The Real Reason Germany And The Rest Of Europe Are Doomed To Crisis After Crisis

The Business Insider ^ | 5-27-2010 | Gregory White and Gus Lubin

[blam]

The Real Reason Germany And The Rest Of Europe Are Doomed To Crisis After Crisis

Gregory White and Gus Lubin
May 27, 2010, 9:45 AM

Germany may look like the healthy heart of Europe right now, but the country's demographic position could see its competitive edge fall flat, according to Der Spiegel.

With all eyes currently on the short term crisis in European debt, observers may be overlooking Europe's more long term demographic sickness. But Germany, faced with a declining birth rate and an increase in emigration that now sees more people leaving the country than entering, is starting to wake up.

The country has already tried policies to encourage family growth that have thus far failed, according to Der Spiegel. And Germany's key country for immigration, Turkey, is now not such a boon, with net 10,000 Turks returning rather than coming to Germany.

But Germany's problems still pale in comparison to many other European states, where declining birthrates and restrictive policies on immigration have halted population growth.

Click here to see the demographic disaster looming across Europe >

[snip]

[April Lexington]

Socialism suffocates population. World Wars don’t help either...

[central_va]

But Germany's problems still pale in comparison to many other European states, where declining birthrates and restrictive policies on immigration have halted population growth

We could ship them a couple of million Mexicans if they want. We could start a Mexican Migrant Futures exchange..

[Riodacat]

Germany's key country for immigration, Turkey, is now not such a boon, with net 10,000 Turks returning rather than coming to Germany.

Yah, I'm betting that has a lot of Germans upset..

[cephalopod1]

Crisis after crisis?
Compared with what they’ve been through, especially about 100 years ago, this is nothing.
Europe has seen worse times than this. Much worse.

[Bringbackthedraft]

“The country has already tried policies to encourage family growth that have thus far failed,” ................................. Well, there is always the Lebensborn Project option.

[updatedscreenname]

Same problem in the US.
Whey did the housing market collapse?
Roe v. Wade,1973 allowed killing off would be first time home buyers. Federal government tried everything to prop up home sales but no first time buyers translates to collapse.

Housing is the least of the problems. The entitlement programs are already collapsing. Too few paying in, too many
collecting benefits.

It will get ugly when rationing is implemented.

[buffyt]

We have been to Germany on vacation many times, in 1998 when we were there, we stayed at a B&B. It was actually a private home. In Zell. The owner said since reunification he had to pay such high taxes that he had two full time jobs, plus opening his home as a B&B, just to pay all the reunification taxes. He had a wife and 2 or 3 youngs kids, and was strapped for money, even though he had a good paying professional job, plus the second job.

I met a gal from Germany in 1979 and she told me how high their taxes were even then. Seems like she said 60% back then.

[buffyt]

Roe v. Wade,1973 allowed killing off would be first time home buyers. Federal government tried everything to prop up home sales but no first time buyers translates to collapse..... So many millions murdered.... One of them surely would have had the cure for cancer, or MS, etc. But was instead brutally murdered. Someday the doctors who do this, and the moms who have it done, will answer to God for this crime. God will say “I sent you the cure for many diseases, and you killed him/her”

[kabar]

The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 34 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born and one in three Hispanic.

Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 309 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 130 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.975% (2009 estimate), principally due to immigration.

Mass immigration is killing the US. The Europeans may be losing population but our situation may even be worse. We are importing poverty.

[Plutarch]

Say, didn’t Mark Steyn tell us something about this, only years earlier?

[Lurker]

Mark Steyn pegged this one two years ago in his book America Alone.

[Buckeye McFrog]

a carefully crafted propaganda piece to promote the Open Borders agenda here.

That being said, probably not long until Europe follows Vlad Putin’s example and starts bizarre public campaigns to convince young people to “get busy, get horizontal and PROCREATE!”

[kabar]

The entitlement programs are already collapsing. Too few paying in, too many collecting benefits.

The reason is that they are Ponzi schemes. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree. And when SS was started in 1937, there were far more than 16. Today there are 3.3 and by 2030 there will be two. And by 2030 one in five Americans will be 65 or older, twice what it is now.

An aging population has contributed to the problem, but the way SS and Medicare are structured, they are unsustainable. Additional people are not the answer. We will add 130 million to our population in the next 40 years, 75% due to immigration.

[US Navy Vet]

OK hummm we have around 15 to 20 million(who REALLY knows) Illegals in this country right now AND we have killed 50 Million + of our own entry level people since 1973. Let’s see Illegals pay NO income tax SS, Medicare, Medicaid or state unemployment tax either and now we are in the hole. G*d Damn the ENTIRE “Federal Government” for inflicting abortion on this country!

[I am Richard Brandon]

"It will get ugly when rationing is implemented."

No it won't! Lambs to the slaughter.

[I am Richard Brandon]

We don’t call rich people DINKS for nothing!

[kabar]

Let’s see Illegals pay NO income tax SS, Medicare, Medicaid or state unemployment tax either and now we are in the hole.

More than likely, the illegals would pay no income tax even if they were legal since most make such low wages that they would join the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes. They would pay the minimum of SS and Medicare taxes and then be eligible for all of the benefits, which would cost more than what they paid in. There is no such thing as an individual Medicaid tax.

If the illegals were legalized they would cost us $2.6 trillion according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation and that assumes there are only 12 million. And the legalization of the 12 to 20 million illegals will enable them to sponsor another 66 to 100 million more LEGAL IMMIGRANTS thru chain migration, i.e., family reunification.

[alexander_busek]

And Germany's key country for immigration, Turkey, is now not such a boon, with net 10,000 Turks returning rather than coming to Germany.

I'm betting that those 10,000 returnees (per month? per year?) are, by and large, of retirement age. The second- and third-generation Turks are culturally and linguistically assimilated - at least to the extent that they would no longer fit into Turkish society (a fact that they don't always, themselves, realize). A return to Turkey is especially difficult if they were to attempt to settle in a non-metropolitan area (most Turkish immigrants hail from rural Anatolia).

The article is mostly true. Ethnic Germans are having too few children. I've lived most of my life here, and I still don't fathom the true nature of their aversion to having progeny. It's creepy.

Regards,

[Pearls Before Swine]

Socialism suffocates population.

In a related vein, I think that a high taxation level causes the productive to delay childbearing as they work to afford family security, and promotes childbearing among the non-productive.