Random News Stories

[Junkenstein]

The "Everyone is a fucking fool" Files #288276-C/DDA:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/16/3239071/the-miami-beach-cop-and-the-meth.html

While other cops strived for the big bust or sergeant's stripes, George Navarro Jr. had other aspirations. The Miami Beach patrolman yearned for the ultimate score, his friends told investigators: to engineer an epic drug deal, one that would make him rich and allow him to leave law enforcement behind.

They called it the "Coke Dream."

That dream is dead now, as may be Navarro's police career. He was suspended last September without pay after being charged with racketeering and fraud in connection with a scheme to use phony paperwork to acquire luxury cars.

But that might be just the beginning of Navarro's troubles. Although for now he hasn't been charged with anything else, the investigation into his actions has produced reams of damning documents detailing bungled trips to the Bahamas to buy kilos of coke, the rip-off of a suspected marijuana grow house, drunken brawls, a botched attempt to collect a drug debt and — perhaps most strikingly — his penchant for lending his police car, uniforms and other gear to meth-dealer pals.

That last part would explain a great many things about my interactions with law enforcement over the previous years.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/190868061.html

Documentary filmmaker Sixx King is black and he's tired of black-on-black violence so he wanted to do something proactive to make a statement.

So he put on a KKK outfit with a white hood and stood in public in Philadelphia to draw attention to an issue that the black community has not been able to solve - black men killing black men at record numbers.

[Junkenstein]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/17/the-age-of-the-fertility-panic-arrives/

Germany spends 200 billion euros a year trying to get more people to have babies, but are still looking at an average of 1.39 children per family. It seems that France has been the only one to pull it off, getting to 2.1 children per family by giving $1,000 a month for a year to any mother willing to have a third child. That works out to a pretty hefty price tag.

Watch for this idea from a republican or democrat near you soon.

Edited due to unfair bias. Someone's going to view this as a good idea sooner or later.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/17/the-age-of-the-fertility-panic-arrives/

Germany spends 200 billion euros a year trying to get more people to have babies, but are still looking at an average of 1.39 children per family. It seems that France has been the only one to pull it off, getting to 2.1 children per family by giving $1,000 a month for a year to any mother willing to have a third child. That works out to a pretty hefty price tag.

Watch for this idea from a republican or democrat near you soon.

Edited due to unfair bias. Someone's going to view this as a good idea sooner or later.

The world is jam-packed with unwanted babies.  Maybe these countries should encourage adoption.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/17/the-age-of-the-fertility-panic-arrives/

Germany spends 200 billion euros a year trying to get more people to have babies, but are still looking at an average of 1.39 children per family. It seems that France has been the only one to pull it off, getting to 2.1 children per family by giving $1,000 a month for a year to any mother willing to have a third child. That works out to a pretty hefty price tag.

Watch for this idea from a republican or democrat near you soon.

Edited due to unfair bias. Someone's going to view this as a good idea sooner or later.

The US could start with paid parental leave.

However, any country  that wants to maintain a high standard of living is going to have to adjust to the fact that you can't have population growth AND a high standard of living. This creates an intractable problem for pretty much all economies because they are, unfortunately, all structured around growth.

[Juana]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/17/the-age-of-the-fertility-panic-arrives/

Germany spends 200 billion euros a year trying to get more people to have babies, but are still looking at an average of 1.39 children per family. It seems that France has been the only one to pull it off, getting to 2.1 children per family by giving $1,000 a month for a year to any mother willing to have a third child. That works out to a pretty hefty price tag.

Watch for this idea from a republican or democrat near you soon.

Edited due to unfair bias. Someone's going to view this as a good idea sooner or later.

Sooner rather than later. There was a "omg America's in the midst of a demographic crisis! No one is having babbies!" thing on Good Morning America like two weeks ago.

[Elder Iptuous]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/17/the-age-of-the-fertility-panic-arrives/

Germany spends 200 billion euros a year trying to get more people to have babies, but are still looking at an average of 1.39 children per family. It seems that France has been the only one to pull it off, getting to 2.1 children per family by giving $1,000 a month for a year to any mother willing to have a third child. That works out to a pretty hefty price tag.

Watch for this idea from a republican or democrat near you soon.

Edited due to unfair bias. Someone's going to view this as a good idea sooner or later.

The US could start with paid parental leave.

However, any country  that wants to maintain a high standard of living is going to have to adjust to the fact that you can't have population growth AND a high standard of living. This creates an intractable problem for pretty much all economies because they are, unfortunately, all structured around growth.

i know this has been on your mind lately, so... have you read about any economic theory where quality of life (and the attempt to increase it) is not tied to growth that is waiting to be tried?

[Junkenstein]

There's something in my head about Immigrant populations and a tendency towards higher birth rates for the initial generations.

I'm sure that there's no possible solution here. It would involve giving a shit about people from another country. Possibly with a different skin colour.

[Cain]

HIMEOBSL its in ur demographics, causin' crises.

Ippy, there are no viable non-economic growth models for future prosperity that I know of, however if you look carefully all Nigel was saying is that there are ways to achieve that growth other than via population growth, which is a kinda lazy, "brute-forcing" of economic growth with many negative externalities.  Education, for example, is a huge economic multiplier.

[Pergamos]

There's something in my head about Immigrant populations and a tendency towards higher birth rates for the initial generations.

I'm sure that there's no possible solution here. It would involve giving a shit about people from another country. Possibly with a different skin colour.

The US is really good at assimilating immigrants.  I can't see low birth rates being a problem here in the foreseeable future.

[Elder Iptuous]

i recall seeing something about fertility rates making more of a swoosh rather than a straight line down with increasing GDP/capita.  the very rich countries had an uptick that made them go back up to the replacement rate, and that's where the US stood.  i don't remember what the thinking was on why, though.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There's something in my head about Immigrant populations and a tendency towards higher birth rates for the initial generations.

I'm sure that there's no possible solution here. It would involve giving a shit about people from another country. Possibly with a different skin colour.

The US is really good at assimilating immigrants.  I can't see low birth rates being a problem here in the foreseeable future.

Heh.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm

[Junkenstein]

This could be the century to re-define "aid". We shall no longer give funds or goods, but take thy excess children for the benefit of ALL(tm pending)

[Golden Applesauce]

There's something in my head about Immigrant populations and a tendency towards higher birth rates for the initial generations.

I'm sure that there's no possible solution here. It would involve giving a shit about people from another country. Possibly with a different skin colour.

The US is really good at assimilating immigrants.  I can't see low birth rates being a problem here in the foreseeable future.

Heh.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm

That article is from 2003 (Google prioritizes recent content, so About.com strips dates off of its old articles) but the last ten years of the US birthrate story has been "it's dropping faster, now slower, now faster... oooh the economy got worse again, now it's going waay down 'cuz nobody can afford children..."

i recall seeing something about fertility rates making more of a swoosh rather than a straight line down with increasing GDP/capita.  the very rich countries had an uptick that made them go back up to the replacement rate, and that's where the US stood.  i don't remember what the thinking was on why, though.

Is this the graph you're thinking of?


I don't have any better explanation than you do, other than that I want to see what which countries more of the circles are. (the graph was synthesized from data from the 2009 CIA factbook; I think this, this are his data sources. (also relevant) I think Qatar being at the top of both lists is explained by it having massive wealth disparity; tiny country with a small number of filthy rich oil barons living right in the middle of generic 3rd world ME poverty. No income tax and an 90%+ of your workforce comes from an immigration system that's closer to slavery than indentured servitude probably does something awful to your stats. (You need permission from your employer / visa sponsor to leave the country, and even if they let you leave your employer can ban you from returning, so basically you can't quit or change jobs if your employer doesn't want you to.)

This PDF on world population / demographic trends from the CIA is also informative. The best case scenario outlined there is basically that the scary youth bubbles all move to the EU (N. Africa / M. East) or US (India / S. E. Asia), where they lobby their new governments to intervene in the crises caused by the fraction of their youth bubble that stayed behind. Cain probably knows more about this.

[AFK]

You know, I think the other factor that undoubtedly is involved in some way is the level of violence and conflict, which of course in turn does have economic linkages.  It's perhaps what is influencing why Israel is where it is.  So for them it isn't economic survival mode as it is with the nations with very low GDP.  It's breeding at a higher level to survive the political/warfare climate.