Free Republic

Why Islam is in as much trouble as the WestDenyse O’LearyMonday, 24 October 2011 David P. Goldman, who blogs at the Asia Times as “Spengler,” has written an insightful book challenging the truisms of the commentariat on both the rise of Islam and the decline of the West: How Civilizations Die: (and why Islam is dying too)History buffs will recognize that the pen name Spengler honours Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), author of Decline of the West. Goldman’s initial observations about the decline are most helpful but not unprecedented. From a much less religion-friendly perspective, American demographer Phillip Longman has been saying...

The Kiplinger Letter for Sept. 16, 2011, states: GDP is likely to grow no more than 2 percent. ... Such weakness usually spells recession ahead. ... But that pattern may not apply this time. Slowing growth may instead spell stagnation, a time more akin to Japan's 20 years of weak GDP gains. .... There has been no real bounce-back from the 2007-2008 slump. Twenty years of stagnation? So let me ask you all this: What is it that this economy has in common with Japan? What is it that this economy has in common with the last stagnation of the...

A child in a Hamburg residential complex: A new report has found that parents in 7 percent of German households can't afford to finance hobbies for their children. Despite substantial subsidies aimed at increasing the birthrate, the number of children in Germany continues to shrink. A new report by the federal government has found there are 14 percent fewer children under 18 than in 2000 -- and 15 percent of them, alarmingly, live in poverty. For Germany, the figures are the warning signs of a demographic time bomb in a fast-graying society. The number of children under the age of...

This provisional data for 2010 was released in June and shows a possible impact of the serious recession ... From the National Center for Health Statistics: Recent Trends in Births and Fertility Rates Through 2010. The NCHS reports (provisional): The provisional count of births in the United States for 2010 (12-month period ending December 2010) was 4,007,000. This count was 3 percent less than the number of births in 2009 (4,131,019) and 7 percent less than the all-time high of 4,316,233 births in 2007. The provisional fertility rate for 2010 was 64.7 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44. This was...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Right before the recession hit, the U.S. was undergoing a mini baby boom. Now, birth rates are declining fast. The number of children born in the U.S. peaked with a record 4.3 million births in 2007, but has since fallen, dropping to 4 million births last year, according to estimates by the National Center for Health Statistics. The birth rate -- a measure of births per 1,000 people -- has dropped 10%. Historically, declines in birth rates have gone hand in hand with economic downturns. During the financial slumps of the early 1990's and 1970's, the...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced plans to arrest the declining birth rate in Russia and to extend life expectancy. The government is set to spend the equivalent of 36 billion euros to boost the birth rate by up to 30 percent by 2015. That was one of a raft of policies outlined in a wide ranging speech lasting two hours by Russia’s premier to the lower house of the Russian Parliament. He said the country was emerging powerfully from the global financial crisis and warned the economy must diversify away from energy and mineral exports and reduce its economic...

Russia's president devoted the largest part of his annual State of Russia speech to reversing Russia's population decline. If Russian couples have a third child, they will get a baby bonus, better health care, and free land to build a house or dacha, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev promised in his annual State of Russia speech. Political analysts were hoping to hear about missiles or democracy. Instead they got babies. Twenty years ago, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin ruled an empire with a population slightly larger than that of the United States. Today, Russia has less...

Stock prices are increasing because bond yields, treasury yields and interest rates are falling ... not because of a better economy. What will happen to stock prices, pension funds, 401k accounts when interest rates increase again? Look at Japan and Europe as the examples. Both are struggling, increased money supply has not helped, and so now both are calling for increases to their birth rates. Because this administration will not step up to this problem of decreased demand from low birth rates, it is succumbing to the pressure of Wall Street to artificially inflate stock prices. The Fed is flooding...

A baby going for a ride in a city park. Sales of children’s goods like his carriage are soaring as the birthrate rises. Thanks to a demographic blip and some help from the state, the birthrate is rising in Russia, and the market for children's products is following suit, with imports playing the dominant role. The market is growing by 15 percent a year, said Antonina Tsitsulina, president of the Children's Goods Industry Enterprises Association. Imports account for 65 percent of all sales, while the biggest overall segment is clothes and shoes, which make up 44 percent of total sales....

The birth rate is falling, the birth rate is falling! In case you missed recent headlines, the U.S. birth rate has declined for two years running, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. A national panic about a population drop-off would be premature at this point, but it’s a statistic worth monitoring in coming years. 3 0 0Share The birth rate in 2007 — 4,317,119 — was the highest ever recorded in the United States. The rate declined modestly in 2008 and continued its decline in 2009 to 4,136,000, according to preliminary data from NCHS. In Pennsylvania, the number...

Have you heard? America's birth rate is lower than at any time in the last last 100 years. There seems to be something profoundly wrong with Obama's central message of hope and change. There is something profoundly wrong with Obama's "fundamental transformation" of America. 22/08/2010 Recession effect? US birth rate lowest in 100 yrsMilkwujee [sic]: The US birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children. The 2009 birth rate also set a record: lowest in a century. Births fell 2.7 per cent last...

Germany is shrinking — and fast. New figures released on May 17 show the birth rate in Europe's biggest economy has plummeted to a historic low, dropping to a level not seen since 1946. As demographers warn of the consequences of not making enough babies to replace and support an ageing population, the latest figures have triggered a bout of national soul-searching and cast a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel's family policies.

Taipei, May 14 (CNA) Taiwan's birth rate has been dwindling over the last few decades and had dropped to an average of 1.03 births per woman last year from 3.09 recorded in 1976, according to data released Friday by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI). The number of births in 2009 fell to 191,310 from 425,125 recorded in 1976, while the crude birth rate -- the annual number of births per 1,000 of the total population -- was only 8.29 last year, a big drop from 25.92 in 1976. Both figures are new record lows, the MOI statistics show. The...

While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is...

Figures released by the Department of Public Health on Monday found that about 35 babies were born for every 1,000 mothers aged 15 to 19 in 2008. That was down by about two births per 1,000 from the previous year. There were 51,704 babies born to California teen mothers in 2008. Hispanic teens had the highest birth rate but it still declined. Asian teens had the lowest. California's teen birth rate has been declining for the past decade. In 1991, the rate was nearly 71 per 1,000.

NEW YORK, February 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As nations around the world are beginning to feel the effects of plummeting birth rates, the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations has stressed that population growth is the key to overcoming poverty. Speaking before the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore said, “too often population growth is viewed as the cause of poverty whereas it is a means of overcoming it, for only within the work force can the solution for poverty be found.”The archbishop explained: “where economic growth rates have declined, the answers lie not...

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124272 On "Forbes on Fox" on Jan. 30, 2010, the discussion turned to how population is affecting the U.S. economy. The panelists and Steve Forbes agreed that the USA needs more babies. The No. 1 variable affecting our economy today is the decision by our government, from the late 1960s to 1985, to promote zero-population growth, with the number of births decreasing. The birthrate fell from 2.3 children per family to 1.3 at times. To maintain a population, a birthrate of 2.1 children is required. That decreased birthrate has impacted everything from demand for products to health-care costs to relaxed...

Russia's population statistics are rising for the first time since 1995, says Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin said that for the past five years the number of deaths had declined, while births had risen. He said statistics to be released shortly would show life-expectancy had almost reached the age of 69. As president, Mr Putin brought in policies to stop population decline, which has been blamed on emigration, alcoholism, and poor health care. 'Symbolic amount' "We can say with a high degree of confidence that Russia will register a growth in population for the first time since 1995," said...

Its not that Russian's aren't giving birth to children, its just that the number of births is exceeding the number of deaths for the first time in fifteen years. Russia's Health Ministry is taking credit for increase in birth rate, citing the economic stimulus program approved by the Kremlin as the reason why more mothers in Russia are giving birth and fewer people are dying. But you can't argue with the numbers. On an annualized basis, Russia's birth rate is up between 7 and 8 percent. In August alone, 1000 more people were born than died. According to UN, Russia's...

Russia's population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993, despite the influx of millions of immigrants, a United Nations report said Monday, and by 2025 the country could lose a further 11 million people. ...Russia's mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world, with average life expectancy for males at barely 60 years.... A study published in June in The Lancet medical journal found that drinking has caused more than half of deaths among Russians aged 15 to 54 since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

A video sent to me by a friend got me looking for a little spreadsheet calculation I did a year or so ago. I found it on my computer finally. Thought I'd share it with you all. There are approximately 700 million people in europe and approximately half that number live in USA. USA is being swarmed by illegal immigrants from the south and so is Europe, although europe's immigrants are turks and pakistanis and to some degree from north africa(egyptians, mostly). Native europeans have essentially stopped reproducing. A similar phenomenon is happening in USA with european-americans. Euro-americans are being...

THE Rudd government should be wary about using high levels of immigration in coming decades as a means to counteract the decline in productivity resulting from an ageing population because more over-55s are staying on in their jobs, a population expert warns. Monash University demographer Bob Birrell said Treasury's new population estimate for Australia -- 35 million by 2050 -- was based on immigration levels of about 180,000 a year, a rate that may not be necessary to keep the economy running and will be difficult to provide for in terms of urban infrastructure and services. "The government seems to...

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise. Mississippi topped the list for conservative religious beliefs and teen birth rates, according to the study results, which will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reproductive Health. However, the results...

I thought of a way to write this to really get everyone's attention, but the more I contemplated the words I should use, the more I realized that sometimes words just get in the way. If the facts in this video do not haunt you into action, well then quite frankly no words I can come up with will..........................Because if we do not wake up the numbers in this video will become reality for our children

A baby boom fuelled by the highest fertility rates in a generation has pushed Britain's population above 61 million for the first time. There were 408,000 more people living here in 2008, the Office for National Statistics said. But immigration is still impacting on population growth because 56% of the increase in births last year was from non-UK born mothers. The vast wave of

Just when you thought you'd seen everything, a pair of scientists at Oregon State University has published a study arguing that any effort to limit carbon emissions must consider the impact of "reproductive choices" on the ecological equation. Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax make their case in "Reproduction and the Carbon Legacies of Individuals," published in the journal, Global Environmental Change. "While population growth is obviously a key component of projections of carbon emissions at a global level, there has been relatively little emphasis on the environmental consequences of the reproductive choices of an individual person," they argue....

ATLANTA - THERE aren't just fewer jobs in the US recession. There are fewer babies, too. US births fell in 2008, the first full year of the recession, marking the first annual decline in births since the start of the decade and ending an American baby boomlet. The downturn in the US economy best explains the drop in maternity, some experts believe. The Great Depression and subsequent recessions all were accompanied by a decline in births, said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology. And the numbers have never rebounded until the economy pulled...

While the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was good cinema, it was also a big fat Hollywood fiction.  With Greece's fertility rate of 1.36 children per woman  -- well below the replacement level of 2.1 -- "big" is not a modifier demographers would associate with today's Greek families.  In fact, a more accurate film might be called My Big Fat Muslim Wedding.  Worse still, Greece is no anomaly.  Long ago the cradle of Western civilization and more recently one of its backwaters, it's now part of a phalanx of Western demographic failures.  In fact, while it may seem counterintuitive...

snip Americans are having fewer babies snip “It’s the recession,” said Andrew Hacker, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “Children are the most expensive item in every family’s budget, especially given all the gear kids expect today. So it’s a good place to cut back when you’re uncertain about the future.” In 2007, the number of births in the United States broke a 50-year-old record high, set during the baby boom. But last year, births began to decline nationwide, by nearly 2 percent, according to provisional figures released last week. Those figures from the...

Thousands of couples in India who agreed to put off having babies for at least two years after their wedding will collect cash payments this month as health officials attempt to curb the country's rapidly growing population. Neighbouring China shows the first signs of relaxing its strict policy of one child per couple in the face of an ageing population, India is searching for a way of restricting the size of families as the battle over scarce resources grows. The country's population stands at 1.2 billion and is expected to reach 1.53 billion by 2050. But increasing pressure on resources...

California had 14,570 fewer births in 2008 than in the previous year, a 2.6 percent drop that surprised demographers with its size. It was the first annual decline in births since 2001, when the state was last mired in a recession. While the economy is one likely cause, the migration of young Latinas in their prime childbearing years out of California, and a slowdown of illegal immigration, are ongoing factors that could cut into the state's future population growth if they continue. "In the kind of economy we have, it's possible that people are opting not to have children that...

SHANGHAI, July 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although 2009 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the one-child policy, China's second largest city is not celebrating. Far from it. The Times Online reports that far from fearing overpopulation, the city of Shanghai has pleaded with married couples to help them stave off the looming crisis of demographic implosion by having a second child.Shanghai has announced pro-procreation policy, that contrasts sharply with the rest of the nation's strict enforcement of the "one couple, one child" policy that has inflicted forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations, and catastrophic fines inflicted on the local population to limit the growth of...

Shanghai authorities are urging eligible couples to have a second baby, after years of following a one-child policy, amid concerns about a lack of young workers to support its ageing population. snip The problem is particularly acute in Shanghai. Zhang said its fertility rate was 0.88 in 2008 – far below the national average of around 1.8 – and that which is needed simply to keep the population at the same level. snip Xia Xueluan, a professor of sociology at Peking University, said family planning had many advantages, but applauded the new policy. "They should have done this earlier, and...

Dead End of Secularism Secularism was to be the wave of the future. Leading secular theorists such as Peter Berger taught that secularism would be the inevitable result of the inexorable march of progress and that its many advantages would simply drive out religion in all of its forms. No serious discussion was possible or necessary. Religion would be deposited unceremoniously on the dustbin of history. But a funny thing happened on the way to the dustbin: secularism has not only failed to triumph over religion, it can’t even reproduce itself. In spite of enormous institutional advantages conferred on it...

Since Estonia regained independence, the birth rate of Estonians has been negative, but in 2008, nearly 600 Estonians more were born than died, writes EPL Online/LETA. The birth rate of the entire population of Estonia remained negative, however – in 2008, Estonia lost 647 residents. In the year 1992 – the first year after regaining of independence – Estonians' birth rate was minus 755, a year later the birth rate among Estonians had fallen to minus 2,731. The year 1994 was the worst one in terms of birth rate since regaining of independence – 4,323 persons more died than were...

A record number of children worldwide are being born to unmarried mothers as traditional marriage arrangements are being abandoned at a faster pace, according to a report released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report shows that teenagers accounted for only 23 percent of 2007's non-marital births, down from 50 percent in 1970, demonstrating that birth rates for unmarried women in their twenties and over have risen considerably over the period.

Unmarried mothers gave birth to 4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States in 2007, a share that is increasing rapidly both here and abroad, according to government figures released Wednesday. Before 1970, most unmarried mothers were teenagers. But in recent years the birthrate among unmarried women in their 20s and 30s has soared — rising 34 percent since 2002, for example, in women ages 30 to 34. In 2007, women in their 20s had 60 percent of all babies born out of wedlock, teenagers had 23 percent and women 30 and older had 17 percent. Much...

Islam has figured out how to take over the world in just a few decades and, if the report is accurate, there's precious little that can be done to prevent that from happening. What am I talking about? Watch this five-minute video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Russia has a major problem with population loss. Today’s Moscow Times reports on a study (Babel fish translation here) which addresses the causes, consequences and potential cures for its declining population. "At present, even with immigration, the population of the Russian Federation is declining by almost a million people a year, she writes, and consequently it is time to pay close attention not just to the overall figure but to the specific consequences of the depopulation of the country." The population of the Soviet Union, when it was disbanded in 1991, was 293 million.

Enrollment in Vermont's public schools is down for the 13th straight year. Public schools in Vermont have lost nearly 13 percent of their students since a high of more than 106,000 in 1997. recent reports showing Vermont with one of the lowest birth rates in the country, it could be some time before the number of students reverses.

The pregnant woman showed up at the medical center in flip-flops and tears after walking there to save bus fare.

God in His mercy allows evil that greater good may come as a result of the evil. He has allowed contraception to plague the modern world so that we may repent and return to our Father’s house. I have deliberately stated the title of this conference in uncompromising language: “Either we stop contraception or we destroy the family.” This is a warning to all of us, married and single, the laity and the clergy, bishops, priests, deacons, and religious, parents and children. Why do I say this? Because, in greater or less measure, it has been the infidelity of so...

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Vasily Reutov had never set foot in Russia until a few months ago, but the moment he did, he knew he had finally made it home. His ancestors, members of an ascetic offshoot of Russian Orthodoxy known as Old Believers, fled this region in the 1920s after the Communist Party violently suppressed religion. They settled in cloistered villages in South America that they turned into Little Russias, as if by preserving the ways of the past, they would somehow, someday, be able to return. Now, with Russia itself beckoning and sturdier than before, that time has come....

More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any year in the nation’s history, topping the peak during the baby boom 50 years earlier, federal researchers reported today. There is both good and bad news from the more than 4.3 million births: — The U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend. — However, the teen birth rate was up for the second year in a row. The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend begun years...

Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed that Germans are having more children, saying that the tough economic situation is prompting growing numbers to seek security within the family. In an interview with newspaper Bild am Sonntag, the minister said there has been a marked increase in births among women between the ages of 30 and 40.

London Couples who have more than two children are being irresponsible by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the Government’s green adviser has said.

Having more than two children is 'irresponsible' warns Government advisor By DANIEL MARTIN and SIMON CALDWELL 01st February 2009 The birth rate in Britain is now at its highest for 30 years Couples who have more than two children are putting an 'irresponsible' burden on the environment, the Government's leading green advisor has warned. Jonathon Porritt called on ministers to divert money away from curing illnesses towards contraception and abortion services to limit the country's population and help in the fight against global warming. And he criticised fellow green campaigners for dodging the issue of population growth and its effect...

January 30, 2009 Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society' Richard Kerbaj Click here to view the table The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times. The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million. Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam...

Global aging, combined with plummeting birth rates, is a catastrophically dangerous menace that only a few people seem to be waking up to. You may not be familiar with terms like “global aging� and “demographic winter,� but you will be soon. I've been giving public lectures on the problem of global aging for the past 7 years or so, and my audiences are always shocked and dumbfounded as I explain how the West's ever expanding population of old people (due, thank God, to the ever-improving capabilities of bio-medical science), while a good thing in itself, will soon become a prime...

Report: Birth Rates Fall In Tough Economy SACRAMENTO (CBS)-- The data runs about two years behind, we won't know for sure until 2011, but it appears that with the economic slowdown has come something of a pregnant pause. (File) AP The recession is leaving some doctor's offices empty. More women are putting motherhood on hold and recent reports show contraceptive sales are through the roof. The data runs about two years behind, we won't know for sure until 2011, but it appears that with the economic slowdown has come something of a pregnant pause. We all know that children are...