Piñata Republics Without Birthdays

The world is slowly coming up on a dangerous trend in population demographics as many European countries are failing to reach the necessary replacement ratio of 2.1 children per couple required to maintain a static population.  Many financially focused individual see reproductive movements merely as an irrelevant social issue.  However, fertility rates have a significant long term impact on an economy especially when the civil government, e.g. Greece, strives to become a piñata republic where citizens are offered as many opportunities as possible to take a whack at getting candy (money) from the exhausted government coffers.  Greece has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at 1.37 children per female (Wolfram Alpha, 2009) creating a scenario where there will soon be one hundred grandparents per forty-two grand children.  This crafts an upside down welfare state where an ever shrinking workforce is “legally plundered”  to provide for an ever expanding retirement community.

Side Note: This problem is aggravated by the fact that Greece has two types of employers: (a) The state which provides massive pension plans and benefits with retirement options becoming available at age fifty and (b) private sector companies which cheat excessively on taxes to a degree where you can find Greek businesses which specialize in creating bogus expenses. (Michael Lewis, 2011)

Many other other European nations are following suite:

• United Kingdom @ 1.66
• Germany @ 1.41
• Spain @ 1.31.
• Russia @ 1.41
• Ukraine @ 1.26
• Italy @ 1.31

America has dropped to 2.05, so we have just tipped under the required replacement rate with the ability to recover.

With government taking over healthcare, inevitably running out of money to properly care for the elderly, authorities may begin to consider deadly options to ease the budge as euthanasia and “pulling the plug” is slowly becoming more and more socially acceptable.

Ideas have consequences and bad ideas lead bad consequences.  We must be vigilant to see the impact of today’s choices on tomorrow’s fate.

Read more about this issue here.