Population Decline Worries

i assent!

Just name more kids Abraham and Sarah and maybe people will have more children after 65.

Are you telling all here that people who pay SS tax exempted from their paychecks are not receiving, come their retirement, from the very monies paid in by all people employed.
Tax is tax. All taxes are from the pockets of the citizens. The set up in my time was like a bank account earning interes. My pesion has been paid for by ME, nto by people currently working. iI always paid income tax, and every time I made any purchases there was state tax either hidden in the price or outright
Perhaps the mov ers and the shakers should take my contributions for themselves and leave me to starve. Where is your head. Have you no compassion for others?

Good on him. If I'm still breathing at 96 I'll count that quite the accomplishment.

I apologize. I didn't realize you were in Spain. In the US, money collected for Social Security was never put into private accounts for individuals. Legally it couldn't be done because of American tax law so the money just went into the general fund.
Because many Americans would not have chosen to vote for such a law, it was presented to the American people as though they would have private accounts.
For the longest time it didn't matter. There were 14-15 people paying in for every recipient initially. Because the law has been expanded to include so many things, now the ratio is 2:1. That's why the program is in trouble.

Mouse Utopia experiments predicted this modern problem.

And yes it's a problem.

The China "one child" laws have been completely reversed as labor shortages became apparent. Everyone is encouraged to have 3 children. However, the cost of housing has skyrocketed to the point that people can't afford to have a child because of the competition school system. (You only advance to higher education if you are scoring higher than your peers) So parents must pay for a tutor for each child to help them advance. Also music lessons and sports lessons as well...including all supplies.

In the USA falling birth rates except among the welfare recipients is definitely a financial problem for social security. Daycare costs and other costs associated with having children make it prohibitive for those seeking a middle class lifestyle. The poor are usually not paying for their lifestyles anyway and a "baby daddy paycheck" is usually a welcome addition to a poverty household. (Think I'm kidding?....I know many guys who got trapped by this and women who never have worked using this)

In the USA a two income household is a necessity to have an average standard of living. It's been a system created that way by NEGLIGENCE of our politicians pandering and lining their own pockets. (It's complicated and somewhat convoluted) Both sides of the aisle are guilty...

The change came about after WWII. Those homes where the wife worked could afford nicer toys than the others in the SAME NEIGHBORHOOD.
Between the financially difficult times for our economy and the demand for more toys all at the same time men's wages never kept up with inflation and more and more homes needed the wife to have a job outside the home. (Women never making as much as the men)
Instead of actually addressing the real problem side issues were created to divert attention away from the real problem. The ERA constitutional ammendment still hasn't been ratified....but it took the focus away from the politicians not addressing Corporations greed and indulgences. (Corporate indulgence is a whole other thread topic)

And as the cost of living advanced wages didn't....didn't even get close. Inflation has completely eroded the incomes of everyone. No one can afford to be a single income family anymore. As such, the public schools raise your kids and teach the same morals as the local Greyhound bus terminal would if living there full time.

This is common term used by certain conservative newscasters in the US. I think it is more racial, a fear that the white population/white way of life is being replaced.

It's not about race, and definitely not about "white people". Although it is a concern among ethnonationalists- it is not exclusive to them.

"Replacement migration" is a real thing, and the left tries to downplay it and make you out to be a racist if you don't support it and go along with it- just like they do with the rest of their filthy schemes- because the policies benefit them.

But when governments do it they are BETRAYING their whole domestic population- it doesn't matter what color you are, they're stabbing you in the back.

I think the left does it just to get votes. I don't think they are intentionally trying to change demographics, since it is said by the right that the left is also racist. The left also loves the socialist Europeans.

I think they might, but not because they are racist. They aren't racist, in that they will exploit anyone of any race or demographic. But there is a reason they push "diversity, diversity, diversity" to the point that they will try to insert diversity regardless of what the actual consequences are. They think by forcing it that people will automatically change, and that's about as stupid as "corrective rape".

I have thought about this, about why different groups see it as a problem, and whether I should consider it a problem.

We have assumed continual growth for so long that it has become ingrained in everything from planning city layouts to business models. If a McDonald's does this year only as much business as it did last year it is considered a failure. It had better be hitting 5.7% more than last year or it might get a visit from a team of corporate experts to find and fix the problem.

Thing is, the earth we're running all this on is finite. We can't grow everything, every year, forever. Eventually we'll hit some very hard walls.

I think atheists should be overjoyed about current population trends. If you believe there is no god and we don't have another habitable planet to go to, then we're pretty much stuck here on this ball. Our illusion of limitless prosperity is shattered, but for the long term a population decrease makes our existence as a species more sustainable.

It is a bit worrisome for infrastructure. If you build house to fit your wife and all 16 kids, when you're old and the kids are gone that house is going to be more than you can handle on your own. So many of our systems have been built on the assumption of continual, perpetual growth that if our population shrinks they will probably be unsustainable. There will be some belt tightening. Some people who assumed a free or light ride might have to learn how to work the way our fathers worked. And lo, there will be much weeping and wailing.

So do I personally think it's a problem? Still not sure. I know I can't personally DO anything about it though.

I dunno... That average standard of living seems to include a LOT more than it did back when I was a child. Lots of things we consider necessities weren't even common back then.

If a family today has what my family had back then, it would be much more easily sustainable. But they would be considered so deprived that child welfare services might come and take the kids away.

Don't even get me started on what was considered an average standard of living back when my dad was a kid. We would faint at the mere thought of living like that.

You might want to learn how to distinguish between a person’s own thoughts and a person’s summation of the thoughts of others. It’s clear to me that Gideon is sharing the latter.

Learn to read better.

Drank from an open creek did he? Garden hoses were usually an improvement in water drinking. The only phone was down the street? Shared a bedroom with parents or siblings? A bicycle was a luxury item otherwise he walked everywhere in town unaccompanied by an adult. He fished and hunted without direct supervision?

Hello Lynx. That's an interesting point. It's possible many families are living well beyond their means. Many expect to be a two car household, with a giant TV and entertainment subscription, the latest smartphones, two dogs, a cat and a gerbil, whether they can afford it all or not. There is a word which appears frequently in the bible 'prudent'. It may be a declining virtue. God Bless

Wow....I'm so jealous....you had a bag!