The Baby Boom is Busted

There's now a baby BUST in progress in most of the "developed" world, not a baby BOOM. AND the birth rate has been declining world-wide as even many "developing" countries decline toward the 2.1 babies-per-woman population replacement rate.

Birthrates are falling nearly all over the world, and the speed of this change is breathtaking. As the population ages, this is creating great challenges. The Fertility Implosion www.nytimes.com

--CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: Six Adults and One Child: The Coming Baby Bust

--Teen pregnancy rates decrease nationwide, increase in Amarillo area : News : ConnectAmarillo.com

--TONIGHT: Teen pregnancy hits record lows | KETK

And, the dirty little secret is it's putting the hurt on the world-wide social ponzis ...

--Ponzi Planet: The Danger Debt Poses to the Western World - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International Spiegel article, Ponzi Planet

You can see the recent world-wide "picture" of this phenom using "Gapminder's" graphical representation. HERE: GAPMINDER (World population -- babies per woman)

If you put your cursor point on any circle, you can see the country name. The "Children per woman" box is in lower right of the Gapminder window. The "children per woman" number for the country you have the cursor on pops up there.

Japan, Germany, Belaruse, Poland, Portugal, Italy, etc. all at about 1.4 children per woman are particularly interesting in the implications.  Other countries aren't quite so dramatic, but the trend is clear. 

Gapminder is a prize winning and popular innovation and can be used to graphically demonstrate all sorts of collected data. It also lets you go back in time to see how key ratios have evolved.  All in all, perhaps THE "killer ap." Hit 'Play' button at the bottom to see the population shrink over the years.