Posted on 12/21/2012 3:02:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The New York Times has finally discovered that fiscal cliffs aren’t the only thing that menace the modern nation-state. There’s a demographic cliff, too. A couple weeks ago, the Times’s Ross Douthat wrote a column about America’s bleak demographic future and suggested that the reason we aren’t having enough babies is that we’ve become a decadent society. Douthat’s column touched off something of a firestorm on the left as liberal writers flipped out over the ideas that (1) There aren’t enough babies; (2) More babies would be a good thing; and (3) The dearth of babies suggests there might be something wrong with America’s present cultural moment.
Well last weekend the Times carried an even bigger piece on demographics from Alexandra Harney, looking at how much worse the situation is in Japan. Some highlights:
"The first grade class at the elementary school in Nanmoku, about 85 miles from Tokyo, has just a single student this year. The local school system that five decades ago taught 1,250 elementary school children is now educating just 37. Many of the town’s elegant wooden homes are abandoned. Where generations of cedar loggers, sweet potato farmers and factory workers once made their lives, monkeys now reside. The only sounds at night are the cries of deer and the wail of an occasional ambulance.
Nanmoku’s plight is Japan’s fate. Faced with an aging society, a depopulating countryside and economic stagnation, the country has struggled for decades to address its challenges. . . .
Nowhere is the rapid aging of Japan more visible than in rural towns like Nanmoku, where 56 percent of local residents are over 65. Over the next 25 years, the proportion of Japan’s population that is elderly will rise from almost one in four to one in three."
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
US National median age 36.8 years. (1960 was 28.7)
Hey people: if you’re conservative and still within the fertility window, get hot! We need more babies among producing people.. I’ve got four so far - so let’s see some competition here!
Doesn’t say much for the “real estate is roaring back” crowd’s prospects, does it? Perhaps it is another push piece to sow seeds of amnesty in the minds of readers.
I’ve tried to do my part, but with the youngest of seven now 12 and with three grandchildren, sorry I can’t do any more. At least my married children all appear ready to have at least a few each. It’s good to see many conservatives in Ohio willing to raise more than one child, the problem is we are being outnumbered by the welfare generations that we are funding.
Sadly, I am one of the guilty parties.
Proud of you..
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