Fast or Slow: The Reality of US Population Growth

This is the first segment of what used to be a longer video.

This is the updated version of the first video in the series.
Part Two of this Video: Comparing Decades and INternational Comparisons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP1iM...
The next three videos are now available.


Video Two: Carrying Capacity-Context is what Matters Most
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDoR...

Video Three: Census Obfuscation on the impact of Immigration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOoTT...

Video Four: A Tale of Two Booms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2GY-...

Still in production:
Video Five: America's pathetic family planning failures

Video Six: The Race Canard




VIDEO TWO: Carrying Capacity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK_Vns...
VIDEO THREE: Census Bureau Obfuscation on the Impact of Immigration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOoTT...
Part Three: A Tale of Two Booms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2GY-...

Although its origin is in dispute, I find it very easy to believe that it was Mark Twain who first said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots."

I often feel like I am just getting around to putting on my own boots, but there are differences between the communication of Mark Twain's era and today's lightning-fast, linked-up global community. One important difference is that not only does information travel around the planet at the speed of light, but also that much of that information remains indelibly stamped, if not necessarily discussed at any length, upon the memory banks of the human race.

Take for example, the statements made by the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau upon the release of the preliminary results of the 2010 Census. These are available at several different web addresses, where they are subject to careful scrutiny by those willing to seek them out. For me, these clips readily bring to mind another Twain remark, one he himself attributed to an earlier source, but which he greatly helped to popularize, which reads, "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

While I don't dispute the numbers released by the Census Bureau (although there are some who claim that they understate the size of the undocumented population), I do take issue with the statistical emphasis and the words he used to characterize the implications of those numbers. Describing those statistical methods and words from the U.S. Census Bureau, I can think of one word that fits perfectly: "obfuscation"—based on the verb "obfuscate," which is defined by Merriam Webster's Online dictionary as "to be evasive, unclear or confusing." Can you say "Demographic Obfuscation?"

Watch this six-minute video and see if you don't agree.

For more information: www.onethirdorunder.org

Read Derek Hoff's Op-Ed here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/opi...
and learn more about his book here:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/b...

• Category

  News & Politics

[Mark Powell]

You should check out the NYT editorial that makes a few of the same points I have emphasized in this video. It was written by Derek Hoff, a history professor at Kansas State University, and the author of "The State and the Stork," a book about U.S. population politics published last year by the University of Chicago Press.

You can find these links in my video description above.

[Mark Powell]

I agree that context is important (see my third video, for example) , but doesn't it also follow that the U.S. as the largest INDUSTRIAL nation, should not be obfuscating its massive numerical growth behind its modest percentage growth. The potential for deception is huge. Have you seen next video about international comparisons? In the CONTEXT of the population growth of the developed world, our addition of 60 million in 20 years is historically unprecedented and unsustainable. Thnks 4 cmmnt.

[bene951]

There are some serious flaws of logic in this video. Growth rate is an unambiguous term that ALWAYS refers to percentage growth. The "numerical growth" (which we call "net change") is MEANINGLESS out of context, which is why growth rates are so important. China's population has grown a whopping 200 million between 1990 and 2010, but that comes out to a modest 0.6% annualized growth rate compared to their roughly 10% annualized GDP growth per year. Out of context, 200 million sounds like a lot.