Sweden's Problem Isn't Immigration

Returns from the polls in Sweden indicate that the population is moving in the direction of so called "far right" party Sweden Democrats.

The conservative Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, is out*: but we knew he would be. His party’s share of the vote is 7pc down from last year, to 23pc, a rather stunning collapse. But where has that 7pc gone? Not to his main rivals, the Social Democrats: they’re still on 31 per cent, as they were at the last general election

The only real gainer is the Sweden Democrats, who are (as I type) on 13pc of the vote, more than double the 5.8pc last time. All other parties in Sweden refuse to enter coalition with them (and were shocked enough that they got into parliament four years ago). But this has helped the Sweden Democrats play the insurgent card, saying the Stockholm “elite” is ganging up against them.

I certainly do not have a problem with the natives of a country being protective of their culture and wishing for those who enter to play by the rules, but eventually Swedes as well as other Europeans are going to have to deal with the real source of their problem: Low birth rates. The main reasons many of these countries imported people was for work reasons. Technology is going to remove a lot of labour needs but so long as Europe has a very low birth rate, they will need to import people. Not only for labour but also for a tax base to support their very large social welfare systems (they aren't free).

The oddest thing about it is that many in the US argue that people should reproduce when they have the ability to care for and educate children. It's interesting that these countries that have such generous family legislation and even governments willing to pay them directly, simply will not have children (or many of them).

So these people in these countries that are upset about the growing number of immigrants should consider modifying their own behaviors. Either that or do what Japan is doing an invest in a robots