Demographics is Fate and Europistan

"Civilizations die from suicide, not murder. -Arnold Toynbee"

Sustainability
Within your lifetime, say by 2050, Europe will have more Muslims than non-Muslims. It is a matter of birthrates. It requires 2.1 births per woman in a civilization to have a steady-state population. Below this, and your population starts to shrink. Drop below the "lowest low" fertility rate of 1.3 births per woman, and your population has hit a death spiral from which no civilization has ever recovered. Much of the developed world is facing a baby bust. Consider the following birthrates:


 * {| class="wikitable" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="600"

! Region or Nation ! Birth Rate (2008) (children per woman life) ! World Ranking (1 is most fertile) ! State
 * +Fertility Rates by Territory or Nation (CIA)
 * Mali
 * 7.34
 * 1
 * Sustaining
 * Niger
 * 7.29
 * 2
 * Sustaining
 * Iraq
 * 4.26
 * 39
 * Sustaining
 * Sudan
 * 4.58
 * 43
 * Sustaining
 * Israel
 * 2.77
 * 86
 * Sustaining
 * India
 * 2.76
 * 87
 * Sustaining
 * World
 * 2.58
 * 97
 * Sustaining
 * Mexico
 * 2.37
 * 112
 * Sustaining
 * United States
 * 2.10 (2.06 in 2000)
 * 127
 * Semi-Sustaining
 * North Korea
 * 2.00 (from 2.30 in 2000)
 * 134
 * Decreasing
 * France
 * 1.89
 * 137
 * Decreasing
 * Brazil
 * 1.86 (2.13 in 2000)
 * 149
 * Decreasing
 * UK
 * 1.85
 * 153
 * Decreasing
 * PRC Mainland
 * 1.77
 * 160
 * Decreasing
 * Iran
 * 1.71
 * 172
 * Decreasing
 * EU
 * 1.50
 * 173
 * Decreasing
 * Italy
 * 1.38 (1.18 in 2000)
 * 174
 * Decreasing
 * Germany
 * 1.36
 * 175
 * Decreasing
 * Russia
 * 1.34
 * 177
 * Decreasing
 * Greece
 * 1.33
 * 178
 * Decreasing
 * Spain
 * 1.30
 * 206
 * Decreasing/Death Spiral
 * South Korea
 * 1.29
 * 207
 * Death Spiral
 * Poland
 * 1.27
 * 210
 * Death Spiral
 * Japan
 * 1.22
 * 217
 * Death Spiral
 * Greece
 * 1.33
 * 178
 * Decreasing
 * Spain
 * 1.30
 * 206
 * Decreasing/Death Spiral
 * South Korea
 * 1.29
 * 207
 * Death Spiral
 * Poland
 * 1.27
 * 210
 * Death Spiral
 * Japan
 * 1.22
 * 217
 * Death Spiral
 * Japan
 * 1.22
 * 217
 * Death Spiral


 * }

Trends
Note also that there is a strong correlation between a region or nation's wealth and its birth rates: poorer, third world countries have high birth rates (this is part of the definition of a third world nation in fact) while richer, developed industrialized first and second world nations have much lower birthrates. Try to explain this. Is it cultural? Consider this trend and its cause in the "Questions" section. The graph is generated with the same CIA data.



Muslims and Europe
There is one group with very different fertility rates: Muslims. Muslim nations have fertility rates above the world average of 2.59, ranging from 2.62 in Morocco to 6.68 in Somalia. This has led to a massive population shift in which the fecund Muslims are moving to Europe to replace the aging and dying Europeans.


 * At present, there are an estimated 23 million Muslims in Europe, around 5% of the population. This seemingly small proportion is misleading because the Muslims are found predominantly in four countries: France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and they are mostly urban.
 * Muslims now make up 15% of Paris and Brussels, 40% of Rotterdam, for example.
 * Note also that those very low European birth rates are even lower than they seem, because the overall rate is boosted by the high fertility of a single subset: Muslims.
 * Muslims have three times the birthrate of non-Muslims in Europe and
 * That will double the number of native Muslims by the year 2015.
 * For example, one in three babies in France is Muslim.
 * This means that in 20 years, one in three 20 year olds will be Muslim.
 * In 2005, the ratio of non-Muslim, 20-40 year old men to Muslim, 20-40 year old men was 18 to 1, In 2025, it will be 2 to 1.
 * Higher Muslim birth rates will also be augmented by immigration.
 * Aging Europeans will require younger people to do the work and pay for their vast social safety net As they have not produced their own children, they will import the third world's.
 * In 2007, 40% of the Muslim world is less than 15 years old.
 * Signs of this shift are already present. The most popular boy's name in Belgium is Mohammed. In Amsterdam? Mohammed. In Malmo, Sweden? Mohammed. It is the fifth most popular boy's name in the United Kingdom.

Why haven't the aging populations just died off, leaving their children behind them to enjoy their less crowded space and smaller "carbon-footprint". After all, these are the same people who having been lecturing Americans for years about the strains we are placing on Mother Earth.

Apparently, those Europeans do not plan to die off without first using all those social benefits of "free" health care and rich retirement plans to which they feel "entitled". The problem is that they haven't saved the money to pay for these benefits. Instead, they plan to pay for them from the taxes of the next generation.

The next generation, however, is too small to carry the burden alone. Hence, they have to import other people's culturally-foreign children and sell to them the birth right of their own children, in exchange for a comfortable retirement.

Hispanics and the US
Will this be America's fate? With our approximate-replacement birth rate of 2.10 births per woman we seem able to avoid Europe's fate. Our 2.09 babies per woman is as misleading as Europe's 1.5 births per woman, however, because the indigenous Americans are being carried by a group invisible to us because it is culturally similar: the Hispanics.

Birthrates among white non-Hispanics is about the same as European birth rates. So will we need to import other people's young to the same degree as the Europeans? Our need is not as urgent, but it has started. In 2008, the first of the Baby Boomers started to retire. This demographic cohort of 76 million Americans is going pass through our entitlement programs like an ostrich swallowing an orange.

Entitlements
Like the Europeans, our benefits have not been saved for, but will come out of annual government revenues. Our present worker to retiree ratio of 3:1 is going to drop to 2:1 by 2030. Here is how our government spending will compare to Europe's, if there is no change in our policies:

How big a problem do the entitlements present? Social Security is a relatively small $7-12 trillion, about the same as our current annual GDP, but it will start to require new tax resources in 2017.

This will be a significant measure of our resolve to deal with the bigger problem: Medicare. This has an unfunded deficit of $50-70 Trillion. The problem is not going to be fixed by returning taxes to pre-Bush levels, that $50 billion is less than one-third our 2007 fiscal deficits. If you add to these costs the Democrat's plans to overhaul the AMT and add insurance for 47 million more Americans, and you can see that we are not living in reality.
 * By 2030, Entitlement obligations will increase the average household's tax burden from its present $17,000 to $24,000, on a household income of $48,000 per year.

Intergenerational Conflict
Generation X and Y face a stark choice. They must realize that their political rivalry is not Democrat versus Republican, but rather them against their parents. If they do not unite in this intergenerational conflict, they will, like the Europeans, see their parents sell their patrimony for a more comfortable retirement. At least the American parents will sell it to a more benign group than the Muslims. Having realized the problem, however, does not solve it, because the old vote, and the young do not.

Questions
1. Islam became institutionalized under the so-called Patriarchal Caliphate, starting with Abu Bekr. As can be seen from the map, this was a period of rapid military expansion, and Islam interacted with its non-Muslim populations as an unchallenged conquerer. By comparison, Christianity became institutionalized, starting with Paul and the early Church, under Imperial Rome. Its relationship with non-Christians was from a position of weakness, often persecution. Compare and contrast how this effects how each group interacts with non-believers in the modern world.

2. Why does a woman's years of schooling negatively correlate with the number of children she will bear? Years of schooling does positively correlate with family income.

3. Is the dearth of children the problem or the symptom of a larger underlying problem?

4. Should we pay women to have children, as some European countries are now doing?

5. Has the feminization of America made us a nation of panty-waisters? Discuss in the context of multiculturalism versus cultural confidence.

6. How do we stop the spread of Wahabism when it is funded by Saudi Arabia? Is this the true danger of energy dependence? Discuss in the context of the fungibility of the world oil market.

7. Do fish need bicycles?

8. Is a belief in God necessary for individuals to have more than 2 children per family?

9. In a witty book by Christopher Buckley, Boomsday, the main character suggests that we can solve our Baby Boomer problem by paying them to commit suicide at age 65 years. Discuss.