Is the population declining?

I just watched an interview on the Daily Show which espoused a theory I have heard a lot recently that the population will stabilize in 2040. They say people are having far less children everywhere in the world and this is going to peak in roughly 2040.

I suppose we will find out soon enough, but I am skeptical of this theory. It doesn't seem to take into account certain artificial motivators of population growth. In the show, they do mention the Catholic church, but more than that, I was thinking about business.

Business growth is dependent upon stock going up and the only way you can consistently do that on any measurable scale (i.e. the GDP) is by having a larger and larger consumer base to exploit.

Interesting.

Joseph Pine on what consumers want

What we need and what we want

If you have twenty-minutes, check out this awesome lecture:



If you don't have 20 minutes, let me break it down simply. There is a big difference between momentary happiness and long-term contentment... and very little correlation between the two. People often chase one expecting the other to follow.

But the most interesting part to me was at the very end where he says that basic human happiness costs about $60,000 per year. That is, if you make $60,000 or more, your statistical likelihood of happiness does not change. If you make less than that, your chance for happiness decreases.

I make roughly $25,000... and I think that is before taxes.

So it seems that should be a societal goal... to raise the minimum wage until we are all making $60,000 per year.

Let me work out some quick math. 52 weeks in a year... 40 hours per week... assuming paid vacations... 2080 hours per year.... That means for ideal utopianism, the minimum wage should be $29 per hour.

More importantly, that means no one really needs more than that.

Food for thought.