Zero Population Growth?

Some in our culture are suggesting that too many children are being born, as new children create a drain on society's resources. The proposed solution is fewer children. Whether this encouragement would come by way of the bully pulpit, or fines via legislation as in China, or even death as per partial-birth abortion is yet unknown.

The challenge is that the entire premise is hogwash and foolishness. The first part of the foolishness is the assumption that new mouths to feed are an expense to the government. They should not be, and if they are, it is purely a result of misguided charity. This misguided charity comes in the form of government programs that may mean well, but missunderstand completely human behaviour.

Moving on, a call for fewer children flies in the face of the way healthy, growing economies operate. The cultures that are dying in this world, including Japan, Western Europe, and to some degree Scandinavia, are those cultures where the birth rate hovers just over 1. The average age of the population is moving through the 30's, and toward the 40's. The natives, who have become relatively affluent, aren't reproducing, but are slowly dying off.

These cultures are being overrun by immigrants, many of them Muslim, who have large families and are changing the nature and culture of these societies. Even Japan, which for centuries has been extremely Japan-centric and abhorred immigrants, is importing Latinos from South and Central America to work in its factories.

An older population absorbs substantial government services, with very little relative production. Large families, on the other hand, provide an impetus for guys to focus on someone besides themselves. Government policy, properly structured, would encourage the formation and longevity of large nuclear families. These children are wonderful consumers, and provide encouragement for the parents to be tax paying producers.

These children are also those who will solve many of the problems we continue to face as a world. They will be consumers of diapers, baby food, pre-schools, hulahoops, iPods, tennis shoes, college educations, new homes, and the list goes on and on. Without a healthy, young, and growing population, a nation and culture begin to die.

The one saving grace of America is the number of immigrants, primarily Latino, who inhabit our country, legally and otherwise. On the immigration issue, we need to allow only legal immigrants, who come to the US to pay taxes, produce, start businesses, have families, and learn English. If they don't want to do these things, they can stay home. However, many immigrants from Latin countries and around the world want to do these things. For those that do, let's open the doors, encourage them to come, and bring their children with them.

It is only with the repopulation of our country with the young that we will stay young, vibrant, and financially healthy as a country.

Until next time...

Randy