Basically, a substantial amount of the of economic growth we have achieved in that time, which allows for the funding of every part of the social safety net.
rrmorton
3685
There you go.
Looks like Silicon Valley types will be migrating to get away from the fires… they’re the types who like hiking and nature stuff that these empty, red states have to offer. As long as we build the necessary infrastructure to support the hippy orgies, I’m down. Literally fuck their feelings.
Thrag
3686
Didn’t the GOP senate never actually declare a recess despite not being in session to prevent recess appointments?
What do you think is happening with Japan, then?
Whether you agree with the thesis or not, it’s hardly ridiculous or stupid. That’s the point.
Tortilla
3688
94% of the usage (using the number from your link) is ag. But it’s a valid point, so I’m willing to amend my original statement to reflect that.
Here’s my original statement:
“There’s plenty of water. It would mean reigning in water for irrigation which would piss off the corporate ag interests but I consider that more of an unintended positive.”
I’m open to any reasonable re-wording that will help adjust that statement to reflect that the price of diverting more water towards people will come at the expense of agricultural interests.
If the billion immigrants don’t come here, they’re going to be drinking water somewhere else. It’s a logistical problem, and not one you have to solve immediately since they won’t all come immediately.
The US population has basically doubled every 50 years for the last hundred or so. At that rate, we’ll have a billion people in about 80 years. Call it a hundred years. I guess we are doomed.
Scuzz
3690
You ever been to Phoenix in the summer?
Speaking as someone who has just moved from London to Denver, I’d argue that you can ignore the mountains and the prairies, and just start using the space you’ve already allocated to these things you call cities. Which, in terms of total land use, mostly seem to consist of 4-lane roads, car parks, and suburban lawns.
magnet
3692
America isn’t going to attract any immigrants unless it can promise them a better life, which almost certainly involves using more food or energy.
And despite that increased growth, inequality worsened.
Your argument is functionally identical to the Republican solution for economy: as long as the economy grows, everything else will magically take care of itself.
They have a demographic crisis, where the number of young people is not high enough to support the number of old people. This has nothing to do with absolute population size, in fact there are smaller countries (like Iran) where young people far outnumber old people.
If Japan reached a billion people, there is no guarantee that their problem would go away. The actual solution has to do with balancing fertility and immigration rates against lifespan, not setting some population target.
Yglesias thinks America needs one billion people because otherwise China’s size would prevent America from being “the greatest nation on Earth”.
That’s both ridiculous and stupid.
If Los Angeles suddenly started annexing its surrounding suburbs so that it could overtake NYC as the greatest city in America, we would ridicule them. The greatest city in America is not the one with most people. And don’t tell Yglesias that by population NYC is no longer even in the top ten cities worldwide, I don’t want to read his suggestions!
Nesrie
3693
Just want to say that water is… a problem. Like it’s been an ongoing problem in drought areas, which exists in more than a few places.
I have no idea if this Yg is being serious or not, but China’s population problems are dwindling anyway, due to that whole one child thing that led to missing an important component in that whole having babies thing.
Depends on where they are coming from. In any event, the question is how much more, when? It’s hardly obvious at all that the difference is as great as you make it out to be. In any event, you seem to be arguing that people should stay where they are and live in poverty for the good of the rest of us.
It isn’t my argument, and no one is relying on magic. Have you actually read his argument? Cuz I’m guessing not.
No, they have a stagnant population, with no or negative population growth, which leaves them with stagnant or negative economic growth. No one doubts that Japan would benefit from more immigration, assuming it was immigration by young, working-age people.
It isn’t about the size of the population, it’s about the growth in the population.
Ah, so you haven’t read his book.
magnet
3695
… China is leading the relative decline of the United States of America as a great power and threatens its position as the world’s number one state in the not-too-distant future… America should try to stay number one … Maybe [China and India will] just stumble and fail, in which case we will stay number one. But it would be unfortunate for hundreds of millions to be consigned to poverty forever. It’s not an outcome we have it within our power to guarantee… By contrast, tripling the nation’s population to match the rising Asian powers is something that is in our power to achieve… The United States has been the number one power in the world throughout my entire lifetime and throughout the living memory of essentially everyone on the planet today. The notion that this state of affairs is desirable and ought to persist is one of the least controversial things you could say in American politics today. We should take that uncontroversial premise seriously, adopt the logical inference that to stay on top we’re going to need more people - about a billion people."
Ridiculous and stupid, and that’s just the first page.
Enidigm
3696
So basically this whole discussion is a proxy for immigration laws, then? Because arguing that what the world needs is a lot more people is the least sensible “liberal” take i’ve seen in a long time.
You haven’t read it, then?
In part. Yglesias has long argued that we should want high rates of immigration, particularly among young working-age people, because it could be a big driver of economic growth and a means of funding things like growing social security / Medicare rolls. The book — which I have not and likely will not read — seems to go further, arguing for social measures to increase domestic birth rates as well (availability of affordable child care, for example) in addition to a very permissive immigration regime.
Reducing it to we have to be bigger than China is, well, stupid. Certainly he offers that, but it isn’t a reasonable summary of what he’s getting at.
In any event, if we grow at the same rate for the next hundred years as we did for the last hundred, there will be a billion Americans, more or less.
Tortilla
3698
Advocating for more population is a bit silly. Arguing that the population growth will probably happen anyways, so we should try to make its here for the betterment of our own lot makes sense.
Enidigm
3699
I mean i’m just cutting corners and getting to the heart of it, but liberals are going to have to come up with positive futures compatible with negative growth rates. Or invent warp drives and spaceships. Endless growth as the answer to the problems of the world is something like a 19th C. railroad baron might say.
Because we can’t grow forever.
The problem, as far as i can tell, is that liberals see negative growth rates as being incompatible with progressive immigration laws.
magnet
3700
Well, since that’s the justification for his book, then he’s stupid.
There is nothing wrong with arguing for more immigration. But that’s been done before by better writers, and it wouldn’t sell his new book.
You don’t have any idea if that is the (sole) justification, or if it is stupid to use that justification. It might sell more books, popularize the ideas and cause them to be enacted!
magnet
3702
A stupid argument for a good idea is still a stupid argument. And though I can’t probe the deep recesses of Yglesias’s mind, I know for a fact that he put his stupid argument on the front page as well as the cover of his new book.
This seems a strange way to put it. It might be true that we can’t grow forever (is it?), but why is that particularly a problem of liberals? Who else is suggesting better, positive futures that don’t rely on positive growth rates? Conservatives? Martians?
I don’t know what that means. Which liberal says that negative growth rates are incompatible with progressive immigration laws?
