Ahmadinejad: Start Having Babies!

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has appealed for his country to be fruitful and multiply...


"Western countries have problems, and since they have a negative population growth, they are worried and scared that if our population grows we may dominate them," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Of course, he didn't mention how the Iranian economy would handle a population boom, as their "official" unemployment and inflation rate stands at 12 and 10 percent, respectively, but is thought to be twice that. Most families have to hold several jobs just to make ends meet, and struggle even then.

Iran's current policies discourage families from having more than two children, but Ahmadinejad want to do away with that, saying the country has the capacity to go from 70 million to 120 million people. In order to facilitate a 50 million children boom, he says that he is willing to pay families that have working mothers full-time wage, while only allowing them to work part-time hours.

Maybe this is the misstep we've been waiting for; if this starts happening, they may very well collapse their already very fragile economy.

The reformist Etemad-e-Melli newspaper called Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks "ill-considered". It added: "He stresses the necessity of population growth and the triumph of Iran over western governments, ignoring the fact that what leads to such triumph is not population size but knowledge, technology, wealth, welfare and security."