A population flatline for the ages
The United States population, which is now 328,239,523, grew by 0.5 percent from July 1, 2018, to July 1, 2019. The natural increase, which factors in the number of births and deaths, was fewer than one million — the first time it has dropped below that figure in decades, the Census Bureau said.
From the January 1st story in the NY Times.
... and yes skipping .... Impeachment... Iran General and his Iraqi buddy taken out .... 52 strategic sites including cultural.. Ukrainian Airliner.... calm down Guy...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/us/usa-population-growth-decline-census.html
William H. Frey, a noted demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview Monday that the percentage increase was the lowest in a century. The growth rate during the most recent decade, about 6.7 percent, is expected to be the lowest since the government started taking population counts around 1790, he said.
“This is a huge downturn in the nation’s growth,” Mr. Frey said. “This is even lower than the Great Depression.”
'The lowest since 'the government started taking population counts around 1790' !
The addition of an estimated 595,348 immigrants to the population in 2019 is a stark contrast to three years ago, when the country added more than one million immigrants, according to the population data.
“The immigration is really the safety valve for us going forward,” Mr. Frey said of population growth. “I think that immigration is an important part of what we have to think about going forward.”
'Going forward' ..... ?
Someone told me that the movie Blade Runner released in 1982 based on the Phillip K. Dick SF book was fictionally set in 2019. Interesting in dreaming 37 years into the future, a dark future, a nightmarish warning. We didn't come close in 2019, It will take many more years before we perfect androids or create an urban landscape so ugly... and yet where are we going?
I think we are in the process of turning away from the 'growth forever' model of progress. I think it is a very exciting development in human evolution. Wall Street is getting very anxious. Some people believe that once the population starts dropping it won't stop and much of what we perceive as 'progress' will start crumbling. Mike Judge's humorous and disturbing 'Idiocracy' has an interesting take on the future, not a bad Saturday night popcorn movie if you didn't see it. 'Wall-E' was one of the best from Pixar that deftly looked at the disaster of 'civilization' always growing.. 'BuynLarge' was the name of the fictitious Mega Store, with it's piles of waste.
'The Greening of America' by Charles Reich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greening_of_America bestseller from 1970, more or less dismissed as a bunch of hoke,
a pot-head fantasy. It still seems to have something to say, at least to me and I am not even sure if I read it back then. I just liked what Garcia said in his first or second interview in Rolling Stone Magazine.... 'It's all mop up'. The deed is done, the magic is released, it will take awhile to circulate, can't be stopped.
You can throw EF Schumaker's 'Small is Beautiful' 1973, in the forgotten PipeDream mix of counter-cultural relics. Who knows?
If it don't have that swing, it don't mean a thing.
Thelonius Monk
'The Fabulous Fungi' a film named after me! Hah! Wouldn't it be nice to be that Guy!
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