Claire, can you explain this further, please? "The reality, given the underlying demographic problem, is that these newcomers are not a drain to the welfare system but a requirement to sustain it, and no far-right party in power, so far, has had any success in boosting the birth rate."
What part? That no party (of the left or right) has had anything more than mild success at boosting birthrates? Or that unless birthrates exceed replacement, there's no one to pay for the welfare system?
Yeah. Everywhere in the world, welfare systems work as a kind of Ponzi scheme. Tax revenues from young people pay for older people to get sick and retire. If your demographics skew old, there's not enough money to pay.
Yes, that's well understood. The catch here is that immigrants are not a drain, but a requirement to sustain. We in the US think (and I'm still not convinced we think incorrectly) that newcomers, generally, are a drain because they aren't paying in on the front end of the Ponzi scheme but rather consuming resources. That's where my thinking hadn't caught up to yours. I'd love to see data on that if you have it.
20 years of systemic elite failure has made populism inevitable. If elites get ahead of the curve and engage in significant reforms they can head off the excesses. The alternative is state failure.
Elite's in parts of the western world such as Canada and even to a lesser extent France did not "fail" in the same way they did in the US and UK. Canada stayed of the Iraq War and did not have a major financial crash in 2008. France stayed out of Iraq too and was someone in the middle between Canada on the one hand and the UK/US on the other in terms of problems in the banking sector. Yet in both Canada and France you have significant populist movements although one might argue Canadian populist is just the same old far right reactionary populism that is ebbed and flowed through Canadian history(i.e. Social Credit and later the Reform Party)
Claire, can you explain this further, please? "The reality, given the underlying demographic problem, is that these newcomers are not a drain to the welfare system but a requirement to sustain it, and no far-right party in power, so far, has had any success in boosting the birth rate."
What part? That no party (of the left or right) has had anything more than mild success at boosting birthrates? Or that unless birthrates exceed replacement, there's no one to pay for the welfare system?
The part about needing immigrants to support the welfare state but I think I've got it now. They are the workers who are txaed to pay for it, yeah?
Yeah. Everywhere in the world, welfare systems work as a kind of Ponzi scheme. Tax revenues from young people pay for older people to get sick and retire. If your demographics skew old, there's not enough money to pay.
Yes, that's well understood. The catch here is that immigrants are not a drain, but a requirement to sustain. We in the US think (and I'm still not convinced we think incorrectly) that newcomers, generally, are a drain because they aren't paying in on the front end of the Ponzi scheme but rather consuming resources. That's where my thinking hadn't caught up to yours. I'd love to see data on that if you have it.
As I read this highly informative, erudite piece my mind leaned upon Shakespeare: "Et tu Brute?!" Where is Brutus when we really need him?
20 years of systemic elite failure has made populism inevitable. If elites get ahead of the curve and engage in significant reforms they can head off the excesses. The alternative is state failure.
Elite's in parts of the western world such as Canada and even to a lesser extent France did not "fail" in the same way they did in the US and UK. Canada stayed of the Iraq War and did not have a major financial crash in 2008. France stayed out of Iraq too and was someone in the middle between Canada on the one hand and the UK/US on the other in terms of problems in the banking sector. Yet in both Canada and France you have significant populist movements although one might argue Canadian populist is just the same old far right reactionary populism that is ebbed and flowed through Canadian history(i.e. Social Credit and later the Reform Party)
Exactly. The nature of these movements is extremely similar, yet the countries in which they've emerged are highly dissimilar.