October 24, 2007

Deja vu all over again

As I wrote in VDARE.com right after the Southern California fires exactly four years ago:

Brushfires and mudslides used to seem more amusing because they afflicted Hollywood celebrities significantly more often than average citizens. This was not just a matter of God's good taste. Hoi polloi lived in the cheaper and safer flatlands. The rich poised precariously in the hills, where construction and maintenance costs are higher—especially if you want your home to survive what Mother Nature keeps up her sleeve.

But the plains of Southern California filled up long ago. So the ever-growing population has been spilling into the more treacherous wild areas.

This is regularly denounced as "sprawl," which implies that individuals are wastefully consuming more and more land per capita. But in California the driver has been population growth. According to a 2003 Center for Immigration Studies report by Roy Beck, Leon Kolankiewicz, and Steven A. Camarota, from 1982 to 1997 the total number of developed acres in California grew by 32 percent, but the per capita usage was up only two percent. Essentially all of California's population growth in the 1990s was due to new immigrants or births to foreign-born women. (Indeed, close to 1.5 million more American-born citizens moved out of California during the 1990s than moved in from other states.)

As low-income immigrants pour into Southern California's lowlands, crowding the freeways and overstressing the older cities' public schools, the middle class (at least the ones who don't leave the state) have responded by taking to the hills.

The hill country's environment is benign most of the year. But the local ecosystem evolved to require periodic blazes. Up through American Indian times, these brushfires were frequent and thus relatively mild.

Unfortunately, we modern people haven't really figured out how to manage the chaparral and pine forests yet—especially when the canyons and mountains are home to housing. The best-known remedy, controlled burns, is disliked by people who live in the backcountry because they pollute the air, and they can jump out of control. The 2000 Los Alamos fire set by the Forest Service ended up destroying hundreds of structures.

Thus the policy has been to try to suppress all fires. This, however, causes fuel in the form of dry brush and dead trees to build up each decade, inevitably leading to infernos like those of 1993 and 2003. …

It’s just California's problem? ‘fraid not! Taxpayers across the country always end up chipping in, through government disaster loans, new federal firefighting and forestry management programs, lower stock market prices for insurance companies, and other forms of burden-sharing.

And, in some ways, that's fair, because so much of California's current crisis traces back to the federal refusal to adequately enforce immigration laws.

California desperately needs a slower population growth rate until it learns how its current vast population can live with its lovely but sometime lethal landscape. And the state's burgeoning numbers are solely driven by immigration.

The logical solution: cut back on immigration.

Reality is literally lighting a fire under us.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve, I think Bill O'Reilly mentioned this piece in his talking points memo (not favorably)...he criticized your point w/out any evidence though. I like the guy but he talks out of his ass a lot. But bottom line- this is big pr foor you. Danindc

Anonymous said...

Here's one key number: 27% of Californians are first generation immigrants. First generation immigrants - i.e., that percentage doesn't include their children.

That's the kind of number that should cause people's eyes to pop out of their sockets.

I think that few people have any true idea of how many of the problems associated with California - high costs of living, traffic congestion, crime, budget deficits, far left politics - are due to immigration and immigration alone. And so many people are still stuck with the old vision of California as the promised land that they're not even aware of a whole new set of problems, especially as it relates to the school system.

California schools? 20.7 students per teacher - higher than every state but Utah. Per student spending is 96% of the national average, despite the higher costs of living. And California students scored substantially lower than the rest of the US on math, reading, and science tests.

Anonymous said...

Steve needs two sites, one for the "told you so" items and the other for everything else.

Anonymous said...

Our senators of new rome are following your advice to a T.

They are letting the free market of human immigration make once-desirable places like CA (and HI) so expensive and unlivable for the middle class that they leave. Things will continue to get so bad that only the poorest and most desperate will be willing to move in (as well as the wealthest most insulated). Problem solved!

You can see LA's future by just looking at the hillside favelas from Sao Paolo's tony shopping districts or making the jaunt between Cuernavaca and the seamier ghettos outside Mexico City.

Anonymous said...

In truth, the entire Western USA is in danger of disastrous fires because of foolish fire prevention policies and suburban sprawl. It seems those big cities aren't much to live in anymore. Gee, I wonder why?

Anonymous said...

This is why I ignore all of California's water conservation ordinances at present.

I don't recall voting to send our water resources to Mexico, or it's equivalent, allowing Mexican citizens to illegally travel to this state, tapping our water supply.

At some point, somebody with some power will discover that this isn't about racism, it's about national security, and common sense.

Anonymous said...

Steve, is it wrong to want to go back to the days of my childhood when the only Mexican immigrant on my radar screen, here in the Midwest, was Herb Alpert? I was actually disappointed when, in my twenties, I learned he was a Jewish guy from L.A.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer: Essentially all of California's population growth in the 1990s was due to new immigrants or births to foreign-born women. (Indeed, close to 1.5 million more American-born citizens moved out of California during the 1990s than moved in from other states.)

This is a little off topic, but the other day, I was doing a little demographic sleuthing [posted here and here], and the situation for California [and, more generally, the USA as a whole] is even worse than I realized.

The California Standardized Testing and Reporting ["STAR"] data for the California Standards Test [CST] is all online; [apparently] they administer the "English-Language Arts" exam to all children in grades 2 through 11, and they classify the children by about a gazillion different ethnic factors.

For instance, here are the results for 2007 [you can get the same data for 2006, 2005, and 2004 by making the appropriate changes to the URL]:

STAR 2007 Test Results
http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2007/Viewreport.asp

If under "Group" you choose "Ethnicity", then under "Sub-Group" you can choose Black, "White (Not Hispanic)", "Hispanic or Latino", etc, and then if you hit the button "View Report", you get all of the CST results for that ethnic group.

If you look at Whites & their English-Language Arts totals, then you'll see that the 11th-graders are 33.4% White, after which the White portion declines down to the point where 2nd-graders are only 27.0% White.

On the other hand, for the Hispanics & their English-Language Arts totals, you'll see that the 11th-graders are 39.9% Hispanic, after which the Hispanic portion increases up to the point where 2nd-graders are fully 51.1% of all students.

I.e. circa 1997, when the 2007 11th-graders were in 1st grade, the Whites and the Hispanics were very nearly equal in numbers [Hispanics leading by 39.9% to 33.4%], but 10 years later, in 2007, the Hispanics very nearly outnumber the Whites by a factor of 2-to-1 [51.1% to 27.0% among 2nd-graders, and probably even worse among 1st-graders].

And the national numbers in the Statistical Abstract are even worse:

U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007
Section 1, Population
[see especially page 15]
http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/07statab/pop.pdf

From Page 15 of that Abstract, these are the 2005 distributions of the races [in thousands]:


2005, Not Hispanic or Latino, White alone
Under 5 years: 11,258
5 to 9 years: 11,322
10 to 14 years: 12,379
15 to 19 years: 13,032
20 to 24 years: 12,917
25 to 29 years: 11,875
30 to 34 years: 12,096
35 to 39 years: 13,498
40 to 44 years: 15,642
45 to 49 years: 16,098
50 to 54 years: 14,820
55 to 59 years: 13,287
60 to 64 years: 10,174

[Has the White population finally stabilized at just above 11M per five years?]

[In the Asian category, I'm worried that that uptick in "Under 5 years" is due to Muslims, in places like Dearborn, Michigan.]

2005, Asian alone
Under 5 years: 861
5 to 9 years: 782
10 to 14 years: 792
15 to 19 years: 800
20 to 24 years: 906
25 to 29 years: 1,069
30 to 34 years: 1,256
35 to 39 years: 1,147
40 to 44 years: 1,046
45 to 49 years: 949
50 to 54 years: 822
55 to 59 years: 678
60 to 64 years: 467

2005, Black or African American alone
Under 5 years: 3,047
5 to 9 years: 2,942
10 to 14 years: 3,331
15 to 19 years: 3,280
20 to 24 years: 3,077
25 to 29 years: 2,799
30 to 34 years: 2,676
35 to 39 years: 2,727
40 to 44 years: 2,894
45 to 49 years: 2,735
50 to 54 years: 2,268
55 to 59 years: 1,781
60 to 64 years: 1,240

[Have blacks stabilized near 3M per five years?]

[Hispanics still exploding.]

2005, Hispanic or Latino origin
Under 5 years: 4,532
5 to 9 years: 3,952
10 to 14 years: 3,859
15 to 19 years: 3,461
20 to 24 years: 3,732
25 to 29 years: 4,029
30 to 34 years: 3,798
35 to 39 years: 3,389
40 to 44 years: 3,002
45 to 49 years: 2,423
50 to 54 years: 1,846
55 to 59 years: 1,403
60 to 64 years: 975


Bottom Line: Our stupidest races have seen an explosion in their numbers, and our smartest races have seen a collapse in their numbers.

Does not bode well for the long term.

If I were a betting man, I'd short the USA, but then again, none of the other smart folks in the world seem to be making babies, either:

IQ and the Wealth of Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

List of countries and territories by fertility rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

So really the bottom, bottom line is that I'm shorting the entire human race: We are, collectively, in the midst of a descent into a new Dark Age.

Anonymous said...

Our senators of new rome...

New Rome, indeed. I propose we change the name of Washington, D.C. to exactly that.

Whenever I'm down, and want to get even more down, I remind myself that in 1790 the USA had 4 million people - and our politicians included men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, John Witherspoon, George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Ben Franklin.

Today we have 300 million people, and our politicians include people like Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, George W Bush, Dennis Hastert, Lindsey Graham, Bob Bennett, Pete Stark, Charles Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and Charles Rangel.

If I were a betting man, I'd short the USA, but then again, none of the other smart folks in the world seem to be making babies, either - lucius vorenus

Lucius, I did short the USA. A few years ago I moved ca. 70% of my investments into foreign stock funds. They've done very, very well, averaging over 20% a year for over 3 years.

mythusmage said...

Lucius, you're just jealous because you can't get a date.

And about all that deadwood etc. Find something to do with it; compost heaps, artificial fire logs, brick binder, something. You can't get rid of it, put it to work.

Anonymous said...

Steve needs two sites, one for the "told you so" items and the other for everything else.

What would he do with the site "for everything else"?

Anonymous said...


A REAL ECONOMIC PROBLEM
is being discussed over at The Big Picture

California strawberry picker Alberto Ramirez, who despite earning just $14,000 a year, was able to obtain a mortgage to buy a home for $720,000.

As Merrill announces an 8 billion dollar loss in various credit speculations, huge investors bailing out of the dollar in favor of anything else, and this administration sitting on its ass just like it has done over everything else. "Conservative" Bush is spending more money than LBJ---impossible---and the wars are killing us financially. Better stay awake. 173 financial institutions are belly up and more are coming. This is very serious.

Posted by Howard at 10/25/2007 02:37:00 AM 2 comments Links to this post



10/24/2007


http://www.oraculations.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Mark: I did short the USA. A few years ago I moved ca. 70% of my investments into foreign stock funds. They've done very, very well, averaging over 20% a year for over 3 years.

That strategy may work in the near term, maybe even for another ten years or so, but long term, it's doomed to failure:


TOP 30, MEAN IQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

107 Hong Kong
106 South Korea
105 Japan
104 Taiwan (ROC)
102 Austria
102 Germany
102 Italy
102 Netherlands
101 Sweden
101 Switzerland
100 Belgium
100 China (PRC)
100 New Zealand
100 Singapore
100 United Kingdom
099 Hungary
099 Poland
099 Spain
098 Denmark
098 France
098 Norway
098 United States
097 Canada
097 Czech Republic
097 Finland
096 Australia
096 Argentina
096 Russia
096 Slovakia
096 Uruguay

BOTTOM 30, TOTAL FERTILITY RATE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

1.41 Estonia
1.41 Croatia
1.40 Guernsey (UK)
1.40 Germany
1.39 Bulgaria
1.39 Russia
1.38 Romania
1.37 Austria
1.35 Greece
1.34 Armenia
1.34 San Marino
1.33 Hungary
1.33 Slovakia
1.31 Andorra
1.29 Italy
1.29 Spain
1.28 South Korea
1.28 Latvia
1.26 Poland
1.26 Slovenia
1.25 Moldova
1.24 Ukraine
1.23 Bosnia and Herzegovina
1.23 Japan
1.22 Belarus
1.22 Czech Republic
1.21 Northern Mariana Islands (US)
1.21 Lithuania
1.12 Republic of China (Taiwan)
1.07 Singapore
1.03 Macau (PRC)
0.98 Hong Kong (PRC)


Throughout the world, there is an almost perfect INVERSE relation between IQ and fertility, as evidenced by e.g. Hong Kong, which has both the world's highest known mean IQ, at 107, and the world's lowest known total fertility rate, with a mere 0.98 children per woman per fertile lifetime.

Ambrose Evans Pritchard recently pointed out that, as a result of its suicidal 1-child policy, mainland China's working-age population will begin to collapse in 2015.

Everywhere you go, it's the same: Since the introduction of the pill & the decriminalization of abortion in the 1960's & the 1970's, "smart" people have simply stopped making babies.

Personally [and it seems like all I do anymore is pour over these figures], I know of only two or three "smart" peoples in the entire world who are still making babies: Evangelical Christians in the USA, observant Jews in Israel, and drunkards in Iceland, of all places.

[Believe it or not, outside of Israel & a handful of Red States in the USA, Iceland actually has the highest Caucasian TFR in the world, at somewhere around 2.0 - although even that isn't the 2.10 that most demographers believe is required to sustain the population. Indeed, only three states in the USA, Utah, Alaska, and Idaho, have sustenance-level Caucasian fertility rates.]

That's why I stand firm in my prediction of a new Dark Age: Smart people aren't making babies anymore, and the stupid people don't have what it takes to assume the mantle of leadership [other than to lead us into disaster].

Anonymous said...

I know of only two or three "smart" peoples in the entire world who are still making babies: Evangelical Christians in the USA, observant Jews in Israel, and drunkards in Iceland, of all places.

In the US, of course, evangelical Christians ain't considered all that smart. But nevertheless, they're having children. That's why I can't fault the religiously obeservant. The pagan left prides itself on having dumped one false doctrine, but it's embraced yet another false (not to mention deadly) doctrine.

That's why I have to part ways with people I otherwise I admire, like The Derb, when it comes to religion. Whatever you think of the Bible, there's something in that that has kept humanity alive. Let's make sure we've extracted the essence of that something before tossing it into the trash.

"Conservative" Bush is spending more money than LBJ---impossible---and the wars are killing us financially.

LBJ ruined this country racially (the Civil Rights Act, the '65 immigrations act), ruined it financially, got us into a costly, directionless war, and nationalized government responsibilities that were previously run by the state. Is George W Bush really his bastard son? Because he's done the same. Or maybe Texans as presidents just plain suck.