The Germans won't have to worry about cheap Polish labor much longer. In a single gneration, Polish labor is going to become very scarce.

The first region to feel the effects of the coming population crash is eastern Europe according to this article from the BBC

(see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor­ld/734123.stm) :

"Population levels are likely to drop by a third in former Communist countries by 2050 because of a dramatic fall in the birth rate. The United Nations Commission for Europe, which produced the figures, says the main reasons are economic - less money means fewer children. With the region still in economic and social crisis, the countries of Eastern Europe have the lowest fertility rates in the world. The commission says only a dramatic recovery can reverse the trend, which has marked the transition economies since the fall of Communism.

The UN report says the fall in the birth rate in Eastern Europe mirrored the collapse of communism and continued throughout the 1990s. In former East Germany, the birth rate dipped to 0.83 children per woman in 1993. The latest figures show women in Eastern Europe have on average 1.3 children. This compares with nearly 1.6 in Western Europe. The problem is worst in Latvia and Bulgaria, where in 1998, birth rates were 1.09 and 1.11 respectively.

"When a population experiences 2.1 children per woman, it simply replaces itself. If you go down below the magic number then ... you see a decline, as well as progressive population ageing," Miroslav Macura, chief of the UN's populations activities unit said. Even a financial recovery in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, has not reversed a slowdown in the birth rate. The UN says lifestyle changes, such as having children later and greater numbers of women going into further education, have also had an impact. The report proposes that governments respond by introducing financial and tax benefits to those with children. "Although expensive, these policies can be successful and are not incompatible with a market economy - but they do require lots of political will," according to the report. However, the UN is pessimistic about the possibilities of reversing the trend. "Even if there is a small improvement in the birth rate, by 2050 we are likely to see populations cut by a third," Mr Macura said."

daniel: There won't be any Germans for the Poles to compete with in a generation. Will be a fair number of Turks, though.

daniel duffy,

Well, for some strange reason people think that there is a "genetic" quality to nationhood.

This resentment of Polish workers began at least ten years ago over picking apples and grapes. The Germans complaining at the time would rather the farmers let the fruit rot on the vines/trees than hire the Poles. Few Germans would stoop to picking fruit. Not even the unemployed. Sound familiar?

daniel:

No the collapse mirrored communism. But they are unlikely to recover.

Within a generation the Polish salaries will go up anyway with free migration, if they can perform the same work. Of course the whole issue will be resolved in a generation, regardless of population issues.

That doesn't stop the short-term dislocations, of course.

What does TSEDEQ stand for?

AWW: google is your friend.

TSEDEQ is a funky transliteration of the hebrew word meaning righetous, just, charitable. The Hebrew letters, in the purely consental root, are Tzadeh, Dalet, Yod, Kof (sometimes rendered as Qof). A transliteration of that form would be TzDYK. The vowel points indicate that the first vowel in the word is a short a as in father and that the yod should be pronounced iy or a european long i. Therefor, the better transliteration of the word would be tzadiyq or tzadiyk, although it is more often seen as tzaddek.

No wonder y'all wandered 40 years in the desert: it took you that long to figure out the road signs :-)