Posted on 05/27/2010 12:38:43 PM PDT by markomalley
ROME, MAY 27, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The president of Italy's episcopal conference says the two most important problems facing the nation are the "demographic winter" and unemployment. |
Italy is so infested with communists it’s sick. I can’t imagine wanting to do business there if I was anything other than a fashionista or shoemaker.
All ‘Westernized’ Euro nations are like this. It is sad and scary. They are not reproducing at replacement rates, and Muslims are doubling the efforts.
Say hello to Sharia law, Europe.
So sad. Italians aren’t having kids...but the Muslims are. Bel Paese...STOP...or START.
I see it around me all the time, people are so into themselves and their own needs and wants (mostly material), that aren’t willing to invest the time and love into children.
Its really kind of shocking that Italians, of all people, have few children. This is the opposite of what I’d expected.
FMCDH(BITS)
I freely admit that I'm into myself and my material wants and needs, which is why I've chosen not to have children.
Most western European countries have a low birthrate among their native citizens simply because it is too expensive to have children. This is a by-product of a Value Added Tax (VAT), which not so incidentally the 0bama regime is beginning to push for The US.
A 1.3 fertlity rate seen in Italy, Greece, and Spain means that each woman gives birth to 1.3 children ove their lifetime.
It als means that 100 grandparents will generate only 41 grandchildren.
Good bye socialism. Goodbye EU. Goodbye eurozone. Goodbye European civilization.
It is truly THE END.
Why should they? The State is their God and Socialism is their Religion. Why do they need God (outside of baptisms, weddings, and funerals)?
Actually, Italy has a long history of anti-clericalism and low attendance amongst the male population in many regions, which has been the case for centuries. What has changed is that the mass of the population (including women) have become secularized, not just in terms of church attendance, but in their cultural worldview.
Ireland is a different case, as, until recently, mass attendance and devotion was common throughout the population. These days, the only folks you see in many Dublin churches are Polish immigrants.
Italy sure has changed. Cradle to grave security tends to keep people in the cradle until they reach the grave. When there is little perceived need to individually produce the basics of life, the populace becomes infantilized and does not on the whole assume the responsibilities of adulthood - like a earning a living, producing children, and otherwise providing for their posterity.
Things decidedly do not work better if the wealth is spread around.
Well lets see, if you are a working family paying high taxes you cannot afford to have more than 2 kids. On the other hand, if you are a ward of the state you are given incentives to reproduce wildly. I wonder why the producers of society have decided to cut back on children? If Italy was serious, they would enact a $10,000 per child income tax deduction and offer every child a 2-year tuition voucher for successful completion of high school. Oh yea, this would mean Italy would have to cut back on subsidies to the poor. Replace Italy with America and you will understand my meaning.
You know France started a subsidy for extra kids a couple of years ago, right?
When a nation reaches a particular economic plateau, which varies by nation, abruptly its birthrate drops to sustainability. That is, to between 2.1 and 2.3 children per family. There are many reasons it does so.
Government will invariably want to increase this birthrate, but cannot do so directly. But it can, and usually does, lower the birthrate even further with its actions. And the national culture likewise can do much to lower birthrate as well.
When a country is poor, there are marked advantages to having more than two children. Children both represent family wealth, and they provide for the retirement of the parents. The birthrate is pushed even higher because of high childhood mortality. There needs to be “extra” children to replace those that die.
But when a country reaches that economic plateau, children no longer increase family wealth, but decrease it, by there being more mouths to feed. With this level of prosperity likewise there is better nutrition, so it is more likely that children will survive as well. And there are other forms of wealth that parents can use for their retirement.
But once families only have about 2 or 3 children, the government and the culture weighs in that with increasing prosperity, that the lives of these children must be “better”. So children need to go to school, have proper clothing, material goods, etc. And indeed this does help the children to lead better lives.
However, it makes it harder, and more expensive, for parents to *raise* children. This acts as a disincentive to having more children, so drives the birthrate lower. And the more intrusive and demanding the government and culture are about children, the fewer people will want to have them.
So modern, developed nations can be rated by how intrusive their government and culture are, by looking at how low their birthrate has become. Anything below about 1.8 children per family means a nanny government. Japan and Germany are rock bottom.
Interestingly, only one nation, the United States, has ever reversed this falling birthrate to a great extent. This was during the post WWII “baby boom”, and there are very good reasons it took place.
To start with, a very large number of men and women had been kept apart because of the war, and were highly motivated to get married and have children as soon as they could get a home.
Right then, the first real suburb, Levittown, New York, was built, and created a model for suburbia throughout the booming western US, though using the “ranch house” style of home developed by Frank Lloyd Wright and others.
So quickly, the west became filled with boom towns, themselves filled with young couples. The men wanted jobs, with which they could afford a home and a family. Soon the suburbs were filled with growing families, and were entirely family oriented. Unless you were a young child or parents with young children, there was little to do.
In other words, boring. Women, as housewives, had very little to do but have and raise children. And they did.
Eventually, though, the demographics started to change, and the birthrate started to drop again. Only when the parents were at peak childbearing age, clustered together, and in a family friendly, but otherwise boring place, was the reversal possible.
I would assert that someone who is a net tax payer rather than a net tax receiver while not producing children is assuming the responsibilities of adulthood. He or she is providing for themselves rather than relying on the largess of The State. Surely that is a quality of adulthood, rather than the ability to reproduce.
“This is a by-product of a Value Added Tax (VAT)”
More accurately, it is a by-product of overly generous welfare states financed by VATs. If these nations didn’t spend so much, they wouldn’t need VAT in the first place. Of course, a VAT makes it way easier to gradually ratchet up rates without being noticed, so cause and effect actually run in both directions.
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