Blog #7 - Kayla Snell

One of the parts that stuck out to me in Goodwin's Economix book was the part where Goodwin discusses Malthus' idea. It reminded me of the overarching topics in a class I took last semester, Development in the Third World, and therefore it made me feel some of the frustration I felt back then. Among these pages are two panels that most strongly remind me of it, both on page 36. The first is of the two pregnant ladies that say "We're barefoot because we're pregnant!" and "We're pregnant because we're barefoot!" It highlights the important point that despite the fact that despite the huge cost involved to raise kids, poor people don't have much choice. For example, my grandma was dirt poor, but one of 13 kids because her parents needed the extra hands around the farm. Immediately after that is the second panel that reminded me of another important point that class brought up. Now, as a global population, we are using up our natural resources and polluting our planet to an alarming extent. The rich countries with wealthy white folk like to put the blame elsewhere. They say "It's a population problem. We are running out of resources because there are too many people. Those poor countries keep giving birth to children. It must be their fault." But really, the problem is consumption. We are running out of resources because Americans and the rest of the West won't stop buying crap! The people with 13 kids in Third World countries don't produce hardly any waste compared to us, yet we like to point our fingers just like the guy in the comic does to the poor beggar. So although Malthus' ideas contributed to economics being called the "dismal science," ignoring the issue of too much consumption in favor of too many people in order to place the blame on poor countries is perhaps just as dismal of a thought.