The Impending Baby BOOM

A new post over at Captain Capitalism gave the ol’ cranial lightbulb (fluorescent, thank you) a sudden jolt – Europe and other western nations have a baby boom generation as well. And it would seem they will be as much a drag on current and future resources and GDP as their American cousins.

It’s not so much that I wasn’t aware that Europe’s demographic landscape was changing (for a thoroughly fascinating and depressing book on the subject, read Mark Steyn’s America Alone), it’s that the US need only to look across the Atlantic to see the long-term effects of increased government involvement in commerce and health care. Sure the Swedes are the model of cradle-to-grave social democracy, but what happens when the cogs of this engine inevitably break down with age, and there are no replacement parts available? This giant social Ponzi scheme only works if the incoming labor force is as large or larger than the force its replacing. No tax base, no goodies.

No problem, you say – the influx of immigrants will compensate for the shortfall. Perhaps, assuming these immigrants are college educated professionals, and they share the same social mores as their host country. What if these immigrants saw homosexuality and sexual promiscuity as sins against Allah or whomever (or whatever) deity they worship? This is the stewing cauldron that now awaits our Western friends, and will for leaders here as well in a decade or so.

And speaking of lightbulbs, have any of you ever had one of those new “green” bulbs break on you? Have you read the precautionary notes and directions for disposal? I wasn’t aware that hazmat suits are now a necessity…