However, negative yields are not the only concern that the country has in common with Japan. It’s the overall demographic picture that is worrying, and it could have a big effect on Germany’s economic future as well as the tough choices that must be made today.
Germany’s Importance
Germany is the most populous and productive economy in Europe, with 80 million people and a GDP of almost $4 trillion. It’s also the world’s third largest exporter, and that’s why it had the largest trade surplus globally in 2014 with $285 billion.
For all of its economic power, Germany has a key weakness that could potentially be its Achilles heel: it’s projected that Germany’s population will decline significantly over the coming decades, and the ratio of workers to dependents will become one of the worst in the world.
The Math
Every year, there are 8.4 births and 11.3 deaths per 1,000 people in Germany. The way this plays out over time is that the percentage of Germans under 15 will fall to 13% of the population by 2050, while the amount of people over 60 years old is to rise to 39%.
In the future, it is likely that there will not be enough youth or workers in the country. As Baby Boomers retire, there will be a larger burden placed on those paying into the government’s social safety net and other programs. Further, this widening gap will also mean a significant loss of experience, skill, and know-how in the workforce that will create coinciding economic challenges for the population.
In many Western nations, immigration plays a key role in keeping a population with low birth rates to be sustainable. However, in Germany’s case, both the high and low immigration scenarios look dire for future numbers. Germany’s state statistical authority currently projects a “high immigration” trend resulting in a drop to 73.1 million people by 2060, while a low-end estimate sees the population falling all the way to 67.6 million.
Choices
The U.N. projects that one in every six Germans will be over 80 years old by 2050. Are Germans comfortable with their nation remaining on this path?
If yes, then they must also be comfortable with a significant decrease in Germany’s economic role in the future. The country will almost certainly be on a more level stage with the U.K. and France, and it will have a diminished place on the world stage as Asia and Africa continue their rise. Tax rates will surge as a decreasing amount of workers pay into the system, and economic growth could stall in such a way that Germany has its own “Lost Decade”.
If no, then Germans must accept that there is only one realistic way to combat this trend: to open the immigration floodgates even more. While this is not what many Germans want to hear, especially as the current migrant and refugee crisis progresses, it is an option that must be weighed with careful consideration.
Either way, there are difficult choices to be made. How Germany proceeds with this question has implications both today and tomorrow on cultural, economic, and political levels.
No problem. Just incentivize native Germans to start families and have kids. Make it extremely difficult for third worlders on welfare. Problem solved.
Immigration to this is 100% suicide.
They just need to have more kids. A lot of German women are seriously hot, so I don’t see the problem. I’ll volunteer my services. I’m even part-German myself.
Don’t homosexuals like this Jeff desjardin douchebag realize that all this new Muslim meat they want to import would rather throw him off a roof. Where do you find this scum?
Not a difficult choice at all – if option 2 is taken (Musloid immigration), then by 2050 Germany will be just like Lebanon, which used to be mostly Christian and a flower in the ME, but now is a dump as the population is mostly all Mooooslims..
Hmm, Germany might be a great place to expatriate?
These nig nog economists and bureaucrats can’t make up their minds as to whether there are too many or too few people being born. One day they’re bitching about too many people and not enough natural resources to remain “sustainable” in the long term… Then they suddenly remember that they need more tax cattle to keep their obscene salaries and pensions from imploding.
There could be a controlled culling of 4 billion people on earth via forced sterilization methods and it wouldn’t do jack crap to 1st world economies except possibly raise the standard of living (think of all the new real estate for sale) .
White Noise.
“If no, then Germans must accept that there is only one realistic way to combat this trend: to open the immigration floodgates even more.”
The economic and cultural success of the German people is embedded in their DNA that has evolved over the past 100,000 years or so since the great exodus out of Africa. Most northern Europeans and their cousins in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere share this genetic resource which is what powers Western Civilization, from the ancient Greeks through the Roman period to modern time. It is this genetic heritage that is our greatest endowment which is why it must be cherished and preserved. And it is why retrogressive evolution within European populations and dilution by low-IQ people from the third-world is a total and irreversible disaster. That is why Germany must never accept that opening the immigration floodgates is a solution because it is emphatically not. In fact, it is the pathway to genetic suicide and the end of Western Civilization as we know it. The only solution I can see is massive economic and cultural incentives to high-IQ German women and men to have large families and major penalties to those who do not produce offspring. Failing this, a shrinking population with the increased use of robotics to help deal with a growing and aging population is a much better solution compared to mass immigration of alien and hostile people from the third-world. At least with the former, Western Civilization has some hope of survival whereas the latter will bring only the end of this Civilization and a new dark age where the times will be harsh and cruel. Tragically for the Western world, most people with minds that have been warped and corrupted are unable to see very far into the future and therefore fail to undersatnd that they are digging their own graves.
These things don’t go in straight lines. If the job market sucks because there are too many people and not enough jobs, people have fewer children because they can’t support them. Fewer people ends up resulting in lower unemployment and higher wages, the standard of living goes up, and then people start having more kids again.
In the United States, there are more Millennials than there are Baby Boomers. But none of these Millennials are making decent money, so having more of them wouldn’t do anything to help support the old people – it would just make the young people themselves more likely to go on food stamps and become “dependents.”
On the other hand, one young person making a fortune could support a LOT of old people.
“In the future, it is likely that there will not be enough youth or workers in the country.”
Or maybe too many.
Nobody ever seems to factor the robotic replacement of human workers into the equation.
As industry of all sorts require fewer and fewer workers too many excess young people in the population becomes a major liability as there is nothing for them to do and no real need of them.
Jeff desjardins, “when the Muslims (or my globalist paymasters) lower their nuts into my mouth, I am the happiest fag in the world!”
@ Jimmybubba–as offensive as “culling of 4 billion people” may sound to most rational and compassionate people, the premise you propose is actually accurate.
I did some reading on Europe, post-black death, and there were some interesting effects.
Primarily, was the indirect end of feudalism ( to a degree). Land became so cheap because of sudden availability, that the average joe could scrape up enough to have his own homestead-instead of working for meager rations for the Lords and barons.
Freedom of growing one’s own food and being self-sufficient lent added time for arts, education and ushered in the Renaissance.
Although a 4 billion culling would be horrifying when viewing individual human lives ( plus, that’s A LOT of dead bodies to dispose of)–it might just usher in an age for humankind of another surge in advancement, arts, culture and technology.
Well…if TPTB follow the Georgia Stones :
. MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000 IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm
Who wants to have kids with a social scumbag government sucking you dry of every penny you can earn. Hope were finally nearing the grand execution day for bankers, politicians, journalists and rapefugees. I want to pull the lever!