In part 1 of this post, we discussed China’s declining birthrate and how it will affect imports in the next few decades. Catch up here: Is the Chinese Import Dead – Part 1. Continuing on, there’s more to discuss:
Some other disturbing stuff
There are currently over 100M Chinese boys who will never find a wife. Unless of course they continue to head West into Vietnam to bring back enormous numbers of wives (which they are currently doing with the help of some “creative” entrepreneurs). So much for Vietnam boys finding wives…
There are 165M Chinese elderly citizens with no health care that are totally dependent on one son to support them. By 2025 this figure is estimated to rise to 225M, putting enormous pressure on China’s middle class.
But it gets worse. In healthy countries, for every 100 girls there are 103 boys born. It’s just the way the biological cookies crumbles, I guess. But in China, it’s roughly 130 boys for every 100 girls, with some areas of China clocking in 192 boys for every 100 girls. If you’re a boy in China it has to be like winning the lottery if you’re lucky enough to find a girl.
It’s so bad currently that if you have a baby girl in China, you need 24-hour police protection so she doesn’t get stolen to becomes some other village’s future pool of breeding stock.
It takes two generations
That’s how long it takes to correct a birth rate. And China has hit the wall. Of course 2025 is a long way away from today, but judging by my gray hair as of late, time seems to be passing much more quickly than we all realize.
China isn’t taking over the world any time soon. Europe and Singapore are dying, and Turkey and Iran probably won’t survive another generation. But India’s whopping 2.8 birth rate and their decision to be a world power may very well allow them to blow significantly by China.
Of course India kills seven thousand new born baby girls each day, and you can still rent someone’s wife for about $175 a month. Needless to say, they have their own challenges to overcome in the years ahead.
How to protect yourself
In the meantime, my wife and I are contributing to our nations birth rate (currently at 2.1 but only because of immigration – it’s really closer to 1.8). Our first son was born on July 13th at 5:50pm, weighing in at 8 pounds 5.5 ounces!
So If I were you, I’d have more babies if that’s a possibility — and then I’d begin strategizing on eventually phasing out that Chinese import line in the years ahead. It doesn’t appear that China’s labor costs are going to trend downwards any time soon.
Note this data was taken from a speech given by Herbert Meyer, widely credited with being the first U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union’s collapse — a forecast for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, which is the Intelligence Community’s highest honor.
