The Real Population Threat

Today Albert Mohler had an excellent article about the threat of declining population.  We are in a time where many people do not want children.  It was interesting that when we decided to adopt, more people were alarmed at the fact we were having a third child than the fact we were off to China for an international adoption.

I’d pay a lot of money to see Al Gore debate Albert Mohler on this one.  Here is part of the article quoted.  See his website for the full article….

“So, is overpopulation a real threat?

Not hardly.  Though population density can threaten sustainability in some areas of the globe, the far greater danger for our future is what Longman calls “depopulation.”  On a global scale, we are seeing the population of older persons exploding and the numbers of young persons falling.

The trend toward depopulation started in Europe, spread to Asia, and is now detectable even in Latin America.  The United Nations now predicts that total world population may begin falling as early as 2040, and much of the surviving population will be very old indeed.

Consider this observation from Longman:

Under what the U.N. considers the most likely scenario, more than half of all remaining growth comes from a 1.2 billion increase in the number of old people, while the worldwide supply of children will begin falling within 15 years. With fewer workers to support each elder, the world economy might have to run just that much faster, and consume that much more resources, or else living standards will fall.

In the USA, where nearly one-fifth of Baby Boomers never had children, the hardship of vanishing retirement savings will be compounded by the strains on both formal and informal care-giving networks caused by the spread of childlessness. A pet will keep you company in old age, but it is unlikely to be of use in helping you navigate the health care system or in keeping predatory reverse mortgage brokers at bay.

The simple fact is that a stable standard of living depends upon a steady stream of young persons entering the work force and contributing to the economy and the culture.  When an unprecedented percentage of the total population is aged, the economy and the society in general begins to tilt toward unsustainability.  To state only the most obvious point, when the number of retirees is out of balance with the number of workers, there may simply not be enough economic activity to pay the bills.

Economists and demographers will debate innumerable aspects of this new phenomenon, but from a Christian worldview perspective certain issues stand out.  Longman underlines the fact that this looming population imbalance is the result of chosen behaviors and lifestyle changes — not to forces beyond human control.

Consider this one statistic alone:  Nearly one-fifth of Baby Boomers never had children at all.  As Longman observes, childlessness puts great strains on the entire system of care-giving upon which both individuals and the society in general depend.

There is something horribly haunting about his comment about pets:  “A pet will keep you company in old age, but it is unlikely to be of use in helping you navigate the health care system or in keeping predatory reverse mortgage brokers at bay.”  The media have provided any number of recent stories on the fact that many Baby Boomers now look to their pets as children.  Need we point out that the pets will not be able to return the favor?

Christians should remember that this issue is never isolated from God’s purpose in creating humanity in His image and giving humans a distinctive role in the world.  He also gave us marriage and the gift of children within the family.  The contraceptive revolution has changed the way modern people look at children.  Now, children are a choice . . . and a choice many couples now do not choose.

Longman concludes:  “Societies around the globe need to ask why they are engaging in what biologists would surely recognize in any other species as maladaptive behavior leading either to extinction, or dramatic mutation.”

If you are elderly, stimulus was bad for you…

Dave has been telling me about the socialized medicine tied to stimulus 2009.  Here’s an article that tells more.  If you’re not cost effective, it may be difficult to get treatment down the road.

See here for full article:  http://www.thsc.org/thscpac/GaryBauer090210.htm

“It is now being exposed by conservative talk radio – the same folks Obama wants to force off the air in the name of “fairness.” Who would have guessed that our president would hide in a “must pass” piece of legislation a provision that “rations” health care and makes it more likely that your Granny will be left to suffer or die?

The legislation sets up a new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. This office will monitor the medical treatments your doctor is providing you to make sure that Washington agrees that those treatments are appropriate and cost effective. Another office, the Federal Coordinating Council of Comparative Effectiveness Research, will slow down the use of new medications and technologies because new treatments drive up costs.

It sounds complicated, but don’t be confused. Europe already has those offices and former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle wrote about them in a book last year. It was this “expertise” that led President Obama to nominate Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services, so he could serve as the architect of the planned nationalized health care scheme.

But here’s the bottom line of how it works in Europe and what Daschle and others want to implement here: The federal government will decide your medical treatment with COST being the main consideration. Daschle argues in his book that instead of treating seniors, they will have to become more accepting of the conditions that come with age!

Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor of New York and a health care analyst, points out that this socialized medicine approach would be disastrous. In 2006, in England, the health care board ruled that elderly citizens with macular degeneration could not receive treatment with a new drug until they were blind in one eye! It took three years of public protests to reverse the policy. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Last year, one thousand British doctors were fighting hard to reform Britain’s health care system because that “progressive” nation also has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in Europe. Why? Because some bean counting bureaucrats in the basement of the British Health Department decided it isn’t “cost effective” to treat cancer patients. Like Nancy Pelosi trying to justify birth control in the stimulus bill, the Left sees people as a burden to Big Government’s bottom line.”

More on facial hair

I didn’t know that so many of you also had facial hair.  Based on the calls I’ve received, this should be a subject on the Presidential campaign.  Only two of you posted, but the rest are in the closet with your facial hairs.  Come out!!! It is liberating.

I’m turning into Aunt Ethel

This post is TMI.  Any men readers should change channels.

When you are a teenager your body changes and as a woman you have several milestones.  I’m learning that in mid life it happens again but in reverse.

This morning I found my first facial hair!  When I was a child I vividly remember Aunt Ethel coming over so my grandmother could get the tweezers out and remove her facial hair.  I thought that was so gross.

Now I think it is funny.  I had to show Dave.  He told me not to pull it out because two would grow back in its place.  It is very blonde and you have to really look to see it.  Should I pull it out or leave it for a while?  I wonder what else the 40s will bring?