3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization
Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a
civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a
steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the
birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement.
In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there
are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain
are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population
declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the
economy.
When you don’t have young workers to
replace the older ones, you have to import them. The European
countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise
10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly
because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations
are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries,
which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don’t
support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode
on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will
be non-European.
The huge design flaw in the
post-modern secular state is that you need a traditional religious
society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don’t wish to
have children, so they are dying.
In Japan, the
birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people
over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than
Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting
down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down
at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By
2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old.
Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those
demographics.
Europe and Japan, which comprise two
of the world’s major economic engines, aren’t merely in recession,
they’re shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world
economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates
so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of
traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and
Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant. The second reason is
economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population
ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it
puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people.
As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once
this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These
countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in
regards to having families and raising children.
The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an
increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by
ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the
Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting
to retire in massive numbers. This will push the ‘elder dependency’
ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad
as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.
Western
civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society
understands you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge
consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That’s how a
society works, but the post-modern secular state seems to have
forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had
been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security
or Medicare problems.
The world’s most effective
birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and
women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families
is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the
birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II,
the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable
mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes.
This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer
market that turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that
incentive in today’s dollars would cost $12,000 per child.
China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both
countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have
the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China
and India, many families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each
of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never
find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100
girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100
girls.
The birth rate in Russia is so low that by
2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has
one-sixth of the earth’s land surface and much of its oil. You can’t
control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to
the south, you have China with 70 million unmarried men - a real
potential nightmare scenario for Russia.
Implications of changing Demographics in the West.
Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and
shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start
breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will
take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists
that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are
beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For
example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However,
it’s a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren’t
willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more
children.
In general, everyone in Europe just
wants it to last a while longer. Europeans have a real talent for
living. They don’t want to work very hard. The average European
worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans.
They don’t want to work and they don’t want to make any of the changes
needed to revive their economies.
The summer after
9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country
basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a
severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing
homes and hospitals died. Their children didn’t even leave the beaches
to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to
scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until
people came to claim them.
This loss of life was
five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn’t trigger any
change in French society. When birth rates are so low, it creates a
tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping
mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That’s why euthanasia
is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country
that doesn’t permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because
of all the baggage from World War II.
The European
economy is beginning to fracture. The Euro is down. Countries like
Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union
because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in
Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the
mine is anti-Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble is coming.
Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever. Germany won’t
launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous
and less pleasant to live in.
Japan has a birth
rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020,
one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values
in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is
simply shutting down.
In the U.S. we also have an
aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate.
These retirements will have several major impacts:
- Possible massive sell-off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.
- An
enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their
benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids
to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this
generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only
country in the world where there are no age limits on medical
procedures.
- An enormous drain on the health care
system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which
will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive
down the birth rate even further.
Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities
for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be
tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who
don’t need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will
have a business where they take care of three or four people in their
homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to
physically care for aging people will be huge.
Make
sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action
is. For example, you don’t want to be a baby food company in Europe or
Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the
opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers
are.
A conservative media watchdog believes John McCain might have hit a "home run" with his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
John McCain has announced an "out-of-the-box" pick for his vice-presidential running mate: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. (
