CONTEXT ADDED BY ADMIN:
END OF CONTEXT
Points of Disagreement:
1. -Actually the American fertility rate is 2.09 births per woman. The replacement rate is 2.10 so this is right at the replacement level and due to immigration (and somewhat due to steadily rising lifespans) the country's population is rising at a steady 1% per year.
2. -They point out the demographic situation of Europe as being terrible-and rightly so-and then go on to call their generous welfare states (ie. the European Social Model as the Europeans themselves call it) as "affordable". No its not! You think America's national debt is bad? Lemme throw some numbers at you
National debt as a percentage of GDP
Greece 81.7%
Austria 61%
Portugal 65.8%
France 66.6%
Germany 65.3%
Canada 64% (socialized medicine anyone?)
Italy 104%
Belgium 86.1%
Netherlands 47.7%
UK 43.3%
Sweden 38%
Japan 182.4% (not a typo)
Where does America stand? Try....
US 36.8%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Now remember also please that Germany, Russia, Japan and Italy already have declining populations. The UK's is growing at a snail's pace and France's is only a teeeensy bit faster (and a lot of that is attributable to the 10% of the population which is muslim).
How do their future economic prospects and the affordability of their welfare states look now? Remember, their economic growth hasn't kept pace with America's for a generation already. Conclusion: They're going to slip much much further behind on top of the effects of compounding which would steadily make America pull away from them anyway.
3.-they talk about the "rise of the others" in Asia in particular....then only briefly talk about the fact that China's demographics are just as bad if not worse. China is an enormous country with an enormous population that is just now really getting into the processes of urbanization and industrialization (which occurred in the West between 100 and 150 years ago) but it will find the rapid aging of its society a huge burden. Bringing in poor peasants off the rice paddies and putting them in factories can only get you so far in any event. The next stages of development requiring good property law, solid financial institutions (and laws), protection of intellectual property so as to develop brands and make R&D worthwhile, reliable contract law and an efficient legal enforcement mechanism for contracts, a good education system, etc. are not nearly as easy. It will be a lot harder to build those institutions than it was to slap poor farm laborers into factories making low value added products......now add to those challenges the burden of an aging society. China "could" rise to a first rate power in 50-75 years but an awful lot would have to go right for them.
4. The country they hardly mentioned was India. India has good demographics and thanks to a couple centuries of British tutelage, fairly good institutions to build on. Granted it has its own sets of problems, but India is IMHO a better long term bet to join the ranks of first rate powers than China. The budding strategic alliance between America and India whereby India is brought more or less back into the Anglosphere (this time as a much more equal partner rather than subordinated to Britian) will be of enormous significance in the future. This process MUST continue......at least if you would like to see a world unquestionably dominated by the values of the Enlightenment (liberal democracy, the rights of man, the emphasis of reason over superstition, custom or habit, etc).
Points of Agreement
The author was broadly correct about energy policy and entitlements being the two biggest obstacles facing us-and the root cause being partisan politics/ideology rather than reason.
1. Entitlements. As good as our demographics are in relative terms, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are unaffordable as they're currently configured. We BADLY need reforms such as private accounts, raising the retirement age and eligibility for Medicare, an acceptance that healthcare provided by Medicare/Medicaid will be rationed, etc in order to contain the costs.
2. Energy policy. America has:
-246 million tons of coal.....about 27% of the world's total.....enough to meet all the projected energy needs of the country for the next 200 years if it were gassified at a cost of between $35-$50 per barrel
-5.7 billion barrels of oil in ANWR
-32 billion barrels of oil in the Utah Tar Sands
-413 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation
-80 bilion barrels of oil (projected) offshore
-plenty of uranium for nuclear power plants
yet....we aren't allowed to develop hardly any of these resources, can't build refineries, aren't allowed to build nuclear power plants, and must instead send tens or hundreds of billions of dollars (HALF of our trade deficit) overseas to buy oil-often from people who don't like us very much and don't have our best interests at heart. Why? The following was put together by a House Republican....but if these numbers are even CLOSE to being accurate (and from memory they seem to be)....here's the source of a lot of this problem
Congressman Roy Blunt put together these data to highlight the differences between House Republicans and House Democrats on energy policy:
ANWR Exploration House Republicans: 91% Supported House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed
Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed
Refinery Increased Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed
SUMMARY
91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas.
86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/06/020696.php
