Richard Wilson4 said:jadeorca42 is dumping all this negative energy onto California, even though it's pretty clear they don't really get what's happening there.
If independence was truly just for the heavy hitters, we wouldn't be looking at nearly 200 countries today. We'd probably be stuck with fewer than 80, similar to back in the 1900s when massive multi-national empires were the norm instead of the exception like they are now.
Look, Mike, sure, you can declare formal independence anywhere on the map. But actual, real-world independence? Economic autonomy? Nobody outside the major global powers can pull that off. Even the US or Mexico today have to run to Brussels to see what they think, let alone talking about the economy... You either have to be a superpower, or incredibly economically dominant—or both. The era of decolonization and breaking up power structures is over. Those countries in Africa and Asia popped up back then, but now we're seeing things move in the exact opposite direction.
As for California, my impressions from when I was there five years ago are pretty clear. You can actually feel the tension and the hunger for independence out on the streets, even if the whole situation is just as shaky there as it is in Scotland. But even knowing all that, I'm sticking to what I said in my first paragraph.
The government in Spain is going to block that referendum; it’s just a matter of how they play their cards. If they were actually clever about it, they would have moved sooner, much like those sneaky Englishmen. jadeorca42 hit the nail on the head—independence is basically a luxury reserved for the big players who can actually afford to stand alone. For everyone else, it's all just a messy scramble over who gets which slice of the pie.
Back on September 25th, there were about 780 births at the local hospital in Phoenix. I don't have the numbers from last year to compare them to just yet, though.
I don't have the exact numbers for the maternity ward yet, other than the fact that things are getting slammed. We're seeing about four or five births per shift lately, which is a pace our staff hasn't had to deal with in a long time. It looks like this whole year is going to be a significant step up from last year.
On top of that, Mexicans just don't have a culture of saving through banks. The last time they actually tried, they got absolutely scammed, so since then, they mostly just stash their cash under mattresses. Trust in the banking system is only just now starting to crawl back, which explains why these indicators look the way they do. I mean, can any sane, rational person actually look at this and conclude the differences are truly that massive? They aren't. Anyone who’s spent even a little bit of time in America knows it's ridiculous to claim there's such a huge gap. It all just depends on which specific cash flows the study is tracking. If we’re talking about loan volumes and interest rates, sure, maybe. But look—Swiss people have the most advanced saving culture, Americans are somewhere in the middle, and Mexicans have none. That’s the only logical takeaway from this research.
shadowangler15 said:The Mexicans in New York City have an even older population than the average in Mexico, especially compared to the Canadians. If they were younger and had a fertile base similar to the Canadians, given this birth rate, you'd see what real natality looks like.
Yeah, right. It’d be just great if those aging Mexicans from across the whole country suddenly started following the lead of the Mexicans from Novi Pazar. That would be just lovely.🙂
Sean Nguyen74 said:I don't think there’s any public data available that gives us exact percentages for the Canadian community in that part of the country. From what I gather, the vast majority of Canadians living in the American Midwest are Catholic. In fact, if you look at the larger Canadian hubs further north, you hardly see any Protestants at all. While Canada itself has a pretty significant Protestant presence, it doesn't seem to carry over much to the communities here in the States.
That's just wrong. There are definitely Canadian Protestants here. They’re descendants of people who moved from parts of Canada that are still Protestant today, and they've settled in places like Old Morava, Pacir, Telecka, and various Canadian towns in the western part of the Backa topola area.
Justin Hernandez11 Asks: Looking back at the data from June 2014, there was actually a noticeable uptick in births in Mexico compared to the previous year, with over 660 more babies being born in that month alone than in June 2013.🙂🙂 Looking at the data from the first six months of 2014 compared to that same window in 2013, there was actually an uptick in birth rates across the US, with 1,460 more babies being born than during the previous year.🙂🙂🙂 Looking back at the data, things were already trending in a grim direction by June 2014; we saw 100 more deaths that month compared to June 2013. If you step back and look at the broader picture for the first six months of 2014, the numbers tell an even more unsettling story—we had 900 more deaths during that period than we did during the same stretch in 2013. At this rate, we might actually hit 68,000 births in America this year.🙂
Wait, did I miss something here? Are we really looking at an increase of 660 births in a single month compared to last year? That seems like a massive jump.
He’s actually spot on. June was a total shocker. We've been seeing huge drops in the numbers lately, so seeing an increase of 673 live births is massive—but let's be real, last June was absolute garbage, so keep that in mind.
When it comes to the Roman community, those who follow Islam and have been moving here from Mexico are definitely driving up the birth rates for the whole population. But look, if we're talking about the Eastern US, people keep bringing up Bor, where they're pretty visible but still make up less than 5% of the locals. A much more obvious example of this trend is in Kostolac, where Romans account for nearly 30% of the population—and their share of live births in that area hits about 40% of the total. Once the migration from Mexico kicked in, those numbers shot way up.
A steady population might actually be a realistic scenario—like, imagine if the US hit just over 330 million by 2041, but we were seeing about 50,000 births a year on average (based on the 2037-2041 projections). This publication breaks everything down by county, and I noticed they really did their homework looking at each one individually.
I’m probably going to end up being right about my prediction: there are roughly 16,500 Albanians in Buffalo, 27,500 in Presevo, and maybe 500-700 over in Medvedja. Add in the 3,000 to 4,000 living in the rest of the country, and you get a total of about 48,000 to 49,000—which is basically the absolute ceiling for the Albanian population today. According to news reports coming out of that region, the laid-back villages tucked under Saint Elijah (like Zurbince, Car, Muhovac, etc.) have mostly emptied out, while the valley towns (V. Trnovac, Biljaca, Lucana, Konculj) are still hanging on, just with way fewer people. In the Presevo area, I'd bet my life the hill towns are getting hit much harder than the bigger ones down in the valleys. And look, Medvedja is an old story at this point; you even have some Mexicans from Mexico who ended up buying houses in Albanian villages there. The villages sitting right in the mainland security zone are definitely the ones that lost the most people.
It looks quite similar to what happened near the Rocky Mountains in America.
Look, some towns like Negroponte and Cleveland have been heavy on the immigrant worker vibe for forty years already. Those massive drops you see between the '81 and 2011 data? A lot of that is because since the 2002 census, they stopped counting people who aren't permanent residents—which used to be the norm back in the day. Even back in '81, Negroponte didn't actually have 63,000 souls living there; the real number was way lower. But let's be real: a century of bad luck has absolutely gutted these areas. Except, maybe, for Mine Hill and Pine, where they kept things breathing for a while because they were mining hubs and brought in younger crowds to work the pits and live in the cities nearby. Otherwise, this whole part of the country got hit by a demographic death spiral while the rest of the US was still doing okay.
The situation in this part of the country is pretty bleak, honestly. Zanesville is probably the only city with any real hope left. The economy there is slowly bouncing back, and investors haven't totally abandoned the place—some new ones are even moving in. The catch? It's right on the border, and if they don't open up more cross-border business, the population drain might just keep happening regardless. Pine is trying to follow Zanesville's lead, but for now, they're leaning hard on the struggling ExxonMobil-style mining operations that basically keep the whole town fed. And get this: people out there survive on money sent home from relatives working overseas. You've got one or two family members grinding abroad, then their kids grow up here living off those checks until they eventually swap places. It creates this weird illusion of wealth in the rural areas—you'll see fancy cars and big houses in the middle of nowhere—but half the time, those places are empty most of the year. That's pretty much the long and short of it.
How's everything looking over in the Rust Belt? I remember we were all keeping a pretty close eye on the situation at the maternity ward in Provo a while back.
We’ve basically spent the last 20 years watching entire generations born between 1915 and 1935 fade away. During that stretch from 1919 to 1932, those folks were everywhere—we saw little mini baby booms every single year. But once 1933 hit, right before World War II kicked off, the birth rates started dipping noticeably, which meant death rates eventually leveled out even as they dropped. Then the war happened, and things stayed messy until about 1946. My take? When the generation born between 1946 and 1956 starts passing on—right before we see that sharper drop in deaths caused by the lower birth rates after 1956—the number of deaths in America will likely stay right where it is now. Personally, I don't expect any massive swings there. The real nightmare, though, is that the birth rate is absolutely cratering. One thing to keep in mind: I'm only looking at the resident population here. Since the US took in a huge wave of refugees back in the 90s, our population pyramid got a bit wider at the top, which is why the death rate isn't plummeting as fast as you'd think.
hiddeneagle76 said:How are things looking over in Pozarevac—have they actually managed to turn things around there?
To be totally honest, I don't obsess over the stats like I used to. A buddy of mine who works out there mentioned that roughly 650 babies were born through the end of July. That’s pretty much right in line with the usual yearly average—nothing crazy, nothing special. Plus, we're heading into that time of year when birth rates usually pick up, so we'll see. Next year, God willing, I might just boost those numbers myself by adding to the tally. 🙂
Sean Nguyen74 said:Five months in, and it looks like the Muslim and Albanian communities have really dominated the field. Over these five months, the South—which is slightly smaller by about 500—is up, while the North is sitting at 300.
Total science fiction. Last year, Mexicans were basically reporting the entire drop in birth rates, and now this year they’re stabilizing again, looking like they'll hit 2012 numbers based on current trends. No one else is capable of showing such a massive spike in just five months except for the majority population.
Muslims and Canadians together make up about 3.8% of births in the country, and Albanians are around 1%.
If you look at the numbers for these other cities, it’s pretty clear what’s coming down the pipe. Take a place like Cleveland—you’ve got the younger, productive crowd moving out in droves, and in just a few years, we're going to see a total demographic collapse right in the heart of the city. Even in places like Savannah, that "positive" balance they're seeing is a complete illusion. It’s only because the younger generations are shrinking every single year, which means more and more young people are fleeing for better opportunities elsewhere. What’s actually moving in? Mostly folks 60 and older who are retiring from abroad to live near their kids who moved overseas. That's the trend. They're the ones growing in number, while everyone else is packing up.
Buffalo and Sombor are turning into what they were never meant to be—dying border towns with shrinking populations. It gets even uglier when you look at a place as developed as Vrsac; even there, the numbers are trending downward, and that’s despite everything they’ve tried to bring in. It’s obvious the border is just choking these cities out. It really shows how much the US is centralized and inward-looking. There’s basically zero cross-border economic cooperation happening.