Demographics

[Crafty_Dog]

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/more-frightening-news-about-fertility?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-life-expectancy-falls-again-in-historic-decline_4732330.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-09-17&utm_medium=email&est=7AK%2F85Srm2UXUaNYRTnszJ%2BcpW8Cj908N7BVfPrCoAmd5HBxaEY0eUb8bl2UHL8fo3SU

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.facebook.com/HooverInstStanford/videos/756684352300392/ 

[Crafty_Dog]

Hat tip CCP

https://www.statista.com/statistics/312701/percentage-of-population-foreign-born-in-the-us-by-state/#:~:text=As%20of%202020%2C%2026.6%20percent,other%20than%20the%20United%20States

[Crafty_Dog]

Hispanics Like What the GOP Is Selling
The message of work and opportunity appeals to this disproportionately middle-class minority.

By Phil Gramm and John Early
Oct. 19, 2022 6:14 pm ET




Hispanics are one of the fastest growing census demographics in America, and their realignment away from the Democratic Party is a political earthquake in the making. If polls are right and increasing numbers of Hispanics vote Republican in November, the much-touted inevitability of Democratic political dominance will have proved to be a pipe dream.


The creation of a separate ethnic classification for Hispanics in the 1970 census was a political decision. If someone in your family history spoke Spanish, you are counted as Hispanic—a definition that includes people whose ancestors were here before the Pilgrims landed as well as those who are arriving in the country today.

According to the census, there were 62 million Hispanics in 2021, comprising 19% of the population. After the third generation in the U.S., however, many no longer identify as Hispanic, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center study. Asked about their race on the census, 58% of Hispanics said they were white, 27% selected the undefined option—“some other race”—8% selected two or more races, and 2% said they were black. Hispanics have the highest intermarriage rate of any ethnic or racial group. The American melting pot is boiling for Hispanics.

Like the Germans, Italians and Greeks before them, many second-and third- generation don’t speak the language of their forbears. In the past 50 years, median income for Hispanic households has grown 17% faster than for the population as a whole. Today Hispanics, in their labor-force participation and income distribution, look more like Republicans than Democrats. And a strong case can be made that the same forces driving the political realignment of middle-income workers generally is increasingly moving Hispanic voters as well.

We have shown on these pages how the explosion of government transfer payments, which in the past 50 years have far outpaced growth in the after-tax income of middle-income working families, has largely equalized the incomes of the bottom 60% of Americans. In addition to the collapse in work effort among low-income households, this government-created income equality has unleashed a populist political realignment. The inherently unstable Roosevelt coalition, between blue-collar workers and the recipients of government largess, is unraveling.

According to census data, middle-income American households earn more than 10 times as much as households in the bottom 20% of earners because their work-age adults are 3.1 times as likely to work and, when working, they work more than twice as many hours. But working and nonworking households alike now have roughly the same income after accounting for transfer payments and taxes.

Working people are increasingly hostile to an unjust system in which those who don’t break a sweat are almost as well off as those who do. This worker revolt, which was building in the 1980s with what were then called Reagan Democrats, was fully manifested in the Trump blue-collar political base.

Today this worker revolt is a prime mover of Hispanic voters, and it’s hardly surprising: Hispanic Americans work. Hispanic households receive 10% less in transfer payments than the average American household. They are underrepresented by 13% in the bottom income quintile, where only 36% of work-age persons actually work and where government transfer payments make up almost 90% of all income. They are 7% less likely to be in the bottom quintile than white households generally. Hispanic families are 31% overrepresented in the second income quintile, where 85% of work-age adults work; and they are 21% overrepresented in the American middle class, where 92% of work-age adults are employed. That middle-income working Americans think like middle-income working Americans shouldn’t come as a shock.

The Democratic response to the shift in Hispanic voters has been to hire more Hispanic political consultants. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic National Committee claims to have made “historic investments” in Hispanic voter outreach this election cycle. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent $46 million hiring Hispanic political advisers and engaging in Hispanic outreach. Its House counterpart has spent $31 million. These political committees, together with nonprofit groups, have hired Latino strategists and targeted Hispanic voters to amplify the Biden administration’s policy achievements, including expanded transfer payments and student loan forgiveness.

Only the vote count will give us the answer, but it is hard to believe that touting what the Biden administration has given them will work with middle-income Hispanic workers—especially when Hispanics are already less likely to receive welfare benefits than white voters generally. The grievance message would seem ineffective for Hispanic families that have worked their way into middle-income America in record numbers. Polls show that Hispanics don’t view themselves as a minority, much less an oppressed one, and their record of economic advancement proves that point.
A microcosm of this political realignment is playing out in deep South Texas. Republican Monica De La Cruz runs ads about how her grandmother would be proud that she owns her own business. Rep. Mayra Flores, who emigrated from Mexico as a child and worked with her family as migrant farm worker, notes that in “the promised land” she rose to become a respiratory care practitioner. Ms. Flores won a special election in a district Joe Biden carried by 5 points and is now running against a Democrat incumbent in a new district where Mr. Biden won by 15 points and Hillary Clinton by 30.

The open border that has filled South Texas with illegal immigrants, drugs and crime is a big issue for voters. So is the Democratic Party’s assault on traditional family values. But at its root the election is a choice between the opportunity that comes from the U.S. economy and the benefits that come from government. The Republican Hispanic candidates are running to share the American dream that hard work pays off. They have brought back the old political mantra of the Reagan era. They are for family, faith and freedom. Nowhere else in America is a clearer choice presented to the voter.

Mr. Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They are the co-authors of “The Myth of American Inequality.” Mike Solon contributed to this article.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/27/18-million-more-illegal-immigrants-living-in-the-u/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=vUl18RuQ1HXjm0AuDhTRtjRVbZdpgmkdoI6Ht0ePQtTB7pWjfh7bCBlAkOxNWSWe&bt_ts=1666865826828

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/one-way-or-another-population-globe-will-soon-be-much-smaller-it-right-now?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1077

[ccp]

From article in previous post:

***"One of the big reasons why birth rates are falling in wealthy countries is because men in those nations are a lot less fertile than they used to be.  In fact, researchers have just released a study that shows that the decline in sperm counts “has only accelerated since the turn of the century”…

Plummeting sperm counts ‘threaten mankind’s survival’, researchers dramatically warned today.

Counts have more than halved since the 1970s.

And the decline has only accelerated since the turn of the century, according to a global analysis.

Once your sperm count gets low enough, it becomes almost impossible to have children.

So this is a really big deal.

According to the study, average sperm counts have been declining by 2.64 percent per year since the year 2000…

Results showed the mean sperm count fell by 51.6 per cent between 1973 and 2018 across men from all continents.

And concentrations have been falling by 2.64 per cent per year since 2000, quicker than the previous drop of 1.16 per cent annually from 1972."***

My humble thoughts on the matter :

this is also very consistent with the massive increase in obesity in the US over the past 50 yrs
the one fact that seems to counteract that would the decrease in fertility in Japan which has a very low prevalence of obesity .
I am not clear the low fertility in Japan is due to low sperm counts
or indeed, anywhere else for that matter.

[Crafty_Dog]

Framing China’s Demographic Decline
undefined and Asia-Pacific analyst with RANE
Nate Fischler
Asia-Pacific analyst with RANE, Stratfor
9 MIN READDec 19, 2022 | 21:42 GMT





A girl stands in Tiananmen Square during National Day in Beijing, China, on Oct. 1, 2018.
A girl stands in Tiananmen Square during National Day in Beijing, China, on Oct. 1, 2018.

(FRED DUFOUR/AFP via Getty Images)

Editor’s Note: This column is the first part of an ongoing series that will explore China’s demographic challenges.

China’s impending population decline is often cited as a harbinger of its economic and strategic collapse. But while a shrinking population represents a major challenge, the assumption that a country derives its strength from the number of people living within its borders is often overly simplistic.

Indeed, China is facing various demographic issues with wide-ranging implications beyond population decline. The next five years will be critical in addressing these issues, which should be framed as part of an ongoing — and painful — middle-income transition that the Chinese government has determined requires strong central leadership to manage.

Centralization of Power
In October, Xi secured another five-year term as China’s leader, along with a thoroughly loyal cabinet. Since he came to power in 2012, there has been a clear trend of ever-growing power being concentrated in Xi’s hands — moving China away from the rule-by-consensus model established in the 1970s. This shift is a direct response to the various development challenges that China has been late to address, as a strong central government theoretically enables policymakers to be flexible, quick and decisive in addressing ongoing crises, as well as mitigating the societal turmoil that often accompanies middle-income transitions.

Each of the various demographic issues China is facing — which include a shrinking and aging population — would be difficult to overcome individually in a much smaller country, let alone simultaneously and at the unprecedented scale that China is grappling with. This daunting socioeconomic dynamic will, in turn, provide political justification and rationale to double and triple down on centralized power as Beijing prioritizes alleviating China’s various demographic crises through top-down policymaking.

A Hyperexpression of the East Asian Model
China’s meteoric rise was bound to slow. A low-income country implies production potential, and a country can develop from a pre-industrial to a post-industrial society only once, which China accomplished with impressive speed from the 1970s. Reaping the benefits in the form of seemingly boundless economic growth thus must occur within a constrained time frame, which has now run its course.

In many ways, China is experiencing a typical transition of East Asian economies. Japan and the Asian Tigers (i.e., Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) underwent similar middle-income transitions. This model involves low-income, high-growth stages leading to middle-income, middle-growth stages that then require reform, innovation and boosted per capita productivity to lead to a high-income, slow-growth stage.

China is broadly attempting to enter into the final stage and escape the so-called middle-income trap — a phenomenon where countries that undergo rapid economic growth are unable to make the final leap to become high-income developed economies after successful low-income to middle-income transition stages. In its effort to avoid this trap, the country is experiencing sweeping structural, cultural and social adjustments that go far beyond population growth (or lack thereof). Indeed, this transition is natural from a socioeconomic and development perspective, regardless of birth rate.

But China faces particularly daunting challenges as it undergoes what is otherwise a typical phenomenon due to its sheer size, unique political and societal implications, and shrinking population. For one, China’s population, geographic size and industrial capacity dwarf all of the aforementioned East Asian economies; taking on the middle-income transition at such a mass scale and under such unwieldy circumstances has never before been attempted.

With the exception of Singapore (due largely to its manageable size), the other three East Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan) all experienced significant sociopolitical turbulence during their transitions to advanced economies and broadly democratic political systems, including high unemployment, social unrest and political upheaval. Likewise, Japan declined into economic malaise and Indonesia endured mass protests. China, however, is attempting to prevent upheaval typical of the later stages of this transition model while also nurturing economic development (a combination not seen in the other cases), which requires innovative and technologically-driven mass social control and the enforcement of desired cultural mores. This creates an acute risk in China, where people lack an outlet to express their discontent — creating a pressure cooker that could explode into mass civil unrest, like that seen in 1989 (which culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre) and, more recently, the Nov. 25-27 protests against the government's strict “zero-COVID” policies.

Then there is the issue of China’s looming demographic decline, as transitioning to an advanced economy with a population and workforce that has already peaked is far more difficult than doing so with a growing population (as was the case in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan).

Population Decline and Pronatalism
China’s population has long been expected to peak and start shrinking at some point between 2020 and 2040. But there are signs this decline may have already begun. China’s National Statistics Bureau recorded 10.62 million total births in 2021, down 11.5% from the previous year. Between 2020 and 2021, China’s birth rate also fell from 1.3 children per woman to 1.16 children — far short of the 2.1 replacement level.

These birth statistics are comparable to those China saw in the early 1960s, when the country was experiencing cataclysmic famine brought on by the Great Leap Forward and had half as many people. According to China’s 2020 census, the country’s population count stood at 1,411,778,724 people, though the actual number is likely smaller given Beijing’s tendency to massage national statistics and inflate demographic figures. After years of soft-pedaling or outright denying the issue, in 2017 the Chinese government finally began to acknowledge that the country’s fertility rate was suboptimal and has since become increasingly vocal on the issue, now admitting that population growth has slowed to the point of nearly contracting. But Beijing is acting far too late to reverse the trend, assuming it ever could.


The country’s population decline is compounded by rapid aging. Fewer people of working age (between 15-64 years old) create more retired dependents, reducing state revenues and increasing government expenditures on healthcare and pensions. This cohort of working-age Chinese citizens peaked in 2014 and, according to census data, has been declining at a rate greater than the total population — shrinking by 40 million from 2010-2021. The share of retired dependents, meanwhile, is skyrocketing.

A decreasing population, particularly among the working-age cohort, risks dragging economic growth in the absence of significantly increased per capita productivity. According to the data analytics firm CEIC, China’s growth in productivity per capita (where productivity outpaces labor force decline) is still outpacing the United States, but has been declining since 2010.

Additionally, increased labor costs in China — already twice that of neighboring Vietnam — will drive low-margin, labor-intensive manufacturing out of the country into markets with labor abundance. This, however, is partly purposeful given low-end labor moves overseas in developed economies. Nearby countries with cheaper labor (like Bangladesh, India or Vietnam) also can’t match China’s logistics and infrastructure, which will help mitigate this manufacturing exodus.

In response to its shrinking population, China has adopted pronatalist policies, ending its One Child Policy and Two-Child Policy and introducing the Three Child Policy in 2021. The country has also pledged to make pre- and postnatal services and fertility treatment more effective, affordable and accessible. Over the past decade, childhood education has emerged as a key government focus and is now widely available across the country. Local governments enacted subsidy programs for new parents and extended maternity leave. In wealthier regions, new mothers are now entitled to up to 158 days off, up from the 98-day statutory minimum established in 2012. This minimum maternity leave is on par with Japan and is higher than those set by several developed countries, such as Sweden and South Korea (which mandate at least 84 days of leave for new mothers). China also has the highest abortion rate among the world’s largest economies, at nearly 50 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-49 (compared with 12 in the United States and five in Japan). China is taking measures to curb abortions for non-medical purposes, including sex-selective abortions, and more restrictions are likely as Beijing seeks to boost its population rate.
 
However, these pronatalist policies have so far failed to increase China’s birth rate. Indeed, there are few historical examples of sustained fertility growth in any country once it has dropped. In reality, China’s society is rapidly evolving along the track of other industrialized Asian nations and the global north in general. Marriage rates are declining and divorce rates are increasing — especially in the country’s highly urbanized coastal and eastern cities — amid a general deterioration of traditional social norms.

More couples are also choosing not to have children, and those that are starting families are waiting longer to do so. This is due to several factors. For one, the high cost of housing and education has made child-rearing too expensive for many; according to the Chinese think-tank YuWa Population Research, the average total cost of raising a child in China is nearly seven times per capita GDP (compared with four times in the United States). China’s insufficient social safety net is also deterring people from having children.

The notorious One Child Policy is often cited as the catalyst for China’s shrinking fertility rates. But the ban on having large families may have, ironically, not been necessary to contain China’s population growth, as the effects of the country’s industrialization in recent decades — including urbanization, broad access to education, and women joining the workforce — would have likely naturally slowed fertility rates.

However, population growth is not inherently advantageous. If economic outputs cannot keep pace, resources will become scarce and expensive. Such a predicament led the Chinese government to institute the One Child Policy in the first place, to control overpopulation and increase the standard of living. Growth in terms of per capita GDP can outpace total GDP growth, which is an indicator of greater individual wealth and higher individual productivity. China does not, then, necessarily need to rely on population growth for a stable economic trajectory. At nearly one billion people, China’s working-age population still dwarfs every other country (for comparison, the U.S. working-age population is 215 million, while Japan’s is 74 million).

Instead, China will look to manage a strategic demographic contraction by reorienting its economic fundamentals. This, however, will prove to be a major challenge as such economic fundamentals are encapsulated in retirement and social security, real estate and capital, labor, geography, and broader regional and geopolitical developments — all of which will be explored in the subsequent parts of this series.

[Crafty_Dog]

second

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3203833/chinas-shrinking-working-age-population-send-ripples-through-global-economy

Explainer | China population: with 2022 set to be a turning point, what’s next as economy, coronavirus take toll?
After increasing by just 480,000 to 1.4126 billion last year, demographers have predicted that China’s population could reach a turning point in 2022
Some 13 out of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions saw their populations shrink last year, with six suffering declines for the first time in modern history
Luna Sun
Luna Sun in Beijing
+ myNEWS
Published: 7:00am, 19 Dec, 2022


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China had 267.36 million people aged over 60 at the end of 2021, representing 18.9 per cent of the population, up from 264.02 million a year earlier. Photo: AP
China had 267.36 million people aged over 60 at the end of 2021, representing 18.9 per cent of the population, up from 264.02 million a year earlier. Photo: AP
As China’s path to fully reopening remains murky and chaotic with mounting economic headwinds, one pitfall seems to be more inevitable than others – the looming demographic crisis.
Demographers have predicted that China’s population could reach a turning point in 2022, with bleak birth rates and anecdotal evidence indicating that the increasing economic and political pressures have taken a toll.
The 20th party congress in November highlighted that “timely adjustments” have already been made to China’s childbirth policy, while President Xi Jinping also promised further improvements.
Demographers, though, have argued that it will be difficult for China to reverse the effects of its previous one-child policy amid the ongoing economic disruptions and changing attitudes within society towards marriage and family.
What key population figures were revealed in 2022?
Mothers in China gave birth to just 10.62 million babies in 2021, representing an 11.5 per cent drop from 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed in January.
The national death rate was 7.18 per thousand last year, putting the national growth rate at 0.34 per thousand.

This contributed to an overall population increase of just 480,000 to 1.4126 billion last year.
The national birth rate also fell to a record low 7.52 births for every 1,000 people, down from 8.52 in 2020, to the lowest rate since records began in 1949.
Some 13 out of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions saw their populations shrink last year, with six suffering declines for the first time in modern history.
What’s the make-up of China’s population?
China’s working-age population age – between 16 and 59 – stood at 882.22 million at the end of 2021, representing 62.5 per cent of the population, down from 63.35 per cent in 2020 and 74.53 in 2010.
China had 267.36 million people aged over 60 at the end of 2021, representing 18.9 per cent of the population, up from 264.02 million a year earlier.
Last year, 200 million people were aged 65 and over, up from 190.64 million in 2020, and accounting for 14.2 per cent of the population.

Permanent residents in urban areas increased by 12.05 million to 914.25 million, while rural permanent residents fell by 11.57 million to 498.35 million last year.
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China’s so-called floating population, featuring mostly migrant workers, reached 384.67 million in 2021, 8.85 million more than in 2020.
How many people are getting married in China?
The number of marriage registrations in China dropped by 7.5 per cent in the first three quarters of 2022, reaching 5.4 million, according to official data.
Last year, 7.64 million marriages were registered, which was the lowest total since records began in 1986, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The number of people getting married for the first time, a statistic more closely tied to new births, dropped to a record low of 11.58 million people last year, down by 708,000 from 2020, to the lowest since 1985.

00:13 / 01:05
Population decline in China raises concerns of economic implications
In November, authorities from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region said three years of coronavirus restrictions had not only brought tremendous impact on the economy, but also affected the normal life of residents, with marriage rates suffering.
​​Official records from Sichuan province showed that the number of marriage registrations dropped by nearly 30 per cent in 2021 compared to 2016.
The local government attributed the decline to a fall in the population within a marriageable age, rising wedding costs and a more diverse perception of marriage.
What’s been done to address China’s population problems in 2022?
After officially ending its one-child policy in January 2016 and responding to the 2020 census results by allowing each couple in the country to have up to three children since May 2021, China has taken further steps this year.
Provincial and municipal authorities have rolled out initiatives to encourage people to have more children, including offering parents more days off work as well as financial support.
In May, Jiangsu also became the first Chinese province to subsidise companies for paying insurance to female employees during their second and third period of maternity leave.
Companies can be reimbursed for 50 or 80 per cent of the social insurance paid to women who have a second child or a third child for six months, in a move viewed as a bid to help counter discrimination against hiring women.
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In November, Ningshan county in Shaanxi province became the first to offer cash subsidies to all couples, with a one-time subsidy of 2,000 yuan (US$287) for one child, 3,000 yuan for two and 5,000 yuan for three.
It also vowed to provide a monthly subsidy of 600 yuan for couples with two children until the second child turns three-years-old, while couples with three children can receive 1,200 yuan per month until the third child reaches 36 months.
In December, Yunnan province also offered one-time cash subsidies for families with a second and third child.
Cities are also loosening home purchase limits for parents with more children, while many have also started to cover assisted productive techniques under medical insurance.

00:04 / 00:30
China to roll out new incentives for couples to have more babies amid birth rate drop
In February, officials in Beijing announced that the city will include more than a dozen fertility services in a government-backed medical insurance scheme.
To address the problem of declining marriage registrations, provincial authorities are even playing the role of matchmaker, with vows to help young people find a partner while also implementing policies to ease financial burdens.
China has also launched a new nationwide marital and maternity survey to gain insight into what is driving the country’s declining marriage and birth rates.
The survey, authorised by the NBS and carried out in conjunction with family planning and demographic authorities, kicked off in September in several regions of Hunan province.
What’s next for China’s population?
Demographers predict that the negative effects of the coronavirus on births will bring the fertility rate in 2022 even lower than it was last year, while many have estimated that China’s population will peak this year and start declining in 2023.
“We will improve the population development strategy, establish a policy system to boost birth rates, and bring down the costs of pregnancy and childbirth, child rearing, and schooling,” Xi said in his speech to the 20th party congress.
Some demographers also see China entering a normalised phase of population decline, meaning the population level could fluctuate around the point of growth stagnation in the coming years before it starts to decline.

00:09 / 00:20
As world population hits 8 billion, China frets over too few babies
Chen Wei, a professor with the Population Development Studies Centre at Renmin University, said earlier this year that China’s natural population growth might not continue falling in the next 10 to 20 years, instead it will fluctuate around zero and could see small declines without rapid decreases.
India is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country next year, according to the United Nations’ “World Population Prospects 2022”.
Just three years ago, the UN projection was for India to overtake China by around 2027.
By 2050, China’s population is expected to have fallen to around 1.32 billion, while India’s will have hit 1.67 billion, according to the UN.
China is expected to release its official 2022 population figures at the start of next year.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/elon-musk-says-ape-expert-jane-goodall-s-take-on-human-population-is-the-death-of-humanity/ar-AA15zjgk?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=c930c18d79a34ec69337ae244b14a9a0

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/health/us-life-expectancy-reaches-25-year-low-cdc_4940342.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2022-12-23&src_cmp=gv-2022-12-23&utm_medium=email&est=RX5SowPNHiqyo6p3rDAtUZS7G9mf0W2H870jnbyp8txEJCRmzofih%2FEWn48KqH5J57Ev

[Crafty_Dog]

’60 MINUTES’ STARTS NEW YEAR WITH POPULATION GROWTH PANIC… SEGMENT FEATURES INFAMOUS CONSPIRACY THEORIST PAUL EHRLICH… NO MENTION OF COLLAPSING HUMAN FERTILITY… CBS: Scientists say planet in midst of sixth mass extinction, Earth’s wildlife running out of places to live (VIDEO)

In what year will the human population grow too large for the Earth to sustain? The answer is about 1970, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund. In 1970, the planet’s 3 and a half billion people were sustainable. But on this New Year’s Day, the population is 8 billion. Today, wild plants and animals are running out of places to live. The scientists you’re about to meet say the Earth is suffering a crisis of mass extinction on a scale unseen since the dinosaurs. […]

At the age of 90, biologist Paul Ehrlich may have lived long enough to see some of his dire prophecies come true.

Scott Pelley: You seem to be saying that humanity is not sustainable?

Paul Ehrlich: Oh, humanity is not sustainable. To maintain our lifestyle (yours and mine, basically) for the entire planet, you’d need five more Earths. Not clear where they’re gonna come from.

 

FLASHBACK… 2020… BBC: Fertility rate:‘ Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born

The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a “jaw-dropping” impact on societies, say researchers.

Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.

And 23 nations – including Spain and Japan – are expected to see their populations halve by 2100.

Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born.

 

[ccp]

Not the UN extrapolations have Asia and Europe declining

growth trends are declining everywhere
population growth increasing in US , I don't know if this includes illegals pouring in at present rate 5 million per yr

no stats found for Antarctica 


Asia

https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/asia-population.php#:~:text=Asia%20is%20the%20most%20populous,percent%20of%20the%20world%20population.

S. America:

https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/south-america-population.php#:~:text=South%20America's%20population%20is%2016,home%20to%20492.8%20mn%20people.

N America:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NAC/north-america/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20population%20of%20North%20America,a%200.53%25%20increase%20from%202019.

Australia:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AUS/australia/population-growth-rate

Europe :

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/eur/europe/population#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20Europe,a%200%25%20increase%20from%202019.

Africa :

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AFR/africa/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20Africa,a%202.43%25%20increase%20from%202020.

[ccp]

saw 60 min. last night

thought the point about loss of biodiversity to be true though

do we really want to wipe out 75 % of World's life......

hard to fathom
or assess
what that would mean

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGkELtG8IMw

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED_yPDdqG5Y

[Crafty_Dog]

second

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x64f7NxQKKk

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntDCHvVKzE4

[Crafty_Dog]

Birth rate of 1.16?!?

--------------------------

ON GEOPOLITICS
What China's Demographic Decline Means for Its Retirement and Pension Systems
undefined and Asia-Pacific analyst with RANE
Nate Fischler
Asia-Pacific analyst with RANE, Stratfor
11 MIN READJan 13, 2023 | 22:11 GMT





Elderly women sit together on benches in Chongqing, China.
Elderly women sit together on benches in Chongqing, China.

(Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Editor's note: This column is the second part of an ongoing series that explores China's demographic challenges.

As discussed in the first part of this series, dropping birth rates are driving China's demographic decline. But its population's rapid aging (and Beijing's failure to timely adjust the country's pension and retirement systems accordingly) presents an additional acute compounding challenge.

China's life expectancy is now 78 according to the World Bank, the oldest in the country's recorded history. This is still low compared with developed countries, where the life expectancies range between 82 and 85 years old. But it is nonetheless a dramatic, society-altering improvement from the early 1960s, when people in China on average died before they were 45 years old.

As China's population ages — and the birth rate drops ever further below replacement level — the combined cost of healthcare and public pensions will place a massive (and potentially insurmountable) burden on public expenditures. In the immediate term, the government will look to confront this challenge by reforming the country's pension system and decades-old retirement system, the latter of which was instituted at a time when most people did not live past middle age. The question, however, is whether those reforms will be large enough to sufficiently mitigate the greater demographic decline that risks impeding China's economic development and keeping it trapped as a middle-income country.

Rapid Aging
China's birth rate has fallen to roughly 1.16 children per woman, according to the latest official data released in 2021 — far short of the replacement level of 2.1 (the number of births needed to keep population levels stable). The country's population is also aging at a record pace, with the number of Chinese citizens aged 65 and older growing by nearly 100 million people from 2000 to 2021, according to the World Bank.

Having a higher proportion of elderly to working-age citizens has proven a natural trajectory in developed economies as people live longer due to healthcare advances, improved nutrition and safer working conditions, and as couples opt to have fewer children due to the heavy cost burden as well as increased education and career opportunities for women (among other factors). China's challenge, however, is unique in that it remains in aggregate a developing country that has not yet emerged from its middle-income transition — a complication compounded by the drastic discrepancies in economic development across regions.

The greater concern is not that China is aging but that it is doing so at an unprecedented speed. The United Nations considers a country's population ''aged'' when at least 7% of people are 65 or older. In most developed nations, the transition to an aged population has occurred over the course of three or four generations. But China has done it in one.

In 2000, China was near the 7% threshold to be deemed an aged population. Two decades on, it has not only surpassed that threshold but nearly doubled it, with people aged 65 or older making up 13.5% of China's population in 2021. That percentage is only set to exponentially grow in the coming years.

This has sharp implications in the near term as China's ratio of retired dependents to workers will quickly become so lopsided that it could collapse the country's entire pension system. At 1.4 billion people (according to the government), the sheer size of China's population, in addition to accounting for its massive geographic area and sprawling bureaucratic needs, renders the attendant administrative challenges highly dubious. China had a ratio of 9.9 workers to one pensioner in 2000 and 5.8 in 2020. That ratio is set to fall to a minuscule 2.3 by 2050, altogether far too low to simultaneously support the ballooning retired cohort and pursue sustainable economic growth. China will thus look to implement reforms throughout President Xi Jinping's third five-year term to account for the wide-reaching vulnerabilities of its retirement and pension systems.

An Outdated Retirement System
China's outmoded statutory retirement age — 60 for men, 55 for women and 50 for female blue-collar workers — is exacerbating the economic impact of its population's rapid aging. The retirement age law was instituted in 1951 when life expectancy was much lower and, considering the vast economic and societal changes China has gone through over the past 70 years, is in need of urgent reform. China's average retirement age ranks near the youngest in the world. Without any changes to this trend, the working-age cohort of China's population is expected to shrink by 35 million people between 2021 and 2025, while the cohort of retirees is expected to increase by 40 million. Looking further out, the ratio of retirees to workers in China is projected to explode from 17% in 2020 to 33% in 2035.

The more years an individual spends in retirement (and out of the workforce), the fewer taxes China's government is able to collect from their wages and fewer years of contributions to the country's public pension fund. Under China's Social Security Law, statutory pensions received after retirement are also classified as tax-exempt income, further reducing sources of revenue.

To account for this, the government included gradually raising retirement ages nationwide by 2025 as part of its 14th five-year plan. According to the Chinese business publication China Economic Weekly, authorities in all of the country's 31 provinces had rolled out pilot programs for retirement deferrals in February 2022. If widely replicated and expanded, these gradual steps could lead to a change in national retirement age requirements.

However, the revelation of the government's intention sparked backlash, as did previous calls to raise the retirement age in 2008 and 2012. Older workers were not keen to delay access to their pensions. Younger workers coming from an increasingly over-educated generation were worried about losing job opportunities in what is already a tight labor market for degree holders, which has left many younger Chinese citizens underemployed in recent years.

Moreover, the prospect of raising the retirement age touches on a cultural taboo in China, where caring for the elderly is a deeply ingrained cultural norm. Traditional social and family structures also often involve retired grandparents providing childcare for working parents. Within this context, both young and old have balked at the prospect of having older people stay in or return to the workforce, viewing it as a sign the government is not sufficiently attuned to its well-established social responsibilities. To mitigate the risk of public backlash, Beijing will thus likely gradually reform the country's retirement system in a more piecemeal fashion by adjusting rules for specific regions and occupations, as opposed to enacting a blanket national policy change.

The Pensions Predicament
China has one well-established pension scheme, which is the government-led public pension fund that covers around 1.03 billion people. The fund is already showing indications of unsustainability as it reported a drop in income as well as a deficit for the first time at the end of 2021. According to the Chinese non-profit Insurance Association of China, the public pension fund is facing up to a 10 trillion yuan or $1.5 trillion shortfall in the next five to ten years. A 2019 report from the state-sponsored think tank called the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicted that the fund will be depleted by 2035. There is little reason to expect a turnaround without substantive policy reforms as China's diminishing working age cohort results in ever-fewer contributions to the fund, along with ever-larger payouts.

The Chinese government is also developing another pension scheme, which is a supplemental occupational annuity for public sector employees and a voluntary enterprise annuity scheme that was introduced in 2004. However, participation is mostly limited to state-owned enterprises comprising a workforce of less than 5% of the total working population, and despite the government's issuance of guidelines in 2018 encouraging private enterprises to participate in annuity systems, such enterprises rarely offer coverage, sitting at a 0.5% coverage rate in 2020. Enterprises that do participate tend to rely on risk-averse investments that generate fewer returns. The government is also hesitant to impose more costs on private businesses that already struggle with overhead, particularly for small and medium enterprises and even more so amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, high employer contributions to social security are legally mandated, which often leads employers to seek cost-saving measures by underreporting wage payments or seeking part-time or temporary workers. A 2018 study by social insurance research think tank 51Shebao found that only 27% of companies paid out the full total of mandated social security payments, making the potential for further payments in the form of enterprise annuities unlikely. In general, owing to its many constraints, this second pillar is not a sufficient alternative or supplement to the public pension fund.

Even with strong backing, China's public pension and annuity accounts are often insufficiently funded to disperse payments to recipients. As the government is forced to increase financial subsidies and receives less revenue yearly, the country intends to develop the nascent third commercial pillar in the coming years.

The Three-Pillared Potential Solution
As it is with a slew of other challenges related to China's demographic decline, the government is acting far later than ideal. Private wealth management and commercial pensions are severely underdeveloped. China made clear its intention to address the shortcomings of its unwieldy social security and pension systems in 2018 by introducing regulatory guidance for various supply-side products and private pension insurance schemes aimed at establishing a starting point for the industry as a viable third pillar. China then began inviting foreign asset management players into the market in earnest in 2020, marked by France-based Amudi's establishment of the first wealth management joint venture with the Bank of China in September of that year. Outfits like Schroders, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Fidelity and Blackrock soon followed. In January, U.S.-based Principal Financial Group became the first foreign company to invest in a bank-sponsored Chinese pension company.

China is now actively experimenting with the private wealth management sector. In October 2022, five government bureaus jointly promulgated private pension implementation measures. In November, these bureaus oversaw the initiation of a full pilot program in over 30 cities, including some of China's largest in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chongqing. The pilot program allows residents in participating locales to invest in around 130 approved wealth management, commercial pension insurance and mutual fund products. Both courting foreign companies and unveiling new private sector schemes are likely signs of things to come as China hopes to develop and integrate its private pension industry with its other two pillars, with the former offering enormous investment and innovation potential to industry players anxious to break into the lucrative China market.

Over the next five years under its top-heavy political model, the Chinese government will look to develop a private pension scheme and a retail asset management industry to serve as a viable and flexible third pillar, as well as reform the country's retirement age laws. Successfully doing so would serve to mitigate some of the severe risks inherent to a growing dependent population in a country with rapidly rising incomes and living costs. By the same token, failure to properly reform the pension system will leave China's growing retirement cohort not only without disposable income, but also without the wherewithal to acquire specialized goods and services needed in old age.

This issue is thus one of the high-stakes challenges coloring China's demographic decline, but it does not sit in policy isolation and is intimately linked with China's stock market and real estate dynamics. The nascent private pension industry may take off, but prospects are constrained by the country's underdeveloped stock markets. Similarly, real estate remains the primary mechanism for investment and savings in China, even as the government acts to deleverage it. This means China's retirement schemes are not only burdened by a rapidly aging society that lacks a replacement generation, but are also in trouble due to the unwinding of its de facto primary savings mechanism. In effect, China cannot reel in its runaway real estate industry without first developing a reliable alternative mode of savings.

In the next part of this series, we'll more thoroughly explore the challenges China faces relating to its real estate and capital flows in the context of the country's demographic decline.

image of globe
Connected Content

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-population-shrinks-first-time-since-1961-2023-01-17/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=011723

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MSV2bh48MA

[Crafty_Dog]

Birth Rates Plunge in Heavily Vaccinated Countries
 

In many countries, births dropped sharply nine months after peak COVID vaccine uptake. Let’s look at how this happens. And will these populations recover?


Vital Statistics–Hidden Data
Since the beginning of COVID, vital statistics as reported by governments around the world, are hard to come by. Spotty availability hinders analysis and understanding.

For example, even today in the United States, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and Washington are four of the states that, as of this writing, have not updated births data since 2019 [1] and 2020. [2] [3] [4]

Nineteen European Countries
By August 2022, Raimond Hagemann, Ulf Lorré, and Dr. Hans-Joachim Kremer had compiled data on birth rate changes in 19 European countries and produced an extremely important paper. [5] In country after country, the inflection point of reduced births is consistent at the end of the year 2021.

This was nine months after the spring zeitgeist to take the COVID vaccines. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia, as well as Iceland, Northern Ireland, Montenegro, Serbia—all show this pattern. Nine months after peak vaccine uptake—the births decline.

From R Hagemann, U Lorré, et al. Danish data (p 31):

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The corresponding graph for each of the 19 countries has a similar pattern: peak uptake of COVID vaccines in spring of 2021, followed by precipitous birthrate declines beginning nine months later.

All of the nineteen countries studied saw accelerating declines in births in 2022, beginning at nine months after peak COVID vaccine uptake. Note the small p values in the following table, favoring temporal association of the two events. This, in turn, supports the Bradford Hill temporality criterion regarding causation of infertility, rather than a highly coincidental correlation between peak vaccination in spring of 2021 and sharply declining birth rates nine months later.

Epoch Times Photo
Sweden
Data analyst Gato Malo has noted, as have others, that too many countries are locking their vital statistics data away from public view, which pre-empts any valid analysis. Occasional glimpses are available.

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Looking at Sweden, he found that if he overlaid month-to-month change in births, that the strong dip in births beginning in November—December 2021, lines up very tightly with the percentage of people who were unvaccinated 9 months earlier. [6] This was consistent with the R Hagemann, U Lorré, et al. findings. And births in Sweden have not yet shown signs of recovery from this decline.

Epoch Times Photo
(data scb.se, owid) boriquagato.substack.com
UK
At a similar time as in the above countries, we see births decline in the UK. After December 2021, the number of women giving birth is no longer in the forty thousands, but now crosses down into the thirty thousands, and stays there. [7] See the column “Women giving birth.”

From the UK Health Security Agency (p 18):

Epoch Times Photo
Comparing year-over-year decline, we might write this mean decline from the first two quarters of 2021 to the first two quarters of 2022, where b is births, as (Σ b1, 2021…b6, 2021) – (Σ b1, 2022…b6, 2022) = 256,785 – 227,302 = 29,483. This is a deficit of 4,913 births per month in the UK. Similarly to Sweden, the inflection point of decline is at a 9–11 month point following the months of peak vaccine uptake in the UK. [8]

From Johns Hopkins University, Our World In Data, peak vaccine uptake in the UK was in the first quarter of 2021:

Epoch Times Photo
 

Switzerland
Switzerland saw its largest drop in birth rates in 150 years, more than in each of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, and even the introduction of widely used oral contraceptives. [9]

Why Is This Happening?
Naomi Wolf explored menstrual irregularities reported following COVID vaccination, and even following contact with COVID-vaccinated people. As the first to discuss these problems publicly, and to gather data online from women who were experiencing these menstrual changes, she was criticized and censored on social media.

Her Daily Clout organization led a team of over 3,000 researchers, including Pierre Kory M.D., to dissect the documents released by Pfizer/FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] under court order regarding clinical outcomes of the 44,000-person clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID vaccines. The Daily Clout team summarized their findings in their book on Kindle: “Pfizer Documents Analysis Reports.” [10]

They report Pfizer’s findings of overwhelming injuries in their experimental group. Of the 22,000 individuals who had received the Pfizer vaccine, “Johns Hopkins University, Our World In Data.” [11]

The Daily Clout team explores in their book topics related to the COVID vaccines’ impacts on male and female fertility. As their team traced the data reported by Pfizer, it was found that 270 of the pregnant women in the Pfizer trial reported a vaccine injury. “ … but Pfizer only followed 32 of them and 28 of their babies died. This is a shocking 87.5% fetal death rate.” [12]

Pfizer logged over 158,000 separate adverse events during that clinical trial, under 1290 different types of adverse events, an enormous compendium of human suffering, as partially imaged below from the first part of the letter A. [13]

From Pfizer Worldwide Safety (p 30):

Epoch Times Photo
Wolf’s team notes that “If Pfizer had a TV commercial for its COVID vaccine listing the 158,893 adverse events reported in the first 12 weeks, the announcer would be reading them for more than 80 consecutive hours.” [14]

Even this exhaustive list could not be complete, because Pfizer could not account for the outcomes of 22 percent of participants. Pfizer does list 11,361 of the patients as “not recovered” at the time of their report. [15] This is 51.6 percent of their experimental group “not recovered” from adverse events.

No Liquid Will ‘Just Stay in the Shoulder/Arm.’
We have known, and Pfizer has confessed to, the transmission of spike proteins from one person to another by skin contact and exhalation. I cite and discuss that in the context of one adult to another in a community setting. [16]

Adverse effects on vaccinated breastfeeding mothers and their babies included a range of vomiting, fever, rash, partial paralysis, blue-green discolored breast milk, and other side effects.

Not surprisingly, the injected vaccine liquid passes from mother to nursing infant as well, in accordance with long-established physics principles of dispersal and diffusion of liquid introduced into a semi-solid (55–60 percent water) body, as well as centuries of basic, undisputed physiology and circulation of blood and lymph: Liquids introduced into the body diffuse throughout the body, as always.

It has also been known of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery of medication—since its first development—that it, of course, enters the circulation. Those who alleged—and those who believed—that a liquid injection would “stay in the arm” had not even a junior high school student’s grasp of basic biology or physics.

But Pfizer knew. It advised male participants in the trial to avoid sexual contact with women of childbearing age or to use condoms.

Here is an overview of the impact of LNP-delivered substances on human male and female reproductive organs. [17]

Epoch Times Photo
From Wang R, Song B, et al. Potential adverse effects of nanoparticles on the reproductive system

Male Infertility and the COVID Vaccines
mRNA vaccine ingredients are observed to disperse throughout the body, collecting in the testes, among other organs. [18] An adverse event of note in Pfizer’s list of 1290 such events post-vaccination is “anti-sperm antibodies.”

From Pfizer Worldwide Safety:

Epoch Times Photo
An Israeli study later confirmed damage to sperm, both in total numbers and motility, from the Pfizer vaccine. [19]

Epoch Times Photo
The word “temporarily” in the title is misleading because the researchers assumed sperm would recover after their three-month study period, although they ended their observation at that time. And they did not show any evidence that sperm did actually recover. So their word “temporarily” is so far unverified.

Pfizer did not test for male reproductive toxicity, [20] nor for the adverse effects that may be transmitted by vaccinated men’s semen on their children’s development.

One might think that male reproductive effects would have been tested for in Pfizer’s trial on rats. However, only the female rats were vaccinated; the male ones were not. [21] When Pfizer pronounced the male rats’ reproductive organs free of toxicity, they neglected to emphasize the earlier fine print: male rats had not been vaccinated at all.

But Pfizer did instruct human male study participants to avoid intercourse or to use a condom.

Harm caused by LNPs to male reproductive organs and ability had already been established years earlier. As seen in this 2018 study, such organs were known to be vulnerable to toxic influences from LNPs. [22] Besides lowered sperm counts and motility, researchers have found “folded amorphous spermatozoa, cells lacking or showing a small hook, and cells with undulating or elongated heads were the most frequent abnormalities found.” [23]

Moreover, toxic chemicals, such as phthalates and other endocrine disruptors, [24] were already abundant in the environment prior to the COVID vaccines. These have likely contributed to declining sperm number and quality for a half-century, [25] in which sperm counts have been dropping by about 1 percent per year since 1972. [26]

However, the COVID vaccines are making spermatogenesis even more rare. The problem is that most of the male reproductive cells, including spermatogonia and spermatozoa, express ACE-2, which is what spike proteins use for entry into human cells. Just as happens in blood vessels throughout the body, the spike protein arrival at the ACE-2 receptors was found to damage not only sperm, but also the blood-testis barrier, and to contribute to orchitis. At day 150, sperm concentration was 15.9 percent below baseline, below even the 75 to 120-day period, and had not begun to recover by the end of the study.[27]

Female Infertility and the COVID Vaccines
The World Health Organization had long taken an interest in “anti-fertility vaccines” and “fertility regulating vaccines,” as they wrote in 1992. “Chorionic gonadotropin is the one antigen that fulfils criteria for an ideal contraceptive vaccine.” [Emphasis mine.] [28]

Fetal death was so rampant among COVID-vaccinated pregnant women observed by the CDC in the V-Safe Surveillance System [29] that I compared the miscarriage rate to the “morning-after pill” in the abortive effect of those pregnancies for which outcomes were reported. [30] That is, between 80 to 90 percent abortive effect. This is comparable to what the Naomi Wolf/Daily Clout team found, 87.5 percent, as referenced above. However, that V-Safe data had been released too early for accurate tally of all pregnancy outcomes, simply because it included women still in their first two trimesters.

This paper examines the cohort of pregnant women in the second half (second 20 weeks) of their pregnancies. [31] However, it seems to be flawed by missing data. [32]

Miscarriages also show a dose-dependent response. The Pfizer vaccine is a 30 mcg dose and the Moderna vaccine is a 100 mcg dose. At an October 2022 CDC expert committee meeting (ACIP), the following data were presented:

12,751 women took the Pfizer vaccine, and 8,365 women took the Moderna vaccine. 422 Pfizer-vaccinated women, that is 3 percent of the Pfizer total, miscarried (lost their pregnancy by 20 weeks gestation), and 395 of the Moderna-vaccinated women, that is 4.7 percent of the Moderna total, miscarried. [33]

Epoch Times Photo
CDC. COVID-19 in pregnant people and infants ages 0–5 months. (pdf)

So this means that 42 percent more of the Moderna group miscarried than the Pfizer group. This large percentage difference in such large cohorts (in the thousands of participants) supports a dose-response relationship of the COVID mRNA vaccine with miscarriage, worsened with the more potent dosing. This dose response is another of the Bradford Hill criteria to establish cause and effect.

The documents that Pfizer sought to have concealed for 75 years, but instead was forced to release by court order, reveal the 1290 types of adverse events, and 158,000 total adverse events, noted above.

Also revealed in the same documents was that Pfizer excluded 21 groups of people from their trials, including “women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.” [34]

The vaccines had been tested on 44 pregnant rats over 6 weeks, as required by protocols of Developmental and Reproductive Toxicity studies, but they had not been tested on pregnant women. Ill effects were not reported from the rat study. [35]

However, nine of the ten study authors were employed by and held stock in Pfizer or BioNTech companies, as acknowledged in small print at the end of the article. Therefore, a highly-conflicted study of only 44 rats, studied over six weeks, was the sole research basis for the obstetric profession to urge pregnant women to be vaccinated.

Pfizer’s reporting of women in the trials who became pregnant following vaccination found 413 pregnant women, of whom 270 cases were considered to be serious and 146 to be non-serious. The serious cases included “spontaneous abortion (23), outcome pending (5), premature birth with neonatal death, spontaneous abortion with intrauterine death (2 each), spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and normal outcome (1 each). No outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies.” [36] A problem with the short 12-week trial is that nearly all of these new pregnancies were apparently in early gestation, first trimester, at trial end.

The Daily Clout research team determined after examining and comparing miscarriages following various vaccines over time:

“If you are pregnant, you are more likely to lose your baby in a miscarriage if you receive a COVID-19 vaccine than if you receive measles, mumps, flu, tetanus, or any other vaccine.” [37]

They found from the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) that in VAERS’ 30-year history, through March 2022, a total of 4,693 had experienced miscarriage in all those years. 4,505 of those had received a single vaccine. 3,430 of those miscarriages were in women whose vaccinations included a COVID vaccine. Sixteen of those 3,430 had also received another vaccine near that time. So 3,430 – 16 = 3,414 miscarriages were after the COVID vaccine alone.

Compare this number with 4,505 for all single vaccines over the 30-year history of VAERS. Therefore, 3,414 / 4,505 = 76 percent of all miscarriages ever reported to VAERS occurred after the COVID vaccines, during the short time that they have been in use, December 2020 through March 2022.

Since at least 2010, it has been known that nano-particles were hazardous to the ovaries and to fertility generally, and bioaccumulation has been known. [38] [39]

In the case of spike proteins, it comes as no surprise that the ACE-2 receptor is the port of entry for spike proteins to gain access to ovarian cells, both granulosa and cumulus cells. [40] These are the ovarian cells that support the development of oocytes.

Congenital Malformations
The U.S. Defense Medical Epidemiology Database System (DMED) [41] is the largest database of health statistics of the generally young, healthy, and fit military population. That is until military service members were forced to take the COVID vaccines or to be dishonorably discharged, with loss of benefits. Few if any religious exemptions were permitted.

The DMED database reported when comparing 2021 to 2020, a 419 percent increase in female infertility reports, a 320 percent increase in male infertility reports, and an 87 percent increase in congenital malformations. The report shows a mean baseline rate of 10,906 cases per year, 2016 to 2020. Then part of 2021, not even the full year, showed 18,951 such cases. [42] This is a 74 percent increase over the 2016 to 2020 mean.

Prevention is massively easier than cure. Avoiding toxins such as LNPs, especially those that generate spike protein, such as the mRNA vaccines, is a necessary first step. Let’s hope that the coming years show the fertility crisis for both males and females to be reversible, as we learn how that may be accomplished.

Reposted from Colleen Huber’s Substack.

◇ References:

[1] Annual Massachusetts Birth Reports. Screenshot taken Jan. 27, 2023.  Mass.gov. https://www.mass.gov/lists/annual-massachusetts-birth-reports

[2] New York State Dept of Health. Vital statistics of New York State.  Screenshot taken Jan 27, 2023.  NY.gov. https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/vital_statistics/vs_reports_tables_list.htm

[3] Birth Statistics. Screenshot taken Jan. 27, 2023.  Illinois.gov. https://dph.illinois.gov/data-statistics/vital-statistics/birth-statistics.html

[4] Washington State Dept of Health.  All births dashboard – ACH.  Screenshot taken Jan 27, 2023.  WA.gov.  https://doh.wa.gov/data-statistical-reports/washington-tracking-network-wtn/birth-outcomes/ach-all-births-dashboard-0

[5]  R Hagemann, U Lorré, et al. [Decline in birth rates in Europe; in German]. Aug 25, 2022. Aletheia Scimed. https://www.aletheia-scimed.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Geburtenrueckgang-Europe-DE_25082022_2.pdf

[6] El gato malo.  Swedish birthrate data: November update.  Jan 25, 2023.  Substack. bad cattitude

[7] UK Health Security Agency.  COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report. Week 5. Feb 2, 2023.  P. 18. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1134076/vaccine-surveillance-report-week-5-2023.pdf

[8] Johns Hopkins University.  Our World in Data.  Daily number of people receiving a first COVID-19 vaccine, UK. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

[9] K Beck. Analysis of a possible connection between the COVID =19 vaccination and the fall in the birth rate in Switzerland in 2022.  Sep 22, 2022.  Univ of Lucerne.  Quoted in R Chandler, Report 52: Nine months post-COVID mRNA “vaccine” rollout, substantial birth rate drops in 13 European countries, England/Wales, Australia, and Taiwan.  Jan 16, 2023.  Daily Clout. https://dailyclout.io/report-52-nine-months-post-covid-mrna-vaccine-rollout-substantial-birth-rate-drops/

[10] A. Kelly, War Room / Daily Clout.  Pfizer Documents Analysis Volunteers’ Reports eBook. https://www.amazon.com/DailyClout-Documents-Analysis-Volunteers-Reports-ebook/dp/B0BSK6LV5D/

[11] Ibid, p 10.

[12] Ibid, p 10.

[13] Pfizer Worldwide Safety.  5.3.6 Cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports of PF-07302048 (BNT162B2) received through 28 Feb 2021.  Appendix 1: List of adverse events of special interest.   Pp 30-38. https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf

[14] A. Kelly, War Room / Daily Clout p 14. https://www.amazon.com/DailyClout-Documents-Analysis-Volunteers-Reports-ebook/dp/B0BSK6LV5D/

[15] Pfizer Worldwide Safety, Table 1, p 7. https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf

[16] C Huber.  Secondary vaccine effects. Feb 9, 2022.   The Defeat Of COVID Substack.

[17] R Wang, B Song, et al.  Potential adverse effects of nanoparticles on the reproductive system.  Dec 11, 2018.  Int J Nanomedicine.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294055/

[18] Acuitas Therapeutics, Inc.  A Tissue distribution study of a [3-H]-labelled lipid nanoparticle-mRNA formulation containing ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 following intramuscular administration in Wistar Han rats. Nov 9, 2021. p. 24.  https://www.phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/125742_S1_M4_4223_185350.pdf

[19] I Gat, A Kedem, et al.  COVID-19 vaccination GNT162b2 temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors.  Jun 17, 2022. Andrology.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/andr.13209

[20] Gov.UK.  Summary of the public assessment report for COVID-19 vaccine Pfizer/BioNTech.  Jan 6 2023 update.  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-covid-19/summary-public-assessment-report-for-pfizerbiontech-covid-19-vaccine

[21] Acuitas Therapeutics, Inc.  A Tissue distribution study of a [3-H]-labelled lipid nanoparticle-mRNA formulation containing ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 following intramuscular administration in Wistar Han rats. Nov 9, 2021. p. 29.  https://www.phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/125742_S1_M4_4223_185350.pdf

[22] R Wang, B Song, et al.  Potential adverse effects of nanoparticles on the reproductive system.  Dec 11, 2018.  Int J Nanomedicine.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294055/

[23] Ibid. Wang.

[24] R Sumner, M Tomlinson, et al. Independent and combined effects of diethylhexyl phthalate and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 on sperm quality in the human and dog.  Mar 4, 2019.  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39913-9

[25] E Carlsen, A Givercman, et al.  Evidence for decreasing quality of semen during past 50 years.  Sep 12, 1992.  BMJ.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1393072/

[26] H Levine, N Jorgensen, et al.  Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of samples collected globally in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Nov 15, 2022.  Oxford: Human Reproduction Update.  https://academic.oup.com/humupd/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmac035/6824414?login=false

[27] I Gat, A Kedem, et al.  COVID-19 vaccination GNT162b2 temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors.  Jun 17, 2022. Andrology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/andr.13209

[28] World Health Organization.  Fertility regulating vaccines.  Aug 17-18 1992.  Geneva.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FKMhagpd6bRZJ8la96bgH7UwQ8CmFNnI/view

[29] T Shimabukuro, S Kim, et al.  Preliminary findings of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines safety in pregnant persons.  Jun 17, 2021.  NEJM.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104983

[30] C Huber.  COVID vaccines may rival or exceed ‘the morning-after pill’ in abortion efficacy.  Aug 2021.  The Defeat of COVID Substack.

[31] L Zauche, B Wallace, et al.  Receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and risk of spontaneous abortion.  Se 8 2021.  NEJM.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8451181/

[32] Arkmedic.  The curious case of the miscalculated miscarriages. Sep 14, 2021.  Substack.

[33] CDC.  COVID-19 in pregnant people and infants ages 0-5 months. Slide 32. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2022-10-19-20/02-03-04-COVID-Ellington-Kharbanda-Olson-Fleming-Dutra-508.pdf

[34] Pfizer Worldwide Safety.  Annotated book for study design. Exclusion number 2.h, 11. p 33.  https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/125742_S1_M5_5351_c4591001-fa-interim-sample-crf.pdf

[35] C Bowman, M Bouressam, et al.  Lack of effects on female fertility and prenatal and postnatal offspring development in rats with BNT162b2, a mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine.  Aug 2021.  Reprod Toxicol. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34058573/

[36] Pfizer Worldwide Safety, Table 6, p 12. https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf

[37] A. Kelly, War Room / Daily Clout. https://www.amazon.com/DailyClout-Documents-Analysis-Volunteers-Reports-ebook/dp/B0BSK6LV5D/

[38] A Schadlich, S Hoffman, et al.  Accumulation of nanocarriers in the ovary: A neglected toxicity risk?  May 30, 2012.  J Contr Release.  160 (1), PP 105-112.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168365912000892?

[39] M Ajdary, F Keyhanfar, et al.  P{otential toxicity of nanoparticles on the reproductive system animal models: A review.  Nov 2021.  J Reprod Immun.  148. 103384. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165037821001145

[40] F Luongo, F Dragoni, et al.  SARS-CoV-2 infection of human ovarian cells:  A potential negative impact on female fertility.  Apr 23, 2022.  Cell.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9105548/pdf/cells-11-01431.pdf

[41] Health.mil.  Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED).  https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/AFHSD/Data-Management-and-Technical-Support/Defense-Medical-Epidemiology-Database

[42] A. Kelly, War Room / Daily Clout p 91.. https://www.amazon.com/DailyClout-Documents-Analysis-Volunteers-Reports-ebook/dp/B0BSK6LV5D/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3676494/chinazis-weaponized-migration-to-hong-kong

[G M]

https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3676494/chinazis-weaponized-migration-to-hong-kong

Good thing that wouldn’t be used against us!

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/?fbclid=IwAR21XZykyIan57vFM4xkN-jwPSYcQ99IBKtvgV6mVUmhboFbgGkcQzi7HHM#:~:text=Most%20common%20age%20of%20whites,it's%2027%20%7C%20Pew%20Research%20Center

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.popsci.com/health/infertility-world-health-organization-study/

[Crafty_Dog]

Africa's Population Boom, Part 1: The Opportunities and Risks
undefined and Sub-Saharan Africa Analyst at RANE
Clara Brackbill
Sub-Saharan Africa Analyst at RANE, Stratfor
Apr 10, 2023 | 21:26 GMT


Editor's note: This column is part of an ongoing series that explores the opportunities and risks provided by Africa's expected population boom in the coming decades. In the first part, we outline the factors that will indicate countries' preparedness and capacity to positively adapt to their demographic growth, which we'll then use to analyze the impacts on specific sub-Saharan nations in future parts of this series.

At a time when many countries around the world are grappling with demographic declines, Africa remains poised for rapid population growth. According to the United Nations' 2022 World Population Prospect report, countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to ''contribute more than half of the global population increase anticipated through 2050.'' Sub-Saharan Africa's population is currently growing at 2.7% per year, more than twice as fast as South Asia (1.2%) and Latin America (0.9%). The number of people living below the Sahara desert is expected to double in the next 50 years to more than 3 billion, with coastal West Africa, the Great Lakes region and the Ethiopian highlands seeing the sharpest population spikes.

These estimates, of course, are only projections based on current fertility, mortality and migration trends — all of which could change in the coming decades due to various factors, such as increased access to education and service sector jobs. But sub-Saharan Africa has so many women of childbearing age that even if most decided to have fewer children today, the region's population would keep growing — a phenomenon demographers call ''population momentum.''

What's at Stake

Sub-Saharan Africa's demographic change has the potential to create political, economic and humanitarian problems of massive proportions. But it also offers major new possibilities for growth and prosperity. The increase in population will be accompanied by changes in the age structure of the region's population (or ''population pyramid''). As the youth population and the number of Africans over 65 years old shrink, the working-age population will grow for decades to come.

Sociologists refer to this high ratio of working-aged people to dependents as the ''demographic dividend,'' or the potential to unlock economic growth through an expanding labor market and dwindling populations of children and elderly. The extent to which African states will capitalize on this opportunity will vary greatly. Some countries will innovate to improve agricultural production, job growth and service delivery. Others, however, will struggle to reach ''demographic fatigue,'' wherein a lack of financial resources leaves them unable to stabilize population growth and effectively mitigate risks like land degradation, irregular migration, insecurity and poverty.


African countries' responses to their exploding populations will have far-reaching implications, ranging from migration to the global balance of power. Hunger is already a problem across the Continent. But with a projected 3 billion mouths to feed by 2070, agricultural land will become increasingly scarce as agricultural production struggles to keep pace with booming demand, while urbanization leads to declines in agricultural labor — posing new challenges to food security that could drive migratory flows to more developed parts of the world at ever-increasing rates.

Technological advances will also make Africa's youth populations more connected than ever. And these younger Africans will increasingly demand greater economic stability and social protections from their respective governments, in some cases precipitating political liberalization and in others surges in authoritarianism. The coming surge of young adults will also pose new risks to social instability on a continent with relatively young governing institutions, potentially sparking global social, environmental and/or political movements that challenge the ruling order. Furthermore, African states' political ideologies and geopolitical orientations will likely become all the more important amid the accelerating transition to a multipolar world order, as is already evident in Russian, Chinese and Western competition for influence in Africa.

Indicators for Positive Adaptation

While sub-Saharan Africa's population boom by 2050 is largely a foregone conclusion, the pace of population growth beyond 2050 is not. With effective policymaking, governments can still encourage lower fertility rates so that the supply of resources and services may eventually catch up with demand. The United Nations estimates that current efforts to curb population growth will only be felt after 2050, which means that the demographic interventions African governments undertake over the next few years will be critical in determining whether they catalyze population growth into ''demographic dividends'' or reach states of ''demographic fatigue.''

To better understand the associated risks and opportunities ahead, there are several key factors that will help indicate African countries' capacity to harness their population growth as an engine for political, economic and social progress:

Girls' education. Few inputs have a stronger influence on fertility rates than girls' education. African women with no formal education tend to have six or more children, whereas women who have completed primary school tend to have about four kids and those who have finished secondary school have an average of two. Beyond reducing the number of children per family, quality girls' education is also correlated with improvements in quality of life. With fewer children, families can invest more in healthcare, education and savings, leading to improvements in the skilled labor market. Furthermore, smaller families can increase the availability of educational funding per child, leading to compounding improvements in school enrollment and quality of education. The United Nations estimates that there is a 20-year lag between changes in education and changes in fertility, meaning policy changes that impact girls' education over the next five years will have a direct impact on African countries' fertility rates in the 2040s and 50s.

Agricultural innovation and production. Food security will be central to African governments' capacity to catalyze population expansion into growth opportunities. In West Africa and the Great Lakes region, food insecurity already drives destabilizing migration outflows and makes communities more vulnerable to insurgencies and extremism. In West Africa alone, over 24 million people are estimated to already be in need of food assistance. Huge population increases will very likely exacerbate these challenges unless African governments can boost agricultural productivity and trade to feed their respective citizens. While this can take myriad forms, countries' capacity to avoid a larger food crisis will largely hinge on their government's efforts to attract investments into their agricultural sectors, which could put downward pressure on food prices, boost innovation and agro-processing, and enable higher returns to public sector investment in agriculture.

Urban infrastructure and services. Sub-Saharan Africa's population boom is expected to spur accelerated urbanization as more Africans migrate from rural areas to city centers in search of work. In 2015, 50% of Africans lived in urban areas, up from 31% in 1990, according to The Economist. By 2050, the share will rise to more than 70%. Urbanization has generally benefited national development and the incomes of individual workers, given that wages in African cities are about twice as high as in the countryside. But the infrastructure and services of those cities have struggled to keep pace with their growing populations, leaving more than half of urban residents in sub-Saharan Africa living in slums. Ken Opalo, a researcher at Georgetown University, calls this phenomenon the ''ruralization of urban areas,'' or subsistence living in cities. As African cities continue to expand over the next decade, a combination of accelerating urbanization and ''ruralization'' of metropolitan areas will present challenges ranging from lack of access to water, power and transportation services to insufficient natural disaster response. Development of urban infrastructure, including public utilities like waste disposal, water and electricity, will be crucial to governments' ability to create jobs, attract investment and ensure political stability.

Job creation. Mass job creation is a necessity for African countries to reap the economic benefits of their growing working-age population. Without more jobs, an influx in labor supply will result in unemployment and underemployment, likely triggering political instability and crime — especially among Africa's budding cohort of young adults. Some academics have suggested that the solution to unemployment and underdevelopment lies in expanding Africa's manufacturing sectors, often pointing to Asia's rapid, manufacturing-fueled economic development. But Africa is unlikely to replace Asia as the world's manufacturing hub given Africa's lack of established infrastructure and the fact that Asia maintains its own labor reserves that will compete with African labor growth. As such, African governments will be forced to seek alternatives that are attractive to an increasingly politically active population, likely in the form of high-productivity formal sector jobs, as opposed to the low-wage informal jobs that proliferate in high-population centers like Nigeria. For job creation to be an effective catalyst for growth, it must be sustainable. This means that current attempts to employ large swaths of the population through public sector jobs that spur unsustainable government wage bills — as is the case in South Africa — will fall short.

Burden or Opportunity?

These indicators — while certainly not exhaustive — generally represent the forces that could drive positive adaptation to population growth. The African countries that are expected to see the most rapid population growth in the coming decades are concentrated in the Great Lakes region (including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda), the Ethiopian highlands (namely Ethiopia) and coastal West Africa (primarily Nigeria). None of these countries, however, are adequately prepared to meet the vast challenges of the population boom already well underway within their borders.

In the next part of this series, we'll use the above set of indicators to evaluate the preparedness and impacts of population growth in major sub-Saharan African countries where the stakes will be the highest.

[Crafty_Dog]

Incredible Shrinking Japan
The great country’s population has fallen for 12 years in a row.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 16, 2023 6:22 pm ET



Remember when global elites worried about overpopulation? Tell it to Japan, where the internal affairs ministry announced last week that the country’s population fell in 2022 for the 12th consecutive year, dropping 556,000 to 124.95 million.


This marks the 16th year in a row in which deaths exceeded births, with a record drop in births of 731,000. All of Japan’s 47 prefectures except Tokyo saw declines.

To maintain a stable population, countries need a fertility rate of at least 2.1. Japan’s is 1.34. The U.S. has a birth rate of 1.64. Twenty-seven percent of Japan’s 50-year old women have never had a live birth, the highest share of childlessness among developed countries. Finland is next at 20.7%.

Japan’s shrinking population is an accelerated version of the trend across the developed world. More women are seeking professional careers rather than motherhood, more men and women are delaying marriage and family decisions, and the overall cultural zeitgeist runs toward individual fulfillment rather than the sacrifices of child-rearing.


A shrinking population has consequences for economic and national vitality. In Japan it is straining the aging workforce, and burdening a shrinking number of young taxpayers with a growing cost of elderly care. Japan’s saving grace is that millions of its seniors are willing to work past retirement age. According to a 2021 Annual Report on the Aging Society from Japan’s Cabinet Office, 40% of seniors in Japan want to continue earning an income, compared to 30% in the U.S.

Japan’s leaders have tried numerous pro-natalist policies to arrest the decline. This includes more money for child care, longer maternity and paternity leave, and paying mothers a lump-sum of 500,000 yen (about $3,700) per baby. Nothing has worked. That’s a warning for American conservatives who think they can fire up a new baby boom by turning the dial on child subsidies. Cultural trends are hard to overcome.

One policy alternative is more immigration, which was once taboo in insular Japan but was increased under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Most migrants to Japan are guest workers from other countries of East Asia who fill openings in the labor market. But Japan has never made it easy for foreigners to assimilate.

Immigration has helped to offset the birth dearth in the U.S., which for 200 years has had a genius for assimilation. But that may be ending as voices on the left preach that American society is corrupt and racist, while many on the right want to stop all immigration.

Japan is a highly stable and successful society that is managing to cope with slower growth and less dynamism caused in part by its declining population. We doubt the U.S., with its cultural diversity and history of seeking new frontiers, would cope as well.

[G M]

Incredible Shrinking Japan
The great country’s population has fallen for 12 years in a row.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 16, 2023 6:22 pm ET

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Remember when global elites worried about overpopulation? Tell it to Japan, where the internal affairs ministry announced last week that the country’s population fell in 2022 for the 12th consecutive year, dropping 556,000 to 124.95 million.

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This marks the 16th year in a row in which deaths exceeded births, with a record drop in births of 731,000. All of Japan’s 47 prefectures except Tokyo saw declines.

To maintain a stable population, countries need a fertility rate of at least 2.1. Japan’s is 1.34. The U.S. has a birth rate of 1.64. Twenty-seven percent of Japan’s 50-year old women have never had a live birth, the highest share of childlessness among developed countries. Finland is next at 20.7%.

Japan’s shrinking population is an accelerated version of the trend across the developed world. More women are seeking professional careers rather than motherhood, more men and women are delaying marriage and family decisions, and the overall cultural zeitgeist runs toward individual fulfillment rather than the sacrifices of child-rearing.

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A shrinking population has consequences for economic and national vitality. In Japan it is straining the aging workforce, and burdening a shrinking number of young taxpayers with a growing cost of elderly care. Japan’s saving grace is that millions of its seniors are willing to work past retirement age. According to a 2021 Annual Report on the Aging Society from Japan’s Cabinet Office, 40% of seniors in Japan want to continue earning an income, compared to 30% in the U.S.

Japan’s leaders have tried numerous pro-natalist policies to arrest the decline. This includes more money for child care, longer maternity and paternity leave, and paying mothers a lump-sum of 500,000 yen (about $3,700) per baby. Nothing has worked. That’s a warning for American conservatives who think they can fire up a new baby boom by turning the dial on child subsidies. Cultural trends are hard to overcome.

One policy alternative is more immigration, which was once taboo in insular Japan but was increased under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Most migrants to Japan are guest workers from other countries of East Asia who fill openings in the labor market. But Japan has never made it easy for foreigners to assimilate.

Immigration has helped to offset the birth dearth in the U.S., which for 200 years has had a genius for assimilation. But that may be ending as voices on the left preach that American society is corrupt and racist, while many on the right want to stop all immigration.

Japan is a highly stable and successful society that is managing to cope with slower growth and less dynamism caused in part by its declining population. We doubt the U.S., with its cultural diversity and history of seeking new frontiers, would cope as well.

WSJoke. Muh diversity!

 

[Crafty_Dog]

IN-DEPTH: As India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Experts Say Get Ready for a Power Shift
People walk through a market in Bangalore, India, on Nov. 15, 2022. (Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images)
People walk through a market in Bangalore, India, on Nov. 15, 2022. (Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images)
Venus Upadhayaya
By Venus Upadhayaya
April 28, 2023Updated: April 28, 2023
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According to the United Nations, this week, India will outstrip China as the world’s most populous country. This monumental change of status between the two Asian giants that share a long, militarized Himalayan border indicates the burgeoning possibility of change in their respective global statuses, enhanced competition, and the chance of war, according to experts.

Demographics play a key role in geopolitics which presents both opportunities and challenges, according to experts who said if India’s policymakers overcome the challenges, the population increase translates into massive political, economic, and military power, which threatens adversaries like China.

“You can compare this situation with US-China competition. Power shift theory indicates that the ‘declining US’ is threatened by rising China. Before WWI, declining Britain was threatened by rising Germany. Now India is catching up with China, and China is worrying about India’s rise,” Dr. Satoru Nagao, a visiting fellow at the Washington-based The Hudson, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Contrary to popular belief, according to Nagao, the United States is staying strong. But people think the United States is declining. “Thus, the U.S. is worrying China too.”

“China is rising now, but the population indicates they will face an aging society in the coming decades. Before China declines, China would want to attack India,” he said.

India and China have accounted for over two-thirds of the global population since the mid-twentieth century. The birth rate in China plunged last year for the first time since 1961. China also lost a significant chunk of its population during the COVID pandemic.

India’s fertility rates have dropped to 2.2 births per woman, but DESA (a UN think tank ) predicts India’s population will continue growing for several decades.

Frank Lehberger, a Germany-based Sinologist and geo-political analyst, told The Epoch Times that the most direct benefit for India surpassing China in population is gaining global recognition as a leading engine of economic growth, able to attract a growing volume of foreign investments and develop its export industries at a faster pace than before.

“India seems well on the road of becoming the ‘next China,’ with a golden decade of India gradually materializing. However, that era dawns only if no major war erupts, by accident or design, involving both Russia with its new quasi-ally China,” said Lehberger.

Meanwhile, China’s economy has been hammered in recent years due to the communist regime’s draconian zero-COVID policies, severely disrupting businesses and factories nationwide. Experts are expecting slow growth shortly. According to a recent analysis by Michael Pettis, a nonresident senior fellow with Carnegie China, Beijing’s annual GDP growth is unlikely to exceed 2 to 3 percent for many years.

However, India was one of the best-performing economies last year, and its GDP growth outpaced China’s in the previous quarter, according to the World Economic Forum. In 2022, China posted one of its worst economic performances in nearly half a century.

According to Morgan Stanley, New Delhi is further estimated to be the third-largest economy by 2027, overtaking Japan and Germany, while its global exports are expected to double by 2031.

Lehberger said China under Xi will remain undeterred or unimpressed by India and continue attempting to gradually occupy tracts of land on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

“Of course, only if it suits Xi in his internal agenda. Therefore he might still start short skirmishes at the LAC, more or less the same as the ones we have seen several times since May 2020,” said Lehberger.

Epoch Times Photo
This video screenshot taken from footage recorded in mid-June 2020 and released by China Central Television (CCTV) on Feb. 20, 2021, shows Chinese (foreground) and Indian (background) soldiers during a clash on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley. (AFP Photo/China Central Television)
Far-Reaching Implications
India surpassing China’s population is not an ordinary country but a country with an equally ancient civilization and a functional world’s largest democracy. Thus, the geopolitical implications of India becoming the world’s most populous country are far-reaching and complex, according to experts.

Nagao said the implications are positive and negative—a massive population means a massive market, which indicates enhanced economic and military power.

“Especially India’s population is young. This means that they create active energy in the society,” said Nagao.

Sixty-six percent of India’s population is 18-35, according to the International Labor Organization, and the Indian labor force is set to grow by 8 million annually, most of which will be driven by youth entering the labor market.

Lehberger said that India’s population’s first and more visible results in international diplomacy would likely be it’s increased contending for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

“Enabling any government in Delhi of wielding veto power in international interactions is something which the Chinese have stubbornly tried to prevent for several decades,” said Lehberger.

Being the most populous democracy on the planet is also believed to boost India’s nuclear capabilities, he said.

“The need for energy and resources is constantly increasing, driving India’s nuclear energy program forward, with the help of Japan, France, or the U.S.,” said Lehberger, adding that India’s growing nuclear defense capabilities could be put to good use as a strategic deterrent to China and other less friendly regional powers, such as Pakistan or Turkey.

It could also be used as a tool for power projection from the Gulf to Singapore and along the entire east coast of Africa, according to Lehberger.

He said that the Indian nuclear triad, meaning its land-based inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarines with ICBMs constantly patrolling underwater in stealth mode, and its strategic aircraft carrying nuclear bombs or missiles, could, therefore, in a matter of years, match or even surpass that of China at current levels.

[Thus] “making Chinese military attacks on Indian assets and territories rather implausible.”

Since ancient times, geography has contributed significantly to India’s rise in power. Even today, according to experts, having outstripped China’s population, geography, and particularly its oceans, has raised India’s stakes in geopolitics.

Lehberger called it “favorable geography” and said that India should use it now with its burgeoning markets and increasing defense capability to project hard and sharp power and condemn the Chinese to remain trapped in disparate bases such as Hambantota, Sri Lanka; Gwadar, Pakistan; or smaller ones on the Myanmar coast.

“Modern Submarine and surface units like nuclear carriers would then help India become the foremost naval power in the entire Indian Ocean region, securing the international sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the strategic Malacca and Lombok Straits through which roughly 40 percent of world trade in goods and commodities flows on a daily basis,” he said.

Lehberger believes as this situation evolves, India will become the primary challenger, geopolitically, militarily, and diplomatically for China and vice-versa.

“As the two countries compete globally for resources, investment and trade, and political influence, for example, soft power, the potential for escalating military conflict could increase, particularly in the nuclear domain,” said Lehberger.

According to Lehberger, China challenging India will exist until the Chinese communist regime is defeated externally or implodes under the weight of its political and socio-economic contradictions, similar to the Soviet Union in 1991.

Epoch Times Photo
South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in (center left) shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center right) as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state Yogi Adityanath (R) looks on during the inauguration of the world’s largest smartphone factory in Noida, India on July 9, 2018. (Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images)
Challenges for India
According to experts, India outstripping China in population means how many other internal challenges are dealt with would determine if the changing demography brings increased opportunities or increased crisis.

Burzine Waghmar, Visiting India Fellow, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and SOAS South Asia Institute, London, told the Epoch Times in an email that India was the first modern state to implement a family planning policy in 1952, which continues to date. China’s one-child policy directive was enforced in 1980 and discontinued in 2016.

He cautioned that one-third of India’s projected growth would mostly happen in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and both are socio-economically poor. “Where decline is most pronounced and expected to continue is in the southern states, which are more advanced on all social indicators and where falling birth rates are in tandem with an increase in the aging population. For example, one in five Keralites, by 2025, will be over 60,” said Waghmar, adding that this will have internal political consequences for some time as it will feed north-south disparity in the country, leading to long-standing issues of regionalism and representation.

He also pointed out that this surge in population, which denotes an increase in the workforce compared to what is occurring in China, is only partially in India’s favor. It will continue to face severe challenges as Indian unemployment remains above 7 percent. The booming services and IT sector, which has fuelled much of India’s recent prosperity, will not be able to absorb everyone, especially the 254 million Indians aged 15-24.

“PM [Narendra] Modi will have to factor this in as he stands for reelection next year and New Delhi attempts to capitalize on the current trend among western supply chains to relocate from China,” said Waghmar.

According to Lehberger, successive governments will face a considerable array of social and economic problems if they don’t come up with solutions to the issues that accompany opportunities.

“And especially if those future governments do not manage to decrease levels of poverty, inequality, unemployment among the large low-skilled workforce, as well as related environmental degradation, all of which are putting a considerable strain on India’s political fabric, on the distribution of natural resources, and on modern infrastructure,” Lehberger said.

The government will almost certainly face increased logistical problems while caring for the needs of its citizens. Among them is the increase of suitable employment opportunities for India’s huge semi- or low-skilled workforce, according to Lehberger.

He said India should be cautious of China’s attempts to influence India to toe the China line in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization).

“So as to gradually become an unwitting accessory to counter or even obliterate leading democracies as well as the established international rules-based order that they represent. To achieve their goal, both Putin and Xi hope to capitalize on Indian nonaligned traditions as well as anti-Western undercurrents and reflexes,” Lehberger said.

As the competition between India and China intensifies, India should build its defenses against  Chinese predatory investment and technological colonization.

“As India navigates these challenges and seeks to maintain or expand her strategic interests, one thing is clear, however: India’s growing population will continue to shape its role in the world for years to come,” said Lehberger.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3978198/you-are-being-replaced

[ccp]

today is the big day - end to title 42

and nothing we can do about it .
come here have babies then dare us to deport.....

10 million mostly future democrat voters

more citizens being displaced

we just have to sit here and have it rammed down our throats

and all media does  is highlight the suffering of the illegals
to make us feel guilty , happy to help .

unbelievable

40 yrs ago I would never have dreamed this would happen here.

[Crafty_Dog]

If I have it right, Title 42 ends at midnight.

[Crafty_Dog]

A Visual Breakdown of America’s Stagnating Number of Births
Births stayed flat in 2022, with numbers down among younger women
By Anthony DeBarrosFollow
June 1, 2023 12:01 am ET




Gift unlocked article

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(4 min)



The government tallied about 655,000 fewer births in 2022 than the 2007 high of 4.32 million. PHOTO: JOY MALONE/REUTERS
About 3.66 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2022, essentially unchanged from 2021 and 15% below the peak hit in 2007, according to new federal figures released Thursday.

The provisional total—3,661,220 births—is about 3,000 below 2021’s final count, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Final government data expected later this year could turn that small deficit positive.

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Experts have pointed to a confluence of factors behind the nation’s recent relative dearth of births, including economic and social obstacles ranging from child care to housing affordability.

Absent increases in immigration, fewer births combined with ongoing baby boomer retirements will likely weigh on the labor force supply within the next 10 years, said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, an insurance and financial-services company.

“You’re going to have a real shortage of workers unless we have technology somehow to fill the gap,” Bostjancic said.

A look at the trends in charts:

Births stay well off peak
The government tallied about 655,000 fewer births in 2022 than the 2007 high of 4.32 million, reflecting ongoing decreases. With still-elevated deaths due in part to the latter phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. in 2022 saw only about 385,000 more births than deaths.

2022​3.66 million
2007​4.32 million
'35
1930
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1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
million
Births
Deaths
The 2022 total might tick higher when final data is tallied later this year. Final 2021 births were about 5,000 above the provisional number; for 2020, the final tally was about 8,400 greater.

Fertility remains below ‘replacement’ level
The total fertility rate—closely watched because a level of 2.1 children per woman is the “replacement rate” needed for a population to maintain current levels—was 1.665 in 2022. That was essentially unchanged from 1.664 in 2021 and only a slight recovery from a record low in 2020.

Replacement level: 2.1
'60
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'20
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'90
2000
1.5
2.0
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The U.S. has generally been below replacement level since the early 1970s.

Hispanic fertility rates climb
The general fertility rate for Hispanic mothers increased 4% in 2022, second only to people of Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander origin. Fertility rates among Asian women rose 3%; rates for all other groups fell.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

2016
'20
47.5
50.0
52.5
55.0
57.5
60.0
62.5
65.0
67.5
70.0
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per 1,000
Hispanic
White
Black
American Indian or​Alaska Native
Asian
Hispanic mothers accounted for 25.5% of U.S. births in 2022, a record, while the shares of births from non-Hispanic white and Black women declined. White women accounted for 50.1% of births in 2022, Black women for 13.9%, and Asian women for 6%.

Birthrates continue declining among the young
The trend of decreasing birthrates among younger women continued in 2022. For teens ages 15 to 19, the birthrate fell 3%, and for ages 20 to 24 it was down 2%. The rate for the next oldest group, 25 to 29, edged up only slightly. Increases were mainly seen among women 35 to 44.

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0
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per 1,000
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20-24
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30-34
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40-44
If trends continue, the birthrate for women ages 35 to 39 might soon eclipse the rate for ages 20 to 24.

Write to Anthony DeBarros at anthony.debarros@wsj.com

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the June 1, 2023, print edition as 'U.S. Births Held Flat in 2022'.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBMSZ7v3KxQf

[Crafty_Dog]

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/very-urgent-the-fertility-crisis?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=363080&post_id=132134503&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

[ccp]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4125661-high-school-boys-are-trending-conservative/

[DougMacG]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4125661-high-school-boys-are-trending-conservative/

A few ideas, one is girls sports.  Democrats are destroying that.

Second might be if they find out abortion is a really shitty form of birth control.  As they say, one dead, one injured.  A planned abortion isn't healthcare.

Third would be if we could convert the arguments for a growing economy from logical to emotional.   )

Fourth, gas prices, etc. What happens when you get a job, a car. and dad stops buying gas, and you find out filling the tank costs $60-100, twice what it should.  You could do some real shopping with  that kind of money.

[ccp]

* definition of gender is male - female FYI

https://news.gallup.com/poll/245618/abortion-trends-gender.aspx

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/analysis-america-grapples-with-plummeting-fertility-rates-5478154

[DougMacG]

China 2022, < 10 million babies born out of a population > 1.4 billion.

They are going to collapse in their own debt.  (Us too.)

https://nypost.com/2023/09/16/chinas-population-is-falling-from-its-former-one-child-policy/

[ccp]

no one is emigrating to China

wonder why

[ccp]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/shock-poll-on-hispanic-voters-is-bad-for-democrats/ar-AA1iXumt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=7495a934700c4e01aff7eb1946fd6508&ei=8

 Republicans still at a large deficit here  but trend is in right direction (pun intended)

The Right is right !

Left-Hander Superstitions and Terms
Sinistrophobia is the fear of left-handedness or things on the left side.
Many people believe that the devil is left-handed.
The Latin word for left, sinister, also means unlucky, evil, and suspicious.
The French word for left, gauche, also means clumsy.
A left-handed compliment is an insult.

[DougMacG]

The market for adult diapers is now greater than the market for baby diapers.

I wonder why the population keeps increasing.  (unlawful entry run amok)

Birth rate has been plummeting since 2009.  Hope and change words mask the world is going to end in a decade message.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/deaths-outnumbered-births-in-half-of-states-between-2020-and-2021.html

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-suicides-reached-record-high-last-year/

[Crafty_Dog]

January 31, 2024
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China's Bid to Manage the Silver Economy
The country’s coming demographic crisis is inevitable but manageable.
By: Victoria Herczegh
From a struggling real estate sector to serious labor shortages, China is beset by problems that will require a lot of time and effort to solve. And as if this weren’t enough, Beijing will have to address these issues amid a much more potent challenge that affects its long-term economic trajectory more than the others: a declining and aging population.

According to figures published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics last week, the overall population in mainland China fell by roughly 2.1 million to 1.4 billion in 2023. Slightly over 9 million babies were born last year – the lowest amount since records began in 1949 – while about 11 million people died, pushing the death rate to a five-decade high. And though this burgeoning demographic problem has already affected the economy – the NBS also announced that the Chinese economy grew by a disappointing 5.2 percent in 2023 and is expected to slow further – the long-term consequences could be more dire as it impacts consumer and housing demand, public finances and health care.

These issues began in 1979, when President Deng Xiaoping introduced measures that would eventually be referred to as the one-child policy. The measures were meant to manage overpopulation and to free up as much of the population for work as possible ahead of the country’s economic opening. Accordingly, Chinese fertility rates fell in the 1980s from an average of six to seven births per woman to less than three. By the 1990s, that average had fallen to less than two, which was considered the point below which the population would decline. It has stayed that low since. The relief from child-rearing needs did free up more people to work outside the home in China’s factories, contributing to the export-driven economic surplus China came to be known for and providing finances for the ambitious infrastructure projects headlining China’s “miraculous” development. NBS estimates say the economy grew by 10 percent per year for decades.

However, the low birth rates of the last roughly 40 years have radically slowed the replacement of older workers by their children. Over the past 10 years alone, shortages of available labor have held back overall growth rates. According to NBS statistics, China has only half the number of factory workers it needs – not nearly enough to prop up sagging economic growth.

Within the broader problem of unemployment, youth joblessness is an especially pressing issue. The jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-olds has climbed since 2020, reaching nearly 15 percent in December. This number owes largely to a protracted pandemic-induced government crackdown and skittishness among big tech companies to hire new employees. Put simply, fresh college graduates are struggling to find jobs appropriate for their degrees, and many of them have refused to take blue-collar jobs or move to the smaller cities and rural areas that desperately need workers. There is now an uneven supply-demand ratio that has proved extremely difficult to rebalance.

Since the failures of the one-child policy emerged, Beijing has sought to encourage births by gradually easing the measures imposed by Deng to allow a second – and even a third – child. Local governments have even offered incentives for new children. A municipality in China’s Inner Mongolia region, for example, has started to offer payments of 2,000 yuan ($280) for a second child and 5,000 yuan for a third, and has required employers to give an extra 60 days and 90 days of paid maternity leave for second and third children, respectively.

Yet these measures have found little success for a variety of reasons. Many Chinese residents are delaying marriage or choosing not to have children at all, and those who do often feel that financial considerations limit them to one child. The population of women of childbearing age has also fallen. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic only reinforced these trends as the economic slowdown, the high unemployment rate among young people, and the overall uncertainty about the future discouraged people from getting married and having children. This helps to explain why 61 percent of China’s population was of working age in 2023, down from about 70 percent a decade ago.

All this creates a bleak outlook for China. Because workforce and productivity growth greatly influence overall economic growth, it’s reasonable to assume that a decline in the former will result in a decline in the latter. Moreover, as the pool of workers shrinks, hourly wages increase. If that happens, factories in China may choose to relocate to countries with cheaper labor, such as India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Fewer people will mean lower demand for goods and services, and lower demand could obstruct China’s efforts to transition from an investment-led to a consumption-led economy. (Already this is hurt by China’s massive wealth gap.) And with more people choosing not to have families, demand will decline for real estate, which, despite its struggles, still accounts for 20-30 percent of the economy.

Given the policy failures to reverse China’s demographic trends, one available alternative is to goose immigration. Currently, China has only around 1 million foreign-born residents living in the country, equal to less than 0.1 percent of the population. In fact, China has the smallest number of immigrants of any major country in the world. Because of an insistence on maintaining racial purity, however, the Chinese leadership is disinclined to heterogeneity, and its policies reflect as much. For example, foreign-born people cannot earn Chinese citizenship unless they are children of Chinese nationals, and foreigners are allowed to purchase only one piece of property in China (their residence). If Beijing were to relax its immigration policies, there would be long-term benefits, but for it to make a difference in the short term, the numbers would need to increase tremendously in the next decade – which is unlikely to happen.

Even so, Beijing is dead set on boosting economic growth and recovering from the pandemic, and though the odds are against it, it still has some options available. If the labor pool remains stagnant, it can increase the economic output per hour worked by, for example, using more sophisticated equipment, relying more on automation technology like robotics and AI, investing in education and training, improving infrastructure, and boosting research and development. Of these options, the tech-based ones are likely the most promising, and the Chinese government seems to understand has much; Beijing has already upped its use of industrial robotics, especially in regions and industries that have been hit the hardest by the recent population shifts, such as the textiles industry in the Mekong Delta. China’s current “robot density” – the number of robotic units per 10,000 manufacturing workers – is 392. Total operational stock in China passed the 1.5 million-unit mark in 2022, with 290,000 units installed last year, according to the International Federation of Robotics. (The IFR estimates that China accounted for more than half of industrial robots installed worldwide last year.) The downside here is that though robotics have the potential to reduce the impact of aging on China’s manufacturing sector, they won’t necessarily prevent companies from moving to cheaper countries.

It’s worth noting that Beijing recently announced a plan to manage China’s “silver economy,” which entails all the goods and services targeted to older people – meal delivery, nursing homes, entertainment options, and, most significantly, health-related consumption of everything from medical devices to pharmaceuticals. According to recent estimates, the silver economy will be worth an estimated 30 trillion yuan in the next decade, accounting for 10 percent of China’s overall economy by 2035. Biotech firms that were hit hard by the post-pandemic slowdowns are especially well-positioned to benefit.

The reality is that China’s population decline is a process that cannot be stopped. Its demographic trends will place downward pressure on Chinese consumer spending and upward pressure on wages and government spending. This can be managed and its risks mitigated through shrewd formulation of policies to bolster the workforce, but given some of the other problems present in the Chinese economy, even this is no sure thing.

[Crafty_Dog]

February 5, 2024
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Russia Walks a Demographic Tightrope
Protests over migrant labor show the precarity of Moscow’s situation.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
January was a month of widespread dissatisfaction and protest in Russia, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Demonstrations erupted in the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk when a 26-year-old was killed by a Tajik migrant. In Bashkortostan, police dispersed thousands of residents protesting against the sentencing of a Bashkir activist who was charged with committing hate speech against people from the Caucasus and Central Asia. And several police raids took place in Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Tver, Rostov-on-Don and elsewhere in response to the passing of certain pieces of migration legislation.

The Kremlin isn’t in immediate danger; in fact, few of the protests were directed specifically at the government. Yet they speak to the difficulty Moscow will encounter as it tries to manage some of its dire demographic challenges.

Put simply, the Russian population is in decline. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, birth rates have fallen while emigration has risen, and bringing in foreign workers was the quickest and easiest way to offset the losses. To that end, the government enacted a series of immigration-friendly measures, including ones allowing residents of Eurasian Economic Union states to work without any special documents and citizens of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Moldova to easily obtain work permits and work patents. Hailing mostly from former Soviet satellites, they now live predominately in Russia’s larger cities working jobs in retail, transportation, services and construction. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, at the beginning of the year there were nearly 2 million migrants in Russia with work patents and 70,000 with work permits, but these statistics exclude immigrants who have already received citizenship and those who are in the country illegally.

Russia | International Migration, 1997-2022

(click to enlarge)

The policies achieved their purpose to some degree, but their successes were short-lived, and many argue that they replaced one problem with another. For example, immigration proved unsustainable. The global economic crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of war with Ukraine all discouraged immigration and thus contributed to Russia’s labor shortages. Moreover, immigration has never really been a smooth process in Russia. Though many are native Russian speakers, they often find it difficult to acculturate to their new home and often work “lesser” jobs than their Russian peers. Just as often they work in the gray or even black markets. This has led to interethnic tension over the years, resulting in higher crime and incarceration rates among migrant communities.

Crime Levels in Russia

(click to enlarge)

It’s unsurprising, then, that anti-immigration rhetoric is intensifying. Federal and local authorities are increasingly discussing ways to revisit their migration policies and enforce existing laws more stringently. It’s also unsurprising that they are doing so in an election year. Reinforcing ethnic nationalism, and especially Russian nationalism, is a common electoral trope across the Russian political spectrum. As the March elections approach, expect migrant labor to be raised again as a way to divert attention from the more complex geopolitical problems that will take longer to solve – the war in Ukraine, the subsequent sanctions campaign, economic growth, and so on. These periods of piqued migrant phobia typically end without significant changes.

Even so, it isn’t only political theater. Migrant labor is an issue many Russians feel strongly about. After all, attracting migrants without sufficient assimilation and integration into Russian society could lead to anti-immigration protests, which could, in turn, create conflict between the government and the people and within certain corners of the government itself. But the government doesn’t have many alternatives to address its demographic challenges. To maintain the population at least at the current level, Russia would need to bring in 390,000 migrants per year. And it seems intent on doing just that. Despite the recent protests, Moscow has simplified its naturalization process for those who fight for Russia in Ukraine and has prepared agreements granting certain guarantees for migrant workers from countries such as Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, companies such as food retailer Magnit announced that they are launching programs to recruit foreign workers to fill job vacancies. (Magnit has already signed an agreement with Uzbekistan’s Agency for External Labor Migration to recruit workers for a distribution center in Tatarstan.)

The migrant issue has put Russia in a tricky position. The Kremlin cannot afford to soften its migration policies, which could create further ethnic conflict, but neither can it afford to overly strengthen them if it wants its economy to recover. Candidates may trumpet migration one way or the other on the campaign trail, but it isn’t in the Kremlin’s best interest to inflate the issue so much that anti-immigrant sentiment begins to spread to otherwise calm regions. This would not only weaken the country, which is eager to maintain solidarity as it arrays itself against the West, but also potentially divert resources from the more pressing conflict in Ukraine.

Moscow’s actions are limited because this is a decades-old problem that defies easy solution. Russia realizes it cannot significantly limit the rights of migrants, tighten entry or establish tougher conditions for them because the addition of labor (skilled and unskilled) is too important to domestic economic production. This is complicated by the fact that Russia wants to maintain relations, especially trade and political relations, with post-Soviet spaces, which have become all the more important for Russia’s sanctions-induced parallel import schemes. Enflaming anti-immigrant rhetoric threatens these relations. (Indeed, just this week the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador to give him an official notice of the mistreatment of its citizens working in Russia.)

Interestingly, this balancing act suits Russia’s broader strategy of preventing domestic division by painting itself as a custodian of traditions, religions and nationalities. President Vladimir Putin himself seems to have adhered to this strategy for 10 years now, trying to promote the idea that historically Russia has been a multinational state in which various cultures mixed and mingled and adapted for something greater than the sum of their parts. The question is how long Moscow can keep up the delicate balance.

[DougMacG]

India already passed up the population of China.  What other country is on a path to do that before the end of the current century?

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/02/12/you-wont-believe-what-country-will-overtake-china-in-population-n4926368

[Spoiler:  Nigeria]

[ccp]

perhaps the US after we get another 2 billion people rushing in if Trump loses.

seriously, none, but the African continent will:

Population of Africa:
2.5 billion
According to the forecast, Africa's total population would reach nearly 2.5 billion by 2050. In 2020, the continent had around 1.34 billion inhabitants, with Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Egypt as the most populous countries. In the coming years, Africa would experience significant population growth and would nearly reach the Asian population by 2100.