Angela Merkel is destroying Europe

[Unusual Tournament]

8 hours ago, Manfred von Dreidecker said:

why the heck should "looking for other markets" be a bad thing? You really are completely ridiculous. 

Haha... as if the UK can't trade outside of Europe already... Anyway, the EU will no doubt be looking for new members and agreements too.   

[Frank Merton]

The advanced countries of the worlds (Europe, Russia, China, S. Korea, Japan, Austronesia, the US and Canada) have a population age problem.  They have all in one way or another promised their populations various benefits (incomes, health care, housing, etc.) when they get too old to work, but they all did it the political way, without figuring out how to pay for it (after all, that will be a problem for future politicians and I need votes now).

All of these countries are growing older, some faster than others.  The US and Canada and Austronesia are not as bad off as they are taking in large numbers of young immigrants, even though local birth rates have collapsed.  Europe, and especially Russia and Japan and S. Korea, are actually shrinking in numbers, and China will probably have a third fewer people by the end of the century.  

A dropping population is a problem, an aging population is worse.  Young people do the work -- by age fifty most people have figured out how to get money without working very hard, and by age sixty or so they retire.  Time was when families supported them.  Now with only one or two children, that system doesn't work.

All of these countries face a smaller, less efficient workforce, smaller numbers to draw soldiers from, smaller economies and tighter budgets.  The arithmetic for a country like Japan is bleak, for China is horrifying.  Russia has compounded on it a problem of discouragement and alcoholism that will sooner or later, if it tries to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, break its back.  It does have resources to draw on -- resources the rest of the world needs and wants less and less.

Short convincing people to have more babies (and believe me northern European countries and even now countries like Italy are trying to do this), the only other solution is immigrants.

For Europe that means mainly Muslims and Africans; for the Americas that means mostly Latin Americans with some Muslims and Africans.  There are no other choices other than diminish as a nation to irrelevant status over the next century.

What has gone on with Trump in America, his taking advantage of nativism and racism to win election, is just the sort of thing that destroys a country.  No one wants to move to China or Russia, the Europeans have to get new blood with great risk.  America and a few other English speaking countries are in the catbird seat, but American is damned to destroy itself.

 

[bee]

.

^^^

and yet not very long ago we were told that over population was considered the biggest problem
that the human race faced in the future - ?

Europeans were encouraged to have LESS children and big families were frowned on as somehow 
unnecessary and self indulgent - two children were thought of as the ideal number for couples then
they would replace the '''outgoing''' parents -

So what changed..?

With ever sophisticated labour saving technology and some countries actually talking moving towards a universal
income because of so many jobs being lost to mechanized processes - the world is changing (as always) -

take the move into the computer age for example - what used to require physical premises and a workforce
to keep it running from managers to cleaners and caretakers - this can now in theory take place via computer
links - 

There is something about this sudden urgent need for an immigrant workforce that doesn't add up - like it's part
of an agenda that is unspoken and outside the democratic process - yes possibly the Globalist Agenda, 
that to work will have to weaken nationalism - and eventually dissolve borders (if the globalists get their way?)

. 

 

[Space Commander Travis]

2 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

All of these countries are growing older, some faster than others.  The US and Canada and Austronesia are not as bad off as they are taking in large numbers of young immigrants, even though local birth rates have collapsed.  Europe, and especially Russia and Japan and S. Korea, are actually shrinking in numbers, and China will probably have a third fewer people by the end of the century.  

and are all those things necessarily bad from the point of view of use of resources and overcrowding, which is disastrous for health and so on?

[Space Commander Travis]

2 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Russia has compounded on it a problem of discouragement and alcoholism that will sooner or later, if it tries to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, break its back.

so therefore it's all the more likely that it wouldn't, since it, unlike, for example, Germany a while back, has all the 'living space' they could possibly want, and abundant resources? 

[Frank Merton]

The need for living space is an illusion.  Hong Kong has one of the most happy populations in the world, all cheek-by-jowl.  The issue was world resources to support a huge growing world population.  Except for Africa, this has stopped, and will stop in africa.  Surprise upon surprise, women given control over their lives decide to not have so many babies.  We don't need government edicts to achieve this, we only need to give women control and access to the means to control the births -- and actually just the motive is enough in many cases.

Bee's remark is just insane.  This worldwide conspiracy of mysterious types to control things makes me puke it is so ridiculous.  What interest have they in all this.

Resources is the real issue, and if we let price mechanisms work reasonably well, this is self-correcting.  Seeing the halt in world population growth is a good thing -- from the point of the view of the world as a whole -- as everyone will be better able to have access to resources.  But for individual countries the matter is different, and in the end the only real resource is people.  Substitutes can be found for the others, but it is the people, especially if educated and working, that make a nation powerful and important.  Trump's policies seem designed to achieve the opposite.  Merkel has to hope that incoming Muslims will assimilate, at least enough to become decent Germans (they will of course still be Muslims).  

All immigrants cause trouble, but the stimulation they cause greatly outweighs this.  

[bee]

1 minute ago, Frank Merton said:

 

Bee's remark is just insane.  This worldwide conspiracy of mysterious types to control things makes me puke it is so ridiculous.

 

.

yeah right --- of course it is ...

I'd say you are naive but that would be disingenuous of me to say that so I won't -

. 

[Space Commander Travis]

4 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

it is the people, especially if educated and working, that make a nation powerful and important.  Trump's policies seem designed to achieve the opposite.

But his argument is that the majority of them, those that come illegally over the border anyway, are neither educated nor have much interest in working legitimately. If they do end up working it's just as servants for the wealthy. Of course, there is the other argument that they do the jobs, and certainly for wages, that Americans don't want to do, which is like Alibongo's fruit pickers argument. But is the fact they they are something to be proud of? (that the wealthy need these people but they aren't prepared to be decent wages for)?

[bee]

8 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

  Merkel has to hope that incoming Muslims will assimilate, at least enough to become decent Germans (they will of course still be Muslims).  

All immigrants cause trouble, but the stimulation they cause greatly outweighs this.  

.

Is this how politics work now --- on a hope and a prayer..?

And with no consultation within a democratic framework - sounds like the quasi democracy of the '''New World Order''' is 
already in operation  within the EU - 

.

[Space Commander Travis]

3 minutes ago, bee said:

Merkel has to hope that incoming Muslims will assimilate,

That doesn't seem to have worked conspicuously yet in France or Belgium , does it? 

[bee]

10 minutes ago, Manfred von Dreidecker said:

But his argument is that the majority of them, those that come illegally over the border anyway, are neither educated nor have much interest in working legitimately. If they do end up working it's just as servants for the wealthy. Of course, there is the other argument that they do the jobs, and certainly for wages, that Americans don't want to do, which is like Alibongo's fruit pickers argument. But is the fact they they are something to be proud of? (that the wealthy need these people but they aren't prepared to be decent wages for)?

.

re bolded ---

I saw something on the telly about this machine that shakes the fruit trees so the fruit drops off -

Maybe someone might have to pick it off the ground or perhaps some sort of gentle sucking machine
could gather it up - and then a little robot pack it all into boxes - 

.

[bee]

6 minutes ago, Manfred von Dreidecker said:

That doesn't seem to have worked conspicuously yet in France or Belgium , does it? 

.

no it doesn't and no doubt there's a whole army of Imams working 24/7 to make sure it doesn't -
not in any sort of way that will erode the basic power of the religion. anyway -

when the sudden influx of refugees and migrants started to respond to Merkel's open invitation
Saudi Arabia kindly offered to pay to build 200 new mosques in Germany - hmmmmm 

.  

[aztek]

German people did not replace their gvmnt in time, now German gvmnt replacing its people. 

[Finity]

You laugh, but Labour did the same in the UK. Immigrants generally vote Labour, which is probably why Labour (Blair) opened the flood gates when he was in. Part of the plan was clearly to import more voters, but it's now backfired massively on them.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Finity

[Ashotep]

On 1/17/2017 at 2:09 AM, bee said:

.

re bolded ---

I saw something on the telly about this machine that shakes the fruit trees so the fruit drops off -

Maybe someone might have to pick it off the ground or perhaps some sort of gentle sucking machine
could gather it up - and then a little robot pack it all into boxes - 

.

They are working on replacing a lot of farm labor with robots and automation.  They are even working on replacing butchers.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-31/online-grocer-debuts-fruit-picking-robot-latest-blow-minimum-wage-proponents

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/18/automated-farming-food-security-rural-jobs-unemployment-technology

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/05/461377861/worlds-largest-meatpacking-firm-wants-to-test-out-robot-butchers

 

[aztek]

there is one thing, the cost, how much will it cost to buy a robot like that, and maintain it, vs hiring temps for the season, most of the year farms do not really need anyone work in the field. 

[Glockornothing]

5 hours ago, aztek said:

there is one thing, the cost, how much will it cost to buy a robot like that, and maintain it, vs hiring temps for the season, most of the year farms do not really need anyone work in the field. 

What do the temps do for most of the season when they are not needed, and who pays for it?  If a robot is turned off it costs nothing to operate, so its cost is only the purchase price. Wonder if anyone calculated the price of the robot including its use time for the farmer, vs the cost of the workers paid for by the farmer while employed and the cost to society while not. Might be a wash if the farmer has to raise his prices to pay for the robot, or more taxes are paid for by citizens to care for the workers while not employed.