Tag Archives: Low birth rates

The West’s Fear That Dare Not Speak Its Name, by Patrick Buchanan

Posted on December 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Will migrants supplant the people who call the nations of Europe and North American their ancestral homes? From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

With the drowning deaths of 27 migrants crossing the Channel from France to England, illegal migration from the Third World is front and center anew in European politics.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has proposed that France take back to its shores all migrants who cross the Channel illegally and come ashore in Britain.

In the run-up to French elections this April, a startling development suggests that resistance to illegal migration is spreading and the idea of dealing with it resolutely and unapologetically is taking root.

Marine Le Pen, president of the rightist National Rally, formerly the National Front, who is expected to reach the finals for president of France against Emmanuel Macron, is suddenly being challenged.

The rising star on the right is Eric Zemmour, who, writes The New York Times, “became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fueled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a ‘great replacement’ of white people.”

Zemmour is being called “the Donald Trump of France.” And he and Le Pen are now running third and second behind Macron in the polling to become the next president of France, which suggests the power of the issue on which they agree: uninvited and unwelcome Third-World migration.

“You feel like a foreigner in your own country,” said Zemmour in his announcement speech Tuesday, declaiming, “We will not be replaced.”

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in demographics, Government, Immigration, Politics

Tagged , ,

Consequences – They are unavoidable, by Bill Blain

Posted on March 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

Artificially suppressed interest rates and low birth rates have their consequences. From Bill Blain at morningporridge.com:

“We may choose our paths, but we can’t choose the consequences that come with them.”

This morning: Consequences are unavoidable. Pension savers are crushed by interest rate repression and the changing demographics of Covid, while the deluge of debt fuelled by low rates does nothing for economic sustainability.

One of the things any investor must understand is that everything has consequences. There are always consequences. They are unavoidable. 13 years of monetary experimentation by central banks has profound consequences. For everybody.

A few days ago my colleague, Mike Hollings, CIO of Shard, and I put together a vlog on shifting market conditions. I’ve known Mike for decades, and we both agree it’s the consequences of the last 13 years of monetary distortion (since the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis that began in 2007) that present the greatest long-term challenges for markets. (You should be able to see some highlights of our chat in the latest Shard Lite-Bite video later today.)

One of the issues we covered was the effect of repressed interest rates on savings – and how challenging these will be to the expectations of current pension plans. Sure enough, bang on time, there are two stories in the market this morning that throw our concerns into stark reality.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Debt, demographics, Investing, Pensions

Tagged ,

Europe: Safeguard Values or Disappear, by Giulio Meotti

Posted on April 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

Europe’s indigenous population is committing slow suicide. From Giulio Meotti at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • We no longer replace our numbers; instead we rely on immigration to compensate for the shortfall in births. This immigration is for the most part Muslim; the effect of our demographic decline is, therefore, the Islamization of Europe.
  • The response of members of the political class, at least in Italy, is to shrug their shoulders, and say, “So what?” European elites believe that religion is private. However, most Muslims do not believe that religion is private, and some are working hard to create a state in which Islamic law is the legal foundation for everyone. The effect of this is already being felt across the European continent. We have more Islamic veils and mosques, and fewer cartoons of Mohammed.
  • Without the courage to insist on safeguarding our values, and passing our inheritance on to our children, we Europeans will simply disappear — as many groups have before. With us, however, will disappear the most enlightened civilization the world has ever known.

“We have to decide if our ethnicity, if our white race, if our society continues to exist — or if it will be wiped out.” This observation was recently made by Attilio Fontana, a politician with the anti-immigrant Northern League, who is running to govern the Italy’s northern region of Lombardy. Fontana’s remarks sparked quite a political storm. He may not have chosen the most delicate words, but he was right in pointing out the potential suicide of Europe. Italy’s problem, in fact, is not the word “race”, but the empty cradles and the crowded boats which have brought in 500,000 African migrants in a relatively short time

In Milan, Italy’s financial district and second-biggest city, there are more dogs than newborns. The city has literally “lost” half its births in a mere ten years. From 2006 to 2016, the number of children born in Milan has declined from 17,000 a year to fewer than 10,000. By comparison, in 1880 Milan had a population of 350,000, and that year, 10,000 children were born. Today, Milan is inhabited by 1,362,000 people with fewer than 10,000 new births. So, relatively, 138 years ago Milan had proportionately four times as many children as today. That is how Europe’s indigenous population will die out.

To continue reading: Europe: Safeguard Values or Disappear

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, demographics, Governments, History, Immigration, Religion

Tagged , ,

Muslims Tell Europe: “One Day All This Will Be Ours”, by Giulio Meotti

Posted on August 19, 2017 | 2 comments

If you look at Europe’s indigenous non-Muslim birthrates versus Muslim birthrates in both Europe and the Middle East, the headline prediction looks inevitable. From Giulio Meotti at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The Archbishop of Strasbourg Luc Ravel, nominated by Pope Francis in February, just declared that “Muslim believers know very well that their fertility is such today, that they call it… the Great Replacement. They tell you in a very calm, very positive way: One day all this, all this will be ours…”.
  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just warned against a “Muslimized Europe”. According to him, “the question of the upcoming decades is whether Europe will continue to belong to Europeans”.
  • “In the coming 30 years, the number of Africans will grow by more than one billion people. That is twice the population of the entire European Union… The demographic pressure will be enormous. Last year, more than 180,000 people crossed in shabby boats from Libya. And this is just the beginning. According to EU Commissioner Avramopoulos, at this very moment, 3 million migrants are waiting to enter Europe”. — Geert Wilders, MP, The Netherlands, and leader of the Party for Freedom and Democracy (PVV).

This week, yet another Islamic terrorist attack targeted the Spanish city of Barcelona. As it was for many years under Muslim rule, it is, therefore, like Israel, land which many Islamists believe they are entitled to repossess.

At the same time, far from Spain, elementary schools have been closing, shuttered by the state after the number of children dropped to less than 10% of the population. The government is converting these structures into hospices, providing care for the elderly in a country where 40% of the people are 65 or older. That is not a science-fiction novel. That is Japan, the world’s oldest and most sterile nation, where there is a popular expression: “ghost civilization“.

According to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, by 2040 most of the country’s smaller cities will see a dramatic drop of one-third to one-half of their population. Due to a dramatic demographic decrease, many Japanese councils can no longer operate and have been closed. Restaurants have decreased from 850,000 in 1990 to 350,000 today, pointing to a “drying up of vitality”. Predictions also suggest that in 15 years, Japan will have 20 million empty houses. Is that also the future of Europe?

To continue reading: Muslims Tell Europe: “One Day All This Will Be Ours”

2 Comments

Posted in demographics, Economics, Governments

Tagged , ,

Is Europe Choosing to Disappear? by Giulio Meotti

Posted on April 5, 2017 | 1 comment

If a group chooses to reproduce at less than the rate necessary to replace itself, that group will eventually disappear. From Giulio Meotti at gatestoneinstitute.org:

• A sterile Europe apparently thought that civil liberties could be bargained away in exchange for a temporary peace. Everything became negotiable.

• As British author Douglas Murray has asked, why were workers not brought in from European countries suffering high unemployment, such as Portugal, Italy, Greece or Spain?

• A clear-eyed U.S. Congressman, Rep. Steve King, correctly said recently that, “You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies.” He instantly drew that white-hot fire reserved for people who tell truths that threaten treasured fantasies (think Giordano Bruno or Galileo).

The new data released by Italy’s National Institute for Statistics for 2016 sounds again like a death knell. There has been a new negative record of births: 474,000 compared to 486,000 for 2015, which had already fallen to historic lows. There were 608,000 deaths in 2016. In one year, Italy lost 134,000 people — the equivalent of a city of the size of Ferrara or Salerno.

The demographic “illusion” is kept only by the influx of immigration (135,000). If one needs an idea of what Italy would be without immigrants, look at Emilia-Romagna, one of Italy’s most populated and affluent regions: in 2035 it will have 20% fewer residents.

Italy is sometimes thought of Europe’s guinea pig: wherever Italy goes, much of Europe follows it, especially in the central and southern countries. In 1995, Antonio Golini, a professor at La Sapienza University and a former president of the National Institute of Statistics, was contacted by the director-general of Plasmon, Italy’s largest producer of baby food. Looking at the declining birth rates, the firm asked him if something could be done to prevent the company from going out of business. Plasmon started to make dietary products for adults.

A year ago, European geographers went in search of “the most desolate place in Europe”. They discovered it not in northern and cold Lapland, but in sunny Spain, specifically in the area of Molina de Aragon, two hours from Madrid. Depopulation has not been the consequence of the climate, as in the Russian steppe or northern forests, but of a demographic crisis.

To continue reading: Is Europe Choosing to Disappear?

1 Comment

Posted in Government, Immigration, Society

Tagged , ,

Why Social Security Is Doomed: “Birthrate At Lowest Level on Record”… And the Future Is Unfunded, by Mac Slavo

Posted on December 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

Like any good Ponzi scheme, Social Security needs a steadily expanding pool of new entrants. With the declining birthrate it is getting a shrinking pool. From Mac Slavo at shtfplan.com:

Here’s more evidence that the “recovery” never really happened, and good reason to think that the entire social net structure is doomed to fall apart.

The birthrate, long tied to economic growth, has been dropping to its lowest point in recorded history – both nationally and, in particular, in the state of California.

This demographic shift is bad news for the economy – in terms of housing, consumer markets, and especially for the long-term funding of social security, medicaid, medicare and other obligations that younger generations have typically been expected to pay into.

Whether or not you agree with the system in place, the fact that it is virtually certain to go bankrupt before the generation of baby boomers shift off this mortal coil should be troubling to everyone planning a future in the United States.

Official numbers show that the birthrate began to steadily decline in 2008 when the crisis hit and – unlike even during the Great Depression – hasn’t ever picked back up. 2016 saw the lowest point ever for California, even with higher births from immigrants factored in.

via the L.A. Times:

California’s birthrate dropped to its lowest level ever in 2016, according to data released by the state’s Department of Finance.

Between July 2015 and July of this year, there were 12.42 births per 1,000 Californians, the agency said this week. The last time the birthrate came close to being that low was during the Great Depression, when it hit 12.6 per 1,000 in 1933.

To continue reading: Why Social Security Is Doomed: “Birthrate At Lowest Level on Record”… And the Future Is Unfunded

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt, Government, Pensions

Tagged ,

Population Deflation——–Spain, Germany, Italy Got It, by Mike Mish Shedlock

Posted on December 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Mike Mish Shedlock at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

On the demographic front things are not looking so good for the eurozone.

With declining birth rates and the aging of the population, Mario Draghi will struggle to produce inflation in a population deflationary environment.

Spanish Birthrate Plummets

Please consider Spain Dying as its Birthrate Plummets.

Spain’s population will fall by more than five million over the next 50 years, according to a forecast that raises the prospect of even more “ghost villages” around the country.

In the first six months of this year, Spain recorded 225,924 deaths and 206,656 births, the national statistics institute reported. The country has not seen deaths exceed births consistently since the civil war, from 1936 to 1939, and before that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Time for Spain to Address its Plummeting birth rate?

The English version El Pais asks Is it time for Spain to address its plummeting birth rate?

Figures from the National Statistics Institute (INS) show there was a peak in 1944, with 23 births per 1,000 inhabitants. But that number bottomed out in 1998 when only nine births per 1,000 were reported.

“We have seen an incredible decline in the birth rate, which has been cut by half since 1975, and this trend is here to stay,” says Andrés, of the University of Palencia.

But for Julio Vinuesa, a demographer at Madrid’s Autónoma University, the study doesn’t provide any new information, but simply reiterates the fact that there has been “a drop” in Spanish birth rates.

“We are witnessing a rapid decline in births and it seems that nobody cares. In the short term it is a relief because it means less spending for families and for the state, and nobody is complaining because no one stops to think about the future consequences,” he says.

British economist Paul Wallace, author of Agequake, which investigates the causes and effects of population aging, has argued that the major investment for any society must be in its own replacement. In this case, Spain has failed.

For the past 10 years, Vinuesa has been pushing for “policies to encourage fertility.” But no one has listened to him.

Meanwhile, the plunge continues.

To continue reading: Population Deflation—Spain, Germany, Italy got It

Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Economics, Governments

Tagged , , , ,

The Death Of A Nation: Japanese Births Drop To Lowest Ever, Deaths Hit All Time High, from Zero Hedge

Posted on January 3, 2015 | Leave a comment

This may be how welfare states die, literally dying away as people forego having children they know are going to end up being slaves to the aging beneficiary class. From Zero Hedge:

Supporters and opponents of Abenomics may debate the metaphorical death of Japanese society as a result of the terminal hyper-Keynesian, hyper-monetarist policies implemented by Abe and Kuroda for the past 2 years until they are blue in the face, but when it comes to the literal death of Japan, there is no debate: as the FT succinctly puts it “deaths outnumbered births in Japan last year by the widest margin on record, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing the government as it tries to ensure a dwindling pool of workers can support growing
ranks of pensioners.”

Indeed, while Japan may or may not surive the collapse in the Yen, which will send the Nikkei225 soaring although nobody will be able to enjoy this unprecedented paper wealth because nobody can afford to eat, drive or heat their house, and all Japanese companies will be long bankrupt, it now looks almost certain that the death of Japanese society will not be due to a runaway printer, but due to, well, death itself.

To read the rest of the article: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-02/death-nation-japanese-births-drop-lowest-ever-deaths-hit-all-time-high

Leave a comment

Posted in Economics, Other Views

Tagged , ,