Declining Birth Rates Are a Symptom of Socialism

Recently Dr. Ed Yardeni, President and Chief Investment Strategist of Yardeni Research, Inc., published a blog post in which he laid out the consequences of socialism on birthrates. In the post, Yardeni notes that, "Socialism may breed infertility! In the past, people relied on their children to support them in their old age. Your children were your old-age insurance policy. Over the past few decades, people have come to depend increasingly on social security provided by their governments. So they are having fewer kids." Indeed, the chart he depicts demonstrates that fertility rates across a sample of 45 countries show birthrates below replacement rates for over half of the countries, including the United States.

Yardeni states that, "Median ages are highest in advanced economies with large social welfare states. Among the 45 major countries, Japan has the highest median age (44.7), while the Philippines has the lowest (22.2). Advanced economies tend to have higher median ages than emerging ones because they provide more social welfare, which boosts longevity and depresses fertility."

I disagree with Yardeni's assumptions, but not with the data he presents. Socialism will always act to depress longevity, although its impact on fertility is less clear to me. When medical care is socialized, it leads to the destruction of competitive forces in the medical industry. This results in less innovation, higher prices, and an overall inferior quality of product compared to the free market. The only possible outcome being that longevity rates are below what they would otherwise be in a free market.

The fertility rates on the other hand are more interesting. Speaking from my own philosophical stance on the issue, I'm not having kids because I don't want them to grow up in a global insane asylum. If we look at human history as if it were a singular person, clearly the human race is gripped by a form of insanity. It has engaged in mass murder repeatedly, it has robbed from its own children to fund itself in old age, it has caged millions upon millions of people for the act of possessing certain dried flowers, and on and on. The human race is gripped by the insanity of the ego, wrapped in blanket of fear.

The state feeds on fear, for without fear, the state could not exist. It creates fear where there should be none. It demonizes anyone or anything that tries to remove fear from society's collective consciousness. It tells people that they aren't good enough, safe enough, or smart enough. At its core, the state uses violence or threats of violence to fund every single thing it mandates.

Why would I want to have kids if they are going to be looted to fund the retirement of self-entitled geezers who have seized control of the political power structure and its guns for their own self-benefit? I will not aid them in their violent quest for material goods and services by handing them a new debt slave.

Clearly socialism, and its close cousins fascism and crony-capitalism, have destroyed the global economies. The great fiat Ponzi pyramids are toppling in the euro zone as we speak. From my perspective, some people aren't have kids because they simply can't afford them. While others, like myself, are refraining from having kids because they don't want to add another slave to the global plantations called sovereign nation states.

The current unemployment rate for teens in the U.S. is hovering around 70%, which means when those kids get out of high school, they will have nothing. No job skills, no money, no assets, yet we expect them to have kids just a few years later in their early twenties? How will they pay for that child? Obviously they can't. It should come as no surprise that young families are not having kids at the rate they once were.

And good for them. For when the birth rate falls below the death rate, the Social Security Ponzi scheme will finally implode on itself. As any economist will tell you, a Ponzi scheme can only be maintained for as long as the new entrants into the scheme exceed those taking a payout. It will be a glorious day for the children of the world when the various socialist, violently imposed, retirement schemes collapse.

Until then, I'm staying childless.