GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
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No country that has unempoyment is underpopulated.
New EU population data released - EU pop. now over half a billion
- Thread starter Winner
- Start date
No country that has unempoyment is underpopulated.
Ulyaoth
Emperor
Yes we are! No one is picking our fruit or cleaning our houses! Our homes are filthy, man!
Yoda Power
✫✫✫✫✫✫✫
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Studies in Denmark have shown that while muslim immigrants get a lot of children, the next generation is pretty much like the native population, so that's hardly a problem.
Well, you're free to not have children, then.
The European population news keeps getting worse and worse, and will continue to do so. Decent middle-class English people constantly delay having children because of the expense and stress, even as they pay for unemployed people and immigrants to breed at their expense. That's the logic of socialism for you though.
Ulyaoth
Emperor
The problem is corporate capitalists abusing the workers to bring in cheap labor to the country or move labor out of the country to cheaper locations. Abuse to both parties of workers and anyone who cares about the workers of the world should be against it.
What?
GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
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How would you define underpopulated ? When is a country in need for more people if there's not enough jobs for the ones who're already there ?
GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
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Well, it means there's more people than the economy needs...
ArneHD
Just a little bit mad
You can have the Italians, but you are going to have to fight us to get the Germans!
On a more serious note, Europe has over twice the population density of North America. Whether or not this constitutes overpopulation is somewhat more unclear.
kulade
Deity
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dood, waht...
How much an "economy needs" more or less increases and decreases with population.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
That's the plan.
Albeit technically unless I have more than 2.1 kids, I am still contributing to the demographic decline.
Most of Europe has fairly high population density. There are places with insane pop. density (UK, Benelux, parts of the western Germany), but even places with rather average (by European standards) pop. density are still way above the US average. In the Czech Rep. it's about 130 people per km2 compared to about 30/km2 in the US. When I go up on a hill near my mother's native village, I can see about 6 other villages in the immediate vicinity (takes an hour or so to walk there). If I climbed a mountain in the US, I wouldn't see any human settlement for tens of kilometres.
Gradual reduction of European population is desirable for many reasons. It will help us switch to a sustainable economy and force us to focus on quality, on people's potential. We don't want to end up like the "human resources rich countries"*, do we?
(* - I stole that line from Yes, Minister - it is a term for countries which are grossly overpopulated and begging for money, according to Sir Humphrey).
Ulyaoth
Emperor
It's plenty dense here in the East of the US. One town runs straight into the next to the point where I never understood what difference it makes one town to the next. Although it's typical suburban sprawl I guess.
Tycho Brahe
Emperor
In 50 mio years Europe wil rule the universe!
The unemployment rate may be kept higher than the natural level by bad economic policies (the case in much of the world), and thus the rate of unemployment is not really related to how populated or unpopulated a country is.
Additionally, immigrants may boost economic activity and thus generate more jobs. The economy and the job market are not a zero sum game.
And Winner, while I agree that Europe has a lot of people relative to it's size, you still don't want the population to age too fast. I think countries like Italy are in from some serious demographic problems.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
No, no more immigrants taking our jobs!
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
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Good for Europe, I suppose?
But how's the worker-to-retiree ratio doing? Income statistics?
Germans for sure due to their scientific genius. But we need more Chinese and Japanese to boost our tech sector. They also will teach us the the proper means of disciplining children so that they do good in school.
Or at least that's what the test scores say... Not sure how valid all these stereotypes are. 
Or alternatively, rather than selecting any particular group, we should just start abducting educated individuals from around the world. And also burning down all the foreign schools so we have a monopoly on the educated. And also banning people who aren't permanent residences from attending our schools.
Where's my M. Bison outfit...
Actually, if we imported more educated and/or well-off individuals, they could create a lot of higher-up positions, which require a lot of lower positions as a general rule... meaning that while they may take the higher-paying jobs, plenty of lower-ranking positions could also open up due to their investments/needs. The economy expanding to meet the needs of the expanding economy.
But how's the worker-to-retiree ratio doing? Income statistics?
Germans for sure due to their scientific genius. But we need more Chinese and Japanese to boost our tech sector. They also will teach us the the proper means of disciplining children so that they do good in school.
Or at least that's what the test scores say...
Not sure how valid all these stereotypes are. Or alternatively, rather than selecting any particular group, we should just start abducting educated individuals from around the world. And also burning down all the foreign schools so we have a monopoly on the educated. And also banning people who aren't permanent residences from attending our schools.
Where's my M. Bison outfit...
Actually, if we imported more educated and/or well-off individuals, they could create a lot of higher-up positions, which require a lot of lower positions as a general rule... meaning that while they may take the higher-paying jobs, plenty of lower-ranking positions could also open up due to their investments/needs. The economy expanding to meet the needs of the expanding economy.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
It's not ageing too fast. It's been happening for decades and if our political leaders had had the balls to enact proper pension and other reforms, we wouldn't have to worry now.
The way I see it, the current economy is a pyramid scheme. We are obsessed with economic growth, which means more people have to consume more things. Population growth is good because it creates new customers and therefore growth. To maintain the illusion of growth, every subsequent generation has to be more numerous than the previous one, or consume more. On the other hand, when the population stops growing and starts ageing, the time comes to pay the bills and a lot of people just can't accept that, so they're looking for stopgap measures like massive immigration from abroad. Of course they know that immigration won't really help and will actually make the problem worse in the long term*, but they are too scared to tell the people what really needs to be done.
So, the sooner we deal with this the right way, the better. It will actually make our future sustainable and happier, while the rest of the world will have to deal with the very same problem, just a little bit later.
*- Immigration only makes sense in rapidly developing countries which suffer of serious shortages of labour: countries like the US in the late 19th/early 20th century. It makes no sense in countries which suffer of no such shortages and actually have to cope with 6 to 10 per cent unemployment. In these countries, immigration has to be limited to highly qualified professionals and other skilled workers. Masses of half-literate Arabs, Africans, Pakistanis and others are of no benefit, they just put a strain on the welfare nets and the very social fabric of these countries.
Middle class children are better than lower class children then?
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