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The United States is intrinsically more interesting than Europe because the United States has a future full of spectacular catastrophes, while Europe is quietly breeding itself out of existence (1.2 children per woman in Spain and similar numbers elsewhere) and the future of Europe can be summed up in one word.

Islam.

Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.

by FPS Doug on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 05:16:42 PM EST
Evidence please? Apart from the standard issue racist crap that if Europe isn't populated by "whites" then it's not Europe. Anyway, a smaller population wouldn't hurt.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 05:23:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
By 2050 retirees will make up more than half the population of Europe. How many geezers can one worker support?

It isn't a pretty picture.

Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.

by FPS Doug on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:04:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You seem to have a problem with basic maths.

By 2050 the ratio of Europe's working age to senior age population will decrease by 50%, two workers instead of four for every retiree.

That's only 33% of only adults.

Of course, this whole demographics game you bought into is silly, because it ignores the shifts also affecting other populations with no income: workers have supported lots more children and jobless and housewifes in the past than the increased number of retirees in the future...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:15:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The particular link in my post actually ignores population decline in the calculation... It's an article about graying rather than depopulation.  

And it's a little weird that you're celebrating the fact that the remaining European workers in 2050 will be able to support so many more old people because they have so few children to support.

Giuseppe Carone and Declan Costello of the International Monetary Fund projected in September 2006 that the ratio of retirees to workers in Europe will double to 54% by 2050 from four workers to two workers for every retiree.[1] William H. Frey, an analyst for the Brookings Institution think tank, predicts the median age in Europe will increase from 37.7 years old in 2003 to 52.3 years old by 2050 while the median age of Americans will rise to only 35.4 years old. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates only 39% of Europeans between the ages of 55 to 65 work. If Frey's prediction for Europe's declining median age is correct, productivity in Europe will radically decrease over the next four decades.[2] Austria's Social Affairs Minister painted a bleaker picture in 2006, saying the 55 to 64 year old age bracket in the European Union will be larger than the 15 to 24 year old bracket by 2010. The Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission issued a report in 2006 estimating the working age population in the EU will decrease by 48 million, 16%, between 2010 and 2050, while the elderly population will increase by 58 million, 77%.

Anyway, your correction is about half right, and it still isn't a pretty picture.

Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.

by FPS Doug on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:28:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In Italy, for example, the graying of the population is a little more extreme than the rest of Europe, with the over-65's expected to make up 40% of the population by 2050.

Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.
by FPS Doug on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:41:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
So one of your examples about aging is a shift within Europe, another the not at all representative country with the second lowest birthrate... To boot, you link to a second-rate source that doesn't even give sources, instead of checking data yourself -- that 40% appears to be the percentage of those older than 65 in the population of those older than 21, while the older than 65 are preojected at 32.4% of the total population.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
by DoDo on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 10:04:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And it's a little weird that you're celebrating the fact that the remaining European workers in 2050 will be able to support so many more old people because they have so few children to support.

Why? Are you one of those who never understood this joke: "Eat shit! A hundred billion flies can't be wrong!"

You seem to think that a predicted decrease in 'working-age population' means a decrease in the share of them in the total population -- but that leaves out potential decrease in the overall population, immigration, and change in retirement age from the picture.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 09:54:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I\'m new here, and if this is the level of conversation, it\'s really appalling.

DoDo has a dispute with Doug about population, so he tells him to \"eat shit?\"

Who is this person, DoDo?

Is he typical of posters here?

 

Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.

by Ulrich Bunion (ulrichbunion(at)yahoodotde) on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 11:05:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Welcome Ulrich! We are always glad to have new posters from Europe.

If you'd like to know what is typical of posters here, please feel free to stick around and read. There is no better way of finding an answer to your question.

In the meantime, let me correct a misapprehension no doubt due to the fact that English is your second language. DoDo above did not tell FPS Doug to eat shit. He asked him if he understood a joke about flies eating shit. I'm sure you'll agree that it's not the same thing!

:-)

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 02:40:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Sounds like Jacob has himself a new persona ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 03:02:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, but Ulrich is von Deutschland, it says so on his user page.

He doesn't understand troll ratings yet, but I'm sure he will.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 03:23:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That maybe so - but I find it very peculiar that the comment he refers to would be singled out. Let it pass ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 04:56:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
May I also suggest you read the New User Guide, especially the section on ratings?

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 02:53:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Na mach' mal halb lang! Denkst du, dass Doug denkt, dass Milliarden von Fliegen nicht falsch liegen können? Wenn wir schon dabei sind, schaust Du zu viel in die Glotze? Dann bist du vielleicht auch über den Gottschalk pikiert, wenn man bedenkt, was er da in Harald Schmidt's Late Show schrie...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
by DoDo on Fri Jan 25th, 2008 at 04:09:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Perhaps he could eat shit if he'd had some miracle fruit :p
by dulcifium on Thu Feb 14th, 2008 at 04:53:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Fear of brown people crap.

"C'est un scandale !"
by redstar on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 05:32:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If you assume all Muslims are brown, apart from the obviously racist stereotype, you have probably never actually traveled east of Vienna. Lots of Bosniak muslims are white as snow, and the Serbs kill them anyway.

Personally I have no problem with the Islamification, infertility, and graying out of Europe (average age 52 in 2050). The American dollar is so low that I can't afford to travel anywhere except Mexico, where the (slightly more distant) future of North America is visible in shanty-towns from Juarez to Puerto Escondido.

Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.

by FPS Doug on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:17:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You know little about me.

I studied in Pakistan in the late '80's. Guess what - in Peshawar, where I was, they're not brown either.

But you should watch your language. Surely you must be aware of your "islamification" rhetoric is straight out of Horowitz and has no place in any serious discourse on Europe.

And is, 9 times out of 10, at root racist.

"C'est un scandale !"

by redstar on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:48:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
More like 99 out of 100: based on the assumption that immigrants and their descendants keep to the ancestral culture as if it were in their genes. In truth, Islamist fundies are concerned about the strong secularisation of most immigrants to Europe...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
by DoDo on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 09:31:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There are plenty of people here in the U.S. (probably well over half) who think that a brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking North America is not really "America." They are undergoing a lot of stress recently...

I met a guy last week who teases his arch-conservative friends by saying "Hey, amigo, you're in America now--so speak Spanish!"

by asdf on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 12:59:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There's some poetic justice in it, if you consider how a single country appropriated the name for the entire continent. (Think of the restrictive use of 'Europe' for the EU, and how many Europeans rightly object to it.)

You're clearly a dangerous pinko commie pragmatist.
by Vagulus on Sun Jan 27th, 2008 at 10:40:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
thank you Mr Steyn.

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:34:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Let the record show that Mr Steyn is Canadian, not an Etats-unien.

"C'est un scandale !"
by redstar on Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 at 06:50:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What's a 49th parallel between bigots ?

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 06:50:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You've focused your responses to other comments to the depopulation angle (more on that below), but let me remind you of one thing: until 9/11, France did not have Muslims, it had Arabs and blacks. Now there are a number of things we need to deal with in that respect, but Islam is pretty low down the list.

As to depopulation, here's the latest INSEE population update, as of end 2007:


En 2007, 783 500 naissances ont été enregistrées en France métropolitaine et 33 000 dans les départements d'outre-mer (tableau 1). Malgré un repli par rapport à l'année 2006, le nombre des naissances demeure supérieur à celui des 25 dernières années. En 2007, l'indicateur conjoncturel de fécondité s'établit à 198 enfants pour 100 femmes, en légère diminution par rapport à 2006 (tableau 3). Mais il reste très supérieur à son niveau des années quatre-vingt dix.

(...)

Les femmes qui ont achevé leur vie féconde ont eu en moyenne plus de 2 enfants. La descendance finale s'établit en 2007 à 2,14 enfants par femme pour celles nées en 1957. À 35 ans, ces femmes avaient déjà eu 1,95 enfant. Pour les femmes nées dix ans plus tard, en 1967, ce nombre moyen d'enfants n'est atteint qu'à 40 ans (1,74 enfant à 35 ans). Aujourd'hui, les femmes de 35 ans (nées en 1972) ont eu en moyenne 1,68 enfant. Malgré leur retard par rapport aux générations antérieures, elles devraient atteindre deux enfants par femme au terme de leur vie féconde.



In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 04:37:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
[ET Moderation Technology™] Your multiple troll ratings recently, as seen here, are unjustified and retaliatory. As per our stated policy, on the agreement of several frontpagers not involved in this thread, your ratings have been wiped and your ratings privilege has been disabled for one week. If you abuse the ratings system again after that week, your right to rate will be permanently disabled.

Ad astra per aspera
by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 24th, 2008 at 03:17:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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