Blogging After America Day Four
Chapter Three - The New Athens [ArthurK]

This chapter's theme is European Demographic Doom. Covers much of the same territory as America Alone but focuses on the population decline and mostly skips religion. I spell out the relevance of EDD to America at the end.

Settle down for today's dose of doom - in honor of the heavy Greek coverage perhaps a cup of hemlock would be in order?

P103-104 - America and Greece are on the same road. The rioters in Greece are civil servants! "... the Greek rioters are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a spoiled overclass, rioting in defense of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government."

P104 - Advanced societies have an obvious problem - they've run out of other people's money. But Greece is worse off than America. Here we're screwing our kids and grandkids. The Greeks don't have kids! Not just other people's money - they've run out of other people.

P106 - "Greek public servants have their nose to the grindstone 24/7. They work twenty- four hours a week for seven months of the year."

P109 - A Greek working a hazardous job, like bomb disposal, is entitled to retire at age 50. Over time, the category of hazardous jobs expanded. It now includes hair dressers and radio hosts.

P110 - The Greek govt. tried austerity measures. In response, the tax collectors went on strike.

P115 - European fix is a bigger threat than the Depression. "... the developed world has run out of places to pass the buck."

P116 - Mark Twain said, "Buy land, they're not making any more of it". But in Europe real estate is weak because they're running out of people.

P119 - The world has said Greece is too big to fail. Reality has said Greece is too big not to fail.

In 2010, regarding Greece, the NYT said "Another reform high on the list is removing the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors like health care, ..." "Economists say that the liberalization of ... the health care industry would help bring down prices..."

Yes, this is the same NYT that supported Obamacare as a way to lower healthcare costs.

P120 - Countries with Debt/GDP of 125% are being rescued by countries with Debt/GDP of 80%. Lemme know how that works out.

What's the relevance of European Demographic Doom to America? Euro-Socialism reduces the desire to live, to have kids, to give a damn about what happens after you die.* Therefore, lower population plus high spending levels leads to doom.

*spelled out with much more detail in American Alone.

America is not there - pop growth is around replacement level - but with more socialism we will be.

Greece and Europe are screwed because of too much debt. The reason they can't grow out of it is Demographic Doom.

posted by Open Blogger at 06:17 AM

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