1. Political power will not shift to the young, it will shift more and more to the old as this becomes the largest voting base who will just vote for their own interest (extracting wealth from the young). This is happening in all the oldest societies with no signs of reversing.
2. Collapsing fertility is not a function of incomes as much as it is a function of urbanization. If high incomes would help to have children, why do the poorest nations one earth have a lot of children? The link between urbanization and dropping fertility rates has been correct in every civilization for the past 500 years. Note, in ancient times, the urban rate was about 10%, now it's about 90%.
The structure of modernity (industrialization and urbanization) makes it impossible to have children, and this is seen in every modern society at all levels of wealth, so it's not a function of wealth. The entire system will likely collapse before things get better.
I suspect populations to collapse by as much as 30-50% and several types of societal collapse as a result of that over my lifetime (civil wars/wars) before things could possibly get better again. This is the historical average, and happens every 250 years or so. Anyone betting on peace during any 100 year time period in the history of mankind never made any money in this world.
The modern world believes live will always get better but it's naively optimistic. If you look at History, (and, note History is beginning again), you can see that we are in the end of a civilizational cycle, and that war, civil wars, collapsing populations will be part of our future.
We had the roaring 20's, the most innovative period in mankind, the great depression and then WW2. Expect similar events over our lifetime.
The UK just saw a generational shift, with the preferred party of the boomers decimated, and the UK enacting a series of pro-young reform. Politics is messy - so could be wrong on this, but if I look at the traditional right-wing parties, they are all transforming themselves to try and compete.
The urbanisation policy is valid observation. Although I do wonder if change is coming there. UK policy has had restrictive planning - where as I could see a shift in converting office to residential, and a change in council tax create a huge shift in the property market.
A population collapse of 30 - 50% has happened before, but not due to declining fertility. That is a novel circumstance, as is population aging. Both are due to the baby boomer bubble which is passing through the system now.
War is not necessarily bad for markets... only if you lose.
interestingly, in the US, it is the right that is focused on increasing fertility while the left disparages the concept. while Vance's cat lady comment was snarky, that doesn't mean it was wrong. the left in the US has become apocalyptic in their views of the world (even ignoring Trump) based on climate change ending the world, and Gen Z has a large contingent who believe it is wrong to bring children into the current world given their belief things will get much worse.
The baby boomer bubble is likely to lead to stagnation (already has) which will eventually lead to scarcity (coming soon) which will lead to wars (and the population collapsing).
So the population is certain to collapse either way. If we keep aging and not reproducing, the population collapses around 30-50% by 2100. If instead life becomes scarce before that, the young will rise up (expect e.g., the militaries full of young males to start overthrowing european governments), which will likely result in wars and the population collapses again as well.
The thing is, we are running towards the limits of 'modernity' itself, and there is knowledge if this in places like Russia in their intellectual class and it's talked about a lot. Modernity, industrialization and extreme urbanization somehow don't allow for procreation and will therefore eat itself in the end.
This is true for all modern states, and these troubles will be global, as is already happening.
To call what the UK is doing now a pro-young reform is a very boomer position (are you above 40?). To turn things around we need war-like-levels of government interventions and extreme measures that could go as far as just stopping to give care to old people and we need to do that right now. We'll get there eventually once the young start being hungry and they have to decide between their grandparents and themselves. However, at that point it's already too late.
What we would need to do is basically say 'if you are a family with more than 4 kids, you'll be fully financially supported by the state, and that money will come from the pensions of old people'
that's never going to happen
Thanks for the well wishes! I'm personally likely going to try to move to switzerland over the coming years, or perhaps a well-governed still relatively high-fertility eastern european state. We'll see. It's going to get messy, and I don't think we can push this a lot further than 10 more years (but, because we have PTSD from WW2 we will try to push it as far out as possible), war has already started in Europe, and the first european state is going to collapse soon (ukraine)
Note, these issues are starting to become clear to the younger generation, and many of my friends expect wars and such things over the decades to come. (many are also still in denial, but the fact that there is even some minority of young people already discussing this says a lot)
Combine this with mass immigration from north africa and the middle east, and incredible violence is likely our future. As it has always been throughout history.
Add education to the mix, choice (via birth control), careers for women, and finally affordablility of housing,(needs 2 incomes) and the financial cost of each child.
"So do we face a fertility crisis? I doubt it very much...Extrapolation without analysis is the bane of modern economics - it is such simplistic thinking. Mentally, it makes economists children, not men." This is a very good article but it is entirely limited to the economic question. What if the concern with respect to declining fertility is not economic, but biological? There is no decent hypothesis right now as to why it could be happening. If humans looked at any other species and observed a decline in fertility occurring in that species all around the world, they would accept it as a given fact that the survival of that species is at issue, and look to determine why this biological phenomenon is being observed. It is an extinction pattern. We are observing an extinction pattern in humans and asking how it will affect iPhone sales. If we go extinct, our collective arrogance as a species will certainly be among the primary reasons.
The best biological reason I can see - which I allude to - is that the average family can no longer afford to have more than 2 children. That is the average worked is under financial stress. But from what I can glean from political changes, the health and wealth of the average family is now front and centre, as is fertility.
Back in 1980, people thought China's one child policy would fail. Now people think reversing that policy will fail. I disagree - if the political will is there, then there is a way.
People are spending more time on computers and cell phones. The screen commands almost constant attention. People are exercising more, have higher body fat percentages, poor diets, and suffer from more illnesses, while depression and suicidal tendencies are increasing prevalent.
Money problems cause stress, but people have not had it easy in the past either. If sperm counts went down in any other mammal, we would assume the factor was biological and not social, cultural or economic.
I believe there's something missing in the analysis. I believe there is a biological factor involved, and I believe it's associated with basic human energy. Humans run on electrical energy, electrical energy performs work only in the format known as current, and there is no realistic hypothesis to date with respect to how human bodies create current. That may sound like tinfoil hat science, but none of those points are in dispute.
If the current went down, the sperm count would go down.
If you see something on this, it will likely mean I managed to get my book published. Spending more time looking at a screen would negatively impact the mechanism for creating current. That's the one thing that has changed significantly with respect to human behavior during the time period in which sperm count decline has been recognized. If the electrical current is going down consistently in humans around the world...that is an extinction pattern. ☯
Of course, the decline did precede the beautiful, safe & effective injections, and for myriad reasons. But, to omit the catastrophic effects since the jabs rolled out would seem to be malpractice.
Here, let me assist you in developing some knowledge in the realm of covid "vaccines" and their devastation on fertility.
This is just the very tip of the iceberg:
How Did We Know That the COVID-19 Vaccines Would Decimate Global Fertility?
I believe you are missing a few things:
1. Political power will not shift to the young, it will shift more and more to the old as this becomes the largest voting base who will just vote for their own interest (extracting wealth from the young). This is happening in all the oldest societies with no signs of reversing.
2. Collapsing fertility is not a function of incomes as much as it is a function of urbanization. If high incomes would help to have children, why do the poorest nations one earth have a lot of children? The link between urbanization and dropping fertility rates has been correct in every civilization for the past 500 years. Note, in ancient times, the urban rate was about 10%, now it's about 90%.
The structure of modernity (industrialization and urbanization) makes it impossible to have children, and this is seen in every modern society at all levels of wealth, so it's not a function of wealth. The entire system will likely collapse before things get better.
I suspect populations to collapse by as much as 30-50% and several types of societal collapse as a result of that over my lifetime (civil wars/wars) before things could possibly get better again. This is the historical average, and happens every 250 years or so. Anyone betting on peace during any 100 year time period in the history of mankind never made any money in this world.
The modern world believes live will always get better but it's naively optimistic. If you look at History, (and, note History is beginning again), you can see that we are in the end of a civilizational cycle, and that war, civil wars, collapsing populations will be part of our future.
We had the roaring 20's, the most innovative period in mankind, the great depression and then WW2. Expect similar events over our lifetime.
The UK just saw a generational shift, with the preferred party of the boomers decimated, and the UK enacting a series of pro-young reform. Politics is messy - so could be wrong on this, but if I look at the traditional right-wing parties, they are all transforming themselves to try and compete.
The urbanisation policy is valid observation. Although I do wonder if change is coming there. UK policy has had restrictive planning - where as I could see a shift in converting office to residential, and a change in council tax create a huge shift in the property market.
A population collapse of 30 - 50% has happened before, but not due to declining fertility. That is a novel circumstance, as is population aging. Both are due to the baby boomer bubble which is passing through the system now.
War is not necessarily bad for markets... only if you lose.
Good luck out there!
interestingly, in the US, it is the right that is focused on increasing fertility while the left disparages the concept. while Vance's cat lady comment was snarky, that doesn't mean it was wrong. the left in the US has become apocalyptic in their views of the world (even ignoring Trump) based on climate change ending the world, and Gen Z has a large contingent who believe it is wrong to bring children into the current world given their belief things will get much worse.
The baby boomer bubble is likely to lead to stagnation (already has) which will eventually lead to scarcity (coming soon) which will lead to wars (and the population collapsing).
So the population is certain to collapse either way. If we keep aging and not reproducing, the population collapses around 30-50% by 2100. If instead life becomes scarce before that, the young will rise up (expect e.g., the militaries full of young males to start overthrowing european governments), which will likely result in wars and the population collapses again as well.
The thing is, we are running towards the limits of 'modernity' itself, and there is knowledge if this in places like Russia in their intellectual class and it's talked about a lot. Modernity, industrialization and extreme urbanization somehow don't allow for procreation and will therefore eat itself in the end.
This is true for all modern states, and these troubles will be global, as is already happening.
To call what the UK is doing now a pro-young reform is a very boomer position (are you above 40?). To turn things around we need war-like-levels of government interventions and extreme measures that could go as far as just stopping to give care to old people and we need to do that right now. We'll get there eventually once the young start being hungry and they have to decide between their grandparents and themselves. However, at that point it's already too late.
What we would need to do is basically say 'if you are a family with more than 4 kids, you'll be fully financially supported by the state, and that money will come from the pensions of old people'
that's never going to happen
Thanks for the well wishes! I'm personally likely going to try to move to switzerland over the coming years, or perhaps a well-governed still relatively high-fertility eastern european state. We'll see. It's going to get messy, and I don't think we can push this a lot further than 10 more years (but, because we have PTSD from WW2 we will try to push it as far out as possible), war has already started in Europe, and the first european state is going to collapse soon (ukraine)
Note, these issues are starting to become clear to the younger generation, and many of my friends expect wars and such things over the decades to come. (many are also still in denial, but the fact that there is even some minority of young people already discussing this says a lot)
Combine this with mass immigration from north africa and the middle east, and incredible violence is likely our future. As it has always been throughout history.
Add education to the mix, choice (via birth control), careers for women, and finally affordablility of housing,(needs 2 incomes) and the financial cost of each child.
Oh, and like him or loath him, but Peter Ziehan has been banging on about this for his last 4 books.
Worth an audio book purchase of 'the end of the world is just the beginning '
"So do we face a fertility crisis? I doubt it very much...Extrapolation without analysis is the bane of modern economics - it is such simplistic thinking. Mentally, it makes economists children, not men." This is a very good article but it is entirely limited to the economic question. What if the concern with respect to declining fertility is not economic, but biological? There is no decent hypothesis right now as to why it could be happening. If humans looked at any other species and observed a decline in fertility occurring in that species all around the world, they would accept it as a given fact that the survival of that species is at issue, and look to determine why this biological phenomenon is being observed. It is an extinction pattern. We are observing an extinction pattern in humans and asking how it will affect iPhone sales. If we go extinct, our collective arrogance as a species will certainly be among the primary reasons.
The best biological reason I can see - which I allude to - is that the average family can no longer afford to have more than 2 children. That is the average worked is under financial stress. But from what I can glean from political changes, the health and wealth of the average family is now front and centre, as is fertility.
Back in 1980, people thought China's one child policy would fail. Now people think reversing that policy will fail. I disagree - if the political will is there, then there is a way.
People are spending more time on computers and cell phones. The screen commands almost constant attention. People are exercising more, have higher body fat percentages, poor diets, and suffer from more illnesses, while depression and suicidal tendencies are increasing prevalent.
Money problems cause stress, but people have not had it easy in the past either. If sperm counts went down in any other mammal, we would assume the factor was biological and not social, cultural or economic.
I believe there's something missing in the analysis. I believe there is a biological factor involved, and I believe it's associated with basic human energy. Humans run on electrical energy, electrical energy performs work only in the format known as current, and there is no realistic hypothesis to date with respect to how human bodies create current. That may sound like tinfoil hat science, but none of those points are in dispute.
If the current went down, the sperm count would go down.
If you see something on this, it will likely mean I managed to get my book published. Spending more time looking at a screen would negatively impact the mechanism for creating current. That's the one thing that has changed significantly with respect to human behavior during the time period in which sperm count decline has been recognized. If the electrical current is going down consistently in humans around the world...that is an extinction pattern. ☯
Not 1 (ONE) mention of the beautiful convid Bioweapon injections ?
Too early to discern any meaningful effect from Covid or the vacinations. Falling fertility precedes covid - so can be ignored for the time being.
Of course, the decline did precede the beautiful, safe & effective injections, and for myriad reasons. But, to omit the catastrophic effects since the jabs rolled out would seem to be malpractice.
Here, let me assist you in developing some knowledge in the realm of covid "vaccines" and their devastation on fertility.
This is just the very tip of the iceberg:
How Did We Know That the COVID-19 Vaccines Would Decimate Global Fertility?
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-did-we-know-that-the-covid-19
Covid Vaccines and Fertility — Health & Wellness — Sott.net
https://www.sott.net/article/469155-Covid-Vaccines-and-Fertility
Menstrual changes after covid-19 vaccination | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2211
Studies Show Fertility Rates Plummet Worldwide Following COVID-19 Vaccines
https://healthimpactnews.com/2022/studies-show-fertility-rates-plummet-worldwide-following-covid-19-vaccines/
Dr James Thorp | Totality of Evidence
https://totalityofevidence.com/dr-james-thorp/