprising given that it costs a hell of a lot to raise a kid from birth  As per a Denver Post Business story ('Discovering What It Costs To Raise A Child') from Jan. 3rd, 2013 (p. 5K) we learn an "average middle class family will need $245, 340 over 18 years, for a child born in 2013"(From a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture 'Cost of Raising A Child' report).   And this is bound to be more expensive in the future as medical expenses will rise, and health care is much more difficult to afford (thanks to the GOP).

That chunk of moola, nearly a quarter million or what each retiree needs to cover medical expenses Medicare doesn't,  includes: "diapers, formula, child care, baby furnishings, new clothes every year, electronic computers, smart phones...and other gear and seemingly don't end when the young one finds a job".

So it's no wonder economic growth would rise if that albatross was removed from many couples' necks.  Additionally,  recall this pullback is being done in an energy environment which is regressing in terms of efficiency.  Northwestern University's Robert Gordon has posited that the Industrial  Revolution (at the turn of the 19th century) had a vastly bigger effect on productivity, economic growth than the so-called "PC revolution" in the 20th. Think about it! The former meant a transition from the impossibly laughable energy of whale oil to kerosene, coal etc., a mammoth jump in the EROEI of available energy sources. The latter transpired over a period of roughly 20 years, over which the EROEI of oil actually decreased from 16:1 to roughly 12:1. So no wonder that even millions of computers were not able to match the sheer change in productive output that accompanied the Industrial Revolution- and within the scope of the latter's purview we include the internal combustion engine, electricity, and indoor plumbing.

Gordon argues, and he's correct, that by the time the digital revolution got under way- say in the 80s- the big payoff in productivity began shrinking. Meanwhile, the PC-computing payoff basically has "come and gone" dissipating by 2004, when EROEI reached below 10:1 and fracking began as a last desperate effort to snare the vestigial ""riches" of oil - along with deep sea drilling.

We come back again to Mihm's reliance on Canadian economist Clarence Barber's study tying economic growth to a nation's population:

"In theory, immigration might have picked up the slack. While Barber didn’t address this in his study, it’s worth noting that Congress put drastic curbs on inflows of people in 1924. That year, approximately 706,000 immigrants legally entered the country. The number dropped precipitously the following year, and by 1933, the number had fallen to 23,000, a decline of almost 97 percent.
How these demographic declines set the stage for the Great Depression is hard to know with certainty, but Barber believed that the decline in birthrates among native-born Americans was sufficient to set the stage for declines in aggregate demand."

But again, I can make the symmetric argument that Barber was remiss in not factoring immigration into his work. And if this is so, then the claimed drop-offs in aggregate demand are a function of labor inputs, numbers not native birth rates.  I can vouch for my own maternal grandfather who came to the U.S. from Croatia in 1914 and had his own corner grocery operating in Depression-era Milwaukee by the mid 1920s. His business did so well he could help many native born Americans adversely affected. Hence, one cannot and must not dismiss the role of immigration, particularly in an already overpopulated world.

The solution for nations perceived to be underpopulated, then,  is to allow a larger influx of foreign workers.  To be sure, I am not elated about adding any more people to this country, because I think 300-plus million is more than enough. We already risk a large surplus labor force which can drag down pay or at least keep it stagnant. But ...if the choice is between Americans having many more babies, and allowing in more immigrants to try to enhance economic growth - I am definitely in favor of the latter!

The truth?  Increased populations only assist Neoliberal  (or conservative - like the Koch bros.) elites who can afford to live apart - in their gated enclaves- but who can profit handsomely by the vast surplus labor pools created. As investors, or even owners,  they can basically bid down wages and benefits to whatever lowball number they want, and if the peons.....errr  workers.....don't like it....they can tell them they will send the jobs to China.  Or, automate them.

In terms of providing health care to the people already residing in the U.S. this is a big deal. There is already a projected physician shortage across all specialties and at least the immigrant physicians - say from India, Jamaica, Iran etc., had been making the shortage manageable. Now, with idiot Trump's new "EO" this may be truncated, even as he's altered his "bad guys" list from 7 nations to 6 - already showing it was contrived to begin with. (Apart from which a Dept. Of Homeland Security Report from a week or so ago stated clearly no attacks of any kind came from any of those 7 nations.)

In addition, the fact that the new GOP health care plan wants to pull the rug out from underneath families shows this is not the time to have more kids. What support - health wise- will you get,  especially if your child has autism, muscular dystrophy or some other condition that demands extraordinary  medical expense?  The answer is none. So the decision not to have children  is rational in this hostile environment. One in which the majority R -party is more exercised and outraged about the unborn than protecting the health of the already born.

Oh, and protecting their financial health too while also not emulating  Jacob Chaffetz- who actually suggested if people want to afford their new Reepo health care they should not buy that new I-phone. Evidently, this monkey isn't aware that a typical premium for health care now costs $18,000 a year, compared to a few hundred bucks for an I-phone. (With blabber like this, Chaffetz is ripe for a takedown by Katherine Allen, a physician from Salt Lake City now planning to run against him.)

By the end of his piece, Mihm seems to catch a glimmer of realism but then that recedes as he writes::

"data released by the real estate firm Trulia last week indicates that the number of young people living with their parents (or siblings) recently hit levels not seen since 1940. That statistic suggests that a baby boom isn’t likely, never mind a boom in consumption fueled by the formation of new households.

But at least the U.S. still has immigration, right? Perhaps not: President-elect Donald Trump has been vocal about his opposition to illegal immigration, but since the election, he has started to send signals that he intends to crack down on legal immigration, too. If that happens, only a homemade baby boom will save us from further decline in the Trump years."

But alas, as I showed, no such "baby boom" will save us because it merely means more biologic energy "sinks" to draw on ever diminishing EROEI energy sources. In addition,  it will massively add to the debt of any families that do have more kids - given their atrocious expense- and in an environment where Repukes will be slicing all possible benefits (including healthcare) to the working and middle classes.

All it will do is speed our nation's accelerating decline, especially given the upside down economics of the Trumpites.

Neoliberal Global Population Pushers Rebuked Again - By Indonesia

One of the most irritating aspects of  Neoliberal market dogma posits that population growth is essential for future economics' growth. This simpleton proposition, for example,  was expressed in one Nov. 23, 2015 Wall Street Journal  article(p. A1, 'Population's Flagging Growth Undermines Global Economy')

The author, Greg Ip, had written:

"Previous generations fretted about the world having too many people. Today's problem is too few. This reflects two long-established trends: lengthening lifespans and declining fertility.

Simply put, companies are running out of workers, customers or both. In either case economic growth suffers"


Which is total, unadulterated balderdash that no serious, rational person should buy. In fact, I demolished Ip's bunkum in a blog post the same day. Why this is so difficult for guys like Ip to grasp, I have no idea. Maybe, at heart, they are so used to covering Ponzi schemes on Wall Street, they can't see one staring them in the face when it's global. Thus, the notion of undeveloped nations overpopulating to provide a vast labor surplus for developed ones (to support their elderly pensioners) is one such scheme - given that labor class will be looking to remain and received pensions too. So who will pay for them?

Thankfully, more and more sensible nations aren't buying this bull crap and recognize foolish economic prescriptions when they see them. One such case that has been in the news is Indonesia which according to a WSJ piece from December ('Indonesia Looks To Reduce Birth Rate') "seeks to rein in its population growth in the hope it will promote more sustainable economic development"

Well, it should - given a nation is blessed with only a finite store of resources - and simply can't expect to grab them from others if it can't control its own numbers and consumption. As the nation's President Joko Widodo pointed out (ibid.):

"Investment in family planning is an absolute necessity to sustain economic growth in every nation and every nation"

Which begs the question of how it is he could demonstrate more smarts than Ip. Well, maybe because he has to actually summon resources to keep a country running, as opposed to simply writing nonsense.

Joko's perceptions are also spot on given Indonesia is now the 4th most populous nation in the world and comes - as the WSJ article notes - "as China and Japan are striving to do the opposite .....to address the threat aging populations poses to their economies".

Which again, is bunkum, given that in the OECD nations right now there are well over 230 m citizens unemployed thanks to a combination of reasons including corporate restructuring, automation - and offloading jobs to cheaper nations (as the TPP trade pact will do).  So rather than add to the world's population burden why not put these current unemployed back to work wherever needed? Make them 'citizen workers of the world' - since the whole market impetus is to globalization anyway.

Indonesia obviously sees a risk in adding to population the other nations fail to see, given that its current fertility rate is 2.3 per woman (down from 2.6) and it seeks to further lower that to 2.1 What do they see? Well, that the numbers of people added to supposedly support the aging demographic don't square with the greater consumption of resources needed to get them up to working age and sustain them. DUH!

Again, the solution - if one is needed  - would seem to be to allow already mature 'guest workers' in to do any jobs, if support of an elder pension class is required. (Or if higher production is via more human labor capital).  What is not needed is generating an average of 5 million more mouths to feed each year when those mouths will take decades to become labor ready - unless, of course, one opts for child labor.

In the U.S. the problem of low birth rates and the Neolibs carping to increase them, arrives from a different angle. That is, it is just too damned expensive for most people to raise a child (especially without full government assistance) to maturity.  As per a Denver Post Business story ('Discovering What It Costs To Raise A Child') from Jan. 3rd (p. 5K) we learn an "average middle class family will need $245, 340 over 18 years, for a child born in 2013"(From a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture 'Cost of Raising A Child' report)

That chunk of moola ("a lot to jam into anyone's squeezed budget" - especially given wage stagnation) includes: "diapers, formula, child care, baby furnishings, new clothes every year, electronic computers, smart phones...and other gear and seemingly don't end when the young one finds a job".

Housing is the biggest expense, according to the report, an estimated 30 percent of the total cost. This is germane because in OECD nations while labor may not be as oversupplied as in Indonesia, resources for housing starts can be - leaving the most vulnerable marooned with exploding costs.  As per a WSJ piece ('Seniors Hit Hard by Hot Housing Market',  4/1, p. A3), in the San Mateo County, CA area alone while 54, 000 new jobs have been created, only 2,100 new housing units have been built to house the job holders. The ones left out must pay scalper rates for rent (often as much as $2,000/ month) and travel far into the boonies to get anyplace to live.  Seniors over 65 stuck in the rental market, since the 2007-08 housing collapse, are left with skyrocketing rents forcing them to ration groceries as well as meds. Has increased population helped San Mateo, or San Francisco (now experiencing one of the biggest explosions in housing-rental costs in the nation)?  Not at all. Rising population has only created more congestion, more problems.   As the WSJ piece puts it:

"Adding more housing can be a daunting task in suburbs where locals are wary of more residents and traffic"

The truth?  Increased populations only assist Neoliberal elites who can afford to live apart - in their gated enclaves- but who can profit handsomely by the vast surplus labor pools created. As investors, or even owners,  they can basically bid down wages and benefits to whatever lowball number they want, and if the peons.....errr  workers.....don't like it....they can tell them they will send the jobs to China.  Or, automate them.

Can't anyone see that when the Neolibs demand higher birth rates - for whatever reason - they are insisting on having their cake and eating it? They want their precious Pareto-based economic system of endless consumption supported indefinitely by the "Proles", but they don't want to raise the Proles' wages to assist that endeavor. Nor, if Neoliberals' main screeds are to be believed, do they want government to do it either, say via higher taxes on the wealthiest.

People need to grasp that by reproducing to appease a warped economic system they are merely perpetuating gross economic inequality by helping to sustain a vast pool of surplus labor. As Marx showed (and anyone with a brain can figure out- except perhaps the Catholic birth control dogmatists) surplus labor translates into lowest common denominator conditions and endless scarcity. It can never be  a recipe for upliftment, societal  improvement or even balancing the needs of an existing, aging populace.

This was also why Sir. Arthur C. Clarke branded Pope John Paul II one of the worst ever "enemies of humanity" after penning the encyclical 'Veritatis Splendor', which upheld the antiquated birth control position of the Church's Magisterium.

At least Indonesia has now figured this out.