WI: No Baby Boom

kernals12

Banned
1016px-US_Birth_Rates.svg_.png

You've probably heard about the surge in the birth rate that occured in the 20 years after World War 2 ended, the so-called "baby boom". You can see from the chart how much of a surge it was from the 1930s levels. What's interesting is how pessimistic the literature of the 1930s was about population growth. Indeed, it reads a lot like the projections of today. For the US, the forecast was also worsened by immigration, once a large source of population growth, grinding to a virtual halt during the Depression. The result, was that in 1936, the US census bureau predicted population would peak at a dismal 135 million by 1950.
By 1948, things had improved enough that the census could project a population peak of 164 million by the year 1990. But by the 50s, with the baby boom in full swing, the Census stopped predicting population leveling off. They estimated the US would easily surpass the 200 million mark (which it did, in 1966). And by 1967, they were predicting over 350 million Americans by the year 2015.

So, what if there was no baby boom? And not just in the US, how about everywhere? With so much fewer people, how does it impact us economically and culturally?
 
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Well, for one, we wouldn't be in the political mess we're in now thanks to the Boomers Generation. They wouldn't have had such disproportionate power over decades if they were a substantially smaller proportion of the population to begin with.
 
The thing is, during the war and depression years, people had postponed making children, and afterwards they used the opportunity. And they were optimistic about the future. I don't see how to change both.
 

kernals12

Banned
The thing is, during the war and depression years, people had postponed making children, and afterwards they used the opportunity. And they were optimistic about the future. I don't see how to change both.
Note how the drop off in childbearing started during the roaring 20s.
 
Note how the drop off in childbearing started during the roaring 20s.

Which had to do with the drop in the rural population as people moved off farms and into cities for industrial employment. More kids = more help on a farm, which means, in economic terms, that kids are a productive economic asset on a farm; they can help with chores and make the farm more productive. Big families become a pure cost when living in an urbanized area with no economic upside.

As for stopping the Baby Boom of the postwar era, you need to change the whole history of the country from 1929 to 1945 or, at a minimum, stop the suburbanization of the nation and keep people in the larger cities such that bigger families are more of a hardship than would be the case in the suburbs. There was a powerful desire after the war and depression to return to a more normal sort of existence. Having a house and a family was part of that and the postwar prosperity contributed a lot to that as well. So preventing the postwar economic boom is another way of going about it, but one would have to work hard to screw up the circa 1947 economy in which the US was the sole undamaged industrial power on the planet. The US was feeding and manufacturing for much of the world in those days.
 

kernals12

Banned
Well, for one, we wouldn't be in the political mess we're in now thanks to the Boomers Generation. They wouldn't have had such disproportionate power over decades if they were a substantially smaller proportion of the population to begin with.
I don't appreciate this boomer bashing. All generations are the same in their heterogenity.
 

kernals12

Banned
More kids = more help on a farm, which means, in economic terms, that kids are a productive economic asset on a farm; they can help with chores and make the farm more productive. Big families become a pure cost when living in an urbanized area with no economic upside.
America was still 35% rural in the year 1950 and in fact the 40s saw the most urbanization in the nation's history.
There was a powerful desire after the war and depression to return to a more normal sort of existence. Having a house and a family was part of that and the postwar prosperity contributed a lot to that as well. So preventing the postwar economic boom is another way of going about it, but one would have to work hard to screw up the circa 1947 economy in which the US was the sole undamaged industrial power on the planet. The US was feeding and manufacturing for much of the
This zero sum theory of the postwar era goes against all logic and facts. The US may have been the sole undamaged industrial power in 1947, but not by 1952. And less production by the rest of the world means they have less to trade with us for consumption, so we're not any better off.
 

kernals12

Banned
Without the bulge of working age people, governments would have been forced to properly fund pensions and healthcare.
 
US economic growth is slower with a lower population but not having a boom would indicate no WWII as we know it so the rest of the world is going to be better off as well. Demand for labor would probably mean more immigration and more immigrant friendly national policy.

Welfare programs for the aged would have to be funded more carefully if there's fewer young people to pay into the system.
 

kernals12

Banned
US economic growth is slower with a lower population but not having a boom would indicate no WWII as we know it so the rest of the world is going to be better off as well. Demand for labor would probably mean more immigration and more immigrant friendly national policy.

Welfare programs for the aged would have to be funded more carefully if there's fewer young people to pay into the system.
Less people means fewer consumers and less demand for labor. This idea that the amount of work to be done is fixed and having fewer workers is a problem is the lump of labor fallacy.
 
It's not bashing, it's just the truth.
Not really for example look at the Presidents. The first Boomer President was Clinton. He, Bush 43 and Trump have been the only Boomer Presidents. The WWII ('Greatest Generation') era held onto power much longer. This was also true in business. When Social Security was initially set up the Actuarial tables showed that the average worker died just a few years after that magical age of 65. After WWII improvements in healthcare, safer working conditions, etc meant that that generation lived longer and stayed productive longer. Because of growing up during the Depression years they tended to be reluctant to retire or give up a job that they had feeling that if they did 'bad times would come' and they would be left with nothing. So they did not give up senior positions and there was stagnation in promotions for years. SO many of the concerns that are being laid on the 'Boomers' were set up by their parents who saw the bubble in the population coming and did nothing to mitigate it figuring they had 'saved the world' and were owed the benefits of it.
 

kernals12

Banned
Not really for example look at the Presidents. The first Boomer President was Clinton. He, Bush 43 and Trump have been the only Boomer Presidents. The WWII ('Greatest Generation') era held onto power much longer. This was also true in business. When Social Security was initially set up the Actuarial tables showed that the average worker died just a few years after that magical age of 65. After WWII improvements in healthcare, safer working conditions, etc meant that that generation lived longer and stayed productive longer. Because of growing up during the Depression years they tended to be reluctant to retire or give up a job that they had feeling that if they did 'bad times would come' and they would be left with nothing. So they did not give up senior positions and there was stagnation in promotions for years. SO many of the concerns that are being laid on the 'Boomers' were set up by their parents who saw the bubble in the population coming and did nothing to mitigate it figuring they had 'saved the world' and were owed the benefits of it.
Obama was a boomer president (born in 1961).
 
We would be far better off without them. Their extreme greed and selfishness in the 80s and 90s did enormous damage to the economic future of the country and their voting patterns have set the US back 30 years behind where it should be since they came to political power in 1980 (Reagan was elected by Boomers). As a generation they've achieved little or nothing of value with either their parents or their children being the ones who have made the greatest contributions to American society.

Globally fewer Boomers means no Brexit and probably no Putin.

SO many of the concerns that are being laid on the 'Boomers' were set up by their parents

This is a total fallacy. The parents of the Boomers had much higher savings rates. They retired at a normal rate. The Failure Generation has no one but themselves to blame. They are the Yuppies whose excessive consumerism, selfishness, and greed lead them to not have savings. They've consistently voted to cut social safety net spending since the 80s so as to cut their own taxes due to their own selfishness and greed. They voted enthusiastically for the War on Drugs, private prisons, diabolical foreign military adventurism, racist treatment of immigration and the children of immigrants, homophobic laws, misogynistic legal treatment of women's rights issues, etc. They continue to vote for increasingly right wing religious individuals because they, as inherently selfish people, are rapidly approaching death and are desperately hoping there's an afterlife where they can keep the party going as they squeeze the life out of their grandchildren and ruin the republic for their great grandchildren in this one. Trump and co are the death gasp of the Failure Generation coalescing to screw the world over one last time. They can't go soon enough. The world won't miss them.
 
Not really for example look at the Presidents. The first Boomer President was Clinton. He, Bush 43 and Trump have been the only Boomer Presidents. The WWII ('Greatest Generation') era held onto power much longer. This was also true in business. When Social Security was initially set up the Actuarial tables showed that the average worker died just a few years after that magical age of 65. After WWII improvements in healthcare, safer working conditions, etc meant that that generation lived longer and stayed productive longer. Because of growing up during the Depression years they tended to be reluctant to retire or give up a job that they had feeling that if they did 'bad times would come' and they would be left with nothing. So they did not give up senior positions and there was stagnation in promotions for years. SO many of the concerns that are being laid on the 'Boomers' were set up by their parents who saw the bubble in the population coming and did nothing to mitigate it figuring they had 'saved the world' and were owed the benefits of it.

Don't look at the Presidents who were Boomers, look at the voters: first President the Baby Boomers would've been voting for upon coming-of-age? Nixon. Then look at the voting patterns of voters for every Republican President since then: Reagan, G.W. Bush, W. Bush, Trump - all of which disproportionately got a much larger share of the Boomer vote than any Democrat President, who mostly relied on votes from younger generations. That is what I'm talking about with the Boomers being the source of our political problems: the Boomers have consistently voted along a "fuck you, I got mine" pattern of electing Presidents with policies that explicitly screw over younger generations while pandering to the Boomers (and even if said policies end up also hurting the Boomers too, the Boomers often don't care or rationalize it away, because by this point they're motivated by spite).

For decades they've held a privileged position in having the electoral power to control the course of the nation, but now with them dying off from old age and being replaced by younger people and immigrants, they've become terrified of losing that position, and are doing everything they can to keep that power from being pried out of their cold, dead hands, and wrecking everything on the way out the moment they do lose a little more of that power.

That's what I mean by the Boomers being the source of our problems: the world was handed to them like an oyster, they went and fucked it all up, and now they're trying to screw us over as one last "Fuck You" before they finally die. And now we have to clean up their mess before they get us all killed.
 
Obama was sandwiched between the Baby Boomer generation and my generation,Generation X. Now,the Boomers were also the ones who marched on Civil Rights,Environmental Issues and Women's Lib,so not all are bad, same as the supposed Greatest Generation were not all good.
 
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elkarlo

Banned
Not really for example look at the Presidents. The first Boomer President was Clinton. He, Bush 43 and Trump have been the only Boomer Presidents. The WWII ('Greatest Generation') era held onto power much longer. This was also true in business. When Social Security was initially set up the Actuarial tables showed that the average worker died just a few years after that magical age of 65. After WWII improvements in healthcare, safer working conditions, etc meant that that generation lived longer and stayed productive longer. Because of growing up during the Depression years they tended to be reluctant to retire or give up a job that they had feeling that if they did 'bad times would come' and they would be left with nothing. So they did not give up senior positions and there was stagnation in promotions for years. SO many of the concerns that are being laid on the 'Boomers' were set up by their parents who saw the bubble in the population coming and did nothing to mitigate it figuring they had 'saved the world' and were owed the benefits of it.
My dad a boomer Mae sure there would be a parameter Gulf War vets. He never got anything as a Vietnam vet, the wwii gen left them and the Korean War vets out to dry.
 
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