What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.
So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?
By the way, you don't have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian "public service" of California has been metaphorically face-down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book "America Alone," I put the Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent. In other words, head for the hills, Armageddon, outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn't going to have a 2040 - not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.
Showing posts with label birth rates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth rates. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Is immigration the answer to low birth rates? Not so much, but it does wonders for welfare rolls
From Mark Steyn:
"The reality is encapsulated in this remarkable statistic from the Bundesausländerbeauftragte: between 1971 and 2000, the number of foreign residents in Germany rose from three million to about 7.5 million. Yet the number of foreigners in work stayed more or less exactly the same at about two million. Four decades ago, two-thirds of German immigrants were in the workforce. By the turn of the century, barely a quarter were. These days, Germany’s Gastarbeiter (“guest workers”) are heavy on the Gast, ever lighter on the Beiter.
Turks in Germany have three times the rate of welfare dependency as ethnic Germans, and their average retirement age is 50. In the Stockholm suburb of Tensta, where immigrants and their children make up 85 per cent of the population, one-fifth of women in their late 40s collect disability benefits. Foreigners didn’t so much game the system as discover, thanks to family “reunification” and other lollipops, that it demanded nothing of them. Indeed, entire industries were signed up for public subsidy. Two-thirds of French imams are on the dole."
"The reality is encapsulated in this remarkable statistic from the Bundesausländerbeauftragte: between 1971 and 2000, the number of foreign residents in Germany rose from three million to about 7.5 million. Yet the number of foreigners in work stayed more or less exactly the same at about two million. Four decades ago, two-thirds of German immigrants were in the workforce. By the turn of the century, barely a quarter were. These days, Germany’s Gastarbeiter (“guest workers”) are heavy on the Gast, ever lighter on the Beiter.
Turks in Germany have three times the rate of welfare dependency as ethnic Germans, and their average retirement age is 50. In the Stockholm suburb of Tensta, where immigrants and their children make up 85 per cent of the population, one-fifth of women in their late 40s collect disability benefits. Foreigners didn’t so much game the system as discover, thanks to family “reunification” and other lollipops, that it demanded nothing of them. Indeed, entire industries were signed up for public subsidy. Two-thirds of French imams are on the dole."
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Escape the silk stocking radicals; move to Canada
Just as the United States appears to be squandering its legacy of individual freedom and opportunity in favor of rule by silk stocking radicals, a safety valve appears to be opening up on our border.
Canada, it seems, is on course to run out of people.
Like other developed societies, Canada has a low birth rate. It isn't just that Canadian couples are wary of child-rearing; it's that, for many, hockey wins out over sex.
For years, Canada has been trying to deal with the problem by welcoming immigrants. But this hasn't worked very well because immigrants often choose the United States. The health care here is better. No long waits for service. Just show up at the emergency room door. Illegal immigrants get faster care in the United States than legals do in Canada.
The result is that immigration can't make up for the shortfall in Canadian births attributable to the popularity of childlessness and hockey.
How bad is the prospect of depopulation?
A new study shows that "the current influx of immigrants — about 0.67 per cent of the resident population — barely makes a dent.
The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.
Even then, the government would need to impose rigid "age filters" to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals."
Chances are, however, that the study did not embrace the possibility of mass migration of Americans to Canada, Americans who are appalled as the silk stocking radicals grab more and more power through the big lie of global warming and the over-hyped flaws of the world's best medical care.
Journalist Mark Steyn is a student of demographics. Here he is on National Review's Corner:
"The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.
"For much of the developed world, the 'credit crunch', the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis."
Canada, it seems, is on course to run out of people.
Like other developed societies, Canada has a low birth rate. It isn't just that Canadian couples are wary of child-rearing; it's that, for many, hockey wins out over sex.
For years, Canada has been trying to deal with the problem by welcoming immigrants. But this hasn't worked very well because immigrants often choose the United States. The health care here is better. No long waits for service. Just show up at the emergency room door. Illegal immigrants get faster care in the United States than legals do in Canada.
The result is that immigration can't make up for the shortfall in Canadian births attributable to the popularity of childlessness and hockey.
How bad is the prospect of depopulation?
A new study shows that "the current influx of immigrants — about 0.67 per cent of the resident population — barely makes a dent.
The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.
Even then, the government would need to impose rigid "age filters" to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals."
Chances are, however, that the study did not embrace the possibility of mass migration of Americans to Canada, Americans who are appalled as the silk stocking radicals grab more and more power through the big lie of global warming and the over-hyped flaws of the world's best medical care.
Journalist Mark Steyn is a student of demographics. Here he is on National Review's Corner:
"The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.
"For much of the developed world, the 'credit crunch', the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis."
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