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A scarier strategic problem - no people

I am doing my bit, soon will have a 2nd daughter and therefore only .3 children away from replacing myself. The US is the only Western country with a growing domestic birthrate, luckily most of them will not be raised in Democratic households. In fact the only way left wing types can multiple in the west is by taking over education and convert otherwise healthy young into their own breeding stock, talk about a parsetic lifestyle.
 
dukkadukka said:
There was a line in the Matrix (Yes I'm aware that it's a movie line, but highly relevant) that the  human race is like a plague on Earth. We use up resources and have been growing at a baffling rate.  I agree that economically it will hurt our country alone, but I welcome a downsizing population.  In my own community I've seen an entire forest chopped down for more housing.  Displacing the entire environment and ecosystem.  What was once a lush forest beside my house is now a gigantic newly developed neighbourhood. We moved where we did because there was a low population, far from the city life and in a span of 10 years I've seen it all disappear to make room for more people. 

While the Matrix was a fun movie, I hope that you do not see humanity as a plague if you indeed count yourself part of humanity.  You moved where you did, and now you are upset that other people have done the same as you?  Were any trees harmed in the making of your house?  Are you somehow separate from it all?  The term "downsizing population" gives me some concern.  Do you see humanity as a mass of statistics?
 
I think the European socialists will help solve Canadas demographic
problems for us if we give them a chance.Their multi-culti illusions
will turn many of these countries into places that educated,qualified
people will no longer wish to live and raise families.This could be a
tremendous plus for countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand,
the US will also profit .This is already happening in the UK,thousands
qualified people leaving every year.I believe South Africa will soon be
in the same situation.All we have to do is ignore the screams from
the left and adjust our immigration policies to take advantage of this
mass of qualified people who wish to come to Canada. Something like
the postwar immigration wave that did so much for this country.
                                 Regards
 
The one thing I have come to realize in my short 33 years of existence - Predictions are always going to be made, but the opposite usually happens.  One example is the promise of the 4-day/4 hour-per-day work week that technology was "predicted" to accomplish.  All we have done is create super-efficient systems which allow a company to exploit more talent/brainpower/labour from fewer individuals. 

So predicted a Western population decline will inherently result in legislation that will change the outcome of the original prediction.  More tax payers should equal more money for defense initiatives :-)

J
 
Tango2Bravo said:
While the Matrix was a fun movie, I hope that you do not see humanity as a plague if you indeed count yourself part of humanity.  You moved where you did, and now you are upset that other people have done the same as you?  Were any trees harmed in the making of your house?  Are you somehow separate from it all?  The term "downsizing population" gives me some concern.  Do you see humanity as a mass of statistics?
I think we view the quote differently.  I do view myself as part of the plague, but I try to contribute in ways that won't destroy the planet!
As a "world" society, we have destroyed forests, rain forests, and are using resources faster than the Earth can replenish them.  My house has been where it has been for 75 years. It is my grandmothers first house, the house that my father grew up in. What was once a thriving ecosystem surrounding my house, has quickly turned into a giant industrial park, a large neighbourhood.
The downsizing population may adjust those problems by not needing more oil, not needing more nickel, not needing more steel and the list can go on.  As a Western society I don't fancy having a community like, say China, where everyone lives in 50 story buildings and the mass of people is just too overwhelming. An exchange student traveled to my city, and she was astounded at the room we had here, the amount of forestry and that we actually had back yards.  Personally I don't want to live in a world where I can't find a "natural" tree because they've all been destroyed to build more homes for houses.
Though I agree economically that it is frightening because of the perks of our generation.  Things are made, and more often than not, made by people.  With a downsized population there may be a decrease in the capabilities of production.  Though many productions are now not man-made and it's just about finding solutions to the problems. 
I don't think that the human-race can find the solutions to the crumbling Earth in time.  Back to the quote, that the larger the human race grows, the more problems the Earth will have. The Earth has had the opportunity to replenish its resources for millions of years and the human race has quickly used up most of those resources that have sustained the earth. I suppose the Earth has had a good run.
 
This then begs the questions.  Would you want to have children, knowing that they will be living in an increasingly difficult and unsustainable world?

J
 
Uncertain.  It's all speculation about how long our planet has left.  But it's clear in the past few years that things are going wrong, very fast.  In Canada, cancer has risen significantly.  In other countries, natural disasters are becoming ever more clear about the status of our ecosystem as a whole.  There's is something wrong with our world and I don't think that we can figure it out before it's too late.
Since I'm pretty... "anti-kid" for personal reasons, it's too early to tell if I would want children living in this world, let alone children at all. (I'm a contributer to the declining population that's for sure!)
 
dukkadukka said:
I think we view the quote differently.  I do view myself as part of the plague, but I try to contribute in ways that won't destroy the planet!
As a "world" society, we have destroyed forests, rain forests, and are using resources faster than the Earth can replenish them.  My house has been where it has been for 75 years. It is my grandmothers first house, the house that my father grew up in. What was once a thriving ecosystem surrounding my house, has quickly turned into a giant industrial park, a large neighbourhood.
The downsizing population may adjust those problems by not needing more oil, not needing more nickel, not needing more steel and the list can go on.  As a Western society I don't fancy having a community like, say China, where everyone lives in 50 story buildings and the mass of people is just too overwhelming. An exchange student traveled to my city, and she was astounded at the room we had here, the amount of forestry and that we actually had back yards.  Personally I don't want to live in a world where I can't find a "natural" tree because they've all been destroyed to build more homes for houses.
Though I agree economically that it is frightening because of the perks of our generation.  Things are made, and more often than not, made by people.  With a downsized population there may be a decrease in the capabilities of production.  Though many productions are now not man-made
and it's just about finding solutions to the problems. 
I don't think that the human-race can find the solutions to the crumbling Earth in time.  Back to the quote, that the larger the human race grows, the more problems the Earth will have. The Earth has had the opportunity to replenish its resources for millions of years and the human race has quickly used up most of those resources that have sustained the earth. I suppose the Earth has had a good run.

Yet population is crashing in Russia, part of Germany that have been cultivated for centuries are going back to forest. Even Northern BC has less people living in it than in the early 20Th century.  China has approx. 25 million surplus males and inbalance of sexes will impact on the population in the next 2 generations. Progress in living standards and health, education as creates a drop in birthrate. If you want to resolve population issues, increase the standard of living, it will self-correct. Most people have multiple kids in the hopes that some will survive to care for them in the future.

Cheer up at the end of the day everything on this planet is doomed.  ;D
 
People have been having children since the human race began, and I suspect that with a five million year record of success to date, "we" will continue to reproduce regardless. As Robert Heinlein observed in one of his novels; we are the decendants of survivors; our ancestors dealt with fire, flood, the plague and wars and we are end result.

The problem seems to be that the age old reasons to have families seem to have been subverted in the West and former Soviet Bloc nations, and are being forcibly supressed in China, while the natural ratios of male to female births is also being subverted by other cultures once they can access Western medical science. The peoples who are not reproducing are in the process of being replaced by the people who are willing to reproduce; Mark Styne's argument in America alone is most of "those" people are not willing or able to live by the civic conventions and common ideals of the Western nations they choose to settle........(the native born who continue to reproduce at above replacement levels also are subversive of the memes of modern "progressive" thought, but not of classical liberalism).

WRT human impact on the natural environment, that argument was settled at least 5000 years ago. Humans have always changed the local environment to suit themselves, and you could argue that without today's use of energy and technology, most humans would be living in grinding poverty and disease; hardly the fate any moral person would wish on their neighbours. (Think of that the next time someone is preaching that humans should reduce their use of enerrgy and technology i.e. Kyoto).

There is no inherent contradiction with population growth and environmentalism, especially in placess where property rights and the Rule of Law are respected. Given the chance, the vast majority of property owners will take effective steps to protect their property, and much environmental damage occurs where there are no strict property rights; the so called "Tragedy of the Commons". Even closer to home; what is cleaner and better maintained; a public park or a private yard?

My take is the one resource which we never have enough of is minds. A declining population means fewer and fewer people will be able to think about the problems at hand and come up with solutions, and those who embrace Progressiveism or anti western barbarism certainly are already taking themselves out of the equation.
 
dukkadukka said:
....Things are made, and more often than not, made by people.  With a downsized population there may be a decrease in the capabilities of production.  Though many productions are now not man-made and it's just about finding solutions to the problems. 
I don't think that the human-race can find the solutions to the crumbling Earth in time.  Back to the quote, that the larger the human race grows, the more problems the Earth will have. The Earth has had the opportunity to replenish its resources for millions of years and the human race has quickly used up most of those resources that have sustained the earth. I suppose the Earth has had a good run.

You are overly pessimistic dukkadukka.  Right now I am living with the consequences of reduced population growth and migration.  The company I work for is setting up a traditional industry in Alberta.  The traditional method, which worked well for millenia, also worked well for them in their previous location.  They used to have lots of people to operate the plants.  They don't any longer.

In moving to Alberta, despite the knowledge that while the labour force is younger it is also more likely to find alternative employment, the company is inclined towards maintaining the traditional solutions.

Meanwhile the technology has been around since the 1980s to get the job done in an 8 hour day with 3 people in a smaller plant when the traditional operation requires a large floor area, and 20 people a shift with 3-5 shifts a week.  The capital cost is a bit higher for the new plant (not so much as you might think because the old style plant had to be bigger) but the operating cost is way down.  Computers and electric motors can replace an awful lot of broken backs.
 
PS, I would strongly recommend reading more history and a bit of paleogeography to get a sense of how bad things can be.  It tends to put our modern problems in perspective. 

Keep in mind that in the past, with small populations, a relatively minor event could have a major impact.  For instance, consider Vancouver and Saskatchewan.  It is conceivable that Vancouver could lose a Million people overnight as a result of crowding into a highly active chunk of land that could be washed away or break off with little notice.  Meanwhile, Saskatchewan, with a population of only a million, is unlikely to ever see a cataclysm that would wipe out the entire population all at once.

I fully agree that over-capitalized and over-crowded monstrosities like New York, London, Calcutta, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are high risk locations.  They are more likely to experience disaster just on the basis of crowding and ridiculous population densities.

Meanwhile, those living in the countryside, with Yaks or SUVs, are generally going to be much harder to kill off.  At very least they will have more notice of hard times coming and have more of an opportunity to adapt to circumstances.

Strangely enough it is those people in the country that feel confident enough in the future to have more kids and that also tend to vote away from liberal/Liberal tendencies.

Meanwhile, after reading your profile, I hope things are looking up for you these days.

Cheers.
 
Kirkhill said:
You are overly pessimistic dukkadukka.  Right now I am living with the consequences of reduced population growth and migration.  The company I work for is setting up a traditional industry in Alberta.  The traditional method, which worked well for millenia, also worked well for them in their previous location.  They used to have lots of people to operate the plants.  They don't any longer.

I may be overly pessimistic but it's a reality in my mind.
Look at Canada in general.  Breasts are the yellow birds of our society.  The cases of breast cancer alone are steadily increasing and we must ask, WHY? What has changed, what in our environment (either man-produced or other) is causing this.  Also with the decline in frogs (frogs breathe through their skin, they are dying as a direct correlation with something in the air quality in which we breathe as well). It gives me a fright because with everything that is causing these phenomenons is clearly man made. 
The Earth has had a perfect balance for millions of years, excluding instances in history which wiped out species, and in the past, 100 years or so the Earth has been in steady decline.  Personally (my opinion and my opinion alone based on my current knowledge) the more the human race expands, the worse it will get unless steps are made to halt, reverse or find a solution.  Global warming is not a myth! The global crisis is not a myth. 
I'm merely a more statistic/knowledge kind of girl, I am presented with facts and use those facts to generate ideas to understand why. In the past 3-5 years there has been a rise in global phenomenons, whether it be the increase in disease in our species, the decline of another species or tornadoes/typhoons/and other natural disasters.  These are not just random occurrences but rather a product of what our species is doing to the planet we inhabit.
 
Kirkhill said:
Keep in mind that in the past, with small populations, a relatively minor event could have a major impact.  For instance, consider Vancouver and Saskatchewan.  It is conceivable that Vancouver could lose a Million people overnight as a result of crowding into a highly active chunk of land that could be washed away or break off with little notice.  Meanwhile, Saskatchewan, with a population of only a million, is unlikely to ever see a cataclysm that would wipe out the entire population all at once.

I fully agree that over-capitalized and over-crowded monstrosities like New York, London, Calcutta, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are high risk locations.  They are more likely to experience disaster just on the basis of crowding and ridiculous population densities.

Meanwhile, those living in the countryside, with Yaks or SUVs, are generally going to be much harder to kill off.  At very least they will have more notice of hard times coming and have more of an opportunity to adapt to circumstances.

Strangely enough it is those people in the country that feel confident enough in the future to have more kids and that also tend to vote away from liberal/Liberal tendencies.

Meanwhile, after reading your profile, I hope things are looking up for you these days.

Cheers.

I wasn't speaking merely of wiping out entire cities! It's more that the decline of a population, in my opinion, is more welcomed than something I view as scary. 
I currently live in a relatively small town! But our economy here is booming.  It's rising and more and more people from larger cities like Toronto are moving here for a smaller life-style and to enter our booming mining trades.
(And thanks, things are certainly looking up! Merit listed on the 6th of this month finally! I've never had a poor opinion of the world and welcome bumps in the path I'm on, but the problems in which the Earth is going on give me a slight fright.  I'm a tree-hugging hippie at heart.)
 
dukkadukka said:
I may be overly pessimistic but it's a reality in my mind.
Look at Canada in general.  Breasts are the yellow birds of our society.  The cases of breast cancer alone are steadily increasing and we must ask, WHY? What has changed, what in our environment (either man-produced or other) is causing this.  Also with the decline in frogs (frogs breathe through their skin, they are dying as a direct correlation with something in the air quality in which we breathe as well). It gives me a fright because with everything that is causing these phenomenons is clearly man made. 
The Earth has had a perfect balance for millions of years, excluding instances in history which wiped out species, and in the past, 100 years or so the Earth has been in steady decline.  Personally (my opinion and my opinion alone based on my current knowledge) the more the human race expands, the worse it will get unless steps are made to halt, reverse or find a solution.  Global warming is not a myth! The global crisis is not a myth. 
I'm merely a more statistic/knowledge kind of girl, I am presented with facts and use those facts to generate ideas to understand why. In the past 3-5 years there has been a rise in global phenomenons, whether it be the increase in disease in our species, the decline of another species or tornadoes/typhoons/and other natural disasters.  These are not just random occurrences but rather a product of what our species is doing to the planet we inhabit.

The earth has been in "perfect" balance?  barring the 5 or so extinction events and the ongoing loss and introduction of new species. Keep in mind that our lifespans have lept ahead and that many people who would not have survived birth did, Lot's of people who would have not survived as infants, kids or young adults all have. So of course we will have people dying of stuff they didn't see much of before. Also the reason people did not die of cancer much in the 18th century was they do know what to look for and death certificates would be little use as early death was considered natural.
 
dukkadukka said:
I may be overly pessimistic but it's a reality in my mind.
Look at Canada in general.  Breasts are the yellow birds of our society.  The cases of breast cancer alone are steadily increasing and we must ask, WHY? What has changed, what in our environment (either man-produced or other) is causing this.  Also with the decline in frogs (frogs breathe through their skin, they are dying as a direct correlation with something in the air quality in which we breathe as well). It gives me a fright because with everything that is causing these phenomenons is clearly man made. 
The Earth has had a perfect balance for millions of years, excluding instances in history which wiped out species, and in the past, 100 years or so the Earth has been in steady decline.  Personally (my opinion and my opinion alone based on my current knowledge) the more the human race expands, the worse it will get unless steps are made to halt, reverse or find a solution.  Global warming is not a myth! The global crisis is not a myth. 
I'm merely a more statistic/knowledge kind of girl, I am presented with facts and use those facts to generate ideas to understand why. In the past 3-5 years there has been a rise in global phenomenons, whether it be the increase in disease in our species, the decline of another species or tornadoes/typhoons/and other natural disasters.  These are not just random occurrences but rather a product of what our species is doing to the planet we inhabit.

From the Canadian Cancer Statistics for 2008:

Breast cancer incidence rose steadily but gradually between 1979 and 1999 but has since declined significantly by 1.7% per year.† Much of the increase was probably due to the gradual uptake of screening mammography that took place during the 1980s and 1990s. This results in identification of cases of breast cancer earlier than would have occurred without screening. Similar to prostate cancer, screening may have eventually exhausted the pool of prevalent cancers in the screened population, resulting in recent declines, as the incidence rate dropped back closer to prescreening levels. However, changes in risk and protective factors such as changing patterns of childbearing and hormones likely also have played a role.

This pattern is common with any new testing that can discover a condition earlier or the introduction of wider use of existing tests. Detected rates will go up, the press will hype it and people will worry and buy papers and magazines. Media needs something people are interested in to get them to watch/listen/read and one way to do that is to hype things like increased detection rates as proof of some deeper worrying trend.

A lot of media seems to be a mix of "suck up" and "we are all doomed" story lines. These have to be slanted for something (suck up) or against something (we are all doomed) so media becomes more partisan to float the stories. Lost in this process is comprehensive reporting and articles start to read like op-ed pieces.
 
Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an article to which we should give careful attention because it also applies to Canada;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080905.wreckoning0906/BNStory/International/home
Europe's demographic bombshell

DOUG SAUNDERS

Globe and Mail Update
September 5, 2008 at 12:23 PM EDT

LONDON — In France, they call it la rentrée, the day in early September when the entire population of Europe coagulates the continent's highways and asphyxiates its airports by returning from four- and six-week vacations all at once. It's considered a sombre and melancholy day, a moment to contemplate your depleted finances and advancing age.

Never more so than this week. Aside from a slumping euro and a collapsing real-estate market, residents of most European countries returned from the beaches to discover that their grey hairs and their improved lives have led their countries to a looming demographic and fiscal catastrophe.

Eurostat, the European Union's statistics body, created a continent-wide frisson of alarm over the Aug. 31 weekend with a study bearing the innocuous title “Population and social conditions.”

The statisticians discovered that it will be only seven years – not 20 or more years as previously thought – until a population milestone is reached, the point at which deaths will outnumber births across the continent, something that has not occurred since the disease-ridden years of the 18th century.

In other words, as of 2015, Europe's population will no longer increase naturally. And, even with immigration at its current levels, that means that within the next generation, the European population will begin shrinking.

Europeans are freaking out

“Those of you who have a chance of living to see the year 2060 should start getting worried,” wrote the conservative Madrid newspaper ABC. “All conceivable catastrophes are possible.”

The year 2060, as we shall see, is something of a demographic black hole. At the moment, 1 in 5 people on the continent is over 65. This means that the pension costs, public-health and transportation needs (and sometimes the housing and social-welfare requirements) of each senior citizen must be supported by taxes and other deductions from the incomes of just four working-age people (aged 15 to 64), presuming they have incomes.

As birth rates stay low and longevity increases, this gap will widen. By 2060, there will be 50 million fewer workers and 67 million more seniors, so the ratio will have changed to 1 in 3 – in other words, there will be only two working-age people to support each senior.

The costs of supporting the over-65 population are already the largest government expenses in many European states. This doubling of the ratio means that taxes will either have to increase dramatically – some speculate they may have to double – or the quality and level of public services will have to be slashed harshly without any commensurate tax cut. Either choice would badly wound the economy.

The Swedes got down to nuts and bolts: “To cope with this decline, the aging population must work longer; that means both men and women,” the newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote, joining many voices now calling for a retirement age of 70 and longer work hours to boost productivity.

“But that will not be enough. Immigration must increase, with everything that entails in terms of integration measures. And finally, the obstacles hindering people from having children must be set aside. That includes facilitating artificial insemination, for example. But the key thing is to create an equitable labour market, so that women do not feel forced to choose between children and their professional life.”

That doesn't quite add up: If you're going to encourage women to have more than 2.1 babies each – such as by paying them $1,500 a month for each additional child, as the French are now doing – then how can you also encourage them to get more active in the work force? If I were a 30-year-old woman or a 64-year-old factory worker in Europe now, I'd be getting worried. The boom is about to come down on you.

Of course, this should be a happy story: Because living conditions have improved in so much of the world, people are finally having an appropriate number of children. Overpopulation is a big worry – and in places like the countryside of India, it remains a crisis. We can't keep multiplying forever, and human populations are never stable: They either grow or shrink. Europeans have long complained about what they believe are crowded conditions, which is why they continue to come to Canada and Australia.

So now they might be able to get those open spaces at home. But the price, it turns out, might be unbearably high.

The fiscal cost, mentioned above, is only the beginning. In a shrinking population, and therefore a shrinking market, it is extremely hard to avoid poverty, inequality and unemployment – why would anyone invest in your business or buy your house, knowing there will be fewer buyers in the future?
Productivity gains, as the Swedes suggest, can buy you some time, but in the long run a minus sign is bad for everyone.

There are now 51 countries whose populations will shrink in the next 50 years, plus 28 that are able to maintain their populations only through immigration. That includes Canada, whose population will start shrinking in about 20 years, even with 300,000 new immigrants a year.

It also includes Qatar, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Iran is on the verge of joining this group – after plummeting from seven children per family in the 1980s to barely more than two now – and Turkey is not far behind.

When people become prosperous, they stop having large families. That includes immigrants, who don't reproduce more, after a generation, than the rest of us. Either we take in a lot more than we do now, or we get ready to change our way of life – this will be the big debate of the near future.

Twenty years ago, Canadian-born historian William H. McNeill became the first scholar (to my knowledge) to look seriously at the problem of shrinking population, which was then strictly a speculative matter.

“Politically speaking,” he concluded, looking at places such as Quebec, where it had already happened, “one must expect considerable volatility in public responses to what is still a new and perhaps unstable demographic regime in the rich, urbanized countries of the earth.”

He warned that every nation would soon have to be an immigrant nation and spoke of “the tendency toward aggressive self-assertion in the face of diminishing numbers.”

I fear that may have been a good prediction.

Immigration is absolutely essential for Canada’s future prosperity – hell’s bells increased immigration is essential for our very survival.

BUT we need carefully targeted immigration. We need to recruit people who will, largely, “hit the ground running” and integrate, fairly easily, into a sophisticated, tolerant, liberal-capitalist culture. There are, at this moment, two ‘good’ sources for large numbers of those ‘desirable’ people: China and India. There are also some ‘bad’ sources – areas that offer people who have, by and large, demonstrated difficulty in adjusting to Canada, even in the second generation.


 
E.R. Campbell said:
Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an article to which we should give careful attention because it also applies to Canada;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080905.wreckoning0906/BNStory/International/home
Immigration is absolutely essential for Canada’s future prosperity – hell’s bells increased immigration is essential for our very survival.

BUT we need carefully targeted immigration. We need to recruit people who will, largely, “hit the ground running” and integrate, fairly easily, into a sophisticated, tolerant, liberal-capitalist culture. There are, at this moment, two ‘good’ sources for large numbers of those ‘desirable’ people: China and India. There are also some ‘bad’ sources – areas that offer people who have, by and large, demonstrated difficulty in adjusting to Canada, even in the second generation.

You have mentioned before that 'Culture Matters'.  Do you think the demographic crunch will lead to a change Europe's culture?  For that matter, shouldn't Russia's demographic problems come to a head before those of Europe?
 
chanman said:
You have mentioned before that 'Culture Matters'.  Do you think the demographic crunch will lead to a change Europe's culture?  For that matter, shouldn't Russia's demographic problems come to a head before those of Europe?

I think many Europeans are already battling what they see as a cultural 'challenge' brought on by too many immigrants who are unwilling or unable to integrate into the traditional, established national culture. The immigration is the result of too many unfilled low wage/low status jobs - jobs that e.g. Danes want done but would rather not do themselves.

Russia's demographic crunch is already making life difficult for the Medvedev/Putin mob.

But what's the alternative for e.g. Denmark, the Netherlands and, indeed, Canada?

First: automate or mechanize those low wage/low status but, all the same, important jobs. I have, previously, explained the difference between garbage collection in Beijing and Dallas: the streets are clean and tidy in both cities but in Dallas the work is done by a very few people and a whole lot of equipment. The relative costs to the two economies are fully acceptable.

Second: recruit a steady and increasingly larger stream of immigrants from a few countries with surpluses of sophisticated, well educated people - they will do the low wage/low status jobs for a while (and that's why there needs to be a steady stream of immigrants) and they will integrate easily. They will not become WASPs although, despite the disapproval of the first generation of immigrants, their grandchildren will inter-marry with my grandchildren, but they will not decide to behead our prime minister, either.
 
The problem in Europe including Russia is that the birth rate of muslim immigrants in time will make the Russians or British minorities in their country. France has offered a bonus for French women for each baby they conceive. This may end up being the best alternative.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
I think many Europeans are already battling what they see as a cultural 'challenge' brought on by too many immigrants who are unwilling or unable to integrate into the traditional, established national culture. The immigration is the result of too many unfilled low wage/low status jobs - jobs that e.g. Danes want done but would rather not do themselves.

Russia's demographic crunch is already making life difficult for the Medvedev/Putin mob.

But what's the alternative for e.g. Denmark, the Netherlands and, indeed, Canada?

First: automate or mechanize those low wage/low status but, all the same, important jobs. I have, previously, explained the difference between garbage collection in Beijing and Dallas: the streets are clean and tidy in both cities but in Dallas the work is done by a very few people and a whole lot of equipment. The relative costs to the two economies are fully acceptable.

The old capital and labour inputs into the production black box  ;)

But then, the demographics of the donor countries suddenly become of huge interest of us.  China still has plenty of peasants and a deep pool of unskilled migrant labour, but the wage increases in the industrialized areas suggest that skilled labour is approaching or nearing full utilization; and the lack of good local managerial talent is a long-bemoaned subject for firms in the market that are trying to expand.

Do expect some culture clash between large numbers of immigrants with conservative values with locals who move ever further to the left? (I want to avoid the world liberal as is used in the vernacular as it has, and should continue to mean something else entirely).  The pro-Tibet protestors being shouted down by members of the Chinese diaspora, while entertaining for someone who generally find protestors annoying, come to mind.

Second: recruit a steady and increasingly larger stream of immigrants from a few countries with surpluses of sophisticated, well educated people - they will do the low wage/low status jobs for a while (and that's why there needs to be a steady stream of immigrants) and they will integrate easily. They will not become WASPs although, despite the disapproval of the first generation of immigrants, their grandchildren will inter-marry with my grandchildren, but they will not decide to behead our prime minister, either.

This seems to be the goal of a number of developed countries with low birth rates.  In the present day, we compete with, at the very least, Singapore, the US, Australia for the choice emmigrats from the two countries you mentioned above.  Generally, I think that you can add Hong Kong, the UK, and certain local cities (Bangalore, China's eastern seaboard) as competitors to attrct the young, productive, educated, and risk-taking people (as a decision to emmigrate) that no one ever seems to have enough of.  What, then, is and will be Canada's unique attraction that makes sure that should emmigration from donor countries slows down, we continue to be the destination of choice (or at least continues for long enough that we can can adjust more gradually?)

Maybe it's time to offshore child birth and start offering rewards for families in other countries to have more children in exchange for preferential treatment when it comes to their applications for visas, access to international schools, and prompter service when it comes to their immigration paperwork?  A longer term view to be sure, but unless you know of a way to keep birthrates above 2.1 when per capita GDP starts rising...


tomahawk6 said:
The problem in Europe including Russia is that the birth rate of muslim immigrants in time will make the Russians or British minorities in their country. France has offered a bonus for French women for each baby they conceive. This may end up being the best alternative.

Well, Islam being a religion, I suppose you could always convert more French women...  If the high birthrate stems from Pakistani or Arab or Caucuses culture though, then religion might not be the important factor.  Do the Orthodox groups in the Caucuses have more or less kids than their Muslim neighbours?  (For that matter, you could compare the two groups in the ex-FRY too).  I suppose though, that if they expect that to be the future, they should start entrenching their aboriginal rights now while they still have some say-so on the matter  ;)
 
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