Demographical shift

“You can’t always get what you want.” – The Rolling Stones

Watching the recent riots in London, Athens, Rome and Moscow and the general strike in France one can’t help but think that the worst is to yet to come. Ostensibly, the reason for the protests was a cutting of one government service or another but in all these cases the level of violence and the destruction of other citizens’ property surely didn’t better the cause.

While tensions are still simmering, the unrest actually quietened down fairly quickly due to the inescapable fact that even the most anarchistic moron throwing Molotov cocktails must realize that yes, there is indeed a revolution happening. Since the end of World War II people in Western Europe, North America and Down Under have been able to enjoy hitherto unparalleled prosperity, freedom and opportunity, while only demanding a steadily increasing proportion of people’s incomes through taxation.

The party is now over. Big government is finding that squeezing the taxpayer is meeting resistance and that the promises of cheap education, universal health care and decent pensions aren’t going to be kept. In Britain, 500,000 civil service jobs are getting the axe. The Irish youth are again leaving for greener pastures. The generous welfare state is broke. Germany and Holland are experiencing an outflow of skilled people to the United States, Canada and Australia where, by and large opportunities appear better than in the old country and we haven’t yet reached the levels of intrusions, rules and red tape that Europeans endure.

Historians say the geography is destiny, but in this case, it’s demography. It takes 2.1 children per couple to sustain a population at even levels but all over Europe rates are from 1.1 in Greece to 1.9 in Ireland. They’re not making enough babies to sustain themselves. Throw in fewer workers supporting more retirees and the economics become indisputably clear. On top of this, add a reliance upon immigration, mostly of the unskilled and uneducated type, it becomes clear that some things have to give.

In Canadian vernacular, the mind’s writing cheques the body can’t cash. European immigration is a disaster. By accepting a family class of entrants rather than the skilled kind, welfare rolls, people on the dole and millions of refugee claimants are wobbling the system. Maybe it’s a good time to short the Euro since we can’t forever depend upon the industrious Germans and Dutch to pay for the profligacy of the others.

Even in prosperous China, with its boom, and due to the former one child policy, employers are outsourcing to Vietnam and Bangladesh where workers aren’t quite done being used and abused by their bosses. There’s no doubt the times are indeed changing.

Canada’s answer to our own 1.48 fertility rate is to import help from overseas via the easiest immigration policy on the planet. It appears that we take anyone who shows up, teach them English, and put them on the public purse until they feel like they may contribute. It’s a good thing we insist that many newcomers have some skills, otherwise we’d be looking at European type problems right here in the Great White North.