Day: January 30, 2023

Closing Thought–30Jan23

A few weeks back one of the big stories was that the birth rate in the US is declining for yet another year.

And right on cue all the speculation for this was put into action.

But really what is the reason for this decline.

Personally I think it is nothing but fear on the part of potential parents.

There has been a lot of buzz in the media over the last few years around declining population growth — people aren’t having as many babies as they used to, especially in the United States. The birth rate in the U.S. has indeed been in steady decline since around 2007. Spurred by the Great Recession of 2008-2010, the birth dropped to 1.71 in 2019, the lowest since the 1970s. And although it’s gone up since then, the birth rate has remained relatively low.

Alongside the decline in birth rate has come widespread speculation that a population collapse is looming on the horizon, which could result in economic upheaval — and, if you’re prone to flights of whimsy, a Mad Max meets the Wild West-style dystopian future.

According to a new study, however, the plummeting U.S. birth rate is not because people want to have fewer children than their parents and grandparents did; it’s likely that they’re scared to have any kids at all. In case you haven’t been paying attention, things aren’t great for parents in the U.S., and many people of child-bearing age are playing it safe and waiting to see if conditions improve before having a baby.

“It’s hard to have children in the United States right now,” said study co-author Sarah Hayford, director of Ohio State University’s Institute for Population Research. “People feel more worried about the future than they might have been several decades ago. They worry about the economy, child care, and whether they can afford to have children.”

Hayford’s team asked 13 cohorts of women and ten cohorts of men born between the 1960s and 2000s about the number of children they would like to have. The average number they reported was not dramatically different compared to the number of children people in previous generations wanted. Hayford’s study groups reported wanting 2.1 children, compared to 2.2 children in the early 1960s.

https://www.fatherly.com/news/birth-rate-us-study-social-safety-net

Good points but I feel it is deeper than that….how about you?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Ukraine Heating Up?

New tanks will be heading to Ukraine….will this change the equation?

With this new addition to the Ukrainian military will the war get hotter than it is now?

In the clear sky over the winter-yellowed marsh grasses on the outskirts of the town of Huliaipole, the bang and crump of artillery picked up pace like the thunderclaps of a distant but approaching storm.

The Russian armed forces declared on Sunday that they had launched a new offensive in Zaporizhzhia region, but the Ukrainian soldiers seemed unperturbed. The frontline here has not moved for 10 months, and the Russians are hunkered in their trenches, which run across the rolling hills of black-soil farmland. They are not going anywhere soon, the soldiers said.

“There is more activity in these past couple of weeks with shelling from artillery and even from tanks, but they don’t send infantry over the line because they’re scared,” said Vitaly, a senior sergeant in the 56th Mariupol motorised infantry brigade, which is holding the line around this town 60 miles (100km) east of Zaporizhzhia city.

However, Vitaly acknowledged that the frozen line was beginning to heat up. The number of incoming shells and rockets on this segment of the southern front has more than doubled this month to 4,000 a day. Two weeks earlier, the Russians had twice sent a handful of tanks forward to probe the Ukrainian lines only to pull back under fire.

Sooner or later, most likely in the next few months, one side would make its move and try to break the deadlock. The question is: who will strike first and where.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/27/the-big-battle-is-coming-ukrainian-forces-prepare-for-the-wars-most-intense-phase

I fear that any escalation could involve the US…and apparently some in our military are hoping and planning for this event.

“I hope I am wrong,” an Air Force general told commanders under him as he warned in a new memo that he expects the US and China to be at war in two years. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” Gen. Mike Minihan, who has nearly 50,000 service members as head of the Air Mobility Command, which handles transport and refueling, told his commanders to prepare for battle, NBC News reports, partly by shooting at a target. “Aim for the head,” he said. No other senior Defense official has said such a war is imminent, per the Washington Post. Minihan ordered his commanders to report back on their preparations by the end of February.

The four-star general points out that Chinese President Xi Jinping has won a third term in office and “set his war council.” Part of Miniham’s reasoning is that Taiwan and the US will be preoccupied with presidential elections in 2024, giving China an opportunity to move against Taiwan. The next stage of preparations for everyone in his command, Minihan said, is to get their personal affairs in order in March. And they should commence rigorous training, he wrote. A spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of his memo, dated Feb. 1, though a Defense Department official said, “These comments are not representative of the department’s view on China.”

What is the likelihood that the US is inching closer to that so-called ‘red line’?

Seems NATO thinks they should be more involved…..

Adm. Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s Military Committee, said that NATO is “ready” for a direct confrontation with Russia, citing the alliance’s recent efforts to boost its presence in Eastern Europe.

Last year, NATO placed new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia on top of the ones that have been deployed in Poland and the Baltic states for years. The US also deployed troops on its own, sending tens of thousands more to Europe, including many that are stationed near the Ukrainian border in Poland and Romania.

Bauer, a Dutch naval officer, also said NATO countries should discuss shifting to a “war economy,” where civilian factories started producing military goods, similar to what the United States did during World War II.

“We have to increase defense industry production, and there are already more and more talks on the subject at the national level,” Bauer said in an interview with Portuguese TV.

“This could mean prioritizing certain raw materials, certain production capacities needed for the defense industry rather than the civilian one. Those priorities should be discussed about, partially, a war economy in peacetime,” he added.

The US is taking measures to ramp up arms production to keep arming, including a Pentagon plan to increase artillery ammunition production by 500% over the next two years. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act granted the Pentagon wartime purchasing powers to speed up arms deals, but the US has yet to take any measures as drastic as Bauer suggested.

(antiwar.com)

I am guessing that few will find this unacceptable….after all the events happening in Ukraine is far more important than anything occurring here and now.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”