Saturday, January 05, 2013

Fiscal Cliff: Be UNfruitful and Do NOT Multiply

Besides encouraging sexual deviancy and immorality, schizophrenic American government continues to expand myriad programs that lower birth rates (reducing pregnancy rates through contraceptives/sterilization and advocating abortion) while simultaneously expanding entitlement programs that demand an ever growing population to fund them.

Is there any question America is headed for bankruptcy (both moral and fiscal)?

For background, read To Cut Costs, Lower Birth Rate, Says White House and also read Census Shows Fewer Children - Aborted Ones Missing as well as Abortion Rates Drop as Restrictions Increase (and pregnancy decreases), and get this: Obama's Free Abortifacients Reduce Abortions - uh?

-- From "Uncle Sam’s Ponzi finance" by Norman Poltenson, publisher of The Central New York Business Journal 1/4/13

Our largest entitlement programs — Social Security and Medicare — are both built on [the first German Chancellor, Otto von] Bismarck’s model: current workers support retirees. Today’s politicians, however, ignore the changes that have occurred in the last 123 years. In 2013, life expectancy has doubled, but the retirement age has remained relatively static. Compounding this problem is a declining birth rate that is less than half the rate when social insurance was introduced, and a declining participation rate in the workforce. The iron chancellor also never anticipated politicians, elected to feel the public’s pain, who couldn’t say “no” to the growth of entitlements by putting them on budget autopilot. Nor have our politicians come to grips with the explosion of technology that demands a highly educated workforce. The failure of our public primary and secondary-education system means fewer educated workers to support the retirees.

The impending implosion is seen in the 2012 federal spending numbers. . . .

To see the dismal numbers and the conclusion, CLICK HERE to read the entire opinion column above.

From "Census Bureau Lowers U.S. Growth Forecast, Mainly Due to Reduced Immigration and Births" by D’Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center 12/14/12

The Census Bureau’s new national population projections released this week forecast markedly lower growth for the nation in the coming decades—especially from immigration—than the last official projection in 2008. In fact, the bureau’s new projected population of 420.3 million in 2060 is below its previous projection of 439 million for a decade earlier, in 2050. The bureau’s new projected population for 2050 is 399.8 million.

A comparison of the bureau’s 2008 and 2012 projections for the year 2050 indicates that most of the 39.2 million gap in the total population forecast is due to scaled-back assumptions about the level of new immigration to the U.S. But another notable factor in the lowered population projection was that the bureau also lowered its forecasts for birth levels.

The Census Bureau’s new projections include a population gain from births by 2050 that is 17.8 million lower than it had forecast only four years ago. From 2012 through 2050, the Census Bureau projects a total of 175.4 million births, compared with 193.2 million in its 2008 projections.

The Census Bureau projection included a forecast for the total fertility rate, which is the expected number of children that a typical woman will have during her lifetime, based on current-year birth rates for each age group. The total, 2.0 in 2012, is projected to decline to 1.91 by 2060. By then, the Census Bureau said, but only the Hispanic population will have a rate (2.15) large enough to replace itself.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "America’s demographic squeeze - Double bind" posted at The Economist 12/15/12

The new [population] projections, based on the 2010 census, are based on recent trends in fertility and immigration. The number of babies born per 1,000 women of childbearing age (also called the “general” fertility rate) fell to 63 in the 12 months that ended in June of this year, the lowest since at least 1920, and well below the recent high of 69 recorded in 2007. That is partly because the average age of women of childbearing age has increased. The “total” fertility rate adjusts for the age of the population and extrapolates how many children each woman will have over her lifetime. This, too, has fallen, and at 1.9 it is below the replacement rate of 2.1. America’s fertility rate is still higher than the average for the OECD, but has fallen sharply since 2007.

. . . Structural as well as cyclical factors are at work. Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, a research outfit, notes that couples have been getting married ever later in life; in 2011 the median age at first marriage was 28.7 and 26.5 for men and women respectively, the highest on record. A rising share of women in their early 40s are childless. In this respect America may be following the experience of Europe.

Though it will be two decades before today’s lower fertility affects the ranks of workers, America can ill afford it. Growth in its labour force has slowed dramatically since the recession; in November it was only 1% larger than at the end of 2007, a period in which the working-age population grew by 5%. This is partly because of the weak economy, which has driven many people into early retirement, others on to disability payments, and some out of the job hunt altogether. Nevertheless, the Congressional Budget Office sees the potential labour force (that is, after excluding purely cyclical influences) as growing by only 0.5% a year in the coming decade, largely because the population is ageing. That puts ever more of the burden of supporting old-age benefits on a stagnant population of workers.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "U.S. birth rate falls to record low as immigrant women choose to have smaller families as they aspire to join the upper middle class" by James Nye, UK Daily Mail 1/1/13

The decline in birthrates was seen to be heaviest among Mexican-American women and those women who had immigrated from Mexico, falling as much as 25.7 percent.

Despite enjoying the highest fertility rates in the country, both immigrant and native-born Latinas are choosing to have smaller families - leaving them with bithrates smaller than non-Hispanic Whites, black and Asians.

This is a complete turnaround in a trend which saw immigrant mothers account for a rising share of births within the United States.

. . . interviews with younger Latinas, who said that for them the reasons for having fewer children is because they have greater access to contraception [and government-funded sterilization] and women's health education [such as Planned Parenthood].

The new figures have led in part to the total number of American births for 2011 falling to a record low - and around half of what it was during the baby boom years.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "United States Faces Demographic Bomb, Coming Underpopulation Problems" by Arland K. Nichols, Director of Education and Evangelization at Human Life International, and Executive Editor of the Truth and Charity Forum 11/28/12

Surely a looming demographic explosion justifies the Affordable Care Act, and its oft-critiqued HHS mandate that offers contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs with no out of pocket costs. Supporters of the stimulus plans stated that fewer births would lead to cost savings for financially strapped states, and the HHS mandate was justified by the Institute of Medicine because “cost savings due to contraceptive use [are] estimated to be 19.3 billion.”

. . . Unfortunately, this perception is far from reality. There is no baby-boom – there is a birth-dearth. And, yes, there is economic stagnation and looming long-term economic decline, but this is exacerbated (or perhaps caused by) the decline in birth rates.

We have witnessed this in the disastrous economic situation throughout Europe, which is due in part to extremely low birth rates. Europe’s fate appears increasingly likely for the United States. We are not having enough babies to replace our current population levels. More specifically, married couples are having too few children, and increasingly, babies are being born outside of the stable environment of a home with a mother and father.

. . . Preliminary numbers indicate that 3,953,593 babies were born in the United States in 2011. This is a drop of 1% from 2010 and nearly a 10% drop since 2007. Last year, the general fertility rate was 63.2 births per 1000 women, which is the lowest rate ever reported for the United States.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Abortion Effect: U.S. Seeing Slowest Population Growth Since 1930" by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com 12/31/12

Abortion has destroyed not only one generation of Americans but a second as well — people who should be boosting the fertility rate in their childbearing years now who were victims of abortions in the 1970s and 1980s. In total, more than 55 million Americans are been victimized by abortions and millions more were never born because their parents were aborted.

. . . At the current pace, the nation’s population will grow by 7.3 percent during the decade, the lowest level since the 7.25 percent increase recorded between 1930 and 1940, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In population studies, at least 2.1 kids per household are needed to maintain stable population. The average number of kids per household today is about 2.0 in this country, which isn’t even meeting the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain the population for future generations to come. The slow growth in the United States population seen in recent years is due to immigration and people living longer.

To read the opinion column above, CLICK HERE.

From "62 percent of U.S. women use contraception" by UPI 12/6/12

Sixty-two percent of U.S. women of reproductive age used contraception, mostly birth control and sterilization, during 2006-2010, officials say.

Jo Jones, William Mosher and Kimberly Daniels of the Division of Vital Statistics, National Health Statistics Reports -- part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- said their report presented national estimates of contraceptive use among women of childbearing ages 15-44 from 2006 to 2010.

Of the women using a contraceptive in the month of the interview, 10.6 million women, or 28 percent, used birth control, while 10.2 million women, or 27 percent, said they used sterilization.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Hospitals, red tape may be limiting tubal ligations" by Trevor Stokes, Reuters Health 12/28/12

Women in California and Texas have varying access to "getting their tubes tied" immediately after giving birth, according to a new study, but the reasons are still unclear researchers say.

Differences in federal funding could explain some of the discrepancies. Federal funds through Title X and Medicaid programs reach more women in California than Texas . . .

Nonetheless, surgical sterilization remains very popular in the U.S. and nearly a third of women with children use it for family planning purposes, according to some estimates.

A 2011 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, found that tubal sterilization was performed following every one in 13 births in the U.S. between 2001 and 2008 . . .

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Now that free sterilizations are being pushed by ObamaCare, the rates will certainly increase.

Also read
44% of 'Middle America' Births are Out of Wedlock