General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Japan’s sexual apathy is endangering the global economy [View all]NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)neously pushing the opposite line about the danger of expanding populations.
Normally the dangerous expanding populations are in the third world/colored populations, while the dangerously shrinking ones are in the first world/white populations.
Its all FUD and lies.
Look at rich people's childbirth patterns.
carlos slim has 6 kids, bill gates has 3, warren buffett has three.
Rich people have MORE children than average, and use waaaay more resources.
In Tina Feys recent piece in The New Yorker, she writes that elite Manhattanites seem to be trying to outpopulate the rest of us:
I thought that raising an only child would be the norm in New York, but Im pretty sure my daughter is the only child in her class without a sibling. All over Manhattan, large families have become a status symbol. Four beautiful children named after kings and pieces of fruit are a way of saying, I can afford a four-bedroom apartment and $150,000 in elementary-school tuition fees each year. How you livin?
Steven Martin, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, is one of the few people to cough up actual numbers on the issue. Families in the top 10 percent or even top 5 percent of household earnings arent having detectably larger families, he wrote in 2008. But the story is different for Americans in the top 1 to 1.5 percent: There has been a significant rise in the proportion of three- and four-child families among the super-rich. In another analysis, he notes that the proportion of affluent American families with four or more kids increased from 7 percent in 1991-1996 to 11 percent in 1998-2004.
http://grist.org/population/2011-03-03-are-rich-americans-having-more-kids/
Meanwhile, ordinary americans are having fewer kids:
Average Americans are certainly having fewer kids these days in 2009, the birthrate in the U.S. hit its lowest point in a century probably in large part because of the tenuous economic times. If youre out of a job or underemployed or even simply worried about your economic future, you might think twice before having a(nother) child, considering that it can cost well north of $200,000 to raise a kid just until the age of 18.
But the recession doesnt seem to be hurting those hedge-fund managers, so the super-rich might still be procreating at a higher rate than the rest of us. Hell, they might even be having an easier time hiring their armies of nannies because the job market is so tight.
The average American slurps up more resources than almost everyone else on the planet, and the mega-rich blow the average American out of the water in terms of consumption and environmental impact collecting all the latest fashions and gadgets, flying by private jet to Jackson Hole and St. Barts, sprawling out into multiple massive homes.
http://grist.org/population/2011-03-03-are-rich-americans-having-more-kids/