It wasn’t James Comey that torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. It wasn’t Jeremy Corbyn who upset Teresa May. It wasn’t fed-up workers who gave the National Front their best-ever showing in recent French elections. It was the children, or, more respectfully, Millennials and Gen Z. Young people who are suddenly deciding elections around the world, and upsetting the applecart.
Millions of Millennials became Bernie’s “army” and turned their backs on the “inevitable” Hillary Clinton, viewing her as the voice of the establishment.
.. They are easy prey for those making big and undeliverable promises, like free college or free health care, or free windmills that can save the planet. Having not learned the lessons of history, they (and we) are doomed to repeat them. They must learn all over again how left-wing policies fail to spur growth and incomes, undermine the economy and leave working people behind.
.. They don’t remember the UK as a nation crippled by exorbitant taxes and militant unions, finally revived by the conservative policies of Margaret Thatcher. Where would they have heard that? Popular culture in the UK derides Thatcher as an Iron Lady who stepped on the poor and devolved into dementia. Professors teach more of the same.
.. Pew Research determined that Millennials and Boomers were tied, each claiming 31 percent of the electorate. Up until now, that evolving parity has not meant much, because turnout among young people was consistently low. That is changing.
.. Millennials are fickle. They can show up to vote in one election and then ignore the next. That’s what happened in France, where young voters, frustrated by 22 percent unemployment and fed up with establishment parties, gave LePen a surprising lift in the presidential voting on May 7, only to boycott the more recent parliamentary contests.
.. Millennials are fickle. They can show up to vote in one election and then ignore the next. That’s what happened in France, where young voters, frustrated by 22 percent unemployment and fed up with establishment parties, gave LePen a surprising lift in the presidential voting on May 7, only to boycott the more recent parliamentary contests.
.. Young people in the UK were not a big factor in the 2016 Brexit vote
.. They subsequently flocked to the voting booth to register their anxieties about leaving the EU. Turnout among young people (age 18 to 24) rose 12 percentage points compared to the 2015 general election.
.. Trump’s approval ratings with 18 to 34-year-olds at only 26 percent.
.. In college, they never heard the counter-arguments, about the cost of renewable energy or the deflating effect of immigration on wages. Our colleges discourage right-wing commentary or even open discourse.
.. An astounding number of young people, especially minorities living in urban areas, have little knowledge of how to access a middle-class life, and what it might mean for them.
Republicans can also promote making government more efficient and effective, in part through the greater use of technology
Only Mass Deportation Can Save America
In the matter of immigration, mark this conservative columnist down as strongly pro-deportation. The United States has too many people who don’t work hard, don’t believe in God, don’t contribute much to society and don’t appreciate the greatness of the American system.
.. I speak of Americans whose families have been in this country for a few generations. Complacent, entitled and often shockingly ignorant on basic points of American law and history, they are the stagnant pool in which our national prospects risk drowning.
.. Crime? A study by the Cato Institute notes that nonimmigrants are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate of illegal immigrants, and at more than three times the rate of legal ones.
.. More illegal immigrants identify as Christian (83 percent) than do Americans (70.6 percent), a fact right-wing immigration restrictionists might ponder as they bemoan declines in church attendance.
.. Business creation? Nonimmigrants start businesses at half the rate of immigrants, and accounted for fewer than half the companies started in Silicon Valley between 1995 and 2005.
.. Nor does the case against nonimmigrants end there. The rate of out-of-wedlock births for United States-born mothers exceeds the rate for foreign-born moms, 42 percent to 33 percent.
.. And then there’s the all-important issue of demographics.
.. Bottom line: So-called real Americans are screwing up America. Maybe they should leave, so that we can replace them with new and better ones: newcomers who are more appreciative of what the United States has to offer, more ambitious for themselves and their children, and more willing to sacrifice for the future. In other words, just the kind of people we used to be — when “we” had just come off the boat.
.. We do not usually find happiness by driving away those who would love us. Businesses do not often prosper by firing their better employees and discouraging job applications. So how does America become great again by berating and evicting its most energetic, enterprising, law-abiding, job-creating, idea-generating, self-multiplying and God-fearing people?
Germany Crosses the Demographic RUBICON: 20-35’s a MINORITY by 2020
Germany Crosses the Demographic RUBICON: 20-35’s a MINORITY by 2020
“Germany abolishes itself” is the English translation of the 2010 best selling book by author Thilo Sarrazin. It was written well before the current crisis and with foresight, Mr Sarrazin delineates the costs and failure of the post war immigration system in Germany.
Growth Can Solve the Debt Dilemma
Hitting a 3% target would result in an economy that’s nearly $13 trillion larger in 30 years.
But consider what happens to the CBO’s numbers assuming 3% annual growth. By 2040 the economy would expand not to $29.9 trillion, but to $38.3 trillion, according to an analysis by Research Affiliates, a California investment firm. That’s an additional output of $8.4 trillion—roughly the entire annual production today of every state west of the Mississippi River... Many blue-chip economists agree with the CBO that a growth rate of about 2% is the best that America can achieve... But the right policies can counter these trends. Productivity should surge with improvements in robotics, artificial intelligence and automation. Self-driving cars could cut transportation costs dramatically in coming years. Washington could facilitate this renaissance by giving companies an incentive to invest.The Tax Foundation predicted last year that the House Republican tax reform alone would raise wages by 8%, GDP by 9% and capital investment by 28%... at least seven million Americans in their prime working years—18 to 65—would be on the job today if labor-force participation had not dropped since 2000. A strong economy, paired with welfare reforms, could draw millions back to work... And immigration is America’s natural demographic safety valve.