Deferring action

by J. Christoph Amberger

The population of the U.S.A. has topped 300 million. There is now one birth every seven seconds, one death every 13 seconds, and one new immigrant added every 31 seconds.

Immigrants are now accounting for a whopping 40% of U.S. growth. In terms of net immigration gains, the U.S. ranks third with a rate of 3.4 per 1,000, lagging behind Ireland and Australia.

By comparison, Russia has lost 3.4 million people between 2000 and 2005 and is now down to 143 million, with an accelerating trend toward shrinkage. Europe is expected to shed 10% of its total population contracting to 653 million by 2050... while Northern American populations will increase 32% through 2050.

-- These numbers apparently go a long way to explain the rousing inaction both Democrats and Republicans are exercising in regard to the often-announced Social Security reform.

Like any pay-as-you-go system, Social Security can muddle along unchanged if there’s only enough people paying into the pot. It would appear like both parties have tacitly agreed on deferring any decisive political action by all means. Instead, they’re front-loading the active payers’ side with a million new immigrants a year… who hopefully will begin to pay as they go at some point and have kids who in turn will pay not only for their own immigrant parents but for two preceding generations as well.

I feel reminded of what the German journalist Gabor Steingart wrote: “The most important resource of the twenty-first century is education, politicians say. What colossal error: The most important -- because scarcest -- resource of our days is strength of will.”

Let’s see how long lack of political will can be compensated by immigration.