You are not alone for holding this view among freepers.
While I have some problems with Richard Koo’s solutions to a balance sheet recession, I agree with his diagnosis of the problem.
The only saving grace the US and Canada had were the influx of immigrants who had bulwarked the fertility rate. If the recent reports about more Mexicans leaving than coming continues as a long term trend, the US is looking at the same demographic inverted pyramid as Japan and Spain.
Just this week Spain abruptly ended socialized health care benefits to illegal aliens, while Spain’s native population has the lowest fertility rate in Europe.
The US and Spain have plenty of real estate bubble housing stock sitting vacant, and no young families to fill the homes.
I can't speak for Spain, but in the USA legal and illegal immigration played a major role in the housing bubble.
From memory.....
The top three foreclosure markets are in California's central valleys.
The next three are in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and southern Arizona.
As late as December 2007, Bank of America and Countrywide were running home mortgage ads that stated:
“No Social Security Number Required”
“The only saving grace the US and Canada had were the influx of immigrants who had bulwarked the fertility rate. If the recent reports about more Mexicans leaving than coming continues as a long term trend, the US is looking at the same demographic inverted pyramid as Japan and Spain.”
At the same time we probably have more citizens than any other country that have made it clear they will never get a job or pay their way; the Hispanics were imported to replace them. Even if Mexicans did leave at a higher rate than they entered (which doesn’t ring true here in NJ), we still have millions of them here.
“Just this week Spain abruptly ended socialized health care benefits to illegal aliens, while Spain’s native population has the lowest fertility rate in Europe.”
Spain probably just connected the dots and realized the costs of illegals were part of the reason Spaniards had stopped breeding; how many children can young Americans have if they also get the bill for an illegal alien’s housing, school, food, etc.?
“The US and Spain have plenty of real estate bubble housing stock sitting vacant, and no young families to fill the homes.”
The US has plenty of people to fill the homes, they just don’t have enough that can afford them or want them. Every tenant is a potential homeowner, but the costs (especially here in NJ) deter many from buying a home and locking themselves into servitude to our government workers’ class. If people feel they can’t afford to have children, why should they lock themselves into arrangments where they cannot follow their jobs and they have to pay $6K+ annually for other children’s shooling?
There is a fertility gap in Europe of 1/2 a child - families want 2 kids but have 1.5. In the U.S., it’s a little less but still there.
If we lowered taxes on families, they’d have the money to have more kids.