Ahh Oh. This isn't good. I just heard on the news that the birth rate among women in the US has dropped below the level needed to sustain a growing population. In other words, more people are dying than being born. The break-even number is 2.1 births per woman, and now we've dropped to 1.9 births.
I don't think this is due to a lack of "lust". The main excuse given for not having as many children is they are unaffordable. Not too many decades ago one income in the household was usually enough to support a family. Today it more often than not takes two incomes. Apparently we're now on the cusp of two incomes not even being enough.
We've known that middle class incomes have been flat for the past 30 or so years while the most wealthy have seen their rate of income growth skyrocket. This isn't politics, just fact. It looks like we're approaching the breaking point.
This really has far reaching consequences. With new technology and increases in productivity, it takes fewer workers to make the same amount of stuff it did just a few years ago. Today it takes more of us buying even more stuff to keep employment up. Fewer of us consumers can only exacerbate unemployment. (This makes the slogan "Buy American" even more urgent.)
Higher unemployment = more misery. And less tax revenue, which = higher deficits and/or less services. We say we want to cut spending, but when we try (think the recent budget sequester and cuts in air traffic controllers and airport TSA agents) we scream bloody murder. It's time to "pay up or shut up". We simply can't have it both ways.
To a point I can see us slipping towards what Europe is experiencing right now. For years they have been experiencing negative growth. This is what we have to look forward to.
S
