Ponzi demography
One of the reasons corporate-sponsored politicians clamor for amnesty for illegal aliens (or "pathway to legalization and citizenship" as it is now called) is economic growth. Even mere talk of a possible amnesty, under the guise of comprehensive immigration reform, draws more and more illegal aliens into our country who will work at slave-labor wages to grease the wheels of our economy. Quite simply, more people means more consumers.
In a sagging economy, increasing the number of consumers seems like a sure-fire way to shore up against collapse. For a while. Until the Ponzi scheme collapses. For once we have doubled our population - and the number of consumers - this century, what will we then do? Perhaps economists and politicians will suggest importing even more people to consume even more and more.
The problem is that we can not physically grow forever within the finite boundaries of our country. Politicians are hoping Americans will ignore this slight inconsistancy as we plunge headlong into mindless immigration-driven growth.
While Americans lament that politicians turn a deaf ear toward concerns for the future, Singapore's people are protesting against their own govenment's population Ponzi scheme.
Article: Singapore’s Population Bubble
by William Pesek, Bloomberg, February 14, 2013
Singaporeans are raring to do something extraordinary: protest..
What has people so riled up? Well, people... the tiny island’s population may rise by as much as 30 percent to 6.9 million by 2030. This seems to be the government’s answer to the question of how to sustain prosperity in one of the most crowded and expensive cities in the world.
The signs of overcrowding and urban stress are palpable to any visitor. Prices are surging, public services in a nation famed for nanny-state tendencies are slipping and some of the finest infrastructure anywhere is buckling under the strain. Locals blame the influx of immigrants, which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s ruling party touts as one key to Singapore’s success in the years to come.
The city-state, with about half the area of New York City, has 3.3 million citizens and 2 million foreign residents, many of whom have contributed greatly to Singapore’s growth in finance and construction. Yet complaints that overseas workers deprive locals of jobs and drive up housing prices fill the air. Singapore is the third-most-expensive Asian city and ranks as the sixth most costly in the world, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit ranking of 131 cities.
Singapore may well serve as a case study for what happens when leaders try to offset slowing economic growth with immigration and increased birth rates. There are lessons that Japan or Italy would do well to study. All of it is turning into a political liability for Lee, the son of Lee Kuan Yew, who is regarded as the father of modern Singapore...
The real question, as public angst rises, is whether the opposition is justified. Former United Nations demographer Joseph Chamie says it is. To Chamie, the view that it’s almost always better to have more and more people is the human equivalent of what Bernard Madoff did with money, something he calls “Ponzi demography.”
The human-pyramid scheme works like this: Population growth, either through births or immigration, boosts demand for goods and services, increases borrowing, boosts tax revenue and adds to corporate profits. Everything seems grand and leaders take a bow. It’s a bubble, though, and it eventually bursts when population growth stalls. Incomes top out, high debt crushes consumption and investment, the need for public assistance rises, environmental degradation increases and angry people take to the streets.
As households are left to pick up the tab once Ponzi demography runs its course, government leaders issue dire warnings about economic decline if the flow of fresh talent stops..
Singapore needs to find another way. The era of easy growth is over. Just as economies such as Japan and South Korea are seeing the limits of their export-led models, Singapore’s formula has run its course...
Not only is Singapore toying with liberalized immigration, it’s also revving up a campaign to persuade Singaporeans to wed younger and reproduce...
Singapore’s addiction to population growth sends a simple and disconcerting message: The country has run out of ideas to increase economic vitality, aside from encouraging people to procreate or immigrate. Ponzi demography, indeed.
The analogy to our growth-addicted United States is so obvious that it smacks one in the face:
America's addiction to population growth sends a simple and disconcerting message: Our country has run out of ideas to increase economic vitality, aside from encouraging people to procreate or immigrate.
Ponzi demography, indeed.