I read about this today on Moscow Times, but I will say that It is not near enough and I hope that Russians realize that they need to rethink the one child only thoughts. I have been told that they really do not think that you can love more than one child properly. That you need to concentrate on only one.

Well I had more than one in America and I loved them all the same. They all drove me nuts the same also.:)

Kyle

It's all about BALANCE... This is a rough time for humanity when planet Earth never had a greater population than 1 billion until the age of OIL bumped it up to 6+ billion. And with energy issues, the fringe scientists are talking about population die offs.

Any country, and especially those of the CIS that can just keep a level population, that would be fantastic. Russia doesn't need to grow like the US and wonder how to feed people, how to deliver health care or create jobs or take care of the very old and the very young. In 2008 the US baby boomers start to retire and we have 150 trillion dollars of pent up entitlements for them that will make the US current debt of 70 trillion dollars look like a picnic.

Sustainability is not about growth, and not about contraction. And I believe we will see statistics show this balance for most of the CIS in the next 5 years that will show generations of BALANCE.

Sustainability is great for the environment, for monetary policy, for economics in general and for defense. Population growth is a tool for temporary wealth creation and it used by short sighted morons like US economist. The more population growth you have the less reason there is for innovation and progress, just grow the market and BINGO - your ROI looks great, at the expense of future generations.

Russia's "near" sustainability is one hot place for low risk, "long term" high return, and a stable demographics as implemented by Medvedev will prove correct.

And anyway, today, on the news the US accidentally flew 6 nuclear bombs on an aircraft, didn't even realize they were doing it, and lost them in a warehouse for a short period. I swear, me worry? Worry about the EU or Asia or the CIS or even the Middle East or Chavez? No sir, anymore more mistakes by the US and we have big problems. To that, the UK and the US need to worry about their own issues, the rest of the world is fixing things just fine.

Having the west advice Russia on demographics is like having Sen Larry Graig (R-Idaho) advising on ethics or virtues or fidelity.

Hi, I have to say that Gouvrenement is kind of cheating, this high rates are this so called 'Gorbatchev effetc' of babyboom of 80s. Today they came at reproductuve age! Of course one cannot ignore some effetcs of money, but we need at least 5-10 years of steady gorwth in order to see a real sight of increase in barte rates. Otherwise it will have only a temporary effect used in the coming elections! For more info see a recent articile in 'Security Index' 'Debating Russian Degraphic Security', authors Graeme Herd and Gagik Sargsyan, I think it is the coming issue!
best

Kyle: "I have been told that they [Russians] really do not think that you can love more than one child properly."

Don't know who told you this but it's perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've read in a week.

There's a number of factors that affect the number of children in a typical Russian family, mostly: financial conditions, career related issues, availability of affordable housing, political stability in the country and so on.

The "can't love more than one child properly" reason sounds totally bogus to me and is not something that most families anywhere would seriously consider.

Dear Mazuzu,

Who told me? A lot of Russians, I live in Moscow, Russia. Not the USA. I have lived here for over a year now, I am married to a Russian. So as you say "BOGUS". My American ....!

I think that some one who has no knowledge of what life is in Russia is should rethink their thoughts on life. Visit my site Windows to Russia. Click my name.

I write on Russia and Russians. I am no expert but I am married to one and I do live amongst them. I am very accepted and when it comes to how Russians think they tell me first hand.

The thinking that only one child is correct came from many years of oppression. The Russian believes that to have one child in this world is much better than two or three. The one child gets all attention and needs met, The past, proved that with not enough resources that two or more children would and could suffer. One child got all attention and all resources. Hense the attitude I can love one child much more and better than two or more.

"Don't know who told you this but it's perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've read in a week.

There's a number of factors that affect the number of children in a typical Russian family, mostly: financial conditions, career related issues, availability of affordable housing, political stability in the country and so on.

The "can't love more than one child properly" reason sounds totally bogus to me and is not something that most families anywhere would seriously consider."

So Bogus, please respond, I do not make a statement if I do not have facts. I am the first hand source I live their life! From Village to Moscow!

Ball is in your court as they say.

Kyle keeton

Kyle: "Who told me? A lot of Russians, I live in Moscow, Russia."

Well, Moscow is a country in itself, but even in Moscow I doubt you'll find a lot of people who sincerely share this view. Maybe something was lost in the translation or your Russian friends are playing jokes on you - something's not right. I grew up in Russia and it sounds patently false to me.

Kyle: "The thinking that only one child is correct came from many years of oppression."

This is certainly false, oppression has nothing (well, little) to do with it. Actually, the government was trying to increase the birth rate for many years, probably starting from 1960s, when they first realized they had the problem. In the USSR, there was even a special award (and respective benefits, including monetary assistance, housing, etc) for mothers with many children - Mat' Geroinya. Ask your wife about it, she probably heard of it. :)

Kyle: "The Russian believes that to have one child in this world is much better than two or three."

I think you're missing the point, which is if you only have enough resources to properly support one child then it's better to give a decent life to one child than a crappy life to many. You see? It all mostly comes down to resources, that is, money, time, housing and so on.

Anyhow, that's my view on the subject. Maybe things are different where you are.

Mezuzu,

You are so correct that it all comes down to RESOURCES. However, your English is off a little. I will add it doesn't matter how much resources you have, it matters how much you take from OTHERS as in the case of the US.

The United States is the most subsidized crap pile on the planet and it can have more than one child per family because it takes from other nations. This empire TAXES other nations (the term is democracy with a little NGO money with hegemony) and if ever the world economic system was LEVEL, and FAIR then the US would simply die off as it would experience something greater than the great depression.

Anyway, resources is what it's all about and in all those resources the common denominator is ENERGY.

Russia is sitting pretty with respect to energy and other raw materials, and thank God it's government understands that these resources are a national security issue. I don't know what will happen tomorrow or the next millisecond, but long term, the US will resort to one child per family while the CIS will reach for balance and it will do the 2 children per family.

OIL is what makes it all work, regardless of monetary policy or spreading democracy in Iraq or the search for Bin Laden.

But those awards to women having babies were mainly during the Great Patriotic War and its aftermath - after WWII, the Soviets pushed abortion as a form of birth control. As Nick Eberstadt wrote, Soviet womanhood was literally scarred by this practice. Abortion was legal, but not so safe and rare...

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.21711/pub_detail.asp

And as usual, I can't agree with Luther Quick's 1970s era Malthusian notion that fewer people - FEWER MINDS, rather than just mouths to feed - are somehow better for the world or for Russia. And saying that growing the population is just a quick and dirty way for lazy Americans to achieve economic growth compared to education and technology is idiotic. Neither the U.S. nor the USSR could have been superpowers without large populations, even if having lots of people doesn't necessarily make you one (Mao's China was not a superpower, but the new capitalist China will be - even if it gets old before it gets rich thanks to the one-child policy Western Malthusians championed).

Luther's notion that fewer people are better is an example of the mentality that is causing Europe to lose its identity and perhaps its soul to the new jihad.

http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-fallaci.html

He can sneer all he wants about the mass immigration America has accepted as another sign that we're the new decadant Rome, but at least no one is talking about instituting sharia on the border with Mexico - how about in Germany my friend? You don't think at least some of the worst examples of anti-Americanism in Europe are pandering to Eurabia?

No Luther, the most important resource is people.

"You don't think at least some of the worst examples of anti-Americanism in Europe are pandering to Eurabia?"

What's Eurabia? Does it actually exist?

More to the point of the post, the press report refers to an increase in the absolute number of births. Will this translate into a rising fertility rate? Maybe, but the past experience of societies which have used one-time cash payments to try to boost birth rates--including the Soviet Union--suggests that it won't, that people who weren't sure when they'd have children will have their children now and not bother to have any more. There's no reason to expect Russians not to behave like their Spanish, Québécois, Germans, or Japanese counterparts, after all; they're human, living in mass consumption societies, with their own desires.

Randy,
You're probably right about the Russians sticking to one child, or maybe the more affluent to two.

I am just sick and tired of people like Luther tearing down America to build Russia or Europe up, or even rooting for a world where China as it stands today is top dog - black lung anyone? How about if nukes do get used in the Mideast, do you think in ten years the first troops in Saudi Arabia are going to be American, or Chinese? Stop rooting for American failure or you just might get it...

As I said, if he's betting that high oil prices are going to doom America, he's betting wrong. We will innovate, we will produce more energy, and once the prices get high enough Americans will conserve more - while rejecting the wacko enviros who make the problem worse with their restrictions and utopian schemes. For those people, Environmentalism is their religion/church and Peak Oil Theory is their Second Coming - Amerikkka getting its just desserts, so to speak.

Well they can keep waiting, we'll keep finding more oil - as I told Luther, just wait until we start tapping those trillion barrels of shale in the Rockies. If you are rooting for $100 per barrel oil, just watch it happen.

Well I must comment. I am an American mother with 4 boys. I am blessed with healthy bright children and the means to care for them affluently.

However, I do understand the perspective that one child is enough, if you give him /her the sum total of you attention amd energy. And pray that nothing goes wrong along the way!!

I know that if I had only one child, he would be an incredibly focused child with very set values relating to drive and ambition, and what is right and wrong.

However, I have a very dear friend who is a product of just that culture, and he is dogmatic and self-centered. I love him for his talent and ambition, and the soul he strives to connect with. But he suffers from the intensity instilled in him because he is the only keeper of his family's hope and identity.

So I question which is the true path to "enlightenment".

I say unconditional love and unique talents from God, that are nurtured and developed with the right set of humanistic, world perspective values and drive, equals a bonus to the world, regardless of the progeny who preceded him.

Captain America,

The Earth supported 1 billion people, and then oil was discovered, now we are at 6+ billion - because of oil. With out some abundant energy, then the population will go back to 1 billion.

I agree with you that people are the ultimate resource, but how do you feed them?

Giving the good smile and giving a positive attitude doesn't make things better. We can have a great show, land on an aircraft carrier, but the outcome will not change. A positive attitude and then motioning into Iraq did nothing. You need to feed people and give them a prosperous life or you will have war. So I'm not specifically pointing at Iraqi US failures, what I'm doing is correlating today's American marketing efforts of simply declaring "No Luther, the most important resource is people", these are just WORDS, nothing more... you are marketing and merchandizing, math and science is standing in your light and breathing your air.

It takes energy to conceive people, raise them, educate them, feed them and make them into productive citizens... later, they consume so much energy as they produce something of value for society, and whatever the output or the deliverables they produce, none of it would happen with out energy.

Standing there and saying good things will happen won't make it happen. For example, you could make the façade, as Bush would do, and say that fusion is around the corner, and fusion would alleviate so many of the problems, but it's just not going to happen for 50 years. Holding the positive attitude is just keeping the calm, but it will NOT change the reality or the math.

Regardless, I do agree, humans are what it's all about. But, mother nature is being difficult (peak oil), so go ahead and declare war on nature, look at peak oil square in the eye and tell it that you are with us or against us...

Energy is everything until someone comes up with a solution. Ethanol won't do it, and all the other alternatives will fall short. Until then, the US will reach over to energy rich countries and declare "we bring democracy, because we love YOU"... And those nations that can't work with energy rich countries will spin into a 3rd world status (thing Yankee).

Until then, if you've got energy, then you are in better shape then if you had dollars.

Luther,
A lot of other sources of energy were discovered during the 20th century when we went from 1 billion to 6 billion people - natural gas, nuclear power, smarter ways of burning coal, and hydropower, not to mention the microchip and software which enabled us to waste a lot less energy.

In fact, since the 70s, the U.S. has become remarkably more efficient and generates a much larger share of its GDP from electrons (that come from coal or uranium)rather than oil and gas. So this argument you keep making that the U.S. has no domestic sources of energy is a total crock - America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, America and Canada combined have the largest unconventional oil reserves in the world (2 trillion barrels along the Rockies) and many other untapped sources that will certainly get tapped if oil gets expensive enough.

You are basing all of your assumptions about inevitable American decline on our current divided and confused state, but not on our real potential, which is still enormous. You seem to assume that when gas hits $10 a gallon the enviros are going to be able to hold back the development of oil shale and nuclear power like they are now. The scarcities you take on faith as being geologic are mostly man-made, and every single time peak oil has been predicted in the past (especially the 1970s) it's been proven wrong - Hubbert got lucky, he made a prediction based on the technologies that were available at the time, and people following his model to predict when the world will run out have consistently been proven wrong. But good news doesn't sell.

The world is not running out of oil, it is just running out of cheap oil from politically stable places. So be it - we'll find a way to build more compact communities and drive less if we have to, but we'll still have huge SUVs and we will drill more than we had ever thought possible, and you'll still be sitting in Belarus talking about how bad America is...why don't you go protest Lushenko and see what happens to you?

I'm sick of your kneejerk anti-Americanism, which makes you say all sorts of stupid things - for example, that Americans can only have more than one child because the rest of the world subsidizes us. But you never seem to ask - how much does America subsidize the rest of the world? We produce more new prescription drugs than any other country, while countries with totally socialized medicine produce far less but still need our patents. And the ChiComs love to pirate our software.

Speaking of energy - we ultimately secure the Middle East oil fields that Europe and East Asia depend on more than we do (though if the Chinese want to get involved, so be it). And really, did America put a gun to the Chinese, Japanese and others heads and make them buy T-notes? The dollar became the benchmark for a reason, and if it declines, I agree that it is because of our fiscal irresponsibility, not necessarily because the rest of the world wants to put Amerikkka in its place.

As I said, your belief in Peak Oil is basically the dogma of the Second Coming for the Church of Anti-Americanism. The U.S. adapted very quickly to the Arab oil embargo of the Seventies and made huge gains in energy efficiency, to the point that some politicians (mostly Democrats) seem to think that greater efficiencies are all we need and not more new sources of energy.

Captain America,

You are speaking pure nonsense.

The US economy IS highly subsidized not only by conventional $ hegemony, war, solar energy stored in two events 80 million years ago and 150 million years ago in OIL/GAS. But the US is also subsidized by unconventional means found in it's Enron style accounting books.

See a recent article on US GDP.

Phantom GDP is a new discovery that says, for example, part of our GDP numbers really belong to other nations, such as China.

http://www.businessweek.com:80/magazine/content/07_25/b4039001.htm

In addition, many claim coal will last 700 years. Well, do the math, take a class with Albert Bartlett below.
700 years of coal would give us just 50 years if we replaced oil and gas with it.

http://www.ipenergy.com/media/exponential/AlbertBartlett.mov

And Christ, we can't even find 6 buried miners in the last accident. We don't pay enough for coal to maintain decent resources for our miners.

There are several fronts coming with this perfect storm and Americans ignore it like the doctor telling you smoking and cholesterol is bad for you. Because smoking (peak oil) and cholesterol (jobs leaving or debt) aren't effecting us "RIGHT NOW this millisecond", then the OPTIMISTS yammer and say "SEE? EVERYTHING IS FINE"... I see this language in all levels of American society. This systemic symptom can be found in all nations, but in America, it's got to be the worse I've ever seen. And I equate it to cheap energy. Cheap energy made bad business models work and it made looney ideas work... soon we will be setting off nukes under ground to squeeze every last drop of oil.

No wonder Wash DC thinks Iraq is going just fine, why jobs leaving is a good thing, and why the US needs to surround Russia with missiles.

And anyway, since when will unconventional energy ever replace conventional? Never on a 1:1 ratio. It's why Canada will build nuclear power plants next to tar sands to turn that unconventional energy delivered to the consumer. But the ratios, the actual YIELD will never be like conventional energy. And less yield means smaller economies, less populations and delusional business models will fail and pop like popcorn in the US econ.

I agree that coal is not the long term solution, due to mining safety and environmental considerations, but to get us to other sources of fuel, clean diesel from coal may be a good bridge technology - it beats the heck out of ethanol in terms of the amount of energy put in vs. returned.

I also see you backed off this ridiculous notion that Americans have more children than Europeans because the rest of the world subsidizes us - that's just silly. If anything, Europeans are freeriding off of America in terms of security by choosing to have fewer children and bigger welfare states with smaller defense establishments. Certainly that was true towards the end of the Cold War, and remained true during the Nineties (would Europe alone have stopped the killing in Bosnia, Kosovo? Heck no!)

And it does seem like every single last thing you can say about how wasteful and inefficient America is applies more so to India and China. Sure their populations are much denser, but they also waste a lot more oil and gas than we do and the % of their GDP that comes from oil and gas (versus coal or nuclear) is much larger. And it doesn't take a very big nuclear reactor to cook thousands of barrels of oil shale out of the ground.

Lastly, you never answered my question about how Russia is to secure its vast natural resources in the Far East from a peaceful Chinese conquest without people. Should Russia just start lobbing Topol Ms once the ethnic Chinese in Siberia demand their own autonomous state? Perhaps before it reaches that point Russia will need India and America as friends to balance China? But go on and tell us that the world doesn't need America anymore...

I agree that our enviros are utopian in imagining that natural resources don't matter, that energy can come entirely from wind, solar and conservation, and that only the high tech side of the economy counts and not the brick and mortar/infrastructure side (compare the bridges and roads in Seattle to Moscow, for example). But can't you see that America is in much better demographic shape than even China, much less Russia? And that Iraq is not a permanent state of being for the U.S. armed forces but a decade-long aberration, like Vietnam.
You may say there will be other Iraqs, but what evidence can you give that anyone actually wants to invade Iran as opposed to just blowing up their reactors? It just isn't going to happen.

At any rate, your anti-Americanism is more or less a religion, and Peak Oil is your version of the Second Coming - when the evil imperialist Amerikkka gets its just desserts. In the short term, the Fed's crazy easy credit post 9/11 may have devalued the dollar, but in the long term, what's so great about holding the euro if the unfunded obligations of European economies are even greater than for America, its taxes are higher, and its populations even smaller and more geriatric? You never seem to answer that question, or explain what China is going to do when it gets old before it gets rich.

America's problems are big, but if you fail to set them in a global context and compare them to any other REAL country as opposed to the Russia and Europe of your anti-American imagination, then of course you can pretend that America is doomed. As it is, you're just a German guy who won't admit that your real beef with America is that it bombed and conquered your country, sitting in Belarus bashing my country, while you're certainly not free to go out and have a protest telling people how Belarus makes Russia look like a haven of economic and personal freedom.

Captain America,

You are missing my point. Welfare from a country to it's people is one thing. But welfare from the rest of the world to the US, for example, is a completely different thing. This subsidizing of an entire nation is not voluntary by the others, it simply hegemony and it's done by using political, economic, propaganda and war tools.

Regardless, the United States pays, for example, it's oil with a currency that it prints. Belarus or Ukraine or China or Japan must pay Russia with currencies they DO NOT print. The dynamics to this are profound, and it has given the US an edge earned after WWII but lost in the last 30 -35 years bad economics.

In fact, the EU bylaws created a system that tries to avoid a situation where it's currency might temporarily look like GOLD. The reason is that the current generations would ABUSE it. The consequences would simply be to hand the next EU generation a total MESS economically, as in DEBT. This is what is happening in America.

So that very subsidy gave the US the ability to have many large families. It also gave the US the advantage where many business models that should have failed actually succeeded because energy prices were so suppressed globally and more so in the US because we simply paid for such energy imports with our currency. You want more energy? Print more money... In addition, goods coming from China, were paid by our own currency, part of those US dollars were handed over to energy exporters sending energy to China. So, not only is the US the largest welfare nation, it is subsidized by other nations in terms of energy and manufactured goods.

And when a country can lay back and relax at that scale, you can better believe maternity hospitals are going to do a bang up business.

Anyway... I need to work, I read your entire post, but have little time to respond. I think we are agree on many things, but I'm pissed at where America is going. I fear some nasty stuff, and no positive attitude will fix it. To that, I have adopted my wife's heritage of Belarus simply because the new CIS model that is following Russia is far better... As capitalists, my wife and I look East and see a better opportunity for our contributions and our children. The US squandered it's edge and created a system that has no future.

I could be wrong, but the stats are telling me otherwise. But I feel sorry for the blue collar worker in America. Even IT people are going to have a hell of time in the US. I know too many people who are seeing their incomes at $130,000 per year plunge to $30,000 per year while everything inflated like hell, and their homes are tanking in value...

I could tolerate that the very subsidization of the US stops, but my fear is that the typical American will experience a PAY BACK. I mean when people dump the dollar so hard that it actually reverses the subsidy. I hope to heck this doesn't happen, but if it does, it is the fault of the past American economist and those all over the world that coveted the dollar.

And it's why I look at the CIS and expect things to recover so well.

But Luther, compared to the size of their economies, Germany is in bigger debt than the U.S., Sweden is in bigger debt, I could go on naming nearly all of the Western European welfare states...who is subsidizing them? Who is going to fund the retirement of all of these aging countries? Developing economies. But what happens when the developing nations (Russia and China, not so much Brazil which has positive demographics) get old before they get rich? I mean Luther, for pete's sake, China is going to be older than the U.S. in just twenty years. Maybe the Chinese will be able to work longer, but they are not likely to live longer than Americans when you compare the pollution. Russia currently keeps its foreign reserves in a basket with about half and half - euros and dollars. So they're dumping dollars and going with the euro, but what happens when the dollar tightens up while the euro stays loose?

So you're missing my point, which is that America's prospects look poor ONLY WHEN YOU DON'T COMPARE IT TO THE REALITIES OF VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED AND EMERGING MARKET ECONOMY. You of course are comparing the real U.S. warts and all to a fantasy land where Europe isn't in bigger debt, aging faster, and having more Muslim radicals inside its borders than America. Sure Russia is going to have an excellent balance sheet, but do you think if the Russians don't start turning this demographic thing that they can just bring in more software programmers from India or China like the U.S. has done? Not with prospects improving back home, even for the U.S. and Moscow has a higher cost of living than Silicon Valley...

So let's get real and cut the anti-American hot air. If you want to make real comparisons, well go ahead. But even balance sheets and national currency reserves don't exist in a vacuum - people and populations matter too.

Hey this got really cool to read, I am not sure as of yet but I think I give the nod to Luther, he has a very slight edge on the fact base.

The one thing that can not be changed is that Russia has the world by its balls. They have the largest oil and gas reserves in the world and If you ask me they just doubled that amount by the north pole trick. They also will have the largest Federal run company in the world, Gazprom. Gazprom is set to have control the only thing that the world cares about... OIL and GAS!

They... oops... we forgot this is about People! So..

But none of that will do them any good if they do not have a population!

Kyle

Kyle,

Thanks...

Just for the record, Russia doesn't have the world's largest oil reserves... But she does have the largest in gas reserves.

Regardless, Russia does have enough oil to supply her self and CIS allies, especially if Russia slows down the oil exports to the EU and the US. They really need to BABY those reserves RIGHT NOW.

And I wouldn't say Russia has anyone by the BALLS as you said, I would simply say, nobody has Russia by the balls anymore, and this ladies and gentlemen is why CNN, FoxNews, the US state department and other clueless idiots deploy their ridiculous propaganda that democracy is sliding back or Russia's market prices are black mail or whatever...

Captain America,

It took me some time, but I looked into your claim that Germany owes more (% of GDP or per capita) than the US, even Sweden? I have no clue where you are coming up with this...

The US owes more than any nation on Earth, period (per capita or per GDP), and most important, if it is per GDP, it's denominated in $, that's the issue. In addition, hegemony only works as long as it continues, if US hegemony fails, it will drive the US currency down harder than ANY and ALL NATIONS have ever experienced of a collapsing currency.

I just don't buy your argument... Please look at the state of things today.

The US FED drops interest rates just .5% and gold is at $738, oil is over $82, and people like T Bone Pickens are talking about $100 oil...

In other words, drop interest rates down today and oil is once again SUBSIDIZED... the solutions, from the market price signals is to ratchet up the price.

The FED, which WILL LOWER interest rates again next quarter is in effect raising oil prices.

The US is trying to save housing by printing US $, and it's trying to pay for oil by debasing the $, and it will tank the dollar in order to pay for its debt.

Please understand, if you print too much of your currency, regardless of your debt, the nation and the delusional empire will simply DIE.

WASSUP HOMMIES
thats very nice but give the russians cookies! yum :P