Herding Cats

Go forth and multiply

• The world is headed for a population implosion over the next 50 years since
  • Industrialized countries continue to reproduce below their replacement level
  • Third-world countries' reproduction rates are slowing rapidly with their industrialization and the spread of birth control
• The slowdown in population growth (and the potential decrease) poses huge problems since almost all societies rely on the young to pay for the care of the elderly. In the past, however, that burden has been light since the young have outnumbered the old. This equation is reversing.
  • Implications are harshest for Europe given the huge pension and welfare state liabilities of the European countries
  • But the US is not far behind though given our low reproduction levels and ever-burgeoning welfare apparatus
• The situation of China is scariest because, although it currently has a young population, its draconian reproduction policies will cause the population to age at an incredible rate. (See the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report entitled The Graying of the Middle Kingdom)
  • In 2000, 10% of the Chinese population was over 60 as compared to 16% in Europe. By 2040, the Chinese number will be 28% as compared to 25% for the US.
  • The workers to elderly ratio is expected to go from 6.4 to 2.0 in that same period. For America the change will be 3.9 to 2.3 and Europe will be 2.8 to 1.5
  • Chinese men could suffer the most due to local customs. More than 120 boys are born for every 100 girls, a trend that will throw China's sex ratio wildly out of proportion if it continues (the natural ratio is ~104 to 100).

• Italy, which has the lowest birthrate in Europe (1.23 women per children when the replacement rate is ~2.1) is offering to pay women about $1,200 to have a second child.
• Another trend worth considering is that Christianity and Islam are growing rapidly in the segments of the world that are growing while the shrinking, industrialized nations are, for the most part, becoming more secular.

One test of the welfare state

(Via MarginalRevolution) The Washington Times has a very interesting article on the long-term results of Sweden's switch to a welfare state. From 1890 to 1950, Sweden had a low-tax, low-regulation economy that was the world's fastest-growing. Then it switched to a welfare state with tax revenues and gov't spending of over 50% of GDP by 1995. Now, no new net jobs have been produced in the Swedish private sector since 1950. None of top 50 companies on the Stockholm stock exchange has been started since 1970. And 1/4 of the workforce live on public welfare programs. Sweden has dropped from fourth to 14th place in 2002 among the OECD countries (i.e., affluent industrialized countries) in terms of GDP per capita since 1970.

Thinking rationally about foreign labor

Nicholas Kristof has another interesting article on labor in the third world.

It's appalling that Abakr, like tens of millions of other children abroad, is working instead of attending school. But prohibiting child labor wouldn't do him any good, for there's no school in the area for him to attend. If child labor hawks manage to keep Abakr from working, without giving him a school to attend, he and his family will simply be poorer than ever.

And that's the problem when Americans get on their high horses about child labor, without understanding the cruel third world economics that cause it. The push by Democrats like John Kerry for international labor standards is well intentioned, but it is also oblivious to third world realities.

Look, I feel like Scrooge when I speak out against bans on sweatshops or on child labor. In the West, it's hard to find anyone outside a university economics department who agrees with me. But the basic Western attitude — particularly among Democrats and warm-and-fuzzy humanitarians — sometimes ends up making things worse.

In 1993, when Congress proposed the U.S. Child Labor Deterrence Act, which would have blocked imports made by children (if it had passed), garment factories in Bangladesh fired 50,000 children. Many ended up in worse jobs, like prostitution.

These are scary

Divorce statistics for the US.

Don't forget the good part

David Gelernter, a Yale professor writing in the Weekly Standard, reminds us not to forget that the war in Iraq did a lot of good even if we now question how we got there. Good stuff on page 2 especially.

Everyone is doing it

The US News has an insightful essay detailing the process by which media companies can end up creating major storylines. I imagine this happens fairly frequently.

Let's say a feature writer thinks green luggage is becoming popular. So the reporter taps out a story citing three people in different states who have given up black suitcases and bought green ones. The second paragraph begins: "All across America, people are switching to green suitcases." This creates a media trend that might be real but is probably bogus and certainly isn't established by three sales.

consent of the governed

Hugh Hewitt's article on gay marriage in the Weekly Standard succintly describes the most important and convincing argument against the gay marriage rights imposed by the Massachusetts Court.

THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED is arguably the bedrock principle of the American republic, animating the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Lincoln's restatement of the Declaration at Gettysburg, and the 14th Amendment. The great civil rights laws of the 1960s were also built upon the notion that any lasting public ethic had to proceed from an act of legislative will, thus anchoring that ethic to the consent of the governed.

Never in the 228 years since the Declaration has any legislative body at the federal or state level passed any law with the intent of establishing the proposition that two people of the same sex could marry. Not once. The principle of equality between religions was consented to in the First Amendment; between races, in the 14th Amendment; between genders, in the 19th Amendment. Each of these principles had long and difficult passages to majoritarian and statutory status. Courts could not and did not impose them because courts cannot will majorities into being--they can only articulate the implications of previously established legislative actions.

The psychology of the pledge

Jacob Levy has an interesting post at Volokh on the Pledge and whether it's an occasion for natural citizens to expressly accept the government under which we live.

[T]he Pledge isn't in any legal sense an oath of citizenship or loyalty. But it had the form and words of such an oath. The primary reason why it's not such an oath is that it's spoken by children who are incapable of understanding and consenting to its terms. But that seems to me good grounds for objecting to the whole business. If the words spoken meant what they said, then they shouldn't be expected of children, and shouldn't have to be repeated over and over again. If they don't mean what they say, then they degrade language and the sense of solemnity that should accompany the swearing of loyalty oaths. If the words are serious, then they're inappropriate for the context (and 'under God' is a violation of the Establishment Clause). If the words are not serious-- and they're not, anymore-- if they're just mindless blather, then they demean something that shouldn't be demeaned.

If we were to switch from the Pledge to a one-time citizenship oath sworn at age 18, I think-- I hope-- that the words wouldn't look much like the Pledge's words, and would look more like the extant citizenship oath.

One further thought concerns the psychology of influence. One of the best ways to convince someone of a proposition is to start small and have him agree to minor, related propositions before moving on to the larger ones. This is the committment/consistency principle of persuasion. An example comes from the Korean War when Chinese prison camps were effective at influencing US soldiers by initially having them sign statements like "The US is not perfect" and "Communism can sometimes help people." Later, they convinced the soldiers to subscribe to subversive theories about the US and Communism that would have appalled the soldiers before their time in camp. [See Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion]

When considering the content of the Pledge, one must consider that it is repeated daily by children across the country. Every time they recite the phrases, they are subconciously weakening their ability to deny related propositions. The wording of the Pledge should reflect the beliefs that we would expect each citizen to expressly accept and the ideals that we hope a citizen holds. But as Jacob points out in the rest of his post, the current Pledge was instituted for reasons other than to implement an oath and does not incorporate (m)any of the key portions of, say, the formal citizenship oath taken by immigrants.

Perhaps the Pledge should be ammended.

False Imprisonment

The Star-Telegram has an extremely moving article on a man who was falsely imprisoned for 12 years and, now that he is free, studying at Wisconsin Law School. He, like many others in recent years, was freed thanks to DNA testing. It's scary to think that so many people have been convicted unjustly.

To Chris Ochoa, it was life or death: a life sentence or capital punishment. He chose life, confessed to a rape and murder he didn't commit and spent 12 years in prison before he was exonerated. Today, he is a 37-year-old student at the law school that won his freedom.

Professor Fakes Hate Crime on Campus

Having gone to UVA, I know all about claims (both true and alleged) of racial hate crimes. In an interesting twist, a Claremont McKenna professor has been caught faking a hate crime that sent the university into a frenzy. The reaction of the administration to the fakery is, of course, befuddling. Check Discriminations for more info.

Volokh has the story
In the midst of a push for greater "tolerance" and "diversity," a visiting left-wing faculty member's car was vandalized. Windows were smashed, tires slashed, and racist and anti-homosexual slogans spray painted on the professor's car. There were sit-ins, a day of class was canceled, security was heightened, and the college president emailed all faculty, students, and alumni, to call for "regaining control of our community."

How very disappointed they were to receive the police report, which indicated that two eye witnesses identified the perpetrator as the professor herself.... It remains to be seen whether the CMC administration will still call for "the ultimate penalties under law" for what the professor herself called "a well-planned out act of terrorism."