Long-term effects of population rise

I speak of Greece, member of the Euro zone and also the Schengen area and an EU member which is alleged to have become a member by conciliatory manipulation of its EU entry accounts.

Well, the drastic EU austerity financial requirements on the populace have had repercussions of civil unrest.

Many Greek 55-64 year olds have opted for early retirement because they are unable to find work.

Five years ago there were only six per cent of that age group but now they are 20 per cent; better to opt for a definite income than a job that could lead to redundancy and future doubt.

Greece currently has 2.65 million pensioners but there is a backlog of 400,000 pension applications.

Trouble is that there is over 50 per cent youth unemployment which means that their taxes are not going to be able pay for their grandparents’ pensions.

Have you noticed that here in the UK grandparents are becoming ever-greater funders of their grandchildren?

In Greece one in two households depends on pensions to make ends meet though their pensions are less than ours at 665 Euros per month.

However, allegedly tax evasion accounts for a 50 per cent loss of pension funds.

Here in the SE UK, the third most densely populated country in the world, the grass is still green following a temperate winter but this illusion should be considered globally.

The world population is increasing exponentially and the problems in Greece are a direct result of more mouths to feed with limited resources indigenously and globally.

Global population proliferation has the effect of influencing Greece and others.

Eventually, hopefully, our government is challenged to address this issue.

So often we Brits suffer government knee-jerk reaction to such problems as pension-funding when actually the long-term effects of global population increase have not been considered.

Is it not a simple equation that more global mouths to feed means more taxes, more workers to feed those mouths?

Tony Smith

Brownbread Stud

Ashburnham

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