This Demography Business is No Joke
I'm in the departure lounge at Sea-Tac. (Sorry, friends in Seattle, I know I didn't call--I was only here for 24 hours.) I'm looking around me. Almost everyone in eyesight is old. I have seen exactly two children in this entire airport. The visual difference between Sea-Tac and Atatürk airport, in this regard, is stunning. It's visually obvious across America, but for some reason especially pronounced in Seattle.
Clearly, and you can see this just watching these confused elderly people trying to figure out how to get through airport security, these people are not going to be dynamic contributors to the American economy ever again. (From a purely personal standpoint, I'm not sure what's worse--being in line behind two dozen slow-moving, bewildered old people, or confronting the prospect of sitting next to a crying baby on a long-haul flight. I think the latter, but it's a hard call.) Clearly again, it is going to cost a lot to keep these people in good health, and just as clearly, they're going to be around for a long time: They're not dying, they're just old. And there simply aren't enough kids--not that I can see--who are going to be making enough money to pay for their health care and their pensions.
I'm not exactly the solution to this problem, I know. In fact, I am the problem; I'm one of the legions of Western women who had a lot of other exciting things going on and somehow never managed to apply myself to the problem of perpetuating the human race. But that doesn't stop me from recognizing, immediately, that the West has a problem on its hands. A really, really big problem.
Just as an aside, a country is a sadder place when there are so few good-looking young men around. I saw one, back near the ticket counter, but he was notable as the demographic exception.
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Jun '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
To have small families is to surrender. Thank God we have new immigrants to America that are much less demographically suicidal than the old stock. That's what keeps us from being as lost as Europe.
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Claire, it may not be as grim as you think. School just started in most places a week ago. Middle of the week in September is probably the absolute travel minimum for families with young children, leaving businessmen and retirees to fill the seats. Try again on just about any day in August and I think you'll feel better.
Your overall point remains valid, but take heart that there are a lot more children running around America than, say, Milan.
Jul '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Claire, that is by far the single most depressing post I've yet seen on Ricochet.
I've noticed that, too, on many occasions. Places I used to go that were once filled with young, vibrant people are now populated by geezers.
I'd like to expand on this, but I'm feeling a strong urge to go stick my head in the oven...
Jul '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Wasn't there a report this week that Seattle has 40% more dogs than children? So maybe Seattle is not a typical city. Or is it?
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
I would offer the taxed earnings of my third child Claire, but I've already promised Rob. Maybe by the time you're ready to retire there will be Wal-Marts in Istanbul.
Jul '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Trace, I'm sure as a conscientious father, you are busily saving for your children's education.
But may I suggest that you also teach them - just in case - to plant potatoes?
And slaughter chickens?
Jun '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Kenneth
Trace, I'm sure as a conscientious father, you are busily saving for your children's education.
But may I suggest that you also teach them - just in case - to plant potatoes?
And slaughter chickens? · Sep 9 at 8:49am
...but get the eggs for a year or two first.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
As Mark Steyn reminds us - the future belongs to those who bother to show up.
Jul '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
I would trust my dog to make better choices at the polling booth than most citizens of Seattle.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Kenneth
Trace, I'm sure as a conscientious father, you are busily saving for your children's education.
As a conscientious father, I sent our kids to a community college instead of Yale.
This is the first week of school, and where I am, I see thousands of 18 to 23 year olds- no demography issue, just lack of sense. Most of their soft skulls are full of mush (to quote Mr. Limbaugh), and they are being further indoctrinated as we meet at Ricochet. I wish I could shut down most of academia without putting my family out of work.
Maybe I would do better to wish that I could re-populate the professoriate for all "non-elite" universities so these kids could learn something useful. Look at the University of Illinois case.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record about the South, but I'll go ahead and say it. Taking a quick, unscientific poll on where most of you are located, I'm not surprised to hear some of the concern. On the other hand, I spend most of my time up and down Interstate 85 between Raleigh, Charlotte, the SC Upstate and Atlanta. To my untrained eye, these cities are much younger and more energetic than those being described in these posts. I could throw Dallas, Houston and Nashville in that mix, too.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Maybe you don't see the young people at the airport because they can't afford to fly, burdened as they are with student loans taken out to pay for featherbedding Baby Boom academics, by payroll and income taxes that support the recreational travel of affluent retirees, and by high medical procedure and insurance costs that go to cross-subsidize below cost Medicare reimbursement levels.
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
I wouldn't say all old folks can't be dynamic contributors to the economy; last week my dad drove one of his semis 360 miles to drop off some aviation fuel, then drove home again. He's 83.
My father-in-law is 73, and still works as a consulting doctor. Mother-in-law is of a certain age, and she's a realtor now and then. They work not because they have to, but because work is good for you. In a way they can't not work, but that may be a generational thing.
Jun '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Hey, I just figured out that the Mormons (of which I am one) are, simply through demographics, going to soon take over the U.S. (and that's even after giving up polygamy in the 1890s). It's going to be us or the Catholics (or maybe some kind of alliance between the two).
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
James Lileks: I wouldn't say all old folks can't be dynamic contributors to the economy; last week my dad drove one of his semis 360 miles to drop off some aviation fuel, then drove home again. He's 83.
My father-in-law is 73, and still works as a consulting doctor. Mother-in-law is of a certain age, and she's a realtor now and then. They work not because they have to, but because work is good for you. In a way they can't not work, but that may be a generational thing. · Sep 9 at 10:00am
Here's hoping there's many more like them who scoff at the idea of putting your life in neutral in your 50s. That's the ethos we have to retain. If we're going to continue to underwrite the European welfare fetish, we can't afford to become more European.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Like James, I've known some retirees who went back to work either to compliment their Social Security checks or to simply keep busy. One of them was still lifting heavy canisters of chemicals and driving them all around the state until just before he died in his late seventies.
From what I've seen, the old folks who keep moving around and doing things tend to be the healthiest and happiest. An old man shouldn't have to work as hard as a young man, nor do the same things, but (speaking as a young whippersnapper) perhaps complete retirement shouldn't be as common as it is.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
I live in a town with plenty of younger families, thanks to a highly reputed school system, and yet a visit to a lunch counter or a bank find everyone inside, both the customers and the staff, to be older than I, and I'm 54. There are "retirees" working at the local fast-food places, so apparently the realities of the economy are having an impact.
The current retirement age was set when most work was very physically demanding and life-expectancies less than today. Like James' relations, people can remain productive in one way or another much longer these days, and we'll need their taxed income to pay for the entitlement bubble.
Time to start setting expectations, and finding ways for seniors to remain in the workforce.
Jun '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Claire, I appreciate your comment about the lack of attractive men in the U.S., I just have the problem in reverse. I've been moved back here for a week and can report no sightings. :) After living in Russia and Ukraine, I'm a spoiled brat, I guess.
I'm also one of those busy people who didn't get around to further populating the world, but I can only have hope since just about every friend of mine has 3 kids. They're good conservative families that manage to survive in the People's Republic of Portland, Oregon, so I at least have a glimmer of hope that we're building a good future.
May '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Cheer up! As James' post from yesterday shows, polygamy could be making a comback.
The left has also done some serious looking at the demographics as well. They know that the states with the highest birthrates went GOP in 2000. That is why they are so keen on immigration "reform." Mexican immigrants are (again to quote Steyn) the children they couldn't bother having.
What Claire needs to do is to pull a full "Jolie," adopt a child of each ethnicity known to man and raise them as conservative capitalists!
Aug '10
Re: This Demography Business is No Joke
Shoot, I was hoping I would be the first Mormon on the site (but I suppose it's big enough for both of us). It's interesting to note that even among Mormons and Catholics family size is shrinking. My family is a perfect example; I come from a family of 9 kids but my wife and I have only 5. I've noticed this trend in the various wards (congregations) I've attended as well. Families with 7, 8 or 9 kids used to be common but now are rare. My Catholic friends share similar tales.