Professor Elam

Monday March 1 2010

I recently added a link to Mark Steyn on the sidebar. His article on Greece is a good example of why one should be reading Mark. 

As the saying goes, demography is destiny. Greece is simply not replacing its population. Its birth rate has now fallen below the point that the civilization will continue to exist. If one does not replace a population with 2.1 births per couple, the population declines. If the birth rate is low enough the acceleration to the downside increases. This is particularly important if various social welfare programs depend on new generations of workers to fund them. Once the population declines, and the retirees burden the systme by actually living longer, the pension formulas simply will not work. We have labored to make that point in numerous hyperlinks on this site but Mark sums it up well.