What's wrong with HB 3773? A LOT!!! (New Online Petitions added!)

[ant0n!]

---

up on this!

[mannyamador]

The Contracepted Society
by David Prentis
http://pop.org/main.cfm?id=94&r1=1.0...evel=2&eid=873

Any discussion on contraception assumes that it is a purely private matter of an individual or a couple.
However, in modern industrial countries contraception and sterilization are practiced on a massive scale,
so that we should expect them to have their effect on society as a whole. In fact, these effects are
wider and deeper than one would expect at first glance.

Demographic Effect

First of all, there is the effect on the number of babies being born. In previous times we know that
families were larger; families with eight, ten or twelve children were not unusual. Today we expect a
family to have one, two or at the most three children. Larger families are the exception. The
Englishman Andrew Pollard was asked to do a survey for an ice-cream manufacturer. When asked to
estimate the number of people in the 18-34 age range some years ahead—those most likely to consume
the firm’s luxury ice-cream—he discovered that by the requested date there would be a fall of 20%
compared with the time of the survey. The reasons: a dramatic fall in the birthrate. Some would assume
that the reason was the introduction of widespread abortion following the British Abortion Act of 1967.
However, even if the 6 million children killed by abortion in Britain since then had all been allowed to live,
the birthrate would still be below replacement level. Pollard concludes that the reason for the fall is the
widespread practice of contraception, and formulates what he calls the Iron Law of Population: “Any
country in which the mass of population practice effective contraception and abortion will die.�

But the influence of contraception is wider and deeper. It is not simply a matter of statistics.

The practice of contraception leads to the fading of the perception that the sexual act has anything to
do with the procreation of children. The act is deliberately manipulated to exclude the possibility. When
contraception fails, the resulting baby is likely to be aborted. This is particularly true when conception
takes place outside of marriage, in which case there is no proper provision for the upbringing of the child.

Attitude to Sexuality

The perception that sexuality is not connected to reproduction, gives rise to the concept of “recreational
***.� Sexual intercourse is regarded primarily as a source of pleasure. Since “nothing can happen,� i.e., no
baby can be conceived, sexual activity is not confined to marriage. This leads to increased promiscuity,
adultery and prostitution, and to perverse sexual practices, including homosexual practices, which are even
proclaimed as ideal because they are 100% sterile. All these practices lead to the spread of sexually
transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

Artificial Reproduction

If there can be *** without babies, there can be babies without ***. The separation of the procreative from
the unitive aspects of the sexual act through contraception has prepared the way for artificial reproduction.
The first step was IVF. Further steps followed quickly—selective reduction (the selective killing of embryos
when IVF is more successful than expected and the mother is carrying several children at once), the
implantation of embryos from third person, surrogate motherhood, experimentation with surplus or deliberately
produced embryos, pre-implantation diagnostics and cloning.

Abortion and artificial reproduction leads to contempt for life, which opens the way for euthanasia.

In the practice of contraception the spouses do violence to one another in that they tend to regard each
other merely as a source of pleasure. The mutual rejection of fertility implies a (subconscious) personal
rejection of each other. This burdens the marriage and often leads to divorce, which in its turn means
suffering for the children. Society becomes dysfunctional and violence proliferates. Non-traditional “families,�
such as single and divorced women with children, families with children from two or even three sets of
parents, and same-*** unions with children, become acceptable, hence weakening the traditional family.

Loss of Faith

Husband and wife no longer regard each other with awe as a gift of God, entrusted to one another for life,
but as a source of pleasure, which can be manipulated as required. Children are no longer seen as gifts and
blessings of God, but as objects, which we have a right to destroy. It is presumed that children can be
produced, selected, rejected, killed, cloned and designed to order. The Creator is rejected and man arrogantly
arrogates to himself the place of God. It is blasphemy, which cries to high Heaven and which will one way or
another lead to disaster.

The Way Forward

The healing of society requires the abolishing of the widespread practice of contraception and sterilization.
The Catholic Church is the only body which consistently opposes contraception, so it should be a priority for
bishops and priests to promote chastity both outside and within marriage. If this is done consistently it will
eventually have an effect on society as a whole. Account should be taken of the fact that contraception is
being vigorously promoted for commercial and ideological reasons.

The regulation of conception can be achieved by means of the natural methods, which are highly reliable
and have none of the above-mentioned disadvantages, and on the contrary foster a positive attitude
towards children, build marriages and preserve faith. All this is the reason for the apostolate of our
organization, the Couple to Couple League, in promoting marital chastity by means of natural family planning.

Talk given at the Marriage, Family and Ethics Conference, Brno, Czech Republic. David Prentis works in the
promotion of NFP in the Czech Republic.

[ant0n!]

hmm.....

[mannyamador]

Eurocrat's Wake-Up Call on Demography
By Joseph D'Agostino

More United Nations and European Union apparatchiks continue to stumble upon the obvious:
Rapidly dropping birthrates combined with greater longetivity of the aged will soon result in
major social and economic crunches in many societies around the world, particularly in Europe.
There will simply not be enough workers to support all these older people and, in the case of
many EU nations, there won't even be enough people to populate the countryside without
massive increases in already sky-high immigration rates. Though these international bureaucrats
refrain from explicitly criticizing population control, contraception, abortion rights, and most
especially feminism -- sacrosanct dogmas handed down by the small-god of political correctness
-- they discuss the need for dealing with the consequences of these continuing trends of the
1960s.

Inevitable Changes

Eurocrat VladimÃ*r Å*pidla, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal
Opportunities, is among those who are beginning to talk of the demographic changes that
will affect the EU over the next five to 45 years. He emphasizes that if Europe wants to keep
its much-beloved social model-the one in which citizens receive cradle-to-grave protection
from massive welfare states-and continued prosperity, big changes have to be made. As the
Italian saying goes, "If things are to stay the same, they must change." Å*pidla's bureau within
the EU's bureaucratic empire is due to issue a white paper on this and other subjects by the
end of the year, after months of debate over how to address demographic and other
problems in labor and social affairs.

Å*pidla began his July 18 speech to the International Population Conference in Tours by
directly contradicting the first principle of both population control and radical
environmentalism. "Demographic decline is never a good thing," he asserted
(was anyone from Negative Population Growth in attendance?). "I believe these words reflect
the message of Alfred Sauvy, the founder of INED, the organisers of this conference, but also
the founder of the pro-natalist, pro-family policy which has enabled France to avoid the
inevitability of demographic decline. Population decline is a reality in Eu rope, already affecting
more than a fifth of our regions."

He didn't mention it, but if the EU continues its expansion eastward, the addition of more
formerly Communist Eastern European countries will drag Europe's demographics down even
further. In fact, though the EU's population continues to expand, that of Europe as a whole
(including Russia, according to the UN Population Division's definition of Europe) is already shrinking.

The Numbers Look Bad

Å*pidla relies on projections that we at PRI think are overly optimistic -- and how can France, with
a fertility rate of only 1.8 despite high immigration, avoid demographic decline when replacement
rate is 2.1? -- but he points to the same ominous trends. Even assuming large-scale immigration
continues, the numbers look bad. "By the year 2050, the European Union could have lost almost
7 million inhabitants and 55 million persons of working age," Å*pidla said. "Of the most
densely-populated countries, Poland, Germany and Italy look set to lose almost 10% of their
populations, Spain could remain stable, thanks to substantial immigration, and only the United
Kingdom and France look likely to see population growth."

But we don't have to wait until 2050 for big declines. One generation, 25 years, will do. Even
in countries with overall population growth, rapid aging will transform large proportions of their
populations from overall producers of wealth into overall consumers of it. "By 2030, the
working-age population will most likely have fallen by 21 million," noted Å*pidla. "We will have lost
20 million young people, while the number of over-65s will have risen by more than 39 million,
and the number of over-80s will have almost doubled."

Å*pidla referenced a report issued last year by former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, who said
that Europe's already anemic annual growth potential of 2% could drop by one-quarter, to 1.5%,
by 2015 because of demographic decline.

Å*pidla explicitly calls for ways to "encourage the birthrate," and emphasizes that a comprehensive
approach, not just the cash baby bonuses offered with little effect by some countries, must be
employed. Unfortunately, Å*pidla argues that the same policies that have led to the problem in the
first place -- day care, married women in the workplace and out of the home, more social
engineering pushes for "gender equality" -- be expanded in order to solve it. Only the true believers
of the left would argue that the very same things that have helped kill fertility and destroy families
can be ratcheted up to reverse these trends. "Europe will have to 'move into top gear' by
encouraging women and men to work and consolidating the position of children in society," he said.
"We must respond to the demographic challenge by giving a new dimension to the policy of equality
between women and men and by doing more to encourage the sharing of family and domestic
responsibilities."

Change is Needed

At a speech in Brussels to a conference on demographic change, July 11, Å*pidla said, "Europe is the
first region in the world to experience three changes at the same time: persistence of a low fertility
rate, an increase in life expectancy allowing a large number of Europeans to reach an advanced age,
and finally the growing old of ‘baby boomers,' who are now becoming ‘older workers' or pensioners."

Å*pidla's EU department issued a green paper on March 15 that laid out the general parameters of the
demographic debate. "To preserve our prosperity and solidarity we need to step up our efforts to
adapt to the economic and social changes which come from globalisation and the ageing of our
populations...," says the green paper. "Today, there are four people of working age for every person
over 65. But in 2050, this ratio will have dropped to two to one. Demographic ageing could result in
fewer people entering the labour market and more older people relying on social protection systems
such as pensions and healthcare. If policies are not changed, potential economic growth could halve
over the coming decades to reach just over 1% per year."

Finding Needed Workers

Å*pidla points out that Europe, with its high unemployment rates for young people and low labor
force participation rates for older people, still has a lot of ways to increase the numbers of those
working. And he wants to increase the proportion of women working, too, which will further
depress birthrates. European women's labor force participation rate has been going up, contributing
to the very problem he is highlighting. "The EU is well on track to achieve its target for women's
participation in the labour market," says the green paper. "The female employment rate rose by 3.2
percentage points between 1999 and 2003, to 56.1% in EU15, close to the so-called 'Lisbon' target
of 57% by 2005."

The green paper fails to mention the need to enable women to stay home if they would like to, and
how many of those who work do so because of economic pressures. Å*pidla didn't mention that need
in his two big July speeches, either.

Yet Å*pidla and the EU Commission's employment department at least recognize the problem. When
his white paper comes out later this year, the battle will begin to implement EU-wide policies to deal
with demographic decline. Eurocrat meddling has already done great damage to European families and
fertility rates in the past, not to mention other areas of Europeans' lives. We'll see what it does for the
demographic future.

[mannyamador]

World Population Trends and Challenges (Part 1)

William Poole
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Lincoln University
Jefferson City, Missouri
Oct. 4, 2004

I appreciate comments provided by my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. David C. Wheelock, Assistant Vice President in the Research Division, provided extensive assistance. I take full responsibility for errors. The views expressed are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System.

World Population Trends and Challenges

For much of the last half century, public discussion of population issues has focused on the proposition that the world faced a population explosion. Many predicted dire consequences as population growth rapidly used up supplies of exhaustible resources such as metals and petroleum. The standard of living would decline as certain essential resources became ever more scarce and costly.

This pessimistic view was not new. In 1798, Thomas Malthus, in his famous “Essay on the Principle of Population� argued as follows:

   The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. 
   Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical 
   ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second."

Thus, in Malthus’ view, population growth will inevitably outstrip the earth’s capacity to produce food, resulting in widespread famine, disease and poverty

Modern concern over population growth shares with Malthus the view that population pressures will have dire consequences. However, the Malthus view that these consequences are inevitable -- the view that earned economics the label "dismal science" -- is not shared by informed observers today. For some, advocacy of rigorous methods of population control has replaced resigned pessimism. For others, a worldwide decline in the birth rate seems to be solving the problem without further government action.

If you ask people whether we must continue to be concerned about a population explosion, I’ll bet that nine out of ten will respond that the problem will become extremely important in coming years. Yet, experts who study these issues say that the odds that population growth will cause real difficulty in the foreseeable future have receded. They emphasize instead that we face another population problem that will be at hand very soon—a rapidly aging population. Indeed, we will soon face with certainty problems from an aging population. Today’s college students, early in their working careers, will be confronted with this issue.

Because so few seem aware that the immediate demographic problem is that of a graying population rather than an exploding one, I’ve chosen to focus on aging in this lecture. However, I’ll begin by discussing population projections to set the stage for discussing issues raised by population aging.

Before proceeding, I want to emphasize that the views I express here are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System. I thank my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for their comments, especially Dave Wheelock, Assistant Vice President in the Research Division, who provided extensive assistance. However, I retain full responsibility for errors.

World Population Projections

When Malthus wrote his treatise in 1798, the world’s population totaled some 900 million persons. Today, world population is roughly 6.4 billion persons, and about 100 million persons are added to the total every year. Although we do witness famine, disease, and poverty, as Malthus predicted, these sad events are usually isolated and reflect temporary problems, often created by civil war. Across the world, food is generally more abundant and less expensive, measured in terms of the amount of labor that must be expended to obtain a given level of nutrition, than it has ever been. Agricultural productivity continues to rise rapidly, and it seems unlikely that world food supply will be a constraint on population growth for years to come, if ever.

Still, in light of rapid growth of the world’s population, especially over the last 50 years, many people have questioned whether our current population is sustainable. Echoing Malthus, some commentators claim that the continuing population growth will create unsustainable pressures on the world’s resources and raise pollution to dangerous levels. Particularly prominent in recent discussions is the threat of global warming from emissions of greenhouse gases.

Let’s begin with recent projections of world population growth from the United Nations. A notable development is the changing distribution of population between the so-called “developed� and “less developed� nations. Population growth has been much faster in the poorer countries than in those with high standards of living and wealth. Whereas the developed countries of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand accounted for roughly one-third of world population in 1900, and about the same percentage in 1950, by 2000, those countries accounted for just 20 percent of world population. It seems likely, however, that the population growth of many lesser-developed countries will slow during the present century, as I will discuss in the second part of my talk.

World population has more than doubled in the last 50 years, and has nearly quadrupled since 1900. Currently, world population is growing at a rate of 1.35 percent per year. The United Nations’ most recent forecast, however, predicts a slowing in the growth of world population to about 0.33 percent per year by 2050, at which time forecasters are predicting that world population will total 8.9 billion persons.

Interestingly, by mid-century, U.N. forecasters predict a world average fertility rate -- that is, the average number of children a woman will bear in her lifetime -- of 1.85. At that rate, fertility will be below the level necessary for population to stay constant -- about 2.1 children per woman. Consequently, world population is expected to begin declining sometime toward the end of this century.

Such projections must always be taken with a grain of salt because they are based on a number of assumptions that may not turn out to hold. In the early 1930s, U.S. Government forecasters predicted that at the end of the 20th Century our nation’s population would total 145-150 million persons. The forecasters didn’t count on the baby boom that came along after World War II, however, and their forecast turned out to be far too low. By 2000, U.S. population had reached nearly 300 million, or twice the level in the forecast made 70 years earlier.

I’ve already noted that population growth during the last 50 years or so has been far higher in relatively poor countries than in higher income countries. Much of the increase in world population projected for the next 50 years is also forecast to occur in lesser developed countries. Whereas LDCs have a total population of 5.1 billion today, those countries are projected to have 7.7 billion persons and a population growth rate of 0.40 percent in 2050. By contrast, many developed countries are projected to have falling populations by 2050.

On the surface, the disparate population growth rates of the developed and developing worlds may seem cause for alarm. Indeed, rapid population growth, at least in the short run, implies that poverty levels will rise unless supplies of food, shelter, and other scarce resources increase as rapidly. In many developing countries, employment growth lags the growth rate of the working age population, leading to falling wages, unrest and emigration.

However, if we look at the reasons for the disparate growth rates of population between the developed and developing world in the 20th Century, there are reasons to be more optimistic about the future. For centuries, the world’s population grew slowly, as high rates of mortality largely offset high birth rates. Wars, famines, and epidemic diseases caused many people to die young, and average life expectancy was consequently low. In Europe, conditions began to improve by the 17th and 18th Centuries, with increased food supplies and improvements in personal hygiene and public sanitation. By the 19th and early 20th Centuries, most European and North American countries had experienced a “demographic transition� from high rates of fertility and mortality to low rates.

In most countries, the demographic transition is seen first in a declining mortality rate. Because the birth rate initially remains high, population growth increases sharply. As the transition proceeds, however, the birth rate declines to approximate the lower mortality rate. Population growth then slows. Most economically developed countries have completed this transition, but many lesser-developed countries (LDCs) are at the intermediate stage of low mortality, but still high fertility rates. Consequently, their population growth is rapid.

The data indicate, however, that fertility rates have declined substantially during the last twenty to thirty years in many LDCs. From 1970 to 2000, the median fertility rate among LDCs declined from 5.9 children per woman to 3.9 children per woman. If these trends continue, then population growth will slow. If fertility rates do not change from current levels, however, the U.N. projects that the world’s population will be 12.8 billion persons in 2050, instead of the 8.9 billion it forecasts as most likely.

Indeed, the U.N. projects that the average fertility rate among lesser-developed countries will fall below the replacement rate by 2050. Thus, toward the end of the century, population in those countries is likely to begin to decline. Some 20 nations classified as lesser developed already have fertility rates below replacement level, as do some 39 other nations. Several LDCs continue to have high fertility rates, however, and these include many of the world’s poorest nations.

Fertility rates have also declined in many developed countries, including some where fertility rates were already low in 1970. In 2000, only four developed countries -- Albania, Iceland, New Zealand, and the United States -- reported fertility rates at or above 2 children per woman. With the exception of the United States, these are all small countries.

The fertility rate is below 2 in most developed countries, and in many cases substantially below. Some representative examples are the United Kingdom, 1.6, Germany, 1.4, Italy, 1.2 and Japan 1.3. The fertility rate in the United States is 2.1.

The United Nations attributes the substantial decline in fertility throughout most of the world to increased use of contraception, especially in LDCs, and to an increase in the average age at which women bear their first child, which has been more pronounced in developed countries. By the 1990s, the median age at first birth was 26.4 years in developed countries and 22.1 years in developing countries.

(to be continued)

[mannyamador]

World Population Trends and Challenges (Part 2)

William Poole
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Lincoln University
Jefferson City, Missouri
Oct. 4, 2004

A Graying Population

A decline in the birth rate obviously means that population growth will slow. But no fancy calculations are required to understand that a sharp decline in the birth rate will also create an imbalance in a population; the decline in the number of young people inevitably means that the proportion of older people in the population will rise.

While the world’s population growth has slowed, there has, therefore, also been an aging of the population. A good summary measure of a population’s age is the median age -- the age such that half the population is older and half is younger. Over the last half century, the median age of the world’s population has increased by 2.8 years, from 23.6 in 1950 to 26.4 in 2000. The U.N. forecasts median age to rise to 36.8 years in 2050. More developed countries are expected to have an increase in median age from 37.3 years to 45.2 years, and lesser developed countries from 24.1 years to 35.7 years. Japan is today the country with the oldest population, having a median age of 41.3 years. Japan is projected to have a median age of 53.2 years in 2050. The median age of the U.S. population, by contrast, is currently 35.2 years, and is forecast to be 39.7 years in 2050.

The world’s fastest growing age group is comprised of those persons 80 years and older. In 2000, 69 million persons, or 1.1 percent of world population, were aged 80 or older. By 2050, the number aged 80 or older is expected to more than quintuple to 377 million and be 4.2 percent of world population. In that year, 21 countries or areas are projected to have at least 10 percent of their population aged 80 or over. Indeed, Japan is forecast to have almost 1 percent of its population comprised of persons aged 100 or more. The United States is projected to have 7.2 percent of its population made up of those 80 and older.

To understand the implications of the graying population, think about a family living on the U.S. frontier 150 years ago. The family was largely self-sufficient, growing its own food, making its candles and building its own house with some assistance from neighbors. The working members of the family had to grow the food for the entire family, including children and elderly grandparents. The children went to work at a young age, and the grandparents worked in the fields as long as they could. The larger the number of children too young to work and the larger the number of disabled elderly the greater the burden on those in their prime working years. The children and the elderly were dependents, supported by those working.

The fact that we live in a high-income industrial society does not change the fact that those working have to produce all the goods and services consumed by the entire population. Non-working dependents are dependents just as surely today as they were on the frontier 150 years ago. Those of you soon to be in the working population will have to support yourselves and the dependent population of children and elderly.

In frontier America, the elderly did not retire to Florida on their Social Security and other pensions. They in fact worked as long as they were able to work. They might not be able to do heavy work in the fields but they could do less physically demanding work, and they did. The truly dependent were those who were bedridden, and with the medical technology available in those days they usually did not live very long in such a condition.

The United States and other high-income countries have pension systems, such as our Social Security System, to support the elderly. But the Social Security System sets the retirement date by the calendar and not by capacity to work. Thus, today many and perhaps most retire while physically able to work productively.

This "graying" of the population poses a serious fiscal problem as the dependency ratio -- the ratio of persons out of the labor force to the number of persons in the labor force -- rises. Government pension systems -- Social Security in the United States -- is where a rising dependency ratio has its most obvious impact. Social Security, like the public systems of most countries, is a "pay-as-you go" system, meaning that today’s benefit payments to retired persons are funded by current taxes on working persons. Obviously, as the number of those receiving benefits rises relative to the number paying taxes, the average taxpayer must shoulder a larger and larger burden or, alternatively, benefits must be cut.

One way to think about Social Security taxes today is that they are like the food grown by the frontier farmer and his wife that they do not get to consume because the food goes to their parents and children -- their dependents. Some of the income earned by those working today has to be diverted to provide benefits for retired dependents. The burden will rise substantially in coming years, because the number of retirees will rise relative to those at work.

There has been some careful work on this subject by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an organization comprised of economically advanced democratic countries, including the United States. OECD projections indicate that public transfers to retired persons for pensions and health care will increase in the average OECD country by 6 percent of GDP, from 21 percent to 27 percent, between now and 2050. Unless promised future benefits are cut significantly, substantial tax increases will be necessary to effect such transfers. However, as a recent OECD report concludes, drastic tax increases could make matters worse by reducing the incentives for market work and for saving.(1) Indeed, the OECD concludes that in many countries it may be necessary both to reduce promised benefits and to increase the incentives for work.

In recent decades there has been a tendency for people to enter the labor force at a higher age while retiring at an earlier age. Consequently, the proportion of life spent working has declined. This phenomenon reflects a number of factors, including increasing returns to education and increasingly generous transfer programs that encourage early retirement. In countries that experienced a post-World War II baby boom, large increases in the labor force in the 1960s and 1970s reduced the dependency ratio, and enabled increasingly generous transfer payments to retired persons. However, if life expectancy continues to increase, as demographers project, the dependency ratio will rise and such transfers will constitute an increasing burden on those working.

It is worth emphasizing that as important as it is to put the Social Security and Medicare trust funds on a sound financial basis, doing so does not necessarily solve the problem created by a high dependency ratio. We can understand this point easily by supposing that the Social Security trust fund already held enough U.S. government bonds to cover large benefit payments in coming years. When the trust fund sold bonds to provide funds to make benefit payments, who would buy the bonds? The elderly wouldn’t be buying the bonds -- they are the ones who need the benefit checks to pay for everyday living expenses. The working generation would have to buy the bonds -- interest rates would have to be high enough to persuade enough members of the working generation to buy bonds. Their purchases would provide the cash the Social Security System would need to pay benefits to the retired generation. In short, somebody has to give up consumption so that those who are retired can have the consumption goods instead.

This discussion should make clear that the fundamental problem our society -- and all aging societies -- face is not fundamentally a financial problem but instead a problem of an excessive number of retired people relative to working people. This is a problem we can solve, and it is really a happy problem in many ways. We are living longer and in much better health -- that can’t be a problem!

Nevertheless, an implication of living longer should not be that younger people have to bear the entire burden of providing goods retirees will consume for those additional years. Would I ask my own children, who have their own problems of supporting themselves and their families, to support me so I can enjoy a life of retired leisure of many years of travel and sailing, which are two of my passions? I wouldn’t do that looking my own children in the eye, and I don’t think we as a society should collectively ask the younger generation to support all the additional years of retirement of the baby boom generation that modern medicine makes possible.

Unless those in my generation and the baby-boom generation want to place a huge burden on our children and grandchildren, we need to adopt some combination of the only two possible solutions. One is to reduce the annual payments to Social Security beneficiaries, and the other is to reduce the number of retirement years by raising the retirement age. These changes -- whatever mix the country decides it prefers -- should be phased in gradually, to avoid an undue impact on those who are close to retirement today. My own preference is to concentrate on raising the retirement age for full benefits, given that people are healthy and productive much longer than they used to be.

Rather than moving toward a later retirement age, the public pension systems of many countries today actually encourage early retirement by offering generous benefit payments to early retirees. Although early retirees typically receive a smaller annual pension than persons who wait until they are older to retire, the difference in many countries is insufficient to discourage large numbers of people from retiring early. The United States is something of an exception. For a man with average income, our Social Security System is roughly neutral between ages 62 and 67. Beyond that age, however, the incentive to remain in the labor force is low. Put another way, the implicit tax of remaining in the labor force -- foregone benefits -- is relatively high. At a technical design level, there are a number of possible ways to create a more neutral system with respect to retirement age, so that at a minimum those who want to work longer are not penalized for doing so. The idea is that annual benefits need to be higher by an actuarially fair amount when retirement is delayed.

A recent OECD study found a close correlation between incentives to retire and retirement behavior -- not surprisingly, people do respond to incentives! The implication of this research, according to its authors, is that labor force participation in the 55-64 age group would be increased substantially by reforms that abolished policy-induced incentives to retire early. Indeed, the report goes on to suggest that policymakers should consider skewing incentives against retirement, at least up to some age, in recognition that people who work provide a net positive impact on public budgets.(2) By continuing to work past normal retirement age, people support themselves and pay taxes that help to reduce the tax burden that would otherwise fall on others.

Several countries have begun to rein in their public pension systems by instituting reforms that reduce incentives to retire early or by raising the age at which persons are eligible for benefits. The United States, for example, has in place a gradual increase in the retirement age for full Social Security benefits from age 65 to age 67 by 2025. Our Social Security System was begun in the 1930s when the average 65-year old person could expect to live about an additional 13 years; by 2000, those additional years at age 65 had risen to about 18. It makes sense that we lift the age of eligibility for Social Security payments in recognition of the increase in our expected life spans. However, it is clear that the increase in normal retirement age from 65 to 67 that is in current law does not go far enough to solve the problem.

The OECD has recommended a number of other reforms to its member countries to encourage older persons to remain active participants in the labor force. These include removing labor market rigidities that discourage part-time employment, and implementing reforms that would increase the share of retirement income from private sources relative to public pay-as-you-go systems. Such policy reforms could help alleviate the fiscal challenges posed by aging populations both by lowering dependency ratios and by favoring economic growth.
Conclusion

Demographic change in the United States and elsewhere in the world presents enormous challenges. In much of the world, the combination of increased life expectancy and a reduced birth rate has created a situation in which the population is becoming unbalanced in its age distribution. We know this problem is right ahead of us, because the people have already been born. I hope I have convinced you that Social Security and Medicare are not just problems you will have to deal with when you come close to retirement age, but problems you will have to address within a few years. Taxes to support these retirement programs will fall on you, and not on those already retired. Retirees will face the possibility of benefit cuts, to be sure, but you will face the problem of tax increases. We are truly all in this situation together, and we had better find a way to deal with it together.

Footnotes

1. "Strengthening Growth and Public Finances in an Era of Demographic Change." OECD, May 2004
2. This research is summarized in "Strengthening Growth and Public Finances in an Era of Demographic Change," OECD, May 2004

http://www.stlouisfed.org/news/speec.../10_04_04.html

[mannyamador]

This one is a bit dated, but very revealing!

USAID Philippine Mission: Letting it All Hang Out
By David Morrison
PRI Review
November/December 1996

Don't put anything on the World Wide Web that you wouldn't want to see appear in the following day's
New York Times. This common-sense axiom is so widely accepted and practiced that the unsuspecting
surfer is stunned by the unexpected candor of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Mission
to the Philippines (USAID-PH). After all, how often do government agencies, especially those which
operate abroad, freely confirm their mischief?

Although USAID's web network has been expanding, as of this writing the Philippine Mission's site is
unique. No other USAID Mission has its own website, much less one as detailed and revealing as that of
the Philippines. Whether because of the 'special relationship' the two nations share, or because USAID
has made the Philippines a principal target of US 'beneficence,' the site documents an extraordinary
amount of US activity in the archipelago - much of it related to population control.

The Mission declares on its Home Page its commitment to "global concerns" such as "environmental
degradation, population and the AIDS epidemic," which it sees as central to its goal of transforming the
Philippines into "a model Newly Industrialized Country (NIC) democracy by the year 2000." These three
categories are sufficient to clue an astute web watcher into the anti-people character of USAID-PH
programs, but the amount of detail that the Mission goes on to reveal its about activities is simply
breathtaking.

For example, informed surfers would certainly suspect that Pathfinder International is present in the
Philippines, but would they expect to see it named, along with its local Philippine contacts, on a
USAID website? Many other USAID front organizations are also found here, including a fair number of
those whose activities have been documented in this and other issues of PRI Review.

The key to understanding how USAID works 'on the ground' in the Philippines can be found on the
first page of the site's "population and health" section. There the Mission, which claims to be "building"
democracy in the Philippines, details how it uses development money for activities to subvert -- no
other word will do-majority rule. Justifying this neocolonialism under the guise of meeting "unmet
needs for family planning services," USAID is targeting local Philippine governments for USAID's
"particular attention."

This works as follows. In conjunction with the Philippine Department of Health, USAID identifies certain
local governments whose family planning activities are to be "accelerated." "Yearly performance
benchmarks" for family planning acceptors are then set for these areas. If local governments meet these
quotas, USAID "releases" funds through the Philippine government to local governments.

"This [program] has proved to be a highly effective means to reach mutually agreeable objectives," the
Mission site proclaims. No doubt. Monetary grants are an excellent means of inducing people in a
developing economy to act against their natural inclinations. The site boasts that 48 local governments
were enrolled in this campaign in 1995, and expresses the hope that a "minimum" of 75 governments
will be enlisted by 1998.

A second set of USAID-PH activities is centered around the distribution of the contraceptives needed
to meet these "benchmarks." To this end the site claims to have established a "highly effective
contraceptive logistics system" throughout the Philippines. This single purpose pipeline carries only
contraceptives, not antibiotics, vaccines, rehydration salts or other health supplies for the Philippine people.

As if the undermining of democracy and the warping of the health care delivery system were not enough,
the Mission is also corrupting the Philippine's free market economy. The Mission's social marketing program
is aimed at convincing local pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors to push contraceptives on
unsuspecting Filipinos in exchange for what is euphemistically called "promotional assistance," that is, free
advertising. These advertising campaigns are especially aimed at the poorer classes, for the population
controllers always believe that we have too many poor with us.

Would the Filipino people tolerate this kind of blatant interference into their national sovereignty and
personal autonomy if they were aware of it? Probably not. Would the majority of US taxpayers support
such inherently undemocratic, even ethnocentric programs, once these were brought to their attention?
Definitely not. Now that the USAID-PH website has unintentionally revealed the unsavory details of US
population control programs in the Philippines, perhaps enough Filipinos and Americans will learn the truth
that, by working together, they can call these programs to a halt.

[mannyamador]

Petition against HB 3773
http://www.gopetition.com/online/7499.html

Please help us stop this draconian and unjust bill!

[mannyamador]

This could happen here if the Culture of Death/HB3773 advocates have their way

Swiss Hospital Agrees to Help Kill Patients as of January 1, 2006

LAUSANNE, France, January 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lausanne University
hospital, Switzerland has decided to permit assisted suicides starting
from January 1, 2006. Assisted suicide has always been considered a form
of active euthanasia. In addition to Lausanne, other leading Swiss
hospitals are now actively discussing permitting the procedure. Though
Swiss law initially did not allow doctors to kill their patients the
practice of euthanasia has been gradually extended from private groups
into the public health systems.

According to Doctors for Life (DFL), extensive experience with euthanasia
laws in other countries has revealed a consistent pattern. Assisted
suicide is presented to the public as a last resort necessary to alleviate
human suffering. Once this becomes acceptable to the public, says DFL, the
categories of people deemed expendable steadily expands to include those
perceived to have a diminished value to society or to themselves.

In the Netherlands, doctors have been allowed to practice active
euthanasia since 1973. While Dutch death regulations initially required
that euthanasia be strictly limited to the sickest patients, it has been
steadily redefined with the protective guidelines gradually eroded. As a
result, Dutch doctors now legally kill the terminally ill, the chronically
ill, disabled people and depressed people, on demand, Doctors for Life
reports. Furthermore, repeated studies sponsored by the Dutch government
show that a significant number of patients are killed by their doctors
every year as a result of involuntary euthanasia.

Consequently, says DFL, "eugenic infanticide has now become common in the
Netherlands (even though babies cannot ask to be killed)." According to a
1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet,
approximately 8 percent of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal
injections. An alarming 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of
pediatricians who responded to Lancet surveys had killed babies. "A more
severe slide down this slippery slope has been well documented in Belgium
with euthanasia advocates actively fighting to not only expand the
categories of killable people but to also force health care workers with
moral objections to participate in assisted suicides against their
consciences."

[mannyamador]

Filipino lawmakers weigh aggressive population-control measure
http://cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=41812

Manila, Jan. 13 (C-fam.org/CWNews.com) - The Filipino Congress is set to vote on January 16 on
a bill that critics say would discriminate against families with more than two children and would
require the Catholic Church to provide *** education in schools and to pay for the sterilizations
of its employees, the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-fam) reports.

According to reports from the Filipino Family Fund, various Filipino legislators, arguing that the
Philippines needs a more aggressive policy of population control, introduced a bill that is strikingly
similar to the one-child policy of Communist China. The "Responsible Parenting and Population
Control Act of 2005" includes a preference in education for two-child families, free access to
abortifacients, mandatory *** education for children as young as 10 years old, and prison terms
for health-care providers who refuse to provide sterilization services for a population that is 87
percent Catholic and 5 percent Muslim.

Eileen Macapanas Cosby, Executive Director of the Filipino Family Fund, told Friday Fax, a weekly
bulletin from C-fam, that the bill "paves the way" for "the kind of human rights nightmare that is
already" taking place "in China, with its coercive sterilization and contraception practices." She
calls the proposed bill "China-lite."

Cosby said the bill's sponsor is reporting that he has the votes of 135 of 238 members of the
Filipino House. If the bill were to pass the House it would go to the Filipino Senate, where Cosby
said that another piece of legislation would be attached making it even more dangerous. "It will
provide for a centralized bureaucracy that would be run by three non-elected officials," she said.
This new bureaucracy, she said, would oversee the implementation of the legislation.

Cosby said that Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is likely to veto the bill if it passes both
houses of Congress. As in the American system, the bill would then return to Congress, where it
would need receive two thirds of the vote in both chambers to override the veto.

Pia de Solenni, Director of Life and Women's Issues at the Family Research Council, told the Friday
Fax that the activists drafting the "Responsible Parenting and Population Control Act of 2005" and
bringing it into the Legislature were "inspired by radical feminists in the West." She also pointed
out that these Filipino activists have a "myopic vision of what women's issues are." Most Filipino
women, she said, worry most about opportunities to have healthy children, irrespective of how
many they choose to have.