Vatican Economist: Recession Caused by Low Birthrate

A Vatican economist has recognised that the Ponsi scheme that is socialism cannot survive if the base of the pyramid is allowed to continue eroding. He blames the decreasing birthrates in the west for the recession because there are not enough new workers entering the workforce to continue providing services for the elderly.

ROME, FEB. 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Bankers are not the cause of the global economic crisis, according to the president of the Institute for the Works of Religion. Rather, the cause is ordinary people who do not "believe in the future" and have few or no children.

"The true cause of the crisis is the decline in the birth rate,” Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, said in an interview on Vatican Television's "Octava Dies."

He noted the Western world's population growth rate is at 0% -- that is, two children per couple -- and this, he said, has led to a profound change in the structure of society.

"Instead of stimulating families and society to again believe in the future and have children […] we have stopped having children and have created a situation, a negative economic context decrease," Gotti Tedeschi observed. "And decrease means greater austerity."

“With the decline in births,” he explained, “there are fewer young people that productively enter the working world. And there are many more elderly people that leave the system of production and become a cost for the collective.

“In practice the fixed costs of this economic and social structure increase. How dramatically they increase depends on how evidently unbalanced the structure of the population is and how much wealth it has. The fixed costs however increase: The costs of health increase and the social costs increase."

When this happens, the economist stated, "taxes can no longer be reduced.”

Read more:Zenit

While IMO, fractional reserve banking using fiat currencies is the real cause of the finincial crisis, I think the Vatican economist has a point. Not only is the decreasing birthrate to blame for the ever increasing deficit spending to support the ageing populations but, it is also forcing western world countries to import immigrant workers into their countries who too often hold beliefs hostile to their host countries.

These immigrant workers often have come to the western countries specifically in order to take advantage of the host countries generous welfare systems, thus exascerbating the financial problems they were imported to remedy.

All of the economic and social errors of the past seem to be coming to a head at the same time bringing about a perfect economic storm for the destruction of this corrupted financial system.


Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.

I can see what he means.. middle class families have kids, who more times than not become middle class families themselves... if families have two kids, population growth in the middle class stops.

The poor have numerous kids.. and while they are the largest consuming base, their consumption levels are far below that of middle and upper class.. meaning their growth potential (outside of their own class) is being blocked by the lack of new middle class income to fuel the economy. The theory being that because all we have is immigrants who come into the country to do the production jobs, and have a much harder time climbing the wealth ladder that the economies growth halts.

Who knows. Personally, I think it was a perfect storm of everything that could go wrong in an economy .. from stock crashes, terrorist attacks, debt bubbles, globalization, low birth rates, declining incomes, over stocking etc... the list is endless. Actually.. you could just say "what went right?" it's a much shorter list.

Sell the Vatican and feed the poor who built it with their money will always help the economy. I think the Vatican is not living in the real world!

reply to post by ladyx


While your ignorant hate and lack of intellectual insight might prevent you from seeing what he's saying, or rather, comprehending.. economically he makes perfect sense.

Fiat Population growth! Hyperinflation!
If Catholics ran the economy we'd lose thousands of valuable prophylactic industry jobs!

That.s very interesting because Vatican Economist are also caused by Low Birthrate.