Paywall, but I couldn't resist the title. 

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/06/01/global-fertility-has-collapsed-with-profound-economic-consequences

Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

Since the main problem is people in "rich" countries can't AFFORD to have kids, the corporations which need workers should PAY people to have children.  New job title,  "Breeder Associate". 

Of course, the problem there is the corporations couldn't AFFORD the cost of raising the kids EITHER, especially since without explicit SLAVERY, there is no guarantee said future cogs in the capitalist machine would come to work for the corporation that paid to raise them, nor any guarantee they would grow up to be the qualified Wage Slave they need 18 years into the future.  Big loss if the kid grows up to be a drug addict or dies in a car crash on his way to his first day at work after his 18th birthday. 

So the cost of raising kids has been perpetually offloaded to the individual employees in the Capitalist system, and since they don't pay enough anymore for people to afford kids, many of them now choose not to have them.  The supposed "rewards" of having kids, the unqualified love, watching them grow into adults etc simply don't cover the costs, which besides financial include having to deal with them as teenagers. 

In a nutshell, the planet as a whole simply can't AFFORD any more Homo Saps infecting it, and this is another of Mother Nature's ways of dealing with this problem.

RE

RE, how's the typing going? You once mentioned that you were down to a single finger poking at a phone keyboard, your post was quite voluminous for that style of writing. Got yourself a proper keyboard/laptop/dekstop type combination now? Has summer sprung in the land of ice and snow?

Quote from: FarmGirl on Jun 01, 2023, 03:34 PMRE, how's the typing going? You once mentioned that you were down to a single finger poking at a phone keyboard, your post was quite voluminous for that style of writing. Got yourself a proper keyboard/laptop/dekstop type combination now? Has summer sprung in the land of ice and snow?

By my old standards, that was post-it note in length.  In the old days, I probably would have dropped 5000 words pontificating on the etiology of collapsing fertility in the industrial society.  At my old keyboarding speed, I would have typed out that 5000 words in the same amount of time the post-it notes take me now.

I am still keyboarding with one hand, though I do use 3 fingers and my thumb for the space bar.  Full size real keyboard, not a mini virtual keyboard on a phone screen.  To keyboard something like one of my novel length posts of yesteryear today would take all day.  3 or 4 paragraphs today is about as long as they are likely to get.

RE

Healthy younguns will find their stock at a premium.



Less competition.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jun 02, 2023, 01:08 PMHealthy younguns will find their stock at a premium.



Less competition.

Along with Ice for Margaritas as a metric, if there are enough girls left for a Bikini Contest, we haven't collapsed. 

RE

They're leading the pack in the Land of the Rising Sun, but soon the whole world  will be Turning Japanese.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/asia/japan-population-drop-2022-intl-hnk/index.html

Japan's population fell by 800,000 last year as demographic crisis accelerates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGy9uomagO4

RE