Many people are wondering when the recession will end. I don’t think anytime soon, and I will tell you the reason. Let’s go back to 1968, when Pope Paul VI said that that a new technology, the oral contraceptive, was gravely evil. Few believed him, because this new thing promised freedom and prosperity. The Pope said that oral contraceptives would drain love from marriages, promote promiscuity, and so lead to wide social damage. The “sexual revolution” (along with the drug companies) were bending all their might to promote contraception, and most people trusted the wisdom of the “sexperts” over that of the Pope.

   Contraceptives have so thoroughly soaked through our social fabric that we cannot imagine life without them. Most people would rather live without TV or smartphones than contraceptives, for we have accepted as a fact that life without carefree sex is unbearable. But Pope Paul pointed to an eternal truth: sex can never be “carefree” or “casual” anymore than having a baby is “carefree.” If we engage in sex without thinking, it will hurt us, even more than, say, playing with dynamite. Sex is more powerful than dynamite. It is meant for procreation, and the enduring love between a mother and father who beget children together. It is not a toy. Abusing this gift will eventually catch up with us. The deteriorating economy is one result of playing with sex as a toy rather than using it for its proper purpose (building stable and fruitful families).

   Let me explain the economic consequences of contraception. Economies are driven by two factors: labor and capital. The younger generation builds up its wealth (capital) by working (labor). When it gets towards retirement, that generation then invests its capital into the labor of the upcoming generations (children and grandchildren). The problem today is that, for fifty years, world populations have amassed capital but have been contracepting and aborting what should have been the next generation. Half the labor force is missing, and capital has nowhere to invest. It just sits there, useless and fruitless.

  The experts are coming up with all sorts of reasons why the world economy is faltering. These are contributing factors, but not the main reason. The main cause of our global economic crisis is demographic. Economic decline always follows demographic decline, and demographic decline always follows family decline. The recession we are in will not end anytime soon. Until we begin rebuilding our families, we will not have a healthy economy. This is the real inconvenient truth that the elites do not want to face.