Shrinking population is a game changer
 

This is not as hot a topic as Global Warming but I think it will have a bigger effect on lives. The developed world is losing population. Most of the undeveloped world is approaching parity. This has all happened really fast. When I was a kid population growth was the big bugaboo. We were going to run out of land, water, resources, etc. Now if this is happening, it will change the economics of a lot of situations. Wars in the not that to distant past were fought over land. Now the whole idea of war and depleting the population of young men and women is not going to be very tempting.
10% of Japans housing is empty. There are some other factors to this but their population is in decline.
Russia is losing 1/4% of population a year.

No idea how to take advantage of this of if even possible but this is one of those trends that could change everything.

Currently with a FTR of 2.36 and a 2.33 is needed to maintain the world population so we are still expanding. But this is only because of Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

And Africa is changing fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_..._1950-2050.png

PS yeah a little slow here on X-mas eve. hahahaha

The economics of the world is changing and quickly.

I don't think the developed world loosing population should be much of a concern. If Japan looses 20% of it's population in the next fifty years, so be it. This will be less of a strain on natural resources.

I honestly believe these things ebb and flow. There are always stats that seem to be threatening on the surface, but end up being nothing. A perfect example of this was the amount of oil we expected to have - we thought we were drilling too much and would run out. I think they even had a name for this equation with different models. Turns out they couldn't have been more wrong.

The Chinese will be the dominant race,or will pump it up a notch and pop em out

I think it might change the world in a good way. If Russia drops 25% of their population, it would certainly have little reason to keep trying to expand. Labor will be scarce so work is going to be easy to find. Wealth that is handed down stays concentrated. Deflation seems to be a given based on places that are now experiencing it. As a person who invests in real estate, this might not be the best news for me in the long run though.

Wikipedia blames the youth bulge for lots of problems. Well we would have less of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_pyramid

http://one-simple-idea.com/WorldPopulation.jpg

http://econosystemics.com/wp-content...tion-chart.jpg

The World could lose 20% of people and there would be no problem. Places like the Third World would be far better for those left. Here in the West it would mean less people, with more money to spend.

Do those declining numbers in places like Russia account for those who emigrate elsewhere? Judging by the ridiculous amounts of them here in Prague, I could only guess that a lot of the decline is coming from that.

it doesn't happen in france: we have arabs

it's why you have them :winkwink:

The Czech Republic has a very low fertility rate. It is expected to be a top decliner in the next 40 years.

France has birth growth also. One of the few European countries that does now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_..._1950-2050.png

This is the key. We are living longer and having less kids. So countries that are ahead in this new trend like Japan get upside down age pyramids.

http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/pop...ramid-2014.gif

The world is going be way different for our kids. And more importantly their kids. This might solve global warming on its own. Peak oil? Congested cities? Inadequate infrastructure? These things might be moot points in the long run.

Seems to me that if population growth kept up at the rate it had been, we would have been losing massive amounts all at once due to the issues overpopulation would have caused. I see this as a positive thing.

not that it willl stop them begging us for money...

Well that's suspicious.

What is that about? :disgust

Totally agree. One of the more positive scenarios I have seen in a while.

Automation is causing and replacing population loss in the post-industrial developed nations.

So really there are 4 groups;

1. under developed nations
2. developing nations
3. industrial-developed (*natural resource and manufacturing economy nations)
4. post-industrial developed/developing nations

What I find worrisome is who is populating the post-industrial developed and developing nations? Our social welfare systems are based family size payment/benefit allocation. If the lowest of a society are bred into this situation the trend may very well reverse itself in 100 years.

Reverse-evolution à la Max Max ...

In 1520, it took how many man hours to plough an acre.

How many does it take to today?

Population size isn't a problem, even people to do jobs that have to be done by a human will be in over supply.

How many equivalent man hours of labour does it take to pay off the financing, fuel, repair and upkeep on that $250,000 tractor that ploughs an acre?

Only because of Africa? What about breeding Arabs, Indonesians, bangladeshis and so on?

And how is China not shrinking with its one kid policy?

Actually one of the reasons they wanted to expand to Ukraine is to regain losing population numbers.

They just officially canceled the one-child policy.

Ok, not relevant to the question though. Why did it not shrink when it was in place? I know they still could have more than 1 (or if the girl was born they still tried for boy etc), but still that would be far away from 2.1-2.3 rate (or whatever is needed to sustain)... Very strange.

The reason is we are long lived. The one child policy will shrink the population but it takes one generation to take effect. The 20 year olds who didn't have extra kids in 1970 will be dying soon and their lack of replacement will show up in the numbers. But before that, you get lots of old people and less young people so your tax rolls get all goofed up. You need to tax the rich which are usually your old or tax the dead (inheritance).

China's age Pyramid = http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/pop...ramid-2014.gif

Russia age pyramid, you can see WWII where the guys were killed off - http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/pop...ramid-2014.gif

The Ukraine is one projected to decline the most in population. i doubt Russia and them together would sovle much.

Very Interdasting thread

Declining is irrelevant in that regard - it would still be extra millions to add.

This planet can reasonably support 60m people.

I think much of the "declining birth rate" has more to do with people having children later in life than it does anything else. To compare it to the business world, something like a longer sales cycle.

When people were having many children starting at 14-16 years old, you have many many kids being born every 100 years. Now that people are having less children and waiting until 25-35 years old to start, the # of children born per 100 years is much less.

It happened very fast too. My wife's grandma had 13 siblings. Her father 9. They had 2 kids, and we have 2 kids. Pretty steep dropoff.

But developed nations can just tap into the developing world for immigrants any time they want to keep their populations in check.

It has more to do with women in developed countries being educated.

When women have a choice between career, family or both they choose to have less children and like your point, they have them later.

Expect the birth rates to increase in developed countries over the next generation as the Muslims we take in continue to breed :Oh crap

http://i.imgur.com/9Wd1B0r.jpg

Declining populations doesn't have to mean declines in power, influence, prestige, or resource control.

Just look at certain minority populations in Mexico and the developing world for that matter.

Sure... it isn't as 'democratic' as people would like but the 80/20 rule has always applied to humanity anyway.

All I know is:

Back in 2006 the buyers of my peddled products were about 90% USA, 5% Canada, and everything else shared 1% or less.

These days I would say that 60% is USA, 8% is Canada and other countries like Germany, India, Australia, France, UK, The Netherlands, Russia!, Romania!, Italy, Japan!, CHINA!!!, and more slice up a large chunk of the pie.

The US is no longer the king of the internet. Alibaba.com is proof of that. I don't care about tangible products so much, unless sold over the internet, and I am seeing lots of competition from the new generation that knows how to use the internet in these new-use countries.

Going to be interesting to see how they fuck it all up!

Can't wait to see how Google deals with them all.