Warm, fuzzy nomics

A couple of weeks ago there was a controversy when Fox News talking head John Gibson cited statistics showing that a growing proportion of children under 5 in the US are nonwhite, ending his commentary with a directive to go "have more babies." In response to the criticism, he explained that his chief worry was not a changing ethnic makeup, but the tensions that result from immigration, a possible consequence of decreased fertility. I even defended him, since the coverage of his fertility story was in many cases unbalanced — omitting relevant snips of his argument.

But today I read a Newsweek article by Paul Samuleson ("The End of Motherhood," 29 May 2006) that shows that unlike Italy and Germany, the fertility rate in the US is 2.1 children per woman, just over what it takes to replace the population. And the by-ethnicity breakdown shows that it's 1.9 for non-Hispanic Whites, which rules out the possibility that Hispanics are responsible for the sustainable rate.

Best of all, the article ends with this quote from Adam Smith:

[The] chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved

Aw, shucks. And they call it the dismal science…