2012-07-27

Birthrates decline, as socionomics forecast

First the thesis:A Socionomic View of Demographic Trends
When aggregate feelings of friskiness, daring and confidence wax, people engage in more sexual activity with the aim of having children. When these feelings wane, so does the desire for generating offspring. It takes about nine months between the procreative impulse and a child’s birth, which is why, at least at market bottoms, annual data on births lag annual data on the stock market by one year. Figure 2 shows the same data, lagged by one year to reflect conceptions. The result is not an extrapolation or theory, nor is it the result of elaborate exercises in data fitting, as we find so often with hypotheses that demographics drive the economy. We know that a procreative decision or impulse is required nine months prior to a birth, so there is no theoretical presumption in repositioning and renaming this data.10 Now the two major lows line up exactly.

Let’s investigate the relationship at market tops. As you can see from the slash marks imposed upon Figure 2, the rate of procreation has declined prior to major tops in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This is precisely the same behavior exhibited by indicators of market breath and rates of change for stock averages, which always peak and begin declining before the major blue-chip averages top out. To visualize the similarity, let’s graph the relationship between procreative activity and the success of the broad stock market, not just the blue chips.

Today's news: Americans put off having babies amid poor economy

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