Europe ages, becomes indebted and seeks in immigration a solution to a problem that continues to grow

“After me, the flood” is a famous phrase in France, attributed to Louis XV, or to Madame de Pompadour, which summarized the fatalistic indifference of a court that enjoyed the present knowing that catastrophe was inevitable. This phrase perfectly sums up the prevailing selfishness and the difficult situation that Western Europe is currently going through

.

From pensions (in France and other European countries), to immigration, to economic or monetary history, the same democratized mechanism transfers the bill to those who decided nothing.

Louis XV was, in fact, the penultimate king of France before the French Revolution of 1789 and the end of the monarchy in 1792. His grandson, Louis XVI, would pay dearly for his grandfather's ruinous selfishness. The post-war generation wanted to systematically put individual and immediate gratification before any obligation to those who will come later. They voted for those who promised them the most, for the progressives who have indebted our countries to finance their ruinous policies, but now they don't want to pay or reform a system that is a scam, but that benefits

them.

The pensions that nobody wants to refinance

An example: the French distribution system that requires each active generation to finance the retired generation

.

Faced with the 2023 reform, which delayed the exit age from 62 to 64, several months of strikes and mass demonstrations sought first and foremost to preserve the acquired rights of generations already close to retirement, while the French birth rate continues to decline and the number of assets per retiree continues to fall, year after year, without any reform truly reversing the underlying trend.

In 1970, there were 3.8 active people for every retiree and the system worked; today, there are 1.7 active people for every retiree, which is unsustainable and explains the increase in taxes and debts.

Enjoy the system now and let a smaller, already more indebted generation pay for it, or “after me, the flood”.

France is not the only European country that suffers from this selfishness of older generations.

Immigration as a demographic patch

One of the solutions that were found was immigration, and that is not sustainable at all. Faced with the collapse of its own birth rate (an individual decision repeated millions of times, of people who wanted to enjoy life without having children), Europe imports massive labor to plug the holes in its pension systems and its labor market, without ever attacking the real causes of

that collapse.

The immediate economic benefits were collected by governments based on being able to maintain the giant scam. However, this did not start now, but if you look at the costs.

But the costs of integration and social and cultural cohesion, which we are beginning to see today, are being transferred in a worse way to subsequent generations, who have decided absolutely nothing of all this and will have to bear its consequences on their own.

It is interesting to see that Louis XV died in 1774, in his bed, without ever seeing the flood that he himself had announced.

The Revolution took fifteen more years to take its successor, who had to foot the bill.

But it's not certain that the baby boomers and the politicians they've elected have the Louis XV benefit of waiting so long to see the result of their selfish decisions.