Thanks
for all the condolences. Allen was a good neighbor and we'd BS at
times but we weren't really friends in that we didn't socialize
together. I will miss seeing him around though but I'm sure the property
will stay in the family.
Allen's
sudden departure did give me a little kick in the butt. We finally
made out wills for the first time ever back in 2009 but we just never
got around to signing them which does no good at all so I've
been all about getting them updated and this week they get signed and
notarized. Dying intestate in Texas is a pain for those you leave
behind. I know of two people whose spouses died without a will and
the children from the previous marriage of the deceased spouse laid claim to half the
property because they could rather than any legitimate claim. Of course, there are no children from previous marriages, but still, the state has no problem making claims of it's own.
So,
life goes on. I wonder what the world will be like in another 20
years when my grandkids are on the verge of their 40s with children
of their own, if that's even possible by then with male fertility
taking a big hit. I read a very interesting article
recently on the overpopulation of the planet that predicts that the
human population will stop growing within the lifespan of people
living today. The planet reached 7 billion people sometime last
March but it took longer than it did to add the 6th
billion, the first time that has ever happened. The trend has been
for shorter and shorter intervals but that has now changed and the
reason for that is fewer women having children and having fewer
children when they do. Some of that is from decreasing male fertility
and some from urbanization. Urban dwellers typically have fewer
children or none at all. Already Western Europe is losing
population, more people dying than being born, and could lose 1/4 of
their population by the end of the century. Russia and China stand
to lose half their population by the same time.
It
takes 2.1 live births per woman to maintain population equilibrium,
more for the population to grow. In Germany, the birthrate is 1.36;
in Spain, 1.48; in Italy, 1.4. The United States has managed to grow
mainly through immigration. Immigrants tend to have more children
than native born but even that is falling and with Trump restricting
immigration and even deporting parts of our population, the US no
longer has a birth rate that will maintain our population levels.
Even high birth rate countries like Mexico and India and Brazil have
fallen to barely sustainable rates and birth rates are diminishing in
Africa as well.
Some
experts believe the world population will top out at 9 billion
sometime around 2070. If these trends continue and the world birth
rate stabilizes at 1.5, then the world population will halve by 2200
and will fall to 1 billion 100 years later. This is all assuming, of
course, that the current trends continue and we don't self-annihilate
in a nuclear war.
Fertility
issues aside, I worry about the society my grandkids will be living
in. Will this country continue the decline it seems intent on,
taking us back socially to the pre-civil rights era of repression for
all who aren't white and male, ignoring the knowledge of science and
in general discouraging education of the population, turning their
backs on the poor and disabled, closing our doors to immigration?
Already farmers' crops are rotting in the fields because either
migrant workers aren't being allowed in or they just aren't coming
because of the hateful atmosphere Trump has engendered and all those
job hungry Americans aren't so eager to do farm work.
It
is possible that this nation will not recover from Trump since the
Republican controlled Congress seems content to let him and his white
supremacist buddies turn this country into a dictatorship, trampling
on our first amendment rights and attacking the free press
substituting his propaganda arm, Trump TV while the NRA foments armed
rebellion if Trump gets removed from office.
Our
constitution is only as strong as the people who believe in it and
defend it and it looks like those in power who swore to defend it and
uphold it have no real intention of doing so.
