The Monster Is the Burgeoning Horde.....

The monster is the burgeoning horde of pensioners in Germany and other industrial countries.___Spengler

For nations, demographics is destiny. If a nation is growing old--particularly a welfare state nation whose generous social benefits depend upon a constant inflow of taxes from the productive sector--it loses vitality in more ways than one. Germany, and most of Europe, is growing old.

The aging pensioners of Europe and Asia must find young people to pay interest into their pensions, and they do not have enough young people at home. Germans aged 15 to 24, on the threshold of family formation, comprise only 12% of the country's population today and will fall to only 8% by 2030. But one-fifth of Germans now are on the threshold of retirement and half will be there by mid-century.

...There is nothing complicated about finance. It is based on old people lending to young people. Young people invest in homes and businesses; aging people save to acquire assets on which to retire. The new generation supports the old one, and retirement systems simply apportion rights to income between the generations. Never before in human history, though, has a new generation simply failed to appear.

...America is in the midst of another wave of wealth-destruction. The Federal Reserve has sought to devalue its way out of a financial crisis, giving foreign investors all the less reason to buy American risk-assets, although foreign central banks continue to buy American government bonds for lack of an alternative. __Spengler

But America can survive these violent cycles of bubble-building and bubble-bursting, because America still has younger generations. It is not at all clear that Europe will be able to survive, since Europe's younger generations are failing to show up.

Europe's "burgeoning horde" of pensioners expects to retire early and be paid handsomely for doing so. But who will pay? And as the generations caught in the middle slowly become aware of the trap in which they are caught, what will they do?

More and more of Europe's young professionals, academics, and sports/media stars are choosing to emigrate from Europe and immigrate into Switzerland and the Anglosphere. When caught between the growing influx of violent religious fanatics from the third world, and the possibility that no pension will be waiting for them when they finally retire (years later than planned), more intelligent and capable young Europeans are choosing to transport themselves to places where they will have the financial power to create their own pensions--their own destinies.

Stratospheric Dreams, Harsh Realities

Thanks to Michael Anissimov and Brian Wang for emailing information about the Strato Cruiser luxury dirigible seen above. The conceptual art at dezeen.com is magnificent.

The human imagination has limits, but we are nowhere close to reaching those limits. As human knowledge and technology expand, the human imagination will expand its own range. We will also learn how to become more intelligent, so as to be able to develop the many wonders that our imaginations and dreams reveal to us.

What are the harsh realities?

Our intelligence--our IQ combined with executive function and emotional/social intelligence--and our physical talents, need to be trained. Think of our intelligence as a mineral ore that needs refining. We need the best education--free of indoctrination--that is available. We need to be sure to provide a diversity of ideas--the only type of diversity that means anything in an educational context--to all of our children.

Sadly, our higher educactional system (and lower government educational systems) are failing us badly--even while educational costs are skyrocketing.

If our universities were providing a quality product, we might excuse their economic ineptness and tendency to pamper sinecured faculty and staff at the expense of parents and taxpayers. Unfortunately, universities have become indoctrination centers--particularly in the liberal arts and social sciences.

One of most perverse results of the massive indoctrination into a "monocultured multiculture" of focused entitlement, is the decade-long wave of "fake hate crimes" that have swept university campuses from George Washington University to Gonzaga to Boise State to Claremont to "Ole Miss" to too many campuses to list.

As law professor Glenn Reynolds stated: If hate crimes did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them.

And so they have--by the gross. Why? Consider the phenomenom of "Women's Studies Departments", "Ethnic Studies Departments", "Sexual Orientation Studies Departments" etc. What are students taught in these superfluous departments that prepare students for nothing except teaching in similar departments, or other forms of professional indoctrination? These backwater (but well-compensated) departments teach their students strong feelings of grievance, entitlement, and perpetual hostility toward "the man" that keeps them down.

In the absence of the hate crimes they are taught to expect, what can these fantasy-rich, deluded minds do but to re-create the atmosphere of hostility, hatred, and abuse that their professors immerse them in each day?

It is a matter of cause and effect. For those who continue to associate Al Sharpton with Tawana Brawley, this is not a new phenomenon. But it has become an endemic phenomenon, thanks to the near ubiquitous phenomenon of "gender, racial, sexual "grievances departments" on campuses. The Duke U. faculty group of 88 response to the lacrosse team rape allegations, and the media circus that followed every rumour and inuendo of the case until it finally collapsed in its own emptiness, is a peripheral example of what the "grievance philosophy" has wrought on campus and within society in general. Fake crimes against "the man", and overlooking/excusing real crimes by the "aggrieved."

Universities spend huge amounts of money on ideological indoctrination--a type of "holy crusade" felt by many sinecured monkeys of academia to be the raison d'etre of university education.

This is not what Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had in mind.

It is an absurd and disgraceful joke by academia upon academia. It is stunting the growth of a better society, and subverting the stratospheric dreams of our imaginations.

Last Days of Europe--Before the Deluge

It is Europe’s doom that Walter Laqueur explores and explains in this succinct and clearly written book. He does not say anything that others have not said before him, but he says it better and with a greater tolerance of nuance than some other works on this vitally important subject.

There are three threats to Europe’s future. The first comes from demographic decline. Europeans are simply not reproducing, for reasons that are unclear. They seem to care more about the ozone layer and carbon emissions than they do about the continuation of their own societies. Or perhaps bringing up children interferes with what they conceive to be the real business of life: taking lengthy annual holidays in exotic locations and other such pleasures.

The second threat comes from the presence of a sizable and growing immigrant population, a large part of which is not necessarily interested in integration. As the population ages, the need for immigrant labor increases, and among the main sources of such labor are North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. When I recently drove to Antwerp from the South of France, I thought I had arrived in Casablanca. There are parts of Brussels where the police are enjoined not to be seen eating or drinking during Ramadan. Similar accommodations are occurring all over Europe: in the Central Library in Birmingham, for example, I found a women-only table occupied exclusively by young Muslims dressed in the hijab. (They were the lucky ones, members of liberal households that allowed them out on their own.)

The third threat comes from the existence of the welfare state and the welfare-state mentality. A system of entitlements has been created that, however economically counterproductive, is politically difficult to dismantle: once privileges are granted, they assume the metaphysical status of immemorial and fundamental rights. The right of French train drivers to retire on full pension at the age of 50 is probably more important to them than the right of free speech—especially that of those who think that retirement at such an age is preposterous. While Europe mortgages its future to pay for such extravagances—the French public debt doubled in ten years under the supposedly conservative Chirac—other areas of the world forge an unbeatable combination of high-tech and cheap labor. The European political class, more than ever dissociated from its electorate, has hardly woken up to the challenge.

All this Laqueur lays out with exemplary clarity. He sees Europe, once the home of a dynamic civilization that energized the rest of the world, declining into a kind of genteel theme park—if it’s lucky. The future might be grimmer than this, of course: there might be a real struggle for power once the immigrants and their descendents become numerically strong enough to take on the increasingly geriatric native population.

Source

While the intelligentsia of Europe chooses to wallow in anti-Americanism, and worries itself over a non-existent climate crisis, the genuine death of Europe is occurring from within.

The 21st century--if not saved by a fractured singularity--appears to be setting itself up for even more wanton bloodletting than the 20th. The difference is that in Europe, there is not enough blood to be let, without bleeding her dry.

The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, Walter Laqueur, Thomas Dunne Books, 256 pages Review by Theodore Dalrymple. More at link above.

Don't Ever Say You Were Not Warned

President Reagan changed the course of government dependency in the US--for about 20 years. But now, built-in growth in entitlement programs for senior citizens, added to other self-incrementing entitlement programs, means that more US citizens are dependent on government programs than not.

Looking at the big picture, especially entitlements for older Americans, some experts worry about a fiscal undertow.

"I fear that we may be on the path to becoming a decrepit, high-unemployment welfare state," says Daniel Mitchell, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. Economists differ regarding whether, or at what level, a high tax burden acts to dampen economic growth. European nations have shown, for example, that advanced economies can maintain generous social-welfare programs.

But Mr. Mitchell says these nations pay a price of more tepid growth. Sweden, he says, has in recent years dropped off the global Top 10 list for per-capita output. Ireland, by contrast, has kept the government burden low and enjoyed rapid economic growth.

Source

The higher the number of citizens dependent on government for income, the higher the tax burden for workers and businesspersons who actually produce something. The higher the tax burden, the lower the incentive to work and produce in the open market--as opposed to the black or grey markets, where income and profits are concealed from the taxman.

While government dependent citizens constituted 55% of the populace when President Reagan took over in 1981, current demographic changes in the US population combined with the built-in budgetary adjustments of entitlement programs, means that the tax burden and regulatory burden for workers and businesspersons in the US will only become more onerous. That means that economic growth cannot help but slow, in the absence of major new technological breakthroughs. Big breakthroughs might signal the opening of a new economic frontier--which would provide new impetus for economic growth for a while (like the telecom/tech boom in the 1990s).


Will this malignant growth of government mean a new dark ages in North America? Many persons believed such a thing to be inevitable back when Jimmy Carter was President of the US. But Ronald Reagan's radical cutting of the size of government reversed the descent, temporarily. (as Margaret Thatcher did in the UK)

A repeat of the Reagan renaissance is unlikely. The increased government dependency, as well as a huge influx of new residents from the third world where there are no traditions of "rule of law", suggests that most citizens will continue to elect representatives that believe in continued growth of government--like Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, and others of their type.

So what should you do, if you want to shield yourself from the likely collapse of economic freedom with all its associated fallout? First, you need to do whatever you can to slow the deadly descent into the stagnant mire of the nanny state. Work to elect officials who are decidedly unenthusiastic about government growth. Work to see that these officials, once elected, resist the temptation to buy votes with government spending. Encourage and support private and volunteer efforts that work outside government funding agencies.

Failing all that, if you know of a country with a majority of citizens who believe in hard work and private enterprise, you might want to look into emigrating. You may want to look at all the US states or Canadian provinces, to find places with greater degrees of local economic freedom. You may be forced into learning how to hide your income and your wealth from an intrusive government. You may have to learn to protect yourself, your family, and your livelihood, independent of government. Worse things could happen, than being relatively independent of big government.

Don't say your weren't warned.