I agree with everything you said here. All of these trends amount to using immigration in an attempt to keep the current system going at all costs.
So in Canada we got massive post-Covid immigration in part because big box stores wanted more employees (the immigration minister said that). We have to have more debt, so we need a higher GDP even if GDP per capita goes down. Third rate US colleges need foreign students to operate.
At a certain point we need to accept that sometimes institutions have to shrink and society has to live within its means. But it seems that baby boomers will never accept it.
It's not just Boomers. Kaiser Bauch's latest essay explains how for the last three centuries, there's pretty much been nothing but expansion and growth. Nobody who's lived any time in the last 300 years remembers a world where things didn't constantly expand and grow. When that's your reality, it establishes expectations, one of which is that expansion and growth are literally infinite. So while Boomers won't accept it, Xers, Millennials, and now Zoomers won't either, because they just know nothing else. This is why I don't think political trends will change all that much any time soon, because we're all still addicted to comfort and more, more, more.
I think that’s partly true, in economics and business. We are not used to the idea that a nation’s population or economy may stagnate, or that the standard of living may plateau. And a public company that stops growing is takeover fodder.
There are some institutions that have accepted the end of growth. The Catholic Church for example understands it has to close and consolidate parishes. There are lots of factory towns in the Rust Belt that have declined.
The problem is that the rest of society is resisting this fate, with ever increasing costs. I think it’s more about preserving things for a comfortable elite rather than expanding. We don’t even hear much about genuine growth and improvement anymore. When’s the last time the government had a project that made your life better?
“A world without property taxes could mean young families have no good schools to send their kids to and hardly any homes to buy.” ~ To be fair, the Left has left young families with very few good schools to send their kids to already. So that point may be moot.
‘Since the West has such a weak identity, these young folks adopt a bizarre fusion of their stronger ancestral identity while slapping the label of their Western national association.’
Thing is we didn’t have a weak identity until third world immigration started to overwhelm the native populace. That’s what demographic dominance does. Imo, these descendants need to go to the country they feel the most affinity to. I’m sick to the teeth of their complaints.
Best line of the whole post: "choice isn’t a virtue."
Unfortunately, Max, John Stuart Mill disagrees. To him, "personal choice" is the highest virtue. So critical that nothing short of imminent bodily harm to someone else can justify curtailing it in any way.
Mill is the foundation of the modern West. The only thing that will dethrone Mill is a SHTF event.
"As long as you're not hurting anyone else" is the worst way to manage society. Keep in mind even when a person does hurt someone else - pranksters come to mind - the system has no answer for it.
A society like that is ill-prepared for SHTF. Disasters reveal a society's strengths and weaknesses. It's why Japan responded so admirably to the Fukushima earthquake. It's not like the Japanese people adopted a different persona. They revealed who they were under the most dire of circumstances.
In a totally different context, this is why stress tests are worthwhile. People watch "Bar Rescue" and think that stress tests are set-ups for failure, when in reality all they do is reveal how badly these businesses have set THEMSELVES up for failure. Swarming an establishment reveals just how poorly managed they are, because under stress, people fall back onto what they know. If they don't know how to manage themselves, they have nothing to fall back onto. It shows.
It most certainly is. The problem is that America isn't a country where rugged individualism works, not anymore. It's not the 19th century anymore and we're not a mostly-agrarian, early-industrial society any longer. In a managerial, post-industrial society, rugged individualism requires opting completely out of the system.
Yes, And I think it makes you extremely vulnerable just as you are thinking it’s doing the opposite. I’ve had plenty of associates who seek after the ideal of living outside of government observation, but we all have to adapt to the fact that that world no longer exists, just as any real right or expectation to privacy died an unremarked death some years ago.
One thing often not discussed by people who say "other countries spend less on health care and get better results" is rationing of care to the elderly. Retired? Hip and joint replacement is out-of-pocket. Have a terminal condition? If you're too close to expected life span, you only get palliative care.
That's interesting. Life expectancies are higher in other developed countries, though, so people are just generally healthier. It suggests early-life healthcare is where we really should be spending the money, but in an aged society, suggesting we shift social spending away from older folks to younger folks is a non-starter.
I agree with everything you said here. All of these trends amount to using immigration in an attempt to keep the current system going at all costs.
So in Canada we got massive post-Covid immigration in part because big box stores wanted more employees (the immigration minister said that). We have to have more debt, so we need a higher GDP even if GDP per capita goes down. Third rate US colleges need foreign students to operate.
At a certain point we need to accept that sometimes institutions have to shrink and society has to live within its means. But it seems that baby boomers will never accept it.
It's not just Boomers. Kaiser Bauch's latest essay explains how for the last three centuries, there's pretty much been nothing but expansion and growth. Nobody who's lived any time in the last 300 years remembers a world where things didn't constantly expand and grow. When that's your reality, it establishes expectations, one of which is that expansion and growth are literally infinite. So while Boomers won't accept it, Xers, Millennials, and now Zoomers won't either, because they just know nothing else. This is why I don't think political trends will change all that much any time soon, because we're all still addicted to comfort and more, more, more.
I think that’s partly true, in economics and business. We are not used to the idea that a nation’s population or economy may stagnate, or that the standard of living may plateau. And a public company that stops growing is takeover fodder.
There are some institutions that have accepted the end of growth. The Catholic Church for example understands it has to close and consolidate parishes. There are lots of factory towns in the Rust Belt that have declined.
The problem is that the rest of society is resisting this fate, with ever increasing costs. I think it’s more about preserving things for a comfortable elite rather than expanding. We don’t even hear much about genuine growth and improvement anymore. When’s the last time the government had a project that made your life better?
“A world without property taxes could mean young families have no good schools to send their kids to and hardly any homes to buy.” ~ To be fair, the Left has left young families with very few good schools to send their kids to already. So that point may be moot.
‘Since the West has such a weak identity, these young folks adopt a bizarre fusion of their stronger ancestral identity while slapping the label of their Western national association.’
Thing is we didn’t have a weak identity until third world immigration started to overwhelm the native populace. That’s what demographic dominance does. Imo, these descendants need to go to the country they feel the most affinity to. I’m sick to the teeth of their complaints.
Excellent poast, very incisive, thank you.
Best line of the whole post: "choice isn’t a virtue."
Unfortunately, Max, John Stuart Mill disagrees. To him, "personal choice" is the highest virtue. So critical that nothing short of imminent bodily harm to someone else can justify curtailing it in any way.
Mill is the foundation of the modern West. The only thing that will dethrone Mill is a SHTF event.
"As long as you're not hurting anyone else" is the worst way to manage society. Keep in mind even when a person does hurt someone else - pranksters come to mind - the system has no answer for it.
A society like that is ill-prepared for SHTF. Disasters reveal a society's strengths and weaknesses. It's why Japan responded so admirably to the Fukushima earthquake. It's not like the Japanese people adopted a different persona. They revealed who they were under the most dire of circumstances.
In a totally different context, this is why stress tests are worthwhile. People watch "Bar Rescue" and think that stress tests are set-ups for failure, when in reality all they do is reveal how badly these businesses have set THEMSELVES up for failure. Swarming an establishment reveals just how poorly managed they are, because under stress, people fall back onto what they know. If they don't know how to manage themselves, they have nothing to fall back onto. It shows.
This brings to mind recent discussions over the distinctly American “virtue” of “rugged individualism” and whether it, in fact, is.
It most certainly is. The problem is that America isn't a country where rugged individualism works, not anymore. It's not the 19th century anymore and we're not a mostly-agrarian, early-industrial society any longer. In a managerial, post-industrial society, rugged individualism requires opting completely out of the system.
Yes, And I think it makes you extremely vulnerable just as you are thinking it’s doing the opposite. I’ve had plenty of associates who seek after the ideal of living outside of government observation, but we all have to adapt to the fact that that world no longer exists, just as any real right or expectation to privacy died an unremarked death some years ago.
One thing often not discussed by people who say "other countries spend less on health care and get better results" is rationing of care to the elderly. Retired? Hip and joint replacement is out-of-pocket. Have a terminal condition? If you're too close to expected life span, you only get palliative care.
we need to do this here! tired of my taxes going to pay for 80 year olds cancer treatment when there going to die soon anyway!
That's interesting. Life expectancies are higher in other developed countries, though, so people are just generally healthier. It suggests early-life healthcare is where we really should be spending the money, but in an aged society, suggesting we shift social spending away from older folks to younger folks is a non-starter.