The “Population Kings” of 2100: America and India
– But Trump Could Screw Up America’s Chances
The US and India are currently on course to rule the world by year 2100 – but a recent Trump idea (?) could destroy America’s chances.
We sometimes get so tangled in minutia that we lose track of the big picture: in long-term geo-politics, population matters. When you combine population with a booming economy, like America’s today, you get an unstoppable force.
And a country with a large population such as India can not only create large army but also could have a thriving economy with a wealth of young consumers and a hotbed of needs.
So, the US matters and India matter, because of their coming population growth, which will exceed that of other nations.
The rest of the world will be a deflating side-show, provided the US and India an amusing diversion as they both run the globe.
We’ll delve into the population numbers in a second, but let’s pay attention first to what Trump is preparing to do to America’s numbers: he is preparing to shoot it in the head.
In countless heads, in fact.
Trump is calling for the mass removal of undocumented immigrants.
This means he would purge the country of some 10-12 million immigrants.
It would be like ripping a major organ out of our bodies without any plan for the consequences – or without any pain-killer.
The disruption would be monumental. The effect on the US Public Service from having to recruit essentially a fascist column of troops dedicated to finding, arresting and expelling the migrants would be a terrible warp. It is a transformation that would probably not go away – which is of course what the Republican Guard is looking for! Any increase in crowd-clubbing troops is welcome for the people wo have not won a majority vote in the US in decades.
People can’t be trusted…they have to be controlled.
The impact on couples would be severe. Many – an estimated one million – are already married to a US citizen. Two-thirds have liaisons and perhaps offspring with US citizens and they would have to be separated. We’ve seen what Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ separation policy has already done, where adults were separated from their children as they entered the US. More than 5,500 children, including infants, were removed from their parents and up to 2,000 still have not been reunited as of March 2024.
The 10-12 million immigrants have been in the US for an average of 16 years, so not only are they deeply embedded in the US, but they have nowhere to return to. Their old life is gone.
Trump says there won’t be any mass prison camps for deportees, because his government would expel them so quickly. There are actually processes that have to be followed, so that is nonsense from the start. But we should also consider how his ‘border wall’ idea went – where Mexico was going to pay for the wall – and reflect that deportation holding centers would not only be needed, but would be needed for a long time.
The courts would be jammed with people desperately applying for Permits for their spouses, partners and children. The tensions in the camps would be horrible…your whole life is being torn apart.
Other migrant moves have hit the wall. Remember DeSantis sending plane-loads of immigrants to New England? There is now a lawsuit pending against the company that arranged for the high-profile flights. DeSantis himself only escaped prosecution because the facts were muddled about who was responsible for which actions. But in a Trump-directed mass expelling, there would be a very clear target for lawsuits.
I wonder how many gold sneakers he would have to sell to defend himself?
Also, many law enforcement officers are reluctant to try to round up immigrants, saying it is not in their job description. As one observer noted “They say they don’t want to put baby seats in their patrol vehicles.”
Think it won’t happen? Trump’s people are already scouting for locations for detention camps.
Beyond the human pain and pointless economic damage, there is the fact that America replies on immigration - of every kind - to retain a growing economy.
In the past year alone, the growth in immigrants accounted for 65% of America’s total population increase.
Without a high immigration path, America’s population-driven economy will actually shrink. No one will be buying houses – real estate markets would crash – and consumer goods companies would tank. Only with a high immigration path can America’s accustomed economic growth be maintained.
New immigration will also slow down the average age rise in America; lower average age means prolonged economic growth. Older people are generally classified as an economic burden to be carried by the younger taxpayers.
The objective is to be a populous nation, because they can not only supply manpower for very large armies, but they can also project the economic power of large labor and consumer markets - if they have a functioning economy.
In the non-Trump scenario, we can count on immigration to carry America through to a projected population of 450-million by the year 2100.
The US now has 341-million people, so that is a reasonable growth figure: an increase of about 100-million people in the next three-quarters of a century.
Lest anyone get panicked and ask: ‘where will they all fit in?’, space per se is not an issue. Buckminster Fuller was fond of saying that the entire population of the world could fit into New York City alone, if they did it in two shifts: while one shift was sleeping, the other would have enough room to square dance.
Not what I would be doing, but point made.
The year 2100 makes a jumble out of our current views of world importance.
In the year of 2100, Europe is no longer a central player, because its population growth has largely stalled and by 2100 will be smaller than it is today. Western Europe has increased its population from 142 million in 1950 to about 191 million and will level off.
In this kind of brutal calculation, China does not matter, because its population is shrinking. This is a purely man-made problem, attributable to the genius of Chairman Mao and his “one child” program.
China would have a population approximately equal in size to America’s, but not equal in quality.
Because of China’s autocratic system China will be a nation of older people – fully one-third of them will be older than 50.
A side-effect in China will be the crumbling of the real estate market, as fewer buyers will exist to pay for property. Most family wealth in China is held in real estate.
In India, 80% of the population will be younger than 50. This is a huge boost to the work force and consumerism, which drives economic growth.
While Russia will not be a major player, it is tempting to pay attention to the pain it is inflicting on itself.
Would you want to move to Russia?
Neither would other potential immigrants. It will never enjoy America’s attraction and immigrant boom.
Between 1950 and 2015, the Russian Federation, which until 1991 was the core region of the former Soviet Union, also increased its population: from around 103 million to about 150 million shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since then it has declined to about 143 million. By the end of the 21st century, the population of the Russian Federation could decline to 117 million.
Some of that decline is due to the impact of aging, and some to the fact that Russian women simply do not want to have children anymore (generally speaking). Its death rate is twice as high as its birth rate. The level of suicide is high. More than 3 million Russians have left the room since Putin started his war against Ukraine (read: democracy).
And while we all think of Russia as a huge country, the demographic picture tells a different story.
Russia is two cities surrounded by wilderness.
Russia’s population density per kilometre works out to seven people…six by the year 2100.
That’s actually more than Canada (4) or Australia (3) but these countries are growing, and those density numbers will rise. Both nations will pass Russia’s density by 2100.
The most interesting part of this is that the Russian Federation’s population is slipping because it has suffered a retrogression in health levels that is “unprecedented for any urbanized literate society during times of peace.”
The greatest killer of men and women in Russia is cardiovascular deaths, such as heart disease and stroke. These represent the "accumulation of a lifetime of insults"--often having to do with behavioral factors. The second greatest cause of death in Russia is due to injury and poisoning--many of which are alcohol-related.
The third would be war against Ukraine – estimated to have already cost Russia million casualties.
With its decline in population will come a decline in economic prospects. Its working age population will drop, its efficiency per worker will fall, and Russia’s current weakness will accelerate.
When its war against Ukraine ends, one wonders how long it will take for Ukraine to leapfrog past it with a stronger and larger economy.
Going back to a world overview, one very interesting event will be a turning-point that has never happened before: the predominant racial group on the planet will be Caucasoid.
At the outset: everybody is human and race does not mean superiority in any way. Also, race has nothing to do with skin colour.
A ‘race’ is a group that experts say can be discerned by skeletal structure alone, most often in the skull, and there are only four or five races of humans: Mongoloid, like the Chinese, Caucasoid, like Europeans, Negroid, like Nigerians, and Australoids, like the Australian natives. Some add a fifth: Amerind. The inhabitants of India, BTW, are Caucasoids.
With India overtaking China in population, Caucasoids will take first place globally. Negroids will not be far behind, because the population of Africa is shooting forward, and 80% of Africans are Negroid.
There have been many attempts to look further into the future and picture what a ‘merged’ human would look like, with all races combined. Personally, I think that if we go that far into the future, we will all look like cyborgs anyway.
But one thing is certain: when that person in the future is described – bearing in mind that the US and India are the dominant influences in the world – the language used in the description will be English.
Which is very appropriate, considering that it is a blend of words from dozens of languages.
A mongrel language, just like the people speaking it.
The really good thing to consider about the triumph of American + India, is that the two great theatre traditions get mixed: Hollywood and Bollywood.
We’d all feel right at home…on the top of the world.