People love to push back on the claim that you can't "really" have economic growth without population growth. I say it all the time--and the trolls come out.

What do we know about it? A thread. 🧵 First, economics proceeds from theory and observation (empirics). When it comes to observation, we don't have much to go on when we imagine the depopulation of the future. For all of history up to the mid 18th century, human populations struggled to grow at all. And people were fairly poor.

Important long read from FT, nicely sums up the situation.

Birth rates are low and falling everywhere--in countries with pro-family policies and those without.

@AnnaRotkirch says "nobody really knows what's going on." That's why we have to study the outliers. #hannahschildren 🧵1/N

ft.com/content/500c0f… Leah, 5 kids, told me: "I think I always knew that I wanted to have children, but I never had a preconceived notion of, ‘I want to have x amount of kids.’ I just knew that I wanted to be a mom and I knew that I wanted to have a family. But I didn’t grow up with a lot of siblings and I didn’t have that experience and I didn’t grow up super religious.

Like I grew up in a reformed congregation which is basically completely secular except you do token Jewish things. And now, we’ve chosen a different life where we are much more intentionally practicing religion and the traditional." 2/N

Brilliant Kevin D. Williamson @NRO on weddings and debt:

“a society disconnected from divinity will always find something to worship
— what do you think is really going on in our ridiculous modern weddings?”

nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/mo… “And, then, the kicker: ‘I had to take out a loan from my retirement in order to pay for our wedding.’

At which point, I found myself saying out loud: “Well, no. No, you didn’t.”

I am going to start saying this once a week. We’re not a Christian country if kids are languishing in foster care in need of adoption. Fellow church-goers: we have to do better. Let us resolve in 2020 to take home every child who needs a home. Anything less is a scandal.

We should revive operation rescue. There is so much conservative angst right now we should put it to good use. #AbortionIsMurder #Conservatives #savethebabyhumans

Postcards for Macron #postcardsforMacron @CRPakaluk PhD Harvard (2010), AM Harvard (2002), BA UPenn (1998). Eight children by choice. Keep it going ladies, add your own. #postcardsforMacron

Nothing in the official #Synod2018 documents seems to pass the sniff test. For instance, to communicate with youth, Synod says: "We propose a two-element solution. Firstly, a series of small messages, updates, perhaps at the end of each week from the Commission for Information." "Secondly, a message from the Synod to the Youth of the World." Taken from: press.vatican.va/content/salast…