Europe's Trifecta of Doom: Debt, Demographic Decline, Energy Suicide

The ongoing economic crisis in Europe may have begun in Greece. But it will not end there. Eurozone unemployment is approaching a 15 year high, and the people of Spain appear eager to emulate the example of Greece.

None of the economic bandaids being offered are up to the job which seems to demand radical surgery. Europeans increasingly choose to riot, demanding that an economic faerie god mother grant them their entitlements, rather than to face the issues soberly. If governments give in to the rioters, the decline will only occur more quickly.

The underlying issues of energy suicide and demographic decline are not being addressed. If those problems are not solved, there is ultimately nothing that can be done to save the Eurozone or most individual Euro economies.

The misguided energy policies of the German government are representative of much that is wrong with Europe. Yes, European executives and functionaries will try to put the best face on things, but if manufacturers cannot operate due to designed high energy costs, and unemployment continues to skyrocket, a smiling face only reveals a refusal to do what must be done to prevent disaster.

And with low birthrates across Europe -- particularly southern and eastern Europe -- each generation of Europeans is smaller than the previous one, with less human capital and lower skill levels. Fighting back against the decline becomes more difficult as the numbers and skills levels decline.

Europe is not alone in its inability to save itself from slow motion collapse. Japan's debt and demographic problems are just as bad as those of southern and eastern Europe. The US under Obama has plunged into debt and energy suicide at a record rate. China is suffering from an increasingly dysfunctional economic infrastructure that threatens to squander all of its hard-won gains of the previous two decades.

Europe's doom is all the more poignant for having been entirely self-designed and well-intentioned. The lefty-Luddite green dieoff.orgy memosphere pervading European governments, universities, and populations, was meant to help save the Earth from too many people and too much consumption. If the end result of such memes was a demographic decline of ethnic Europeans and the intentional starvation of Europe's industries and economies of reliable and affordable energy, who could have known?

The social democracies of Europe and the public unions were meant to guarantee lifelong prosperity and health to Europe's people. If the end result of such good intentions was a hardening sense of dependency and entitlement, and a softening of the people's ability to adjust to adversity or threat, who could have known?

Europe is not a monolithic entity, of course. Parts of Europe may fall to the trifecta, while other parts may survive.

And certainly Europe is not the entirety of the civilised world. It is possible that other parts of the civilised world will learn the lessons of Europe, and pay closer attention to the need for abundant and affordable energy, fiscal discipline, economic opportunity, rule of law, and demographic replacement at equivalent levels of human capital.

Europe is changing quickly, particularly the cities of Europe. Eventually, the only way to know what Europe was once like in times of peace and prosperity, will be to take a virtual reality tour.