If Newsweek wants to understand why its readership is declining it need only look to Robert Samuelson and his latest ramblings in the Business column for the August 16th issue of the magazine titled, The Parent Trap: How our budget policies hurt families.
His major points:
Our society does not – despite rhetoric to the contrary – put much value on raising children
Present budget policies punish parents, who are taxed heavily to support the elderly
Tax breaks for children are modest
Americans may choose not to have children or to have fewer children if we have deficit reduction measures
Fewer children translates to economic decline
Societies that cannot replace their populations discourage investment and innovation
They have stagnant or shrinking markets for goods and services
Some European countries and Japan’s fertility rates are falling to 1.2
The United States’ fertility rate is at 2.1 and 40% of the births are to unmarried, poor and unstable mothers
In wealthy societies government now supports the elderly, diminishing the need for children
Deficit reduction must include spending and benefit cuts for the elderly and higher taxes for everyone except parents
He quotes another economist, parenting is “one of the most important services any American can perform”
Major points in response:
Does Mr. Samuelson not watch any television, read his own magazine or any of the other major magazines that not only emphasize, but glamorize and glorify every aspect of motherhood. There are entire industries, corporations, associations, marketing minions that do nothing else but mindlessly encourage motherhood and the value of children. Billions are spent. “Not much value”, I don’t think so!
And why shouldn’t parents bear the full responsibility for living in this society. They were raised by parents who are now elderly and need some help, especially when medical science continues to extend their life expectancies beyond their wildest dreams. The elderly haven’t chosen to be old, while parents have chosen to be parents, or at least should have chosen. What do you want to do, throw the elderly out on the street or maybe we can just euthanize those old folks. Now there’s a solution we can all live with!
Modest tax breaks for children? Get real. If you call the personal tax exemption, child tax credit, child-care tax credit ,adoption tax credit and public education modest, just go talk to the people who have no children and make up for all those credits and benefits with their increased taxes and see if they think those tax breaks are so modest. Not to say what it cost to subsidize that 40% or more of the population that have no business having children in the first place.
Women and couples are choosing to have fewer or no children because they are more educated and smarter. It has nothing to do with higher taxes, deficit reduction or whatever. Any fool can produce a child and many do. Some of the more thoughtful among us are beginning to realize their parenting abilities and skills are limited by circumstance and temperament.
Now the truth comes out, what children really mean in a consumer economy is another commodity and future purchaser of goods and services. And without a steady increase in that commodity, according to economists such as Mr. Samuelson, we will wander through years of want and suffering. Declining economies decline for many reasons but lower fertility rates is not one of them. Only fools and economists believe that growth economies are infinite.
I don’t understand this concept of declining fertility rates (less people) translating to less economic investment and innovation. What kind of thinking is this? Why wouldn’t people be more confident about entrepreneurship and more creative in their thinking with a society that lives within its means, creates a more educated and dynamic populace, and understands that a successful civilization is not measured in numbers of people but quality of its people.
Shrinking markets for goods and services is a good thing! People are forced to make choices based on real need not whim and fashion. Most Americans don’t need half the things they have already, much less anymore stuff. What we really mean is that we must produce more useless goods and services for jobs creation when we choose to grow populations. Reduce populations and we no longer have that requirement. Seems simple enough to me.
So what! Japan’s women and couples are obviously getting smarter. Why would you choose to have children if you didn’t want any and destine yourself to a life of drudgery and suffering, especially in a small geographically challenged island nation that needs less people not more. Again, the choice is not to produce children because it is your duty as a citizen or a woman, but because you actually want children, and can afford them and make all the sacrifices that come with such a choice. And as for Europeans, they have been through the war and turmoil thing for millenniums and my guess is they are finally understanding the connection between overpopulation and war – which is long overdue. We would do well to emulate them. And besides all that, their quality of life quotient – except for their growing immigrant populations – seems to be much superior to the rest of the world’s.
America’s fertility rate would be much less except for Latino and other ethnic groups that haven’t got the message yet. You don’t need four or five children to take care of you in your old age, and besides most of the new immigrants live in big cities not in rural farming areas. So much for the “help out on the farm” justification. As for the 40% that Samuelson slips in as almost an aside, that speaks volumes to where we are going to end up in this culture if that trend continues. Except for Walmart’s love affair and feeding frenzy relationship with these people, I suspect most Americans would like to see this trend go away in a hurry. That 40% gives new meaning to the words, government supports and subsidies. To all of us taxpayers out there that translates, more money for people we don’t really need and less for people who truly do have needs.
Sorry, but I don’t get this. How does helping the elderly – a necessary and right thing to do in any civilized society – diminish the need for children. First of all we don’t need children, what we need are couples that are capable, diligent and dedicated enough to choose to have children. We can all rest assured that children will never be on the Endangered Species List, at least not until we finally turn this planet into an inhabitable desert by continuing to reproduce quantities of human beings that we DON’T need! Mr Samuelson we can continue to help those elderly that need it and continue to have children, we just have to make economic choices and sacrifices that foster care and nurturing for both groups. By the way I guess it didn’t occur to you that by emphasizing quality children over quantity, we will reduce future elderly populations – exactly the group you seem to feel takes up way too much room and resources in this society.
First, read the last paragraph again! We are all in this together, like it or not. Reducing budget deficits should mean equal sacrifices for all groups. If that means people choose to have fewer children so be it, that’s all part of it. But I guess for you that means this generation that created this nasty, selfish economic crisis we find ourselves, should now place the burden of the debt we have created on the backs of increasing numbers of future generations so you can be assured of collecting your Social Security and Medicare checks. Wow, I get it now!
“One of the most important services an American can perform”? Does that not seem eerily close to the German Nazi propaganda machine of WWII? Having children is now our patriotic duty, a “service” to “perform”. Whether cannon fodder for the “fatherland” or a commodity to fuel a declining economy, we now know what the real value of children has become. Why don’t we just line up all those unpatriotic, self-centered women and AI all of them. What could be more important than the American economy? Instead of a “chicken in every pot” we could have “five kids in each home”.
Now that would surely take care of all our economic problems.
Massively tragic overpopulation will not redeem, liberate or dignify anyone. Rather, it will imprison the human spirit, heighten economic inequality and kindle unending strife and despair.
This book dares to go beyond the conventional wisdom. It comes to grips with the need for solutions that are both adequate and humane. In doing that, and in doing it so well, this book meets a dire need in the population policy discussion. Professor Hollingsworth shows in poignantly human terms why humanity must promptly redirect its reckless demographic course.
A lost, nuked human race, pursued by their own man-made attackers rockets away from the vestiges of their doomed planet, all the while searching endlessly for a new home in the not too friendly outreaches of intergalactic space.
The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but… sometimes it’s too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question “Why?” Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.
A silly Pennsylvania tradition is frozen in time while a weatherman plays out his existence, returning to the same day after day monotony, until he recognizes, understands and transforms his many character flaws, and his life no longer remains on hold.
Phil: What if there were no tomorrow?
Gus: No tomorrow? That would mean there would be no consequences, there would be no hangovers. We could do whatever we wanted!
Phil: [thinking] That’s true. We could do…whatever we wanted.
Phil: Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.
Today, the films combine to reveal abject lessons as our planet struggles badly with its own future:
We are constantly driven by huge ever increasing populations
Completely dependent on technology for our survival
The unmitigated failure to learn from the mistakes of the past
Blinded by the misery that surrounds us
Too trapped by fear and the unkown to change our ways
And the chances for survival precariously slip away as each day passes
There is a ruthless naivete and irony by the remaining fifty thousand survivors of the Galactic ship’s crew and supporting flotilla:
They curse and blame the dogged enemy
They justify and defend themselves against the onslaught of Cylon robots and human hybrids
Those Cylons were created to ply the work that the human race decided was either beneath or beyond them
Like the computer HAL in 2001-A Space Odyssey, which was designed to support wider human exploration, and then transcends that purpose to control and dictate to its creators much more than was ever imagined.
Once we finally give our destiny and our very existence to technology alone, the soul and spirit of mankind dwindles into a meaningless darkness, the same darkness from which we have most likely emerged so many times before, either here on this planet or other places in the universe.
Redux Again
Whether one fictional character is entrenched in a 24 hour cycle or it is a race of humans mucking away in another one million year cycle, it is the same mendacity and sense of superiority that prevails and guarantees our downfall.
So there is a collision of minds between Battlestar and Groundhog. Together, in a most unlikely tandem, they warn us again that as our numbers increase and we are compelled to turn to technology for our very survival, we must also face the consequences of that pact.
Therefore, when the machines of technology once again destroy, replace or drive us from this venerable and endangered environment, and those who survive begin their quest for yet another sanctuary, there is nothing left to blame but ourselves.
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
The Struggle of Biological Man and Technological Man
Biological mankind, in a relatively stable environment for over a million years, is finding the contemporary pace of emerging technologies a test for everything that we have known before.
All of mankind’s biological history has little to do with present digital information based lifestyles
Fifty years is a genetic and instinctual minute compared to the previous million years
It will be many centuries before our primordial nature fully adapts to the realities of ever-changing technology economies
So we are not simply 21st century beings, but a complex compilation of thousands of centuries, blended into behaviors we all exhibit today.
Consequently, the pace of our technology transformation is out of sync with mankind’s traditional capabilities.
The Results of Consumer Technology and Expanding Populations
Violence: A national symbol of American culture
Crime Rates: An urban nightmare
Prisons: If not for cost we couldn’t build them fast enough
Mental Hospitals: Crowded warehouses for discarded lives
Fear-Anger-Neurosis-Anxiety-Depression-Virtual Reality: You name it, we got it
Children Having Children: The only thing they know
We are out of balance, out of touch with the classical relationship we have had with our environment, and therefore, with each other.
We know technology can have many benefits, but there is a growing awareness that the benefits, if left unchecked, may control our lives in ways we are not fully able to comprehend yet.
The Old Triangle
Life forms on earth emerged because three separate elements of the environment (air, land, and water) produced conditions which were necessary for sustaining and developing new life systems.
Man is a product of adapting to the natural world, which shaped both his physical characteristics and his emotional and intellectual development.
For eons, an ancient triangle existed which represented man’s dependent relationship on the three basic elements. It was man’s precarious link to existence, a link which controlled his life and dictated his daily routine.
The New Triangle
The points on the old triangle, are being involuntarily reshuffled into one unified point. The other two points have now been replaced by powerful forces which are incrementally changing traditional biological relationships of the distant past.
The Environment
Mankind
Technology
The environment then is no longer the singular engine of this planet, but part of a troika pulling the train of life.
It is a serpentine trail wandering through time in a perpetual state of change, unsure of its destination, but moving steadily away from the roots of mankind’s existence.
Some believe technology is the new savior, a priceless discovery to be nurtured and developed until it finally reveals all its great secrets, and we will finally be free from the environment’s primordial, dependent relationship.
Technology is predicted to be the great liberator of human toil and misery, a super-renaissance in the ongoing development of our existence on this planet and beyond.
Remembering the Past: Fight or Flee Instincts
From past history, combined with the lessons of more recent events, it is questionable whether mankind is prepared for the journey.
If we are both lucky and smart we will continue our march through time.
Surely we can alter and control the acceleration and ultimate velocity of our travels, and it may be prudent and timely to do so.
Without fully considering all the possible ramifications, the journey for many in the past has been and could be for most of us in the future one of ongoing terror and violent conflicts.
We still remain more biologically suited to searching for food with fight or flee instincts, rather than pondering and adapting to technological and population forces racing to new levels beyond our wildest dreams.
When anger is on the throne, reason takes to its heels. He who is influenced by anger is like one intoxicated with a strong liquor. He loses his memory, his understanding becomes clouded and his intellect gets perverted.
The United States suffers from rapidly diminishing natural resources and a deteriorating ecosystem and environment
We have a struggling beleaguered market economy unresponsive and meaningless to many
It is not surprising we find ourselves in a constant state of flux, instability, neurotic responses and confusion
Instead of confronting our problems, we deny our own culpability and angrily look to others as the cause of our problems
Conspiracy theories and fringe political groups dominate our decisions and life choices
Salvation Means Sacrifice
The result of all this angst is a populace anchored not by individual efforts to reform our lack of discipline and self control, but letting others exploit our fears and uncertainties for their own political and financial gain. This is a “feeding frenzy” of immense proportions.
Oftentimes we are naive enough to believe we have somehow risen above the natural world
Technology has become our “fools gold”, and like Moses will lead us to the promised land
In fact technology ensnares us, constantly driving us from the course of restraint and stability
Instead of salvation we find disillusionment, and disillusionment is the mother of anger; which once tapped is an emotion without limits for its power to bring even more uncertainty and random violence to a country and world needing less rather than more.
From the Outer to the Inner
The West’s belligerency increases as our numbers increase and we move steadily away from controlling and reigning in our desires and frustrations.
Our growing population escalates frantically from wishes and wants to demands and rights, shamelessly marketed as hopes and dreams.
But it is not the material world that will lead us out of danger, but only the spiritual which lies dormant within. That spiritual calm awaits when we are determined and dedicated enough to seek more rational and enlightened possibilities.
First, 50 States in 1960 and a Population of 160 Million
Do the calculation of 100 senators plus 435 house members for a total of 535 representatives
Then divide those total representatives into 160 million
That is an approximate average of one representative in Congress for every 299,000 people
That is quite a few people to be represented by one representative
It’s not exactly like our individual voices were going to be heard loud and clear, not to say equally
Second, 2010 and a Population of 306 Million, Plus 1% Per Year
Again, 50 states, 100 senators and 435 house members for a total of 535 representatives
And again divide these total representatives by 306 million
That is an average of approximately 572,000 people for every representative in Congress
So if each individual was not being heard very well or fairly in 1960, how well do you think we are being heard in 2010
That is a staggering 48% percent drop in average representation, and it is declining everyday
From Limited Representation to Bribery By Another Name
Do you think those numbers are any indication why it has become so common for individuals to form lobbying and other interest groups to band together with huge amounts of money to sway members of congress?
What about the “average Joe” that can’t afford to join a lobby group or has no interest in doing so? How much influence do you think he or she has on issues and policies?
So simple math, big problem. All of it our own making. Those eye-popping numbers are why so many voters have simply given up on the political process after being buried by the consequences.
The fact is, it’s money and power which makes a difference
We are beginning to get an idea how most Native Americans, African-Americans and women must have felt before the 1960’s
This is a system driven not by the individuals it is supposed to represent, but by interest groups that can afford to wield influence
It may go by the name of lobbying and freedom of speech, but in reality it is something more akin to bribery.
It offends any thinking person’s sense of fair play and ethics.
What the Future Holds
Even more disturbing though is the trend toward greater and greater population growth. It is predicted that if the rates of population growth in the United States continue, we could see 400 million people by 2050.
The result of that compelling number is a ratio of almost 750,000 people per representative.
Increasing populations will continue to dilute much of an individual’s power to elect and influence their senators and representatives
If you are feeling lost and abandoned now, just give it a few more years and all of us will be even more marginalized
If you need any examples of that scenario today, take a look at China, India and Pakistan
That should give everyone a reason to pause and consider!
What is so difficult to understand about solving problems with less variables than more
Do we really need to populate this country and the world to the point where it is so complex and inundated with greed, corruption and calamity that there will ultimately will be no real solutions available to us
Are we so blind or unfeeling to the misery and poverty that populates fifty percent of the world, including substantial populations in our own country, that we simply refuse to acknowledge it
Or do we justify it by refusing to take responsibility and relinquishing it to some uncaring deity
Are we so caught up in our own self-indulgent consumerism that we really believe that we have the right to plunder both resources and the environment, and leave the rest of the starving and war-torn world to pick through the scraps
Do we really believe that our privileged status is justifiably earned on the backs of others, while we go on procreating, adding even more while compounding the problems we refuse to take responsibility for
The Fine Line Between Catastrophe and Concessions
Have we really reached the tipping point where we know nothing of sacrifice and common sense?
That was f**king Iraqi Freedom. Rip through this bitch shooting anything that moves from your window. That’s what I call freedom.
All religious stuff aside . . . the fact is people who can’t kill will be subject to those who can.
The f**ked thing . . . is the men we’ve been fighting probably came here for the same reasons we did, to test themselves, to feel what war is like. In my view it doesn’t matter if you oppose or support war. The machine goes on.
It is unbridled momentum that fuels the great economies and pits great and lesser states in a parade of military actions
It ultimately always seeks to protect the more privileged and better armed
It has always been a never-ending need for more and more resources
Those resources are finite, and no matter how much technology expands it will not satiate the ongoing demand by larger and larger populations
Those larger populations will always be pushing their momentum along the path of war and destruction to gather and control what they feel is rightfully theirs
The Many Facets of Freedom
Freedom can only be determined and defined by the circumstances in which you find yourself.
The major powers are sure that their view of freedom will prevail, and they have the devastating military might to show more humble powers the errors of their viewpoints.
Most feel powerless to resist that which is unstoppable.
Confused and fearful, those able to kill do so recklessly and without restraint, while we all shun the inevitable truth that individually we have lost control of our own humanity.
Overpopulation is with us every minute of our lives!
Whatever event, large or small, that is happening in the United States or the world, one thing will always be occurring right along with everything else in our lives – overpopulation.
It never ceases, never takes a break, carries on no matter what.
Because of it’s relentless momentum it is subtle, steadily and incrementally making our lives, communities and culture more complex, dibilitating and less personal.
So we are continually fighting the numbers thing.
Mainstream Meaningful Statistics
Recently, while stuffed into a packed airplane, I was perusing USA TODAY and I happened to catch their Snapshots piece on the front page.
Much to my amazement I found a telling summary of what this country and the rest of the world faces on a daily basis.
For you doubters of numbers and statistics the source is the Population Reference Bureau from August 2009. Read on.
World Population Changes Per Day
More – Developed Nations: (United States and Europe) Births: + 39,340
Deaths: – 33,636
Net Result: + 5,704
Less – Developed Nations: (The rest of the world) Births: + 341,343
Deaths: – 120,019
Net Result: + 221,324
A Staggering Grand Total of 227,000 Additional People Per Day
And I leave you with this, that Grand Total will increase tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and on into the future.
This site is dedicated to a collection of writings, visuals, and critiques that combine to contribute to inspiring and encouraging solutions to overpopulation, particularly in the United States.
Women and couples are choosing to have fewer or no children because they are more educated and smarter. It has nothing to do with higher taxes, deficit reduction or whatever. Any fool can produce a child and many do. Some of the more thoughtful among us are beginning to realize their parenting abilities and skills are limited by circumstance and temperament. 
children. First of all we don’t need children, what we need are couples that are capable, diligent and dedicated enough to choose to have children. We can all rest assured that children will never be on the Endangered Species List, at least not until we finally turn this planet into an inhabitable desert by continuing to reproduce quantities of human beings that we DON’T need! Mr Samuelson we can continue to help those elderly that need it and continue to have children, we just have to make economic choices and sacrifices that foster care and nurturing for both groups. By the way I guess it didn’t occur to you that by emphasizing quality children over quantity, we will reduce future elderly populations – exactly the group you seem to feel takes up way too much room and resources in this society. 
