In episode <1123270079.291220.237350@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
wordsoftruth114 burst into the room and exclaimed:

Why is the birth rate falling?

Birthrates fall off in prosperous societies.

On 5 Aug 2005 12:27:59 -0700,

Where Have All the Children Gone?

Tell me, do you ever defend the garbage you post, or are you capable
of expressing your own thoughts at all?

This seems to be a racist screed. A lot of the talk about
population is like that. The darker breeds with their darker
culture are multiplying too quickly; Europeans aren't keeping
up. Charles Martel fought in vain, mosques are to be expected
soon dominating Aix-la-Chapelle and Goteborg. In North America,
it is the swarthy Mexicans who will overrun the border.

It looks like it's time for the Voluntary Human Extinction
movement to start working on these people.

http://www.vhemt.org/


wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:

Where Have All the Children Gone?


PAVEL KAHOUT


The question of why fertility has been falling so dramatically in
continental Europe has been food for thought for both demographers and
economists. The answer must be looked for in several important factors,
which, to further complicate matters, do not simply add up in their
impact.



In the third century AD there was a prophet called Mani. He preached a
doctrine of conflict between Good and Evil. He saw the material world
as the devil's creation. Marriage and motherhood was a grave sin in his
view, since by bearing children people multiply the works of Satan. The
Manichean ideal was to move mankind to a superterrestrial realm of Good
by way of gradual extinction.
In the course of history, Manichaeism was ruthlessly eradicated as an
heretical, ungodly doctrine. When looking at demographic statistics,
however, one might think that the populations in developed countries
have converted en masse to Manichaeism and decided to become extinct.
The birth rate in most western countries has fallen bellow replacement
level.

In the so-called "New Europe", the situation is even gloomier.
According to UN projections, Latvia will lose 44 percent of its
population by 2050 as a result of demographic trends. In Estonia, the
population is expected to shrink by 52 percent, in Bulgaria 36 percent,
in Ukraine 35 percent, and in Russia 30 percent. In comparison with
these figures, the projected population decline in Italy (22 percent),
the Czech Republic (17 percent), Poland (15 percent) or Slovakia (8
percent) looks like a small decrease. France and Germany will lose
relatively little population, and the population of the United Kingdom
will even see a slight growth - thanks to immigrants.



Why is the birth rate falling?

The question of why fertility has been falling so dramatically in
continental Europe has been food for thought for both demographers and
economists. The answer must be looked for in several important factors,
which, to further complicate matters, do not simply add up in their
impact. Nevertheless, it can be said with a fair amount of certainty
that the existence of pay-as-you-go pension systems has had a very
negative impact on birth rate. The National Report on Family published
by the Czech Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in August 2004 says:

"In terms of intergenerational solidarity, the importance of the child
as an investment for material support in old age has been limited by
the social security and pension insurance system, which has eliminated
people's immediate dependence on children. The importance of the
child's role in relation to its parents has transferred to the
emotional sphere, which reduced the direct material indispensability of
children in a family, while also allowing for them being replaced with
certain substitutes bringing emotional satisfaction."
To put it straightforwardly, and perhaps a little cynically, in the
past children used to be regarded as investments that provided their
parents with means of subsistence in old age. In Czech the word
"vejminek" (a place in a farmhouse reserved for the farmer's old
parents) is actually derived from a verb meaning "to stipulate": in the
deed of transfer, the old farmer stipulated the conditions on which the
farm was to be transferred to his son. Instead of an
"intergenerational" policy, there used to be direct dependence of
parents on their children. This meant that people had immediate
economic motivation to have a sufficiently numerous and well-bred
offspring - whereas today's anonymous system makes all workers pay
for the pensions of all retirees in an utterly depersonalized manner.
This system enables huge numbers of "free riders" to receive more than
what would correspond to their overall contribution in their productive
life. Those with incomes way above the average, on the contrary, are
penalized, as the system gives them less money than they contributed to
it. This is referred to as the "solidarity principle". In terms of
birth rate, this arrangement is discouraging for both the low-income
group and the high-income one. The latter feel that they are not going
to need children in the old age, while the former believe that they
can't afford to have them.

Today, children no longer represent investments; instead, they have
become pets - objects of luxury consumption. However, the pet market
segment is very competitive. It is characteristic that the birth rate
decline in the 1980s, and especially in the 1990s, was accompanied by
soaring numbers of dog-owners in cities. While in the past dog-owners
were predominantly retirees, today there are many young couples that
have consciously decided to have a dog instead of a baby. These are
mainly young professionals who have come to a conclusion (whether right
or wrong) that they lack either time or money to have a child. Thus,
they invest their emotional surpluses into animals.



Taxes are pivotal

State pensions systems eliminated the natural economic incentive to
have children. At the same time, the welfare state is an enormously
costly luxury that has to be financed from taxes. High payroll-tax and
social security contributions reduce the earning capacity of people in
fertile age. Thus, they push down birth rates as well.

A reader of the Wall Street Journal wrote in a letter on the issue:

"I am the son of a Pittsburgh steelworks worker. I was born at the end
of the Second World War. I have three sisters. Our mother never went to
work. After the experience of the Great Depression, our parents were
reluctant to borrow; yet they could afford to own a house, and our
father used to buy a new car once every three or four years. My parents
paid for my university education and bought me my first car when I was
twenty. We were by all standards part of the middle class, and I was
proud of my parents' achievement. (?) Today both my parents have to go
to work in order to maintain a middle-class living standard, due to the
increase in taxation that has occurred in the past half-century. (?)
This has produced a generation of children carrying a key around their
necks, city gangs, and aggressive brats brought up by after-school
child-care centers."
The tax burden in the United Stated has indeed grown significantly over
the past 50 years. The birth rate has been falling proportionately,
although not to the critical level that is now current in Europe. The
birth rate in the US is nearing the replacement level - about two
children per woman. Even so, comparing to Europe, the United States
still appears to be a confirmed and stable superpower.
"Even if we include immigration, the population of the original EU-12
will fall by 7.5 million over the next 45 years, according to the UN
calculations. Since the times of the 'Black Death' epidemic in the
fourteenth century, Europe has never seen such an extensive population
decline," writes Niall Ferguson, a British historian. He also predicts
that in 2000-2050, the US population will grow by 44 percent. It seems
that the European Union will have to forget for good about its
ambitious dreams of becoming a "counterbalance" to America.
The demographic trends in Europe are indeed worrying. In Italy, for
instance, the birth rate has fallen to an average level of 1.2 children
per woman. Why? A journalist from the Daily Telegraph describes the
life of young Italians in the following terms:

"It is virtually impossible to make a living. Just take Rome. Life with
a minimum of human dignity (a small rented apartment, occasional dinner
in a restaurant) requires a monthly pay of 3,000 euros before taxation,
which accounts for some 1,800 euros after tax. If in the Anglo-Saxon
world a majority of adults is expected to live an independent life on
their own salaries, in Italy this is often not the case. An incredible
70 percent of unmarried Italians aged between 25 and 29 live with their
parents, where they benefit from subsidized housing and where their
poor incomes amount to a handsome pocket money."
When a modern young European has to choose between setting up a family
of his own and a comfortable life without children, he is very likely
to pick the latter option - unless he belongs to a social class which
regards children chiefly as a source of social benefits. A high amount
of taxation combined with ill-functioning labor and housing markets is
a truly genocidal mix. That is the case of Italy, but also Bulgaria and
the Czech Republic. Its impact cannot be corrected by all sorts of
government subsidies paid out to young families. On the contrary, under
certain circumstances the benefits for families may even lead to a drop
in birth rate.
The traditional model, which exists especially in Spain and Italy, but
to a large extent also in East and Central Europe, emphasizes the
successive steps in setting up a family. First, a young man graduates
from a college or vocational school; then he secures his living, which
is followed by marriage; and only then children are born. This
succession not only conforms to social conventions but is also based on
a profound economic logic: it is simply foolish to start having
children before getting a living. The taboo of sex in Western cultures
has profound economic reasons.

The troubles start when one link of this chain breaks. In contemporary
Europe, the main problem lies in the second link: making a living.
Unemployment among young graduates tends to be much higher than the
average of the working-age population as a whole. In countries such as
France, Spain, Finland, Greece or Italy, 20 to 30 percent of young
people are unemployed. What birth rate can we expect, if a fifth or
even a third of young population is unable to make a living due to a
distorted labor market?

But there is another problem. The payroll-tax and social security
contributions are up, while investments in capital equipment are made
tax-advantageous. The government support of the existing families comes
at the cost of heavier tax burden for young people who have not yet
founded a family. The so-called "support for families" thus hinders the
creation of new families, and effectively reduces birth rate. If a
young unmarried person is left with mere pocket money after his salary
has been taxed, he will hardly be able to make sufficient savings to
set up a family. The politicians of most European countries are living
in a reality gap if they cannot see this trivial economic connection.



The pay-as-you-go system and its inevitable collapse

Some people believe that there is nothing wrong with a low birth rate,
as the planet is at any rate overpopulated. Yes, one cannot set the
"right" amount of population for a country or a continent by
"scientific" means. What we can determine, however, is which age
structure of population is favorable, and which is disastrous. In a few
decades, a large part of Europe will be dominated by a very unfavorable
age structure, typical with an enormous increase in the number of
retirement-aged people.

To be accurate, it is not yet clear at what age today's young people
and children will retire - if they retire at all. The pay-as-you-go
pension systems will inevitably undergo a long and severe crisis, the
result of which can, to a certain extent, be reckoned today. There are
several scenarios, the most likely of which suggests that retirement
age will gradually have to be raised. The most recent
Insurance-Mathematic Report on Social Insurance produced by the
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in 2004 suggests that "the gradual
raising of the age limit for the eligibility for old-age pension could
substantially eliminate the impact of the expected ageing of the Czech
population. It is also clear that a freezing of this age limit would
lead to a sharp growth in the level of elderly dependency."

Translated into a simple and straightforward language, this means that
retirement age will have to be constantly raised: at first to 65 years,
then (sometime in the early 2030s) to 67, and so on. To stop this
growth would drag the system relatively quickly into a crisis. In other
words: a pay-as-you-go system may work for another few decades, before
being gradually marginalized by the rise in retirement age. The
pay-as-you-go system was a huge political and economic experiment; and
the generation of today's children will witness its failure.

But perhaps people will just return to the 1880s, when in Bismarck's
Germany the retirement age was 70 years - with an average life
expectancy of less than 50 years. If in 2050, for instance, the
official retirement age becomes 90, with an average life expectancy
around 80, then the pay-as-you-go system can be sustainable in the long
term. But a good social security at an age of around 60 will be
completely out of the question for those who are now children.

On the other hand, if the retirement age remains unchanged, the tax
burden could eventually rise up to 70-75 percent of gross wages. In
such a case, however, the younger and more educated portion of
working-age population would undoubtedly migrate to countries with
lower taxes: particularly to Britain, Ireland, or the United States.
These countries also have much less trouble with their demographic
structure. Over the next 50 years, the United States may hugely benefit
from accepting a wave of emigrants who will have been chased out of
Europe by high taxes - and maybe not only high taxes.



The end of democracy in Europe?

The prophet Mani is dead. But another prophet's teaching is still very
much alive. In 2002 the most common first name given to newborn babies
was Mohamed. The name Osama finished at a handsome 12th position.

In the 1960s there were only about 350,000 North-African Muslims living
in France, with some 1.25 million French living in North Africa. Since
then, the notion of "colonialism" has completely reversed. There are
almost no French living in North Africa, but the number of Muslims of
African or Middle-Eastern origin in France is estimated at 4 to 10
million. The exact number of legal and illegal immigrants is unknown,
for the sole reason that French statisticians are not allowed to
collect information on ethnic and religious patterns of population.

Nevertheless, some estimates suggest that one in three births in France
occurs in a Muslim family. That would explain, among other things, why
France has a much higher birth rate (about 1.7 children per woman) than
Spain or Italy. Stripped of this influence, the French birth rate would
be around 1.2 children per woman, which is a figure similar to those in
the countries of South and East Europe.

A Russian-Israeli journalist Shlomo Groman writes:

"Go to any child-care store in Vienna. Its clients will be
predominantly Arabic, Iranian, Pakistani, Turkish, Japanese, Korean,
and Black African. Viennese women never bear children - they cherish
their figures and careers instead. The Western-European pension systems
made the bringing up of children less advantageous than social climbing
and maximization of income."
Culture seems to play an even more crucial role than taxes or pension
systems. The countries of the former Soviet Union are an interesting
"demographic laboratory" in this respect. We have already mentioned
Ukraine, Baltic States, and Russia. The situation in the Muslim
republics - Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan -
is completely different: almost all of them are living a population
explosion. The living standard in these countries is close to that of
Georgia or Armenia, i.e. poor. But Georgia and Armenia suffer from the
same demographic shock as, for instance, the Baltic States. The
difference lies in the traditionally Christian character of the latter
countries. The position of women in society is perhaps a little
different from that of the rich European countries, but comparing to
Muslim countries these differences do not count much. In terms of birth
rate, they are almost negligible. Armenia will lose a quarter of its
population by 2050, while the population of the neighboring Azerbaijan
will surge by a third.

The international demographic context will see huge changes: in 2050,
Yemen will have more population than, for example, Germany. These
people will quite understandably long for the standard of living that
currently prevails in Europe. The immigration pressure on Europe will
be immense. Given the European liberal laws on family reunification,
the exodus from Middle East and North Africa will have enormous
dimensions.

Instead of integration of immigrants from the Middle East and North
Africa into a majority European society, the opposite will occur: the
immigrants will integrate the existing European culture into their own
civilization. After some time, it will be their civilization that will
become dominant. One does not have to be a supporter of Jean-Marie Le
Pen to feel a little anxious about that. It is not a problem of ethnics
and their mingling. It is a matter of society, its values, and
democracy as such. European tolerance competes with Islam, which is not
always a religion of peace, as many Europeans would like to believe.
Radical Islamic preachers openly condemn democracy. They interpret it
not as a social system but as a pagan cult, which prefers the voices of
people to the voice of God. This and other theories of Sheikh Yusuf
al-Qaradawi and his conservative fellow-believers are proclaimed in
many mosques throughout Europe.

If as a result of demographic trends a large part of future Europeans
will have dark skin and go to mosque, why not? But if they become a
threat to the European tradition of democracy and tolerance, it will be
a tragedy.




THE AUTHOR

The author is an associate of the Center for Economics and Politics
(CEP), Prague.



http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/population/pc0039.html

This seems to be a racist screed.