Comments by "Bob" (@bobs_toys) on "China’s ‘Last Generation’: 85% Not Marrying, 60% Not Procreating" video.

  1. ​ @SpeedyCorky considering the results, whatever she is, what she isn't is wrong.
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  2. Can you name three other countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years? Also, the PRC isn't developed.
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  3. ​ @fromthesouthofafrica6815 in this case in the PRC, it's nothing supported by nothing. That being said, your own children ARE the retirement plan there.
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  4. What countries are on the same scale as the PRC? Keeping in mind the biggest drop has happened in the last five years and it's still going strong. And of those countries, what has a gdp per capita as low as the PRC's? And then, what countries are as unable to use immigration to fill the gap as the PRC?
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  5.  @patrickmcathey7081 I can totally imagine all those tens of millions of excess males being super thrilled at being fined for not being able to find a wife. The wife that the govt's policies helped ensure didn't exist
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  6. That's overall quite a lot worse than the best person for the job.
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  7. Two generations. The first parents it affected were about 20 to 25 years old. By the time their children were ready to have children, it still had another 10 to 15 years to run.
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  8.  @LvUhcX  "on its way" The last few years, it's gone up by about a tenth of a percent per year. Minus a couple of 1 percent drops before that. In the same time, the PRC has dropped by 45 percent. Not 4.5 percent. 45 percent. So, no. It's not on its way to having a 45 percent drop in birthrates over five years.
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  9.  @melissabrock4114   tier one cities are only home to a small percentage (about 5 from memory) of the total population. That the best places to live have produced the people who want to breed least doesn't change that it's a nationwide problem. The majority of the country is pretty impressively poor. And nowhere has had birthrates decline at anything like the rate the PRC has. The PRC has redefined what a sharp decline is. To give an example, a decline in birthrates that took japan 32 years (from 1990 to last year) was done between 2018 and 2021 by the PRC. Then there was last year. This year is getting predictions of the 7 to 8 million range. It's also worth pointing out here that the countries you've listed are wealthy countries (generally over 3 to 4x the per capita gdp of the PRC) that have the ability to attract immigrants to soften the blow. The PRC can't.
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  10.  @magnarcreed3801  it's a higher chance. Also, you can't eat money. Money can't help you move around. Money won't nurse you. And so on. Sure, you can pay people to do that. But in a society with a rapidly declining young population, that's a pretty good way of burning through your savings.
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  11. It sounds like you can give details on where it's incorrect.
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  12.  @falconercyrus5584  this is the same south Korea that has 3x the gdp per capita of the PRC? The one that is able to attract immigrants to plug the gap? (less than 4 percent of the population = less than 4 percent of the people needed to make up the difference) If that's the best example that can be found, then no, a lot of countries aren't in a comparable situation.
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  13. So.... Starting in thirty years time? Feels like that might be a little too late.
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  14.  @madhusingh6266  probably one in which there's a massive gender imbalance due run infanticide and a preference for boys.
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  15.  @chicagoan81  the thing about being a dictatorship is that you've got no excuses for having anything get in the way. The only reason anyone would ever have to give someone else absolute power is to ensure that they have the ability to not let anything get in the way of what needs to be done.
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  16. What takes the PRC a year or two takes most countries decades
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  17. If you're pig ignorant of the magnitude of the problem and the overall differences between these places, it would.
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  18.  @gpsoftsk1  marriage is an irrelevance. It's an excuse for a party and it makes paperwork easier. The real commitment is in children.
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  19. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  20.  @Peskarik  Ukraine is a bit of an unknown here, for obvious reasons that don't apply to the PRC. But even Russia hasn't had the decline we've seen since 2017. And both of those countries (no one wants to be compared to) have higher birthrates than the PRC. Again an asterisk on Ukraine, but I haven't been able to find anything that contradicts it.
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  21. Now there's straw clutching. LLMs are very good, but they're not magic. They're tools. People who believe in magic tend to be disappointed. And the places that are going to get the most benefit out of them are the places that can afford to pay for the people who really understand these tools. Which isn't the PRC. Not when you consider the scale of the problem there. Especially not when you remember these skills are globally in demand. Which includes China's best and brightest continuing the largest brain drain in history, as they try to get to a place where they might actually want to raise a family.
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  22. Here's what will happen, though. It'll do a wonderful job of destroying jobs that would have been held by recent Graduates. Meaning they won't get to start their real education (a degree is just a sign that you can be educated) Which means that what they did know well fade or become outdated. Which means they won't get the skills you would expect from someone senior, which are skills that are going to be extremely needed in the future. To someone who knows what it's doing, the LLM is wonderful. They've been a massive boost to my capacity. To a monkey pushing buttons with no clue of what they do, it's dangerous. Especially when the monkey thinks it's magic.
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  23. No. It reflects on the CCP's incredible cock-ups.
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  24. The results of the last seven years show they're not.
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  25. The west has the same (actually much more) social media. Are the result of a much higher level of economic growth, have had no restriction on feminist ideas, etc. Basically everything you're blaming here. Yet no Western country has had anything like the descent the PRC has had over the last generation in general (the one child policy had been going for two generations) and the last five five years in particular. My own country's (Australia) birthrate dropped by about 15 to 20 percent between 1990 and last year. The PRC's dropped by about 70 percent.
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  26.  @Originalman144    the US has had about a 30 percent decline in birthrates since 1990 from memory. It's a step on the same path, but a percentage decline that occurred in the US over three decades occurred in the PRC over about three years. The PRC birthrate is a little over half the USA with major drops (there's a prediction in the Alibaba owned SCMP that this year could be in the 7 to 8 million range.) coming. Whatever issues are in the west are dialed to to 11 in the PRC. Plus the gdp per capita of the USA is close to 6x the PRC in gross terms (the terms that matter when you're going to need to import massive amounts to help deal with the problem)
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  27. What's happening in the PRC is the result of what the CCP enthusiastically decides was a good idea
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  28. Superficially, yes. But not on remotely the same scale.
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  29. ​ @andrewevans7992 not remotely on this scale at this speed with this level of economic development, it isn't. This is specifically a PRC thing
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  30. And die at 60?
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  31. China's education system puts a huge amount of energy and a wonderful attitude into a pointless system. The western education system is the opposite. We're lazy students (I was) but the system itself is very good. There's room for improvement, particularly with how reluctant schools are to change with the times, but overall they're very good. In particular, they teach independent thought and action. The result of this is I barely passed high school math. My wife has a degree in it. I'm a developer (amongst other parts of my job) and can find ways to use the math I know to solve problems in a few seconds. She just can't. But give me a complex formula and I'll give you a blank look.
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  32. Except they're not.
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  33. The results in the PRC go far beyond what you'd expect of it was issues suffered by the human race as a whole
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  34.  @tuorofgondolin8235  I'll put it this way. You can't eat money. You can't live in money. Money won't heal you. It doesn't matter how much money there is if there's not enough stuff being produced. It doesn't matter if you worked, scrimped and saved your entire life. That's in the past. The reality now is you're no longer producing and are competing for the resources being made now with those who are still working. And they, of course, are competing with you and your savings.
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  35. ​ @kookoo9235 if the CCP thought they could mandate it without unacceptably high cost, they would have years ago. Last year, and this is from official data, and when the really bad years are ahead, the working age population dropped by 10.75 million and the retirement age population (over 60's) increased by 16.93 million.
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  36. The birthrate decline has only just started to hit the workforce. The big decline is coming. Plus the huge bubble of upcoming retirees.
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  37. Those who don't aren't nearly as numerous as the PRC needs them to be.
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  38. Yes. Things are so bad, extinction is what they're really after.
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  39. Taking America as an example: Since 1990, the birthrate in the USA has dropped by about 30 percent. Since 1990, the birthrate in the PRC has dropped by about 70 percent. In five years, the PRC went from a birthrate similar to the United States to the lowest birthrate in the world. And the USA can attract immigrants.
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  40. I did my bit.
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  41. I guess what I'm trying to say here is: Either you're lying or you're incredibly ignorant. Either way, it's a bad look for the PRC.
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  42. This is true, but if they wait for that, they'll have a severe worker shortage (as well as a shortage of future parents) Keeping in mind it takes 20 to 25 years to turn a newborn into someone useful. If this seems like there's no good way out of the current situation, well... The CCP's inactivity says they agree.
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  43. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  44. Not as many as you'd think. Second and third children make up more than half of births. Which means that the number of people actually having children must have dropped by something along the lines of 75 percent
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  45. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years. In peacetime
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  46. That's fine if the new generation isn't a fraction of the size of the last
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  47. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  48. And men are too picky. Sheng nu and all that. It's like... Imagine all the ways the situation could have been made worse. Then realise your imagination was too limited to compete with reality.
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  49.  @falconercyrus5584  you were replying to me. Not him. My next response was replying to you. Not him. That you couldn't read two more sentences is your problem. Not mine.
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  50.  @Greg_Chase  I'll point you to my first question in this thread.
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  51.  @Greg_Chase  the point in my post was that the only countries that are remotely comparable to the PRC when it comes to the decline and speed of decline are far wealthier, and so are far better equipped to deal with the decline than the PRC. They can also attract immigrants to offset the shortfall, even if they're currently choosing not to. The PRC simply can't.
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  52.  @Greg_Chase  also, the US birthrate is twice the PRC's. And has been stable for a long time. A slow decline, but nothing remotely like the PRC's crash. In the US in 2010, the birthrate was 12.5 per thousand. Last year it was 11. In the PRC, the birthrate was 12 per thousand in 2010. Last year it was 6.39 So you see the difference?
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  53.  @Greg_Chase  what you're saying here is that what took the USA three quarters of a century took the PRC roughly a decade. With it getting so much worse. And therefore they're the same. I didn't say it was only happening in the PRC, BTW. A reduction in birthrates is common. But the scale combined with the short time frame and current low economic development of the PRC is unique.
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  54.  @Greg_Chase  also, the US can attract immigrants to offset the problem. While the PRC can't.
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  55. America's birthrate has dropped by about 30 percent since 1990. The PRC's has dropped by over 70 percent.
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  56. According to the China daily, over half of newborns are second or third children. And it looks like last year, there were 7.88 million births. So they've got a near halving of children, and half of children are born to people who are already parents. Which was something that wasn't really happening under the ONE child policy. What's half of half?
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  57.  @dipset4016  by the time the first really childless generation (people below 40)gets old, the second that'll be in about 30 to 30 years time. Time enough for the next generation to get too old.
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  58. Well. Apparently it just can't.
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  59. To get it going again? If it's so simple, why hasn't it been done?
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  60.  @redgemini9851  that's nice. If it's so simple, why hasn't it been done?
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  61. ​ @kinglyone7172 really? Almost none of the Chinese I know have siblings. Where are you finding the ones you know? Old age homes? Malaysia?
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  62.  @kinglyone7172  if you say so. That being said, you went with the ones who emigrated. Migrants aren't normal. Normal people don't do that.
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  63. In the US. In Europe. In the UK. In Canada. In Australia. In new Zealand. In a wide variety of places. But not in the PRC.
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  64. The PRC is not a feminist country.
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  65. But there won't be enough workers to provide for the truly massive numbers of retirees.
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  66. But the smart people aren't having kids in the PRC. The smart people are leaving. And they can put any policy they like into law. Reality, including that policies need people to implement them doesn't really care about the system of government.
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  67. Every... I guess year and a half, they lose as many children to not being born as soldiers killed in the entirety of ww2 on all sides. For total deaths, every five years. Focused on the people they need most for the future.
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  68. The CCP's biggest accomplishments aren't based on it being smart, but being less insanely stupid than Mao.
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  69. In the PRC, it's gone from a pretty normal level to the level where people are scrambling to find some way of saying there's someone in a worse situation in five years. What other country has had this (continuing) rate of decline? Crude birth rate declines (after what's been done to women for the last few decades, births per woman isn't exactly comparing apples with apples) took Japan 32 years (1990 to 2022) they took the PRC three years (2018 to 2021) with subsequent years being worse.
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  70. That'll come with a huge political cost and won't begin to give any return on the investment of that cost until Xi is in his 90's.
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  71.  @jreen58  the person who comes after Xi is a complete irrelevance until Xi is gone. The next might (probably will) try to do something. But this doesn't just need an answer now. It needs an answer that starts a decade or two ago. Whenever that person does start, the results will still be two to two and a half decades later. Also, they won't die out. They'll just be an economic irrelevance. The last decade (or the 2000's) is the PRC reaching its peak.
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  72. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  73. So, go back there. You're an adult. They'd have no issues accepting you back.
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  74. We can see the accuracy of this by the rapidly declining number of births per year. And please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  75. And it can
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  76. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  77. If they thought they knew the answer, we'd be seeing the results by now.
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  78. No one cares about China. Only the CCP matters. And I'm not sure how the CCP would benefit from giving up power.
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  79. That's the last resort of the incompetent. And the CCP is truly incompetent.
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  80. Lol. It's cute that you think you've got the time, (working age) people and resources to tackle a problem of this size. You've lost the race to get rich before you get old.
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  81. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  82. Its way of making things better was to stop screwing the economy as much as Mao did. The communist party's greatest successes were based on allowing in capitalism.
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  83. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates halve in five years.
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  84. They will have an incredible burden in the form of the PRC's elderly though. And the resources that would have gone to improving their lives and providing them with opportunities will increasingly go towards supporting this burden.
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  85. I'm sure that wouldn't cause unrest amongst the people who'd grown up with having excess children forcefully aborted.
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  86. Even then, you need to accelerate the growth and learning process. Or you need a time machine that makes it available a decade or two ago.
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  87. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years. Also, you can't take away immigration because it's a tool that can be used to counteract this problem. A tool the PRC simply doesn't have.
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  88. So you'd be (yet) another person who doesn't understand ratios.
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  89. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  90. Apparently this year is looking like it'll be 7 to 8 million.
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  91. With the per person budget the PRC has, it'll be a needle "taking care" of the elderly long before it's a robot taking care of them.
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  92. Not remotely close
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  93. Not at this scale and definitely not at this scale while it's still developing. A bit more apples to apples, a developed area like Shanghai is a third lower than the national average. Putting it well below south Korea as a whole. And that's with a gdp per capita of about 1/3 the USA (almost 3x the births per thousand) and a third less than south Korea as a whole. (10 percent higher birthrate)
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  94. For equally unlikely things, we can look at what happens if the world's immigrants decide to go to the PRC. Except that wouldn't have the 20 year gap and high expenses between now and when it begins to be useful.
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  95. 111:100 is the current ratio, according to the China daily.
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  96.  @That-Guy_  almost certainly worse.
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  97.  @nomadic_orthodox  and yet the people there still consider a woman who's over 25 to be "left over" How can you have both an excess of men AND women being unable to find a partner? Then again, it's the country that gave us a vanishing youth and high youth unemployment. These should be mutually exclusive problems and yet, here we are.
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  98.  @nomadic_orthodox  there's a bit of a learning difficulty there.
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  99. ​ @VishalSingh-gh7qz for whom?
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  100.  @VishalSingh-gh7qz  that it is.
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  101.  @LvUhcX  I'm just going to laugh at you here for the vague hope that one day, the far, far, far wealthier USA will experience what the PRC is going through right at this very moment.
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  102.  @LvUhcX  I shouldn't have just said far, far, far wealthier. I should have also added that the USA can attract immigrants in numbers sufficient to offset the problem. Which the PRC just can't.
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  103.  @LvUhcX  if you say so. What you've got is dreams that someone else is going to suffer like you definitely will (I somehow doubt you've got what it takes to convince another country to accept you as an immigrant) What I've got is data from the Chinese national bureau of statistics.
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  104.  @aikighost   "don't have it quite this bad" That's like saying a cold isn't "quite as bad" as stage 4 cancer. Sure, it's true. As long as you don't define "quite" but it really doesn't convey the difference. It's trying to put something that has a huge amount of levels of severity down to an almost boolean level. As far as "a serious depopulation" goes, current projections are for the EU population to decline by about 7 percent by 2100. From a 447 million to 420 million. The PRC's future isn't quite as optimistic as this. At 1.4 billion now, we're looking at a decline to between 800 million (looks like the best case. Assuming they manage to increase birthrates) or 40 percent reduction to 488 million (UN low estimate. Assuming the data the PRC has been feeding it is accurate) or a 65 percent reduction. 2100 is a long way away, but every day between now and then is a step along that path. Coupled with that the PRC's 12.5k gdp per capita isn't quite as good as the EU's 45k. Or with about a million total immigrants, the PRC isn't quite as able to attract the world's workers as the EU is at about a million every six months (something like 50 to 80 million total. Including people with at least one foreign parent) Anyway, I think we just have very different ideas of what "not quite" means. Personally, I either use it to mean that things are pretty similar, or I use it as a blatantly massive understatement. That post was basically saying an apple isn't quite an orange.
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  105.  @loot6  if they can claim that the PRC isn't alone, it won't matter that they'll retire to a life of poverty in a country of retirees where every one of the remaining workers useful enough to emigrate to a place that hasn't had a population collapse is gone. (probably with family, to make the situation even worse) I guess that's the logic. Then again, there's nothing that can be done, so why not go into complete denial?
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  106.  @aikighost  "Population projections in the EU" on Eurostat Which is focusing on the EU as a whole, rather than cherry picking a single country and acting as if it's the entire group. BTW Italy's births per thousand are above the PRC's (which is something you can say about literally every non tiny country) If you'll remember, that's the country we're comparing with. Quite a bit as of this year. Up to a 20 percent difference, with the PRC getting much worse over the previous few years. This is from Caixing global (subject to the PRC's laws and practices when someone makes the PRC look worse than they think it should look) Annual births fell from 18.83 million in 2016 to 17.65 million, 15.23 million, 14.65 million, 12.02 million in 2020, 10.62 million, and 9.56 million last year. Therefore, the rate of decline each year from 2017 to 2022 was 6.27%, 13.71%, 3.81%, 17.95%, 11.65%, and 9.98%, respectively. The same article gives the births at somewhere between 7 and "over 8" Assuming 8.5 that's a birthrate of 6.07 And as the number of women who are of an age they'll want to have children decreases over the next decade, that number will decrease as well. After the decade, they increase, but only back to the current levels before plummeting again. And this is Italy's decline each year. Taken from the vital statistics section of Italian demographics on Wikipedia with GPT doing the math to help me be lazy. 2016 to 2017: Decrease of 3.23% 2017 to 2018: Decrease of 4.02% 2018 to 2019: Decrease of 4.47% 2019 to 2020: Decrease of 3.62% 2020 to 2021: Decrease of 1.15% 2021 to 2022: Decrease of 1.91% They're a little bit different to the PRC's. And any advantage the PRC currently has over.... Anyone... Won't survive long. Edit: Those last couple of sentences do a far better job of describing the PRC, BTW. The PRC's relatively low deaths to births ratios don't improve things. Deaths are cheap. Retirees are expensive.
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  107.  @aikighost  I'll agree there's issues in the EU. Where we'll disagree is with anything that puts their problems on remotely the same scale. (edit: "dont have it quite this bad") There's masses of posts on any video about this going on about how the West is in the same (or worse) situation. And it's simply bollocks. The scales of every facet of this issue are completely different ballgames.
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  108.  @aikighost  putting it another way: Come to me and say it's a serious upcoming problem and I'll agree. Come to me and even suggest that they're in remotely as bad a state as the PRC and I'm going to find fault. Edit: I don't really care about total population sizes, BTW. A shrinking population is fairly irrelevant. That higher number of deaths to births isn't really a bad thing. If everyone in the PRC kicked the bucket the moment they retired, I wouldn't begin to see an issue in anything except the property market. What I care about is ratios of workers to dependents. Those are just.... Terrible.
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  109.  @aikighost  this is what it looks like when a country has given up. You can think of it as doing Japan's lost decade properly. For the Western world.... The wumao who go on about automation are kind of correct..... Just not in remotely the time frame they need and not for the amount of resources they have available. They're basically relying on magic. They have no understanding of it beyond that they can spell it and it reduces the need for workers. In the West, we're not there, but we're closer. So much closer. We've got much more time, skilled workers and money. Plus the ability to attract the world's best and brightest to further buy us time. (my manager is German, BTW. So is the next senior person in my team. We're Linux infrastructure engineers. Normally there's at least a few Chinese in any team I'm in. Chinese who have the skills needed for creating automated systems, but absolutely zero desire to move back to the PRC)
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  110. The CCP watched too many gangster movies. They think when they're meant to take care of something, they're meant to "take care" of it.
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  111.  @Peskarik  not yet. But that's changing rapidly.
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  112.  @magnarcreed3801  because in the case of the PRC, children are the retirement plan. If you plan on growing old, that's your reason right there.
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  113.  @magnarcreed3801  it sounds like you've got alternatives. Which isn't true for so many people there. When they don't have kids, they're sacrificing their old age.
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  114.  @magnarcreed3801  but you're right. There's no 100 percent certainties. However you don't need 100 percent to make something your best bet.
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  115.  @magnarcreed3801  you do realise that you're personally a bit different to most people in the PRC, don't you? Even the attitude of the elderly is dramatically different. For you, personally, kids won't be your retirement plan. For your average PRC citizen, it really is.
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  116.  @artorhen  have kids = a chance (particularly depending on culture. It can be a very high chance. The Chinese culture is one of these) of having someone who can look after you in your old age. Want to do the math on the chance of the children you never had looking after you?
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  117.  @artorhen  sorry if I that response seems snarky, BTW. However it feels like "something" > "nothing" or that less than certain to pay off is different to definitely won't pay off isn't something that should need to be explained once. Let alone multiple times in the same short thread.
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  118.  @artorhen  that doesn't change the fact that they're the only retirement plan most people in the PRC have. You can tell yourself there's other reasons all you like, but without them, you're on your own the moment you stop working.
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  119.  @artorhen  it's both. And a male is needed to carry on the family line. A female is going to help another family.
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  120.  @artorhen  ten years ago, there were 15 million births in a country with a one child policy. Last year, there were 7.88 million births, over half of which were from people who were already parents. Can you point to the cultural change over the last decade that would make close to 3/4 of people who would have probably become parents simply decide not to have kids?
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  121. Worse.
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  122. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  123. If you're completely ignorant of the data, it does.
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  124. Of these people (it's more than a few) the number who can name three countries that are in the position of the PRC (birthrates declined by over 40 percent in five years) is zero. It feels like a safe bet you're not going to increase this number.
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  125.  @manichaean1888  the birthrate last year in south Korea was 6.902. Italy was 7.154 The birthrate in the PRC last year was 6.77 Japan's birthrate has been declining for decades, that's true. The PRC went from the birthrate Japan had in 1990 to the birthrate Japan had last year between 2018 and 2021. It did what took Japan 32 years in 3.
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  126.  @manichaean1888  also, even if everything you said was correct, you still didn't answer the question.
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  127.  @manichaean1888  the long impact is that those who are unborn stay unborn. This was also meant to be a time of increase, with 36 years of pent up demand. This year is shaping up to be so much worse. Which is why Korea and Japan (far wealthier countries that had a far more gradual decline and are far more capable of attracting immigrants) look at China and are grateful they're not it.
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  128.  @manichaean1888  the fertility rate takes the entire female population that's capable of breeding and what they've done into account. There's a delay on that going down. The year on year decline says that the PRC will beat that easily. Also, you've had three posts and you still haven't answered the question I've been asking.
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  129.  @manichaean1888  I should have realised you needed things spelled out Can you name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years? >>Year to year decline may happen due to some short term circumstances and doesn't affect demographics in the long run. The fact that you pay so much attention to that shows that you do not understand how demographics work. << In the eight years since the abolition of the one child policy, where it was already uncomfortably low, it's gotten lower. The Chinese birthrates have been dropping for decades. The drop has increased substantially. It shows no signs of slowing. There was an increase younger bubble recently. The largest chunk of the current breeding age is now in its early thirties The amount of people who are leaving their teens is smaller than those who are heading into their late 20's. There's capacity for about a short lived 25% bump from a bottom you haven't reached yet in about 10 years time. Although if you disagree, maybe you could tell me where this upcoming generation is that's about to start spitting out babies. How old is it now? A hint is: Your average age at which people give birth is 27 The age of the group that's got as many females as your 27 year olds do is 10. The number of 27 year olds is going to decline for the next decade before it reaches its trough. Over the next seven years it slowly increases. And after that single year of a comparative level of 27 year old women to what we have today, things get so much worse, so quickly. Sure, the govt might come up with some wonderful policy that makes it all better. But the clock's ticking (those who aren't born now can't give birth in the future), and so far the eight years since the abolition of the one child policy have been complete and utter failure
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  130.  @manichaean1888  From the silence, I'm guessing you've realised you don't actually know where babies come from. Hint: It's not the stork. There isn't some huge order waiting to be fulfilled at Stork HQ.
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  131.  @manichaean1888  the silence since I replied to your last post saying I didn't understand demographics. Where I asked where all these upcoming newborns were meant to come from. If you answered it, it isn't showing here or in your recent posts history. And congratulations on your new pregnancy. Now if you can just manage about another ten million per year, you can get the country back to where it was eight years ago.
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  132. ​ @manichaean1888 More data to help understand the scope Assume the retirement age is pushed up to 70 in the next couple of decades That means that people born in 1972 will be retiring about the same time your newborn turns 18 and is able to enter the workforce (it would probably be a bit later than that, but this is getting a worker into the workforce ASAP) In 1972, there were 25,663,000 births. This year, it's looking like there's going to be between 7 and 8 million births Which is a shortfall of somewhere in the realm of 18 million workers. And that's ignoring the decade plus prior to that, which needs to be made up for ASAP (there's a 20-25 year lead time between a policy that works and actually getting a benefit from that policy) Between 1962 and 1972 (or representing the workers from the decade prior to your newborn's earliest entrance into the workforce) there were about 293 million births. Again, going to assume that most lived this long. Over the past decade, not including this year, there were about 170 million births. So that's a 123 million shortfall between the people who've been born over the last decade and the people leaving the workforce when they enter it. Not leaving for the grave, but leaving for retirement, where with increasing lifespans, they'll probably have an average of another decade to live (and consume adult levels of resources, plus elderly medical resources) after that. So with the declining numbers of women who are at the age most women give birth, I really am super interested in who's actually going to be making up for this shortfall. Or even stopping the shortfall from getting worse.
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  133.  @manichaean1888  well that's deeply annoying. I guess they don't like figures. My apologies for the mistake. Anyway, long story short: The most common age for having children in the PRC is 27. The number of 27 year old women will decline for the next decade. It won't get back to where it is now for 17 years. Then it'll immediately start declining again. Where are these new babies coming from? In the decade prior to when your newborn enters the workforce, 120 million more will have left it than will have joined. That's assuming the retirement age is increased substantially for both genders. If it isn't, the overall picture is far worse. This can't be changed, only compensated for. So in addition to needing to make up for the year on year loss, the decline in workers for the prior decade needs to be made up for. And the imbalance for this decade is starting off far worse than the previous decade.
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  134.  @manichaean1888  Europe has a much, much higher per capita gdp, the ability to attract immigrants and a much higher birthrate. However bad things might seem now, they're the best they're going to be for a long time. What's the largest European country you think is comparable? I'm happy to look at the numbers.
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  135.  @manichaean1888    also, is you're going to dismiss what China is going through as a "short term tendency" you're going to need to be able to figure out where the babies are going to come from.
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  136.  @manichaean1888  unless you're going to tell me where these future babies are coming from, the drop in births in China show that any current advantage in overall birthrate out of women who are currently fertile isn't going to last long. Again, it'll be seventeen years before you have as many women of the most likely age to have children as you do now. And the numbers now are terrible. The next decade is nothing but a massive drop. And that's temporary. It lasts a year before going into a steep decline. It did start later the PRC. But it's happening at an unprecedented rate.
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  137.  @manichaean1888  also: According to the data report from 2021, the fertility rate in China declined to 1.164 persons per woman (World Bank Open Data, 2022) 30 percent higher. Every year in the foreseeable future (about 30 years) is going to have a wider gap. Plus the birthrate isn't dropping long a stone. Plus a much higher gdp per capita. Plus the ability to attract immigrants. And Europe didn't spend four decades murdering girl babies, which means that when you compare births per woman, you're not exactly comparing apples with apples.
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  138. It means there are fewer people to make that pie and more of the pie is doing towards people who are no longer contributing.
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  139.  @engineerahmed7248  those machines need increasingly well educated people. As they become more automated, they also reduce the need to do stuff in China. And the stuff people leave when they die is generally cash and property. (especially with those insane investment properties China's been obsessed with) They're not useful to a country with a declining population.
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  140.  @engineerahmed7248  harvesters and the efficiency they bring isn't new. This is the 2020's. You're talking as if we're in the 1920's. Anyone who doesn't have one already has a reason for it (poverty) That reason isn't likely to change for farmers in the coming decades.
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  141.  @engineerahmed7248  you need them to be produced. You also need to contend with the decline in water supplies and arable land. China is becoming dependent on imports for food at an incredible rate. It's now only 76 percent self sufficient (down from 100 percent in 2000) So when food security should have been increasing for the reasons you give, it just.... Hasn't.
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  142.  @engineerahmed7248  as far as natural resources in general go, you're already heavily reliant on imports. As we saw with t he CCP's failure at sanctioning Australia after we called for an investigation into the virus origins. Doing without our coal was contributed to massive power outages. Doing without our steel wasn't even an option. That's just one example. And the services sector also includes things like health workers. Something that will be a massive requirement for an ageing population with no chance of attracting any useful amount of immigrants.
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  143.  @engineerahmed7248  my first post showed the importance of ratios. If everyone died when they hit retirement, no problem. Decline as fast as you like. But they don't.
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  144. They can't.
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  145.  @deannguyen391  I've been to the countryside. However bad the cities are, it's worse there
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  146.  @deannguyen391  basically poor. There's no money, no opportunities and none of the things that those bring.
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  147.  @deannguyen391  not enough land, not enough water. Between now and then is a mass starvation
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  148. If it was a worldwide problem, there'd be no difficulty in listing three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  149. ​ @BoothTheGrey out of the millions to hundreds of millions of people in any given country, there's always going to be some who are like this. And having children is a terrible financial decision in general. But nowhere has what's happening in the PRC.
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  150.  @BoothTheGrey  this is beyond the one child policy (which absolutely was a major component) and the scale of the issue in he PRC is that makes it special. What took Japan 32 years took the PRC three.
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  151. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  152. So who looks after the elderly?
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  153.  @smoothboye4203  why do I need to explain ratios? And the upcoming surge in retirees?
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  154.  @smoothboye4203  who produces the things you use your retirement funds to pay for? Also, there's countless people working physical jobs who don't have continuing to work as an option.
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  155.  @smoothboye4203  automation isn't magic. A system that matches a particular organisation's needs is a huge task that requires skills in demand by literally every industry in every country around the world. The stuff you think is simple isn't. And the scale of the global job (or even the PRC job on its own) is massive. So who's going to get these engineers? A country with a gdp per capita of 12.5k? Or the countries with a gdp per capita of greater than 50 or 60k? If you want to know which someone with the skills to do this would choose, feel free to ask me what I did. I'm a Linux engineer. 90 percent of my job is automation (the remainder is edge cases)
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  156. Official data.
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  157.  @cmale123  the birthrate data used is generally official. The worst numbers are from the national bureau of statistics. But what numbers do you doubt, exactly?
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  158. If they thought that was a solution with an acceptable cost, we'd be seeing the results of that by now
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  159. The US birthrate is twice the PRC's and has only had a very gradual decline. It's also far wealthier with a per capita gdp of 76k vs 12.5k. So, no. Not the same. Not remotely the same. The PRC isn't even the same as Japan, which took 32 years to do what the PRC did in three.
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  160. ​​ @c16621 you say my stats on the past are untrue, and use someone's guess on the future to disprove it. Hmm... Also, those numbers are the PRC's current reality. The number of women in the PRC becoming parents has dropped by somewhere between two thirds and three quarters. (birth rates have almost halved since the end of the one of policy and over half of newborns are second or third children) With the number of women of the most likely age to reproduce declining over the next decade (and not reaching its current inadequate levels until about 17 years in the future, before a massive drop occurs) today's numbers (which are similar to your apocalyptic ones) will seem like a good year.
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  161. Oh, for numbers, given that this has been going on for a while. US births per thousand in 2012: 13 US births per thousand in 2023: 12 PRC births per thousand in 2012: 15 when there was a one child policy PRC births per thousand 2023: 6.39 When over half of newborns are second or third children. US reduction: 7.7% PRC reduction: 57.4% Plus, the US can attract immigrants to offset the reduction. The PRC can't. But please, continue this ridiculous effort to say they're on the same level. I'm enjoying it. Or try to divert the conversation to something else. I'll be happy to bring it back on topic. Or run away. That's also fun. It's a win/win/win outcome.
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  162. ​ @c16621 ah, you took the running away option. Please take my mocking laughter as your goodbye.
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  163. Birth control does increase this, yes, but for happening in every country that has it, please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  164. Feminism is in many countries. Name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  165.  @Nekouwu1  Berlin has a similar birthrate now to what it did in 1990. Or to put it another way. No. Germany didn't do this in five years.
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  166. Is it? Can you name three countries that have had their birthrates halve in five years? If this is a global issue it should be easy.
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  167. Because they can't deal with it.
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  168. It's also not just about whining about your own choices and dying alone. It's about who produces the things that you consume after you've retired? Savings won't help you there. No production because the working age populace has disappeared relative to the retired just means your savings will become worthless from inflation. You can't eat an investment house (that has no tenants) and you can't eat money.
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  169.  @Originalman144  you need to remember that with the PRC, the growth wasn't some economic miracle, it was a recovery from Mao. But so, so, so many of those problems (including the existence of the CCP) remain. And the places that you think of when you think of China's progress like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, tier 1 cities are only home to a few percent of the total population
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  170.  @Originalman144  they've done a first class job of replacing Venezuela and Zimbabwe as the future textbook case on what not to do with a country.
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  171.  @Originalman144  I'll be fine with saying it seemed like an economic miracle. Or it was an economic miracle to them. I've just got a problem with actually calling it an economic miracle. (with people tending to imply or claim that the CCP was responsible.
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  172. If there was a simple answer that was worth the cost, it would have been done years ago
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  173. The most common age for women having children in the PRC is 27. The number of 27 year olds will decline for the next decade, before rising back to the current levels, before declining again even more sharply. This has been going for years, getting worse year after year. And it's a very age dependent thing as well Plus, according to the China daily, over half of newborns are second or third children. This is from a baseline of a one child policy. So, no, you can't point to specific people and say that person won't have kids. But the overall amount of people who you would have expected to have children has declined dramatically. Far more than simple birth numbers would suggest. And no, they didn't just coordinate and decide to collectively hold off having children for X years. There's no massive wave coming. This is individuals making choices that are overwhelmingly against having children. As far as your comment on the overall size goes, that just tells me you don't understand ratios and think that all ages are equally valuable to the PRC's future. They're not. Last year, the working age (18 To 59) population declined by 10.75 million while the retirement age (over 60) increased by 16.93 million. Those elderly need to be cared for by the workers. More to do, fewer people to do it.
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  174. ​ @bluemoon8498 so who's going to look after their elderly?
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  175.  @bluemoon8498  that might be true if the PRC didn't lose the race to get rich before it got old. But it did. Will they get there eventually? Yes. Long after the western world has. Not nearly as soon as you need them to be. And as far as the economic side of this question goes (who provides the resources?) once lights out factories are streamlined.... Why china?
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  176. So who provides for the elderly?
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  177. Please name three Western countries that have seen their birthrates halve in half a decade.
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  178.  @valeriepvi3667  which is a normal thing to happen when a country gets rich. The PRC isn't rich. And the PRC has had a massive decline over a very short time period. You're looking at this in such a shallow way I call only assume your only interest is to find some way of saying "at least we're not alone". Because it's impossible to say the PRC is in a remotely healthy state. BTW, that bit about "their own" Population? Well, Western countries can attract immigrants to help smooth the ageing. The PRC can't. So in answer to your question about what's the difference? Speed. Scale. Wealth. Root cause. Individual consequence of not having your own children (they're the retirement plan. That's not true in the West. Not personally having children doesn't mean an impoverished old age) Ability to mitigate the problem.
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  179. If they thought this was possible without too high a cost, they'd have done it years ago.
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  180. Plus the generations of forced abortions normalising having a single child.
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  181. Can you name three capitalist states that have had their birthrates halve in half a decade? Also, how many can you name that have made abortions mandatory?
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  182. And now they'll have too many old people, without enough young (working) people.
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  183. You could say that about so many aspects of it
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  184. Only if it's coupled with rapid maturation and education. Otherwise you're basically just creating a bunch of orphans that need to be cared for. Check out the Romanian orphanages for how this goes in a state like the PRC. Or take my word for it that it's bad if you don't want to traumatise yourself.
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  185. Sounds like something the PRC can't begin to afford.
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  186. What took japan from 1990 to 2022 took the PRC from 2018 to 2021. This isn't a global thing. Not at this scale.
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  187.  @That-Guy_  my rule of thumb is that anyone who claims to be socialist is either pig ignorant of what the word means or is evil, considering the number of people who died to produce nothing but failure and that they've known this and decided it's worth trying again.
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  188. Including the burden of looking after everyone older than them.
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  189. Personal use? Like Peng Shuai?
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  190. Did the global Chinese culture change in the last five years?
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  191. I'm sure that the scale of this needed wouldn't turn each and every country bordering the PRC isn't the firmest of firm allies in whatever war was against the PRC.
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  192. ​ @Nakla I think he's talking about a Sabine solution. Which, while absolutely a classic isn't the best way of making yourself popular
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  193. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  194.  @riscnx  which is entirely different to the situation in the PRC. There, someone from outside the society might still be living in the next suburb. They have the opportunity to join in and start doing something useful. In the PRC, this isn't an option. The people don't exist
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  195. ​ @Gothicc_senpai when people talk about the Asian century, I get more and more sceptical.
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  196. You can tell easy fixes are either not easy or not fixes by that they haven't been done. Clock's ticking. Anything they do will take 20 to 25 years to begin to show benefits. They'd already wasted seven.
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  197. America's birthrate is about twice the PRC's and has declined by about a third since 1990. It can also attract so many immigrants the problem is keeping them out. The PRC's birthrate has dropped by about 70 percent in that same time, over 40 percent in the last five years. And the prospect of them attracting enough immigrants to offset the decline is simply ridiculous.
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  198. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years. Also, please name three countries that are relying on mass migration rather than births that have a lower birthrate than the PRC.
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  199. And south Korea is far wealthier, with far more ability to do that
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  200. Try telling that to the elderly who'd like to not die in abject poverty.
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  201. The crash started before the virus
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  202. Capitalism does work. It's just not perfect. It's cold and unforgiving, but it works. Which is more than you can say about socialism.
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  203. The only answer I could give is that it delays pain. But the longer the CCP stays in power, the more painful their collapse will be. Better now than later. Better twenty years ago than now.
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  204. There's a global decline amongst developed countries, but : China isn't developed. Nowhere. Anywhere. (except Ukraine, but it has other reasons) has anywhere near the decline in birthrates the PRC had.
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  205. Ratios. Workers are needed to produce resources that non workers consume
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  206. Traditional China is across the Strait in Taiwan and is very keen on not being run by the communist party.
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  207. Canada's birthrate is almost twice the PRC's, plus it can attract immigrants.
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  208. Or a hole's a hole. Which with female infanticide still being a thing is going to become more and more a Chinese belief.
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  209. See what the CCP does? Don't do that.
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  210. Having a massive ratio of dependents to workers is also unhealthy. Mao wanted more Chinese. The CCP creates the overpopulation problem. Then the CCP applies a policy of murdering excess children (and daughters) Then the CCP gives a massive retiring population without nearly enough people to provide for it.
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  211. The place where people can't even form an orderly queue is civic minded?
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  212. No. Then they were thinking it was time to get rid of the one child policy because birthrates were too low. Then they got rid of it. There was a bump for two years. Now they miss the massive number of babies being born back then.
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  213. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  214. The United States birthrate has dropped by about 30 percent since 1990. The PRC birthrate has dropped by about 70 percent since 1990.
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  215. Not even close.
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  216. Except they're not. On top of the total decline, most children are second or third children now. (39 percent and 15 percent) So the number is people actually deciding to have children each year has decreased even more. That would mean that over five years, the number of people who become parents has decreased by 75 percent. Source is China daily 2023/10/12 "Second and third children comprise more than half the births in China"
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  217.  @unnaturalselection8330  I've looked at the official data from the Chinese national bureau of statistics. They're stopping having children en masse. No, it's not a complete stop. That's ridiculous. But 45 percent in five years and continuing to decline from an already low number. In that five years they've gone from roughly the birthrate of the United States to below the birthrate of south Korea.
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  218.  @unnaturalselection8330  people in the city increasingly aren't having the one. When they were having (and only allowed) the one, the birthrate was 50 percent higher than it was last year. And I'm using data from the Chinese national bureau of statistics. You're using whatever you want your eyes to see (or just making stuff up) in the random area you're in. And as much as I don't trust the Chinese govt's official data, what I know is that won't lie to make the situation (that they created) seem worse than it is. When they lie, which they do. Constantly. They lie to make the situation look better. So however bad the situation is according to the data, that is the absolute best case. The reality is almost certainly worse.
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  219.  @unnaturalselection8330  I like how you've been reduced to quoting me out of context. The rest of that paragraph is kind o of relevant to what I said. As did the two following paragraphs. Basically, you're in such a baseless position that you needed to misrepresent what I said to make your own position seem like it was less than complete bollocks.
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  220.  @unnaturalselection8330  I'm not salty at contradicting myself. I'm mocking you for needing to stoop to quote mining. You creating a real gotcha moment when trying to pretend there's a gotcha moment is hilarious. Saying that liars lie to make themselves look better, and so whatever they say is a best case scenario isn't a contradiction. This shouldn't need to be pointed out.
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  221.  @unnaturalselection8330  your posts don't show up in either thread or notifications. It only shows up on your account's recent posts. I only bothered to reply because it's fun watching what you come up with next. 🙂
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  222.  @unnaturalselection8330  what facts do you disagree with, specifically? And what is your source of contradictory data? Why do you believe the national bureau of statistics is lying in a way that makes the CCP look worse? (they'd absolutely lie to make the results of the CCP's work look better. But this would be them lying to make it look worse. Do you understand the difference between lying to make something you support look worse and lying to make it look better?) Why do you believe you're a better source of this data than the national bureau of statistics? Keeping in mind that your personal observations would be meaningless for something like this (if you're going up claim you've been going around the country gathering data from hospitals, counting the people you pass, etc, I'm simply going to call you a liar. And this is the minimum of what you'd have needed to have done to be a source on this) even if I hadn't seen you intentionally misrepresent what I said.
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  223.  @unnaturalselection8330  I'm about to take off, but this is something I'd put into a note for someone who had a similar ability to lie convincingly to you. If you doubt anything or believe more is needed, explicitly tell me what you don't believe. Keeping in mind that for all its flaws, the National bureau of statistics is the best available source for this and any lying WILL be in a way that makes the situation look better. Searchable source for this is the Global times (sourced from the NBS) If you try claiming the global times is lying to make the CCP look worse, I'll also be asking why they would. 9.5 million births last year. 17.8 million in 2017. From the global times, taken from the national bureau of statistics. "There has been a declining curve of yearly new births in China– 17.86 million, 17.23 million, 15.23 million and 14.65 million in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, according to data released by the NBS." "China's population fell by 850,000 in 2022 from the previous year, the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) said in February. The number of births was 9.56 million last year, or 6.77 per 1,000 people, data from the bureau showed."
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  224.  @unnaturalselection8330  I've given you that, plus the sources. You've given..... Nothing.
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  225.  @unnaturalselection8330  I'm giving you data from the global times and the Chinese national bureau of statistics. You can search the bottom of what I posted to find the source. Why do you think they're lying to make the situation look worse?
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  226.  @unnaturalselection8330  dodgy in a specific direction. Dodgy in a way that makes the CCP look better. Not worse. Not even random. This is why I've repeatedly asked (and you've refused to say) why the NBS or Global times would lie to make the CCP look bad. The one child policy isn't a factional thing. It's something that was supported by everyone up until very recently. And even if it was. You'd then have pro Xi regions massively overstating their results while anti Xi regions under reported it. Instead, you've got Shanghai (Xi's base) reported as among the lowest in the country. (0.7 children per woman) Actually, you wouldn't even get that. Because that would provide a pretext to remove the anti Xi officials for incompetence. What we can expect is inflated figures from every lying, corrupt official trying to make its own little fiefdom look better. Just like we saw with gdp. Just like we saw going back to Mao's farming campaigns that led to famine. Which is how we know that however bad these official statistics are, the reality is worse. The only thing we don't know is how much worse reality is than these figures.
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  227.  @unnaturalselection8330  ok. To start with, I normally come across people who ramble on about total numbers as if they're the only important thing. Or people who go on about the US. Or people who go on about automation. Or who simply go into denial. So I apologise for being blunt to the point of rudeness. It's rare to come across someone who's not simply a fully paid for wumao with an agenda to push and a complete lack of ability to care about whether it's vaguely believable. You're obviously not one of them. We simply disagree on the type of lies the CCP will tell. So if we can accept that the other is saying what it believes, rather than trying to push a narrative, that would be lovely. Anyway, I'll say they recognise a need to be at least vaguely believable. Especially when you consider that we're into the point that schools are starting to close. (from the scmp: China population: primary and kindergarten enrolments tumble as the country’s record low birth rate hits home) If they gave high numbers and schools started shutting down en masse, people would notice. Just like they'd notice if suddenly there was a good teacher to student ratio. This isn't North Korea we're talking about. They'll polish that turd as much as possible, but as unbelievable as it can seem, at least they're not on the Kim's level of not being to be vaguely credible. Yes, I know the pearl River delta is... Or at least was... Controlled by the Jiang faction. As someone who was in Hong Kong during the protests, it was the only explanation for that insane time that made sense) but some things just can't be hidden. For Shanghai's protests, those were people who had been locked up for years by CCP officials going to extremes to obey what Xi wanted. For going to extremes to push for more children as a reason to lie, they're in dangerous territory there as well. Because they're so obviously failing to get things going in the direction they want. Even if you were optimistic about the slight 2016 and 2017 bump, there's been five reports since then, with the data coming out since the last total numbers adding to how bad it is. The clock is seriously ticking on this. Most people have a pretty good idea of how long it takes babies to become adults. Five wasted years is catastrophic. Plus, they didn't need to go to the extent of a 45 percent collapse to give the impetus. Reports are coming out that next year will be so much worse. Personally, I think the leadership is fully aware that they'll get no benefit and a massive cost out of any action that does raise birthrates enough (Xi will probably be dead or nearly dead by the time that first batch of children started to become useful. He's 70 now. He'd be 90 to 95 before he saw any return) so I think they'd prefer to make it look like they were trying to do something to see if that was enough. Ideally the people will get used to the idea rather than be enraged by it. (and even then, murdering everyone who put them in this situation isn't going to change it) I'll finish this by addressing retirement. Yes, those kids are the retirement plan. But when you're in your mid 20's and the world is looking bleak, 40 years is a long time and there's going to be plenty of hardship between now and then.
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  228. Not at this level it isn't. What took the Japanese 32 years took the PRC three years. Then they went so much worse than the Japanese in 2022 and 2023
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  229. In that case, massive drops like this should be a worldwide phenomenon. Can you name three other countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years?
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  230. In fairness to the CCP, I don't see how anyone could reasonably be expected to see how long term punishment of second children plus four decades of propaganda about how one child was enough could lead to any sort of cultural change. The idea that anyone could ever predict only allowing two generations to have one child each could lead to a working age group that much, much smaller than what the retired age needs is also simply ludicrous.
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  231. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  232.  @Mgtowfreedom  marriage is a bit of an irrelevance. Children and a mortgage make the commitment of a party irrelevant by comparison. It's birthrates that matter. And "big" needs to be considered in the context of China's drop. What others have had a drop similar to the PRC's 45 percent in five years?
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  233.  @Mgtowfreedom  then the birthrate should reflect it. And I've done the research. Which is why I know no one will answer the question.
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  234.  @Mgtowfreedom  what would that prove that the silence or evasion from every single person who's saying "this is a perfectly normal thing" when fronted with that question doesn't? If it's a perfectly normal thing, it would be a very easy question to answer.
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  235.  @Mgtowfreedom   oh Jesus.... I shouldn't need to explain this. It's not a question I can answer, because outside of countries that have been through a massive natural disaster, have been invaded (Ukraine) or you would never want your country compared to under any circumstances (maybe north Korea. It wouldn't surprise me) I can't answer it because NO COUNTRY IS GOING THROUGH ANYTHING REMOTELY LIKE THIS. It's highlighting that people (like yourself) who are acting as if it's a normal thing that's affectedly X other countries (the entire world, Western countries, the USA, whatever) are ignorant of what they're talking about at best, or actively lying at worst. Because I needed to explain this rhetorical question to you, I'm going to put you firmly in the first category. Congratulations, you're probably honest. Everything else that can be inferred is a definite negative though.
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  236. If it were simple (and at an acceptable price) they'd have done it.
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  237. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  238. What western country has had its birthrate almost halve over five years?
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  239. Basically, you're relying on science fiction to save the day. And attracting sufficient numbers of Africans without requiring that they leave bits of themselves at the border isn't happening. It's difficult to say which of your ideas involves the most clutching at straws.
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  240. Making abortion mandatory. There's pro life. There's pro choice. There's anti life and anti choice. That last was the PRC's position for two generations. As far as blaming feminism goes, with the PRC, that's just moronic.
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  241.  @That-Guy_  in fairness, under Mao, it was far worse. Authoritianism under capitalism is heaven compared with authoritarianism under socialism.
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  242. This incredible cultural change (it would need to be that) has happened over a mere five years.
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  243. 1. There's as many as 1.4 billion. 2. People age. Ageing people produce less and start to need more assistance. If there's not enough workers per old person, there's no way of providing these services. This really, really, really shouldn't need to be explained. None of this should. The greatest tragedy is that those who need it explained are those least capable of understanding why they need it explained.
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  244. For the rest of the world, that's true. For the PRC.... Our children probably won't live to see the time it's not a nation size nursing home.
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  245. The CCP did the brainwashing over decades. This is the result.
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  246. America's birthrate is about twice the PRC's and they can attract immigrants.
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  247. Because it's wiping out the future workers that will be needed to help support the future retirees. That being said, I don't think the leadership cares. They won't get the benefit of any future workers anyway. China doesn't matter. Only the CCP's leadership does.
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  248.  @megajatt123  if there's a better way of ensuring each and every surrounding country (except Russia and North Korea) becomes a firm western ally when it comes to the PRC, I can't think of it.
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  249. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years. Also, what countries have a lower birthrate (fertility rate is a bit misleading there, considering how many girls have been murdered) than the PRC's 6.77 per thousand?
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  250. So basically, the sort of person who doesn't see a problem is the sort of person who needs the importance of ratios of workers to dependents to be explained.
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  251. So you don't understand the importance of ratios.
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  252. That's very common logic in the PRC. Some is good. More is better. All is best. Some is bad. Less is better. None is best. But what if it's too little? Edit: or too much, for that matter.
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  253.  @tuorofgondolin8235  That's nice. Just a pity it misses the main point entirely. It's not about money, except where money is a useful medium of exchange. It's about people being able to produce the stuff that the elderly need to survive while producing enough extra stuff to improve their own lives. The only way that ramble takes away from that is of society makes the decision to let those who are too old to work die.
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  254. This practicality includes not having children.
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  255. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  256.  @thomasconstant9354  you could have used that post to answer the question.
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  257.  @thomasconstant9354  it's "amazing" how few people who make the claims you're making (to divert attention away from the latest of a long line of the CCP's epic failures) are able to actually back it up with specifics. If what you're saying was remotely true, my question would be easy. So far the only person to even attempt an answer needed to lie.
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  258. ​ @thomasconstant9354 ​ if that's true, then my question should be easy to answer. You don't need to know a thing about the CCP to answer it. The only thing it need to know is about the countries you're talking about. You... Do know what you're talking about, don't you? You wouldn't just make up some BS to try to push whatever narrative you want to push, right?
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  259.  @rattlehead999 . And isn't that just China in a nutshell? Except where it's a question of face or money, no one cares. You can even see that from the moronic wumao and little pinks who only care about either denying the problem exists, or trying to shift attention to other countries (whose problems aren't nearly as bad) And this is their old age this is screwing up.
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  260. So basically, the first useful people from that are about 30 years away. More for doing it at scale.
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  261. Since 1990, the United States birthrate has dropped by about 30 percent. In the PRC, it's dropped by over 70 percent.
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  262. The party is trying to push for increased birthrates because the party's policies, brought about as a terrified response to the effect of the party's policies have led the PRC into a demographic free fall. So not having children = defying the party. We've moved on from the party wanting to limit children. That ended in 201. Now they've realised how much they've screwed up, they're attempting to go in the other direction. And failing.
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  263. ​ @hanalala3164  As the productivity declines, the demand for what's there is being produced will increase, prices will go up and those savings will disappear.
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  264. When someone tells you the Chinese, especially the Chinese govt, thinks in centuries, the best response is a derisive laugh at such a blatantly wrong stereotype. Planning ahead isn't really a thing. Especially not planning ahead that requires more thought than "this thing that works now will work for the rest of my life"
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  265. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  266. ​ @More_Row not remotely in the same league
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  267. The Chinese national bureau of statistics show that the births per year have dropped by about 45 percent in five years.
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  268. There's global times articles on the issue
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  269. Last year, the PRC had the lowest birthrate in the world. Overtaking south Korea. This year is looking much, much worse.
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  270. That's according to the official numbers. So whatever the reality is, it's either that bad or worse.
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  271. There are plenty who are old enough. As there always are. The average age to have a first child is 27 years old. The number of 27 year old women is going to decline for the next decade, before coming back to today's inadequate level over 7 years, then sharply declining again. Those who are aren't having children. And any increase in China's population is coming from older people not dying. Not from people being born. That's making the problem worse.
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  272.  @JoshuahnJackstonburg  that post misses so many points it's difficult to decide where to begin. That there's plenty of people who ARE of this age (as there always are), who, despite this, AREN'T having children is a major one.
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  273. Jesus approves this message
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  274.  @jwu1950  the having sex outside of marriage bit.
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  275.  @jwu1950  ok. That was the link drawn between getting married is overrated and have sex.
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  276.  @jwu1950  it was my understanding from my Anglican school that Jesus didn't approve of that sort of thing outside of marriage
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  277. A military that can't go anywhere (although its role is to protect the party from the people, so it can go far enough) in a country that's extremely vulnerable to blockade.
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  278.  @redgemini9851  you stop ships going to it.
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  279.  @redgemini9851  by the time the number of soldiers (and ships) is relevant, it's all out war.
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  280. Official data says it went from 17.86 million births in 2016 to 9.56 million in 2022. 2023 has no official figures, but leaked ones are saying 7.88 million. They're extreme declines, but those extreme declines are the PRC's new norm.
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  281. This is why I laugh when people spread the myth that they think in centuries.
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  282.  @MajesticOak  they pushed Mao out of power and stopped the great leap forward. Which of these can they do today?
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  283.  @MajesticOak  oh. Then they went the full retard a few years later in following Mao's order to have as many children as possible. Which was followed in an environment where the population HADN'T had four decades of being told having lots of children was bad, coupled with barbaric punishment for those who broke this rule. There's no playbook for this. It's new territory.
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  284. The retirees who would really like to continue to eat, drink and access medical services.
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  285. 我不是同性恋，但洞就是洞。 I'm not homosexual, but a hole is a hole. - future Chinese proverb on taking whatever's available.
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  286. The last six years shows that can't think of any they can afford that won't be a joke.
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  287. I'll just laugh at you.
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  288. The Chinese national bureau of statistics. These are quotes from the global times. You can look up the articles based on them. "There has been a declining curve of yearly new births in China– 17.86 million, 17.23 million, 15.23 million and 14.65 million in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, according to data released by the NBS." "China's population fell by 850,000 in 2022 from the previous year, the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) said in February. The number of births was 9.56 million last year, or 6.77 per 1,000 people, data from the bureau showed.""There has been a declining curve of yearly new births in China– 17.86 million, 17.23 million, 15.23 million and 14.65 million in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, according to data released by the NBS." "China's population fell by 850,000 in 2022 from the previous year, the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) said in February. The number of births was 9.56 million last year, or 6.77 per 1,000 people, data from the bureau showed."
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  289. It never works when you WANT it to work. When you don't want it to work, it's a stunning success. Look at the cultural revolution. It easily achieved its goals. The only problem was that for the country, those goals were absolutely insane.
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  290. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  291. Does this distinction magically mean that the one thing that really matters (births) isn't declining at an unprecedented rate?
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  292.  @didles123  not married doesn't mean they're single. It just means there's paperwork that hasn't been done and a party that hasn't been had.
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  293. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  294. The results show that however bad it might seem in the west, it's so much worse. My generation in Australia is having children at about 80 to 85 per cent the rate of my parent's. In the PRC that number is about 30 percent. Edit: need to clarify that the starting point for that rate in the PRC was when the one child policy was in full swing and the end point is when the one child policy is seven years in the past.
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  295. You can clone all you like. It still takes over two decades to for that new person to become useful.
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  296. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  297. 9.58 million births last year. Down from over 17 million in 2017. That's from the Chinese national bureau of statistics. A 45 percent drop in birthrates over five years. Anything else is irrelevant vs that fact.
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  298. And what do you think will happen in the future? I'm not sure how to tell you this (if you need to be told, it's difficult to find a way you'll understand) but time progresses and what's true now won't be true in the future. You're already in a state where you're bragging about being better than south Korea.
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  299.  @llothar68  predictions on demographics are extremely way. Someone who's 20 now will be 40 in twenty years time. Someone who doesn't exist will continue to not exist.
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  300.  @llothar68  Incidentally, in what country are you saying 40 percent of the population is old? And how are you defining old?
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  301. Not to this extent, they don't. In five years, the PRC birthrate dropped 45 percent, from about the level of the United States (except it can't attract immigrants) to below south Korea's
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  302. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  303. But they are stopping having children.
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  304. And yet the American birthrate is almost twice the PRC's (with what's being seen of this year, it looks like it might be over twice)
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  305. Unless those were only introduced in the last decade, there's bigger causes
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  306. No developed country has a lower birthrate than the developing PRC's. I think the only reasonable sized (not Monaco) country that does is Ukraine. And they kind of have a good reason.
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  307. If you figure out the answer, the CCP really wants to know. They've obviously got no clue as to what it might be.
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  308. Following Mao, being blindsided by the effect of the one child policy and the sheer number of those who need the relevance of worker to dependent ratios shows that the smart ones have already emigrated. The proportion of those who are left who are blindingly stupid is increasing with each outbound flight.
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  309. I'd be surprised if it was. Not because of humanitarian concerns, but because it would take at least twenty years for it to start paying off. Probably closer to thirty when you consider it wouldn't go from 0 to full speed in a single year. And, well, Xi is 70.
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  310. Which bit do you doubt?
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  311. You should watch idiocracy.
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  312. They can't open them. It's just not an option. As for them going for the stick. The clock is ticking. It's almost like people who've spent four decades with forced abortions might get upset at forced pregnancies to correct the effect of the forced abortions.
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  313. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  314. According to the Chinese national bureau of statistics, as referenced by the state run global times, the PRC birthrate has dropped by 45 percent in the last five years. No other country has come close to doing this outside of war.
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  315. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  316. Wealthier countries have tried.
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  317. They made a lot of noise about doing it, but they didn't.
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  318. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates decline by over 45 percent in five years. If this is a global issue in any comparable way, it should be an easy question to answer.
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  319. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years
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  320. Please name three countries that have had their birthrates drop by over 40 percent in five years.
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  321. The danger is what it'll do on its extended way down
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  322.  @j_chen138  so give them the ability to do more damage on their way down? Or do even more damage because they're powerful? Then yet more damage on their way down from that? There's pain coming. Avoiding it requires a time machine and convincing leaders to nip the tool of the barbarians in Beijing in the bud. The only realistic option is to choose the path of the least pain. Which involves cutting off as much as possible as soon as possible.
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  323. The govt would love to get the wages higher. Its sole claim to legitimacy is economic development. But it just can't. Not to anywhere near the level it needs.
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