Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty

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Information on countries trying to increase their birthrate:

slate.com/id/2142366/

I also did a search as to missionaries in the Philipines. The list includes about 10. Such as Alexian, Claretian, Comboni, Divine
Word, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Dominicans, and LaSallians. A donation to any of these organizations which help to educate people and alleviate poverty would do wonders for the Filipinos.

Suspending the moral argument surrounding artificial birth control for a minute, birth control as a solution to poverty doesn’t make sense. It is only a stop gap measure with long term detrimental economic impact. In the USA we are now experiencing the negative impact on our ecomomy from ABC and abortion. You cannot build houses, manufacture cars, tvs, appliances, etc for people who don’t exist. And an individual only needs/can use so many products. A zero or negative birth rate eventually catches up with you.

Poverty calls us to action. The seemingly easy road is to throw condoms at people. It eases our consciences and we keep our hands clean. It places the burden on the poverty-stricken. The difficult task is actually getting involved and working toward direct and long term solutions such as education and empowerment.
 
Ok I am going to repost this link because you did not read my full post. This article was written by Economists not UN politicans. It is proof, not using the bible, religion, ect, that contraception is adverse to economic development:

cato.org/pubs/journal/cj7n1/cj7n1-10.pdf
 
AgnosTheist said:
not really. we can always produce more kids once the population drops too low.
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After you’ve indoctrinated everyone to believe that they’ll be forced to live in mud huts with no clothes, no electricity and no furniture if they have more than 1.2 kids, it’s a bit more difficult to get them to start having kids again.

The situation here in Canada is that we have way more jobs than people. Even if everyone starts having kids today, it’ll be 20 years before they enter the work force full time - what do we do in the meantime? 🤷
 
mmyers said:
Ok I am going to repost this link because you did not read my full post. This article was written by Economists not UN politicans. It is proof, not using the bible, religion, ect, that contraception is adverse to economic development:

cato.org/pubs/journal/cj7n1/cj7n1-10.pdf
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its 35 pages long so i jumped right into the conclusion:

page 31
In LDC’s, some popultion growth is beneficial in the long-run, as compared to no populaton growth.

I FULLY AGREE WITH THAT.

Take note of “some”. That does not contradict family planning.
 
jmcrae said:
The situation here in Canada is that we have way more jobs than people. Even if everyone starts having kids today, it’ll be 20 years before they enter the work force full time - what do we do in the meantime? 🤷
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Right now Canada compensates through immigration.
 
I don’t have links handy, but they are certainly encouraging people to have more kids in some European countries and in Japan.
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Some local governments and companies are giving cash bonuses to parents based on how many kids they have. For example if child number 3 is born the parents will get more money than if it was their first. Some companies are also more relaxed in their parental leave policies than they were just a few years ago. Here is a 2002 article that gives a general overview.
atimes.com/atimes/Japan/DJ02Dh01.html

The ideal widely presented though is two children a boy and a girl. It is easy to see this on tv commercials and even in flyers. I get condo ads in my mail box and the floor plan of the average family dwelling (which is a condo) in urban areas is one room for parents two small rooms for the two kids, kitchen, bath, and a dining and family room. All of this in about 79 square meters 854 square feet and at a cost of around $300 000 US to buy. Since for the first time 10% of Japans population lives in and around Tokyo and in these kind of conditions its easy to guess for one why most people cant really have more than two or maybe three kids. Of course there are other factors too such as the fathers long work hours and so on which leaves the govenrments attempts seemingly too little too late.
 
AgnosTheist said:
its 35 pages long so i jumped right into the conclusion:

page 31
In LDC’s, some popultion growth is beneficial in the long-run, as compared to no populaton growth.

I FULLY AGREE WITH THAT.

Take note of “some”. That does not contradict family planning.
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Again you did not READ! the reason your quote was indented in this article is because this line was being quote from a previously written article and it was being refuted with current research.

Here is another quote from Cato institute research:
“Countries are not poor because their populations are growing. The England, United States, Hong Kong, and others became rich during unprecedented growth in population” -Sheldon Richman
Senior Editor, Cato Institute

Population control is not the answer to poverty…utimately whatever points are made for or against contraception your point was that controlling the population would allow the Philippines to prosper and there is no research to back up what you are saying.
 
mmyers said:
Here is another quote from Cato institute research:
“Countries are not poor because their populations are growing. The England, United States, Hong Kong, and others became rich during unprecedented growth in population” -Sheldon Richman
Senior Editor, Cato Institute
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i agree with that as well. that doesnt contradict the fact that if a nation is already poor, then overpopulation serves as a poverty trap.
 
These countries were poor before their economic prosperity and there is not connection between population and economic prosperity…
“The most densely populated nations are among the richest” -Sheldon Richman
Senior Editor, Cato Institute

An example of this would be Hong Kong and Singapore. Both are very densly populated but have free markets and so have prospered economically.

Poverty is a result of government being over involved in economic policies.

Actually if you would like to read the whole article here it is in its entirety:
cato.org/testimony/ct-ps720.html

It is not 35 pages long and it uses bullet points!🙂
 
mmyers said:
These countries were poor before their economic prosperity and there is not connection between population and economic prosperity…
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they were poor, but not as poor as the philippines where 30% of the population lives below poverty line. below poverty, man. thats the poorest of the poor. america wasnt overpopulated either.
mmyers said:
Poverty is a result of government being over involved in economic policies.
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You are talking about the cause of poverty. That is not the point. The debate is whether or not overpopulation serves as a POVERTY-TRAP. Yes or no? I dont think your article answers that question.
 
AgnosTheist said:
not really. we can always produce more kids once the population drops too low.
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That’s a very bold statement!

Most demographers disagree with you. This sort of societal trend is VERY difficult to reverse. We see this in Russia, where the government is THROWING money at people trying to get them to have more kids, and still without success at increasing the birth rate.

As RLG posted, any short-term economic benefits that a society gains from having small families happens only AFTER a certain level of economic affluence has been attained.

Bottom line - a poor nation will never arrive at economic affluence through birth control.
 
urban-hermit said:
That’s a very bold statement!

Most demographers disagree with you. This sort of societal trend is VERY difficult to reverse. We see this in Russia, where the government is THROWING money at people trying to get them to have more kids, and still without success at increasing the birth rate.

As RLG posted, any short-term economic benefits that a society gains from having small families happens only AFTER a certain level of economic affluence has been attained.

Bottom line - a poor nation will never arrive at economic affluence through birth control.
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It would seem like the best solution would be to euthanize all the Children of Poor people. That would make them all wealthy overnight and they would not have to change their culture to have less children. The could even follow Jonathan Swifts advice and eat the children after they are euthanized. a definite win win situation that i am sure even Agno theist would agree with.
 
AgnosTheist said:
they were poor, but not as poor as the philippines where 30% of the population lives below poverty line. below poverty, man. thats the poorest of the poor. america wasnt overpopulated either.

You are talking about the cause of poverty. That is not the point. The debate is whether or not overpopulation serves as a POVERTY-TRAP. Yes or no? I dont think your article answers that question.
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Studying economics has really changed my view of the world. If you are to understand the article you must begin to think of the world as a global economy. Through trade we are all connected. So using that as an assumption if a government is not pursuing globalization than that would be your ‘poverty-trap’ not the amount of people that you have. What many people veiw as the tragity in poverty is the children and while that is true, those children will grow up and spend the majority of their lives being resources and cultivating and giving back to society. This can only happen though if there is free trade to support the growth of capitalism.

The original article that we were talking about (35 pages long) actually was using statisics to show that there is no corrilation between country’s economies and their populations. Countries succeed or fail not depending on their population size, but on how free their economies are. I am currently researching the Phillipines and seeing what their particular economic policies are…I am willing to bet that it will support this theory.
 
mmyers said:
Studying economics has really changed my view of the world. If you are to understand the article you must begin to think of the world as a global economy. Through trade we are all connected. So using that as an assumption if a government is not pursuing globalization than that would be your ‘poverty-trap’ not the amount of people that you have. What many people veiw as the tragity in poverty is the children and while that is true, those children will grow up and spend the majority of their lives being resources and cultivating and giving back to society. This can only happen though if there is free trade to support the growth of capitalism.
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the only way to defeat poverty is to make the rates job creation equal or greater than the rate of population growth. the former is the responsibility of the government. the latter is the responsibility of individual families. both must work together.

but the philippine government could not keep up with the growing population. more and more are becoming unemployed. more and more are living below poverty. thus more and more are resorting to crime & corruption. which in turn damages job creation.
 
Not to rain on your parade, but the Phillipians are in an economic boom right now. I guess I should have looked at this earlier, and it may take awhile for the entire country to feel the benifits, but economic factors are indicating that they are in an upturn and will continue that way as they pratice more fiscal responsiblity and open their markets.

cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8766

No change in the birth control policy was noted.
 
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