I think that the assumption that through better medicines and care, people will live longer, is incorrect. Life expectancy has started to fall in the West and with the problems of obesity and laziness, it will fall by more in the years to come. The proposition that most people will live into their eighties and many beyond one hundred is laughable. The birth rate is lower in the West as many people prefer increased wealth to screaming toddlers. If the government wants to address this, then they need to subsidize the working population to ensure that having children is less of a financial drain, rather than importing large numbers of people from alien cultures...Euthanasia anyone? The population has increased by ten million since I was a kid - can't imagine they're all pensioners. What I really love about Britain is the lack of planning - scaremongering with atom bombs and climate change on one side, but taking a long term look at the country forgotten. Twenty years ago the Aussies, for one, started superannuation - whereby a percentage of your income went into your pension fund, employers had to add to it too. Thus negating the state pension in the long term. Funds are run by yourself or your Union or private - also helps for business investment. Some countries look ahead... well...There is no need to panic. If advanced countries gradually lower their populations, it will ease pressure on infrastructure, the environment, property prices, it should be seen as a boon not a catastrophe. Indeed lowering birth rates may well be a natural response to a feeling of overcrowding among cold-adapted homo sapiens (whites and asians) who evolved in environments with limited resources and harsh environments. Considering that the same effect is occurring in different cultures- Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Asian cultures, that may be the primary variable.  The only "problem" is for those in finance who profit from a form of centralised economic management predicated on expanding money supplies and GDP, which do not matter for everyone else, for whom all that matters to get better off is GDP per capita, which can increase- and may increase more rather than less- with a gently falling population.  The issues regarding elderly care are used to frighten us. In truth, this is a rather trivial administrative matter. Humans are more than capable of organising our societies around a shifting demographic. Added to which we have no idea what the future holds, including improved management of ageing due to new medical and bio- technologies.  A deep underlying reason for fomenting panic over this, though, is to justify mass immigration to supposedly "pay the bills of the future", to which our ruling class are ideologically wedded. If the hypothesis in my first paragraph holds, this will only further suppress native birth rates in those areas where it happens. The reaility is that immigrationism cannot anyway solve the problem, since it then just creates, down the road, even more elderly people to pay for, and thus requires more and more immigration. It's not a good policy on any basis.  Aggregate GDP does not matter. GDP per capita matters. Once you understand that, this "crisis" is not a crisis at all.

For the second time this past week, Chinese stock markets shut early after its "circuit breaking" mechanism, that was introduced on January 1, was breached within the first 30 minutes of trading. This triggered a sharp fall in the Shanghai Composite index - 7pc.

The slump in the stock market came as Chinese authorities guided the yuan lower - allowing it to decline by 0.5pc, its most since August, which resulted in a mass sell-off, otherwise known as Black Monday. Stocks should be valued based on the dividend yield not future earnings which never are realised. If debt had been priced correctly this manic stock market could have been easily controlled.  Any market in investments is inherently unstable due to the positive feedback at the heart of the trading. The problem is that unstable systems are very difficult to stabilise and often any atemps to do so can lead to further instability. The heart of the problem is that a price variation is reinforced by herd mentality. If the price goes up, then more people buy rather than fewer as would occur for most non investment items. The reverse is also true. This is worse when there is wider share ownership, as more investors act irrationally rather than based on reasoned consideration of company fundamentals. Possible other devices to consider are shorting, higher stamp duty, minimum length of share ownership, discouraging wider share ownership and price reinforcement. What is really needed is the investment equivalent of a car shock absorber combined with something that cuts or attenuated the positive feed back. My favourite is minimum length of share ownership. If a stock is subject to a speculative price hike then investors are less likely to put more in if they know that they cannot get it out in the short term. In short, short term investments are a contributory factor to price instability.  Having consulted the oracle, I get that ominous hexagram known as the Preponderance of the Great. Too much weight in the middle; all unbalanced, and clearly away from the Tao.

" Police in Germany are investigating an alarming series of sexual assaults on women trying to celebrate the New Year by large groups of single men “of Arab or North African appearance”.

Authorities in the city of Cologne are to hold a crisis meeting on Tuesday after police described a group of some 1,000 men who took over the area around the main station on New Year’s Eve.

Women were robbed, groped, and had their underwear torn from their bodies, while couples had fireworks thrown at them.  Police have received 90 criminal complaints, around a quarter of them for sexual assault, including one case of rape.  Police in Hamburg say there was a series of similar incidents in the city’s Reeperbahn red-light area. Witnesses described groups of five to 15 men of who “hunted” women in the streets."   Merkel, the leader of the EU, has brought this upon her country, and Europe. She had enough warnings...but works to another agenda.  Let her continue to sink into the quagmire.  Bring on our opportunity, to get out of the EU madhouse, as soon as possible.

Relatively rich societies as a whole do not benefit from importing cheap labor from the third world. The rich and powerful in those affluent societies benefit as the immigration drives down the price of the labor they must employ to maintain their positions. Everything from cleaners to gardeners to nannies to whatever is all made cheaper relatively speaking for the established elites. They support the influx for that reason. The only exception being the left which supports it because it hates the West and the Western working classes and would do anything to cause them harm. It is a no-brainer that this is not done for the majority already there.  There are many indices comparing countries for quality of life, opportunity, happiest and so on. They are put out by the UN, OECD, IMF and other organisations both public and private. The nations that always top these lists - Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland and a couple of others - all have one thing in common. Relatively low populations. Aside from Germany no country with a large population even makes it into the top ten on most of these indices and Germany only manages it for a few. The correlation between a smaller stable population and wealth and income equality and general quality of life is obvious and the reasons don't need explaining. It just doesn't suit some to have things go down this path so they shut down debate with abuse and slurs.  Horror of horrors, imagine a country with rising wages for everyone as people must be paid significant sums to do even the most menial jobs. It would push wages up right along the chain. Crikey, you might see the position of the rich and other elites eroded with respect to the rest of the population. What a terrible thought. A smaller population supported by automation and doing things smarter with better education for all and spreading the wealth evenly and maybe true democracy where those people are asked if they want to get involved in a foreign war far away. A sickening thought if you are a Cameron, Blair, Miliband, Corbett and the like. They would not have the power they crave and love in such a world. Others would not have the wealth they love.  The West can do nothing to help with over-population in the second and third world. There are just too many people and they are still having too many babies. The answer to their problems must come from within or nature will sort it out for them. I visited the Foundling Museum in Coram's Fields over Christmas. It is a lovely place - but chronicles the horrors caused by the population explosion in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries as people moved into cities and stopped dying like flies of poverty and disease - and the cities began to look like Third World cities do now - overcrowded slums full of factory workers. The population of Britain and Ireland in 1700 was probably around 6.5 million, estimated from parish records etc. The first Census in 1801 recorded 18.5 million - so it tripled in 100 years. In 1901 it was 45 million, despite mass emigration during the 19th century. And poverty was still rife, despite mass emigration.  The growth has slowed down somewhat - but is still headed for 75 million by 2050. This is not a fluctuation back and forth. This is an inexorable, unsustainable, rise which can never ever be catered for even if we continue to access the resources of other countries as well as our own. It was only ever catered for via mass emigration - i.e. overflowing of millions to America and Australasia. (The two World Wars had little or no effect by the way.) That emigration continues to this day as young Britons are forced to choke back their tears and emigrate to Oz or New Zealand - a new series of "Wanted Down Under" starts tomorrow on BBC1. Yet Down Under must be filling up in turn by now, surely?

" The world's stuttering economic recovery will continue to disappoint next year, the head of the IMF has warned. Rising US interest rates, a Chinese slowdown and disappointing world trade will all weigh on growth prospects in 2016, said Christine Lagarde. The IMF estimates the global economy will expand by 3.6pc next year, but Ms Lagarde - writing in German business daily Handelsblatt - said growth would be disappointing and uneven."At last an official acknowledgement that the German austerity forced on Europe for the last seven years has been a terrible mistake caused by the stubborn and stupid insistence of the messianic Merkel and her mad crippled adviser Schaubel. Just as the US and UK successful economic policies of the last few years are being reined in with small interest rises the ECB are printing €trillions of euros far too late and the IMF is in a panic having now changed position by 180o.  When has Germany ever had any policy that does not suit its selfish interests and wrecks Europe every time in the process? No wonder Merkel is out of the headlines for a change. She should hang her head in shame and push Schaubel way out of the picture. Best Germany should leave Europe and take its satellite slaves with it...well... "The IMF has calculated that emerging market companies have "over-borrowed" by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014." "Any "failed normalisation" of interest rates and market conditions would wipe 3pc from the world's economic output over the next two years,according to the Fund's financial stability report."  Ah, so we should keep the 'accommodative monetary policy' that allowed this to happen, because we screwed up in the 'accommodative monetary policy' that let it happen. Who's responsible for overlooking all this? Ah, that would be you Christine, would it? Never mind, my advice is start pointing to it now and try and thereby distance yourself from it.... Ah again, I see we have already...

Spain's left-wing Podemos (We Can) party has refused to join any coalition led by the centre-right Popular Party (PP), which won the 20 December election but fell short of a majority.

Podemos was launched nearly two years ago, based on mass anti-austerity protests. It came third, with 69 seats. Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias rebuffed the PP leader and acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, as did the Socialist (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez last week.  New elections might have to be held. The PP came top with 123 seats in the 350-seat lower house of parliament - far short of a majority. In second place was the PSOE with 90, and the new liberal Ciudadanos (Citizens) party was fourth with 40.   Speaking after talks with Mr Rajoy, Mr Iglesias his priority was "social emergency" legislation to help families threatened with eviction and other socially vulnerable groups, such as poor pensioners.  He refused to support Mr Rajoy "whether actively or passively" - ruling out a coalition partnership or abstention in a confidence vote.

Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera also told Mr Rajoy he would not back him. But Ciudadanos would abstain in the confidence vote if Mr Rajoy managed to put together a coalition, he said.

The PSOE says it will only consider a leftist coalition with Podemos if the latter drops its support for an independence referendum in Catalonia.  Many Catalans want such a referendum, but Podemos is the only one of Spain's major parties to back the idea.  Mr Sanchez called on Podemos to "renounce any position that implies the rupture of co-existence between Spaniards". Next month King Felipe VI will seek to nominate a party leader for government, but that leader must then win a vote of confidence in parliament. If there is deadlock two months after that the king will call a fresh election.

The people that run the EU will not allow it to fail.  Look at Greece. The first real chance to stick two fingers up to Brussels, but ultimately, the Greek politicians bottled it under threats and blackmail from the EU.  The same will happen in Spain.  The Front National was shafted in France by a combination of the two major parties in France fixing the electoral system and the EU scaremongering the French public.  Cameron has not bottled it, because he has never tried to stand up to the EU in the first place.  The EU will prevail.  At the first sign of any serious unrest, pressure will be applied behind the scenes on the respective government to send troops onto the streets to restore order if necessary.  The genie is out of the lamp and there is nothing we can do about it short of armed insurrection...The Traverling Circus of the EU  Parliment.

(1) The most outlandish of the European Union’s excesses; a £130 million travelling circus that once a month sees the European Parliament decamp from  Belgium to France.

Over the course of the weekend, some 2,500 plastic trunks will be loaded on to five lorries and driven almost 300 miles from Brussels to Strasbourg. In all, the EU admits that the monthly Strasbourg sitting, which lasts just four days, costs an additional £93 million a year. The Conservative Party in Europe, which is leading a campaign to abandon it, estimates the cost a little higher at £130 million, or about £928 million in the seven-year cycle of an EU budget.

(2) Treasury figures have shown that the annual cost of a MEP sitting in the EU

assembly is £1.79 million each a year, which is three times the cost of a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The European Parliament, with 766 MEPs, cost £1.3 billion in 2012 – expenditure that was shared across the EU's members with a share of the annual bill for British taxpayers of £170 million. In contrast, the combined cost of the House of Commons and House of Lords, with 650 MPs and around 720 active peers, was £494 million in the same period.

Part of the difference is salary: MEPs are considerably more highly paid than MPs, with a £80,000 per year, paid with low 23 per cent "community tax rates", compared with £66,396 for elected representatives in the Commons.  But the big difference between MEPs and MPs is the generous, or even lavish, expenses and allowances – entitlements that are worth over £415,000 a year each. One allowance for parliamentary assistants to work in the Brussels or local office of an MEP is worth £213,000 a year.

(3) The European Union is accused of “breathtaking hypocrisy” for continuing to demand that David Cameron pays a £1.7 billion bill despite its own auditors failing to give a clean bill of health to more than £100 billion of spending by Brussels.  According to the annual report of the European Court of Auditors, seen by The Telegraph, £5.5 billion of the EU budget last year was misspent because of

controls on spending that were deemed to be only “partially effective” by experts.  The audit,published this morning, found that £109 billion out of a total of £117 billion spent by the EU in 2013 was "affected by material error”.It means that the Brussels accounts have not been given the all clear for 19 years running.

(4) What right has Brussels got to spend our taxes on feed us Lies on why we should stay in this broken EU, which does not serve the common person in the streets of the UK.  Voters face being bombarded with pro-Europe propaganda in the months leading up to the referendum as there is no limit on how much Brussels can spend on efforts to keep Britain in the European Union, campaigners have warned. The European Commission has formed a task force in Brussels to oversee an

“information” campaign in the run-up to the in/out referendum, which is expected

to be held next year.