Departing for New Hampshire in November 2010, Sen. Judd Gregg, the fiscal conservative President Obama wanted in his Cabinet, blurted an inconvenient truth: "This nation is on a course where if we don't do something about it, get ... fiscal policy (under control), we're Greece."
The remark was regarded as hyperbole. But Gregg had a point. For though Greece, measured by the size of her economy, is only 2 to 3 percent of the EU or the U.S. economy, she is a microcosm of the West.
Consider the demography.
According to the most recent revision of the U.N.'s "World Population Prospects," Greece in 2010 had 11.2 million people.
More than 24 percent were 60 or above, more than 18 percent 65 or older. Three percent were 80 or above. And, every year, for every nine Greeks who are born, 10 Greeks die.
Greece is slowly passing away.
Fast forward to 2050.
Greece's population will have fallen by 300,000 to 10.8 million. The median age will have risen by eight years to 49.5. Half the population will be 50 or older. More critically, the share of Greece's population 60 or older will be 37.4 percent, with 31.3 percent over 65. One in nine Greeks will be over 80.
If Athens is breaking under the weight of early retirement and pensions for seniors today, her situation will be horrendous by mid-century.
Where, in 2010, there were four Greeks under 60 for every Greek over 60, by 2050, there will only be 1.7 Greeks under 60 for every Greek over 60.
Conclusion: The retirement age must rise, and pension benefits fall, or Greece collapses.
What of the possibility of a new baby boom? Not likely, given that the fertility rate in Greece has been below replacement levels for three decades and is today only two-thirds of that needed to replace the present population.
Indeed, by 2050, the fertility rate of Greek women will have been below zero population growth for 80 years. One wonders: How can the U.N. estimate that Greece's population will fall only 3 percent by then? Is the U.N. assuming mass immigration from the Muslim world?
But what does Greece have to do with the rest of Europe, or with us?
Only this. The median age of all of Europe is rising, and the demographic numbers for Greece look positively rosy alongside those of the east, where population declines in the tens of millions are projected for Russia and Ukraine. And outside Iceland and Albania, not one nation of Europe has a fertility rate sufficient to maintain its population. Those that are projected to grow, like Britain, have to be relying on Third World immigrants and their higher birth rate.
But while this may maintain an existing population size, immigrants from the Maghreb, Middle East, Caribbean, Latin America and South Asia, on average, lack the language, technical skills and educational levels of native-born Europeans.
The same is true in the U.S., where peoples of European descent are expected to drop to half the population by 2041. Hispanics will grow from 15 percent to near 30 percent of the U.S. population, and their absolute numbers from 50 million to 135 million by 2050.
Yet, again, Hispanics and children of Hispanic immigrants have not, as of yet, reached close to parity in educational achievement with Americans of East Asian or European ancestry.
People equate today's immigration with the immigration of 1890-1920. But another major difference is this: We erected a Great Society over 50 years that did not exist in 1920.
In Washington in the 1950s, a city of 800,000, half black and half white, food stamps had not been invented. Families fed themselves. Today, in a District of Columbia of 600,000, one in five are on food stamps. Nationally, a program that did not exist in 1964 feeds one in seven Americans, 44 million people, at a cost of $77 billion a year. And that is but a small fraction of our new Great Society.
We are entering a new "age of austerity," said British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2009.
The halcyon days are over. Government payrolls, as is happening from California to New York to Washington, D.C., will have to be slashed. Pension and health care benefits, not only for seniors, will have to be reduced. Retirement ages will have to be raised. From food stamps to foreign aid, programs are going to be capped and cut. The left believes it can get the money from the wealthy. But the top 1 percent of Americans in income already carry 40 percent of the federal income tax load, while the bottom 50 percent of wage-earners ride free. This, too, will have to end.
We are either going to man up and radically reduce government at all levels in the United States, or the bond markets are going to do it for us, as they are doing it today for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
We're all Greeks now.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Natives Are Getting Restless: Chinese Police Station Attacked, 5 Killed
As if a global solvency crisis and a possible rekindling of the only middle-east conflict that matters were not enough, here is China to remind everyone that keeping 1.3 billion people happy is not very easy. According to AP, "Several attackers, a policeman and three others were killed Monday during an attack on a police station in China's far western Xinjiang region, state media reported. It said other police rushed to the scene and shot dead "a number of thugs." One policeman, two hostages and a civilian were also killed, Xinhua said. A woman from the information office of Xinjiang Public Security Department in Urumqi confirmed the attack, but would not give any details. As is common with Chinese officials, she refused to give her name." To be sure the official explanation is one that breaks down the conflict along ethnic lines: the last thing the Chinese need is a spark to realize that the unhappiness they may feel (especially those without access to off balance sheet bank loans to fuel their gambling habits), is all too real.
From AP:
From AP:
Xinhua did not give a reason for the attack. But Xinjiang has been beset by ethnic conflict and a sometimes-violent separatist movement by Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), a largely Muslim ethnic group that sees Xinjiang as its homeland. Many Uighurs resent the Han Chinese majority as interlopers.Alas, we get the feeling that this incident will be repeated elsewhere in China, this time without the benefit of the WEE-gur scapegoating.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said several sources inside Xinjiang told him the violence erupted when a large group of Uighurs tried to protest in Hotan on Monday morning. A clash broke out between the demonstrators and police, he said, and police opened fire.
More than 100 Uighurs had gathered to demonstrate against alleged illegal seizures of Uighur-held land and to demand information about relatives who they said had disappeared amid a police crackdown that began after riots in the regional capital of Urumqi in 2009, Dilxat said.
Dilxat said he could not identify his sources or say where they were located in Xinjiang for fear they would face official reprisals.
The region has been especially tense since the deadly 2009 clashes erupted between predominantly Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese migrants. Uighurs attacked Hans, overturning buses and torching shops in the regional capital of Urumqi in a riot the government says killed 197 people.
Friday, July 8, 2011
I Pledge Allegiance To America's Debt, And To The Chinese Government That Lends Us Money (Video)
Please Email Video To A Friend
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- "I pledge allegiance to Americaʼs debt, and to the Chinese government that lends us money. And to the interest, for which we pay, compoundable, with higher taxes and lower pay until the day we die."
- Voice-Over: American tax payers owe more than $500 million in interest payments every day to cover our governmentʼs debt, much of that debt is owe to foreign governments.
- Perhaps you've seen Uncle Sam with a cardboard sign asking for $12 trillion.
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European Debt Freedom Imminent
Germany's judges hold the euro's fate in their hands ... Whether or not Europe's monetary union survives in its current form, shrinks to a Carolingian core, or shatters, depends as much on abstruse legal arguments put forward on Tuesday in Germany's constitutional court as it does on the parallel drama unfolding on Greek streets.
USURY COULD BE STOPPED HERE!
USURY COULD BE STOPPED HERE! Germany has warned that Greek bankruptcy would have set off epic contagion. If the eight judges in Karlsruhe rule that Europe's €500bn bail-out machinery breaches of Germany's Basic Law – or Grundgesetz – in any significant way, they risk knocking away the central prop beneath the debt edifice of Southern Europe. – UK Telegraph
MORE HERE
Brzezinski: Middle Class Unrest To Hit U.S.
Globalist who wrote books advocating highly controlled society dominated by technocratic elite is now concerned about “disparity in society”
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who forty years ago wrote of a highly controlled future society where the population would be subjugated by a technocratic elite, appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday to predict that middle class unrest caused by economic disenfranchisement would soon hit America.
“I don’t want to be a prophet of doom — and I don’t think we are approaching doom — but I think we’re going to slide into intensified social conflicts, social hostility, some forms of radicalism, there is just going to be a sense that this is not a just society,” Brzezinski said, adding that civil unrest would begin when the lower middle class becomes severely affected by the economic fallout and rising unemployment.
The former National Security Advisor predicted “really serious international turmoil” as a result of the United States, Europe and Japan, the three traditional pillars of global economic strength, struggling with deep financial crises.
CFR member Brzezinski’s so-called concern about “disparity” and a “fair society,” as the rich get richer and the middle class becomes poorer, is completely hypocritical given the fact that he wrote books four decades ago virtually advocating precisely that system, where a tiny elite ruthlessly control and dominate the rest of humanity.
However, this is certainly not the first time that Brzezinski has expressed concerns that a growing rage caused by economic and social disenfranchisement could threaten the existing power structure.
During a Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal last year, Brzezinski, a regular attendee of the elitist Bilderberg Group meeting, warned of a “global political awakening,” mainly comprising of younger people in developing states, that threatened to topple the existing international order.
“For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination,” Brzezinski told fellow elitists.
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Since such a movement only represents a threat to the power monopoly of the privileged circles in which Brzezinski moves, one can only conclude that he was decrying this development. As one of the of the chief architects of the “existing global hierarchy” to which he also made reference in the speech, Brzezinski himself is under direct threat, as is the continuing ability of the global elite in general to control world affairs, a point he again touched upon in the MSNBC interview.
“Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” said Brzezinski during last year’s speech, adding that this in combination with a fractured elite “makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”
Since Brzezinski is a proponent of a highly controlled society run by technocrats, the prospect of an angry middle class rising up to challenge the target of their rage is not something to be welcomed in the eyes of the elite.
In his 1970 book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, Brzezinski wrote the following.
“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”
Does this sound like a man who would express sympathy for an economically deprived underclass, as Brzezinski feigns during the MSNBC interview, or is this a man petrified that the new world order he helped build is becoming more vulnerable to collapse even as it tightens the screws on an increasingly aware, angry and desperate population?
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who forty years ago wrote of a highly controlled future society where the population would be subjugated by a technocratic elite, appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday to predict that middle class unrest caused by economic disenfranchisement would soon hit America.
“I don’t want to be a prophet of doom — and I don’t think we are approaching doom — but I think we’re going to slide into intensified social conflicts, social hostility, some forms of radicalism, there is just going to be a sense that this is not a just society,” Brzezinski said, adding that civil unrest would begin when the lower middle class becomes severely affected by the economic fallout and rising unemployment.
The former National Security Advisor predicted “really serious international turmoil” as a result of the United States, Europe and Japan, the three traditional pillars of global economic strength, struggling with deep financial crises.
CFR member Brzezinski’s so-called concern about “disparity” and a “fair society,” as the rich get richer and the middle class becomes poorer, is completely hypocritical given the fact that he wrote books four decades ago virtually advocating precisely that system, where a tiny elite ruthlessly control and dominate the rest of humanity.
However, this is certainly not the first time that Brzezinski has expressed concerns that a growing rage caused by economic and social disenfranchisement could threaten the existing power structure.
During a Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal last year, Brzezinski, a regular attendee of the elitist Bilderberg Group meeting, warned of a “global political awakening,” mainly comprising of younger people in developing states, that threatened to topple the existing international order.
“For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination,” Brzezinski told fellow elitists.
Stock up with Fresh Food that lasts with eFoodsDirect (AD)
Since such a movement only represents a threat to the power monopoly of the privileged circles in which Brzezinski moves, one can only conclude that he was decrying this development. As one of the of the chief architects of the “existing global hierarchy” to which he also made reference in the speech, Brzezinski himself is under direct threat, as is the continuing ability of the global elite in general to control world affairs, a point he again touched upon in the MSNBC interview.
“Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” said Brzezinski during last year’s speech, adding that this in combination with a fractured elite “makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”
Since Brzezinski is a proponent of a highly controlled society run by technocrats, the prospect of an angry middle class rising up to challenge the target of their rage is not something to be welcomed in the eyes of the elite.
In his 1970 book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, Brzezinski wrote the following.
“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”
Does this sound like a man who would express sympathy for an economically deprived underclass, as Brzezinski feigns during the MSNBC interview, or is this a man petrified that the new world order he helped build is becoming more vulnerable to collapse even as it tightens the screws on an increasingly aware, angry and desperate population?
*********************
Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.
As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.
As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.
Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state. As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.
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