From me to you

Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty - washingtonpost.com: "'I knew it existed, but I didn't know how it works,' said Espinoza, who lives with her husband and children in a squatter's hut in a vast, stinking garbage dump by Manila Bay."

Good comparison of two countries, Thailand and the Philippines, and the effect of birth rates on the living standard of the local people.

According to the article, the Thais made low cost birth control aids available, the Filipinos did not. 'In 1970, the population of each country was about 36 million people and growing at about 3 percent a year. But with an aggressive family planning program that provides the poor with free contraceptives, Thailand has since reduced its population growth rate to 0.9 percent. In the Philippines, the rate has declined sluggishly to about 2.1 percent.

There are now about 26 million more people in the Philippines than in Thailand.

"It's a no-brainer," said Ernesto M. Pernia, professor of economics at the University of the Philippines.

The Philippines now produces 16 million metric tons of rice a year -- and needs to import 2 million tons more to meet local demand.

"If the Philippines had pursued what Thailand has done, the Philippines would be only consuming 13 metric tons of rice per annum," Pernia said. "We could be a net exporter of 3 million metric tons."

Besides increased food security, the Philippines could have lifted 3.6 million more people out of poverty if it had followed Thailand's population growth trajectory, according to Pernia's analysis.

"Even when there is widespread corruption, insurgent violence and other powerful reasons for poverty, the evidence from across Asia is that good population policy by itself contributes to significant poverty reduction," he said.'

Why the difference? "Birth and poverty rates here are among the highest in Asia. And the Philippines, where four out of five of the country's 91 million people are Roman Catholic, also stands out in Asia for its government's rejection of modern contraception as part of family planning."

This is the same future vision that the Pope and his cohorts have for the US. He was just here parading around the US, espousing his views on immigration and birth control. It is very obvious that these policies have nothing to do with god and everything to do with the collections and coffers of the catholic church. Catholic Americans have done the correct thing and are no longer breeding beyond the capacity of the land to support them. They have also rejected these outmoded primitive beliefs that this church tries to shove down their throats.

As a result, this church has embarked on a journey to force Americans to accept a huge influx of catholics from other countries, an excess I might add, mainly due to these same outmoded church birth policies. This church breaks our laws, uses our resources, and ignores the will of the American people to chose their own path.

If this criminal, the pope, was not affiliated with a powerful foreign governmemt, the church, he would be arrested and the church charged under the Rico statutes.

It is time we stopped honoring these crooks and started to treat them like the criminals that they really are.