What is the most common trait among the World Economic Forum attendees? They are educated, rich, even hard-working, but at the same time, they are consummate hypocrites.

We counted at least 8 panels during the five days in the Swiss mountains dedicated to climate change, environmental and energy issues; possibly the most debated topic among them all. One of the first panels in the opening day was indeed devoted to “sustainable transportation”. You’d think that for someone so worried about the issue, the men and women of Davos would try to set a good example regarding pollution. Oh no, they flocked to Switzerland with thousands of heavy carbon-emitting private planes; and that’s just the beginning.

We then have Hollywood and other show-biz celebrities lecturing the common man on respect for others, especially women. After the Weinstein, Spacey, Seagal cases, if anything, it’s time to start debating whether we should revoke the status of celebrities to actors. What is a celebrity after all? Someone that society celebrates for their skills. Ancient Romans and Greeks frowned upon actors. The term “hypocrite” indeed comes from ancient Greek, referring to “acting out” or “play-acting”; acting after all is deceiving the spectator into believing something that the actor in reality is not. Today’s Hollywood appears to fit that definition. While new movies seem to be overly eager to foist the empowerment of women, diversity and inclusion, behind the curtains prostitution and sexual abuses are rampant. There’s no reason to elevate hypocrites to the status of moral examples for society to follow. Continue reading →

Commentary by Bart Kruitwagen

President of Gefira

Probably few people heard about AEGEE, European students’ Forum. In 1985 it was founded by Franck Biancheri, who by the way is also the co-founder of GEFIRA. He had the brilliant idea to build a trans-European organization without national levels, thus students had to think and organize themselves in a total different way. AEGEE was from the beginning extremely successful and soon reached 10.000 members throughout Europe. I was proud to be a member of its Board of Directors alongside Franck, who became my good friend up until his death in 2012. We were and always would be strong believers in a united Europe but for sure were always very mistrustful of the EU.

In the first years we obtained the support of all great European leaders like President Mitterand of France, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many others. They listened to our suggestions and demands and so the Erasmus project came to life. A program that changed profoundly the way students looked at Europe and fellow Europeans and probably is the best program for European integration to date. Continue reading →

The world population is growing fast. However, the nations in Japan, South Korea, Europe, Russia and the US are shrinking rapidly. China is the last man standing, its working-age population, those who consume and produce the most, started to contract years ago.

For more information on the topic see the comprehensive analysis in the latest issue of Gefira Bulletin (#20).

While mainstream economists believe all cultures are the same, history tells a different story. There is no second China, and Africa’s population can double or quadruple. History teaches us that this continent will not contribute significantly to the growth of the global economy. A shrinking population in itself does not negatively affect the wealth of a nation; however, it is detrimental to the global financial and banking system. To understand how the demographic winter will put an end to economic growth forever, we have to look at China’s urbanisation. Continue reading →

Some economists indicate that world developers and investors are facing a real estate boom. The same experts predict that the market will eventually overheat. However, demographic indicators and the ongoing migration from rural areas to cities seem to forecast something different: the increase in the number of urban dwellers will continue to fuel the boom though it can take on a slightly different character than financiers imagine. Especially when Chinese investors are interested in building empty cities all over the globe. However, these new buildings are simply not affordable to the rapidly growing population. The Chinese developers try to sell the new projects in Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana to a customer base in Europe and East Asia which, as the Gefira research team findings show, is shrinking at an incredible pace while those who only consume wealth in Africa and the Middle East are growing as weed. Investors and politicians who missed this trend will be wiped out by the end of the next decade and the same fate lies in store for real-estate investors.

In the middle of the 21^th century the earth will be inhabited by almost 10 billion people,of which urban dwellers will make up almost 70%.For comparison, the current urbanization rate is 55%, which means that urban areas are inhabited by over 4 billion people. In just over three decades the number of city dwellers will increase by 3 billion. Continue reading →

Though the official data shows that Italy’s population was growing until 2015 and according to a Eurostat projection it will stabilize within the next decades, the number of indigenous citizens is shrinking with an astonishing pace: every year by a quarter of a million, and this decline will accelerate. That means that the projected demographic growth can only be achieved by mass migration from Africa and Central Asia. Currently most migrants in Italy are from Romania but that number is declining rapidly. There will be less and less migration from other European countries because all European nations are in a dramatic demographic decline and because due to the prolonged Italian economic crisis the country is not a prime destination for people from other European states.

If the official Eurostat forecast is correct, then within 60 years or, taking into consideration the current pace of migration even sooner, 50% of Italy’s inhabitants will be of African or Asian descent. The figures found by our demographic-research team are by far not unique and government statisticians have the same numbers. Not only are the Italian and European authorities fully aware of this, but they seem to be executing a re-population program on such a monumental scale that will dwarf the Swedish mass migration experiment. Continue reading →