Robert Samuelson weighs in...Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business.

Unless Europe reverses two trends -- low birthrates and meager economic growth -- it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. Actually, that future has already arrived.

Wherever they look, Western Europeans feel their way of life threatened. One solution to low birthrates is higher immigration. But many Europeans don't like the immigrants they have -- often Muslim from North Africa -- and don't want more. One way to revive economic growth would be to reduce social benefits, taxes and regulations. But that would imperil Europe's "social model," which supposedly blends capitalism's efficiency and socialism's compassion.

A few countries (Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands) have acted, and there are differences between Eastern and Western Europe. But in general Europe is immobilized by its problems. This is the classic dilemma of democracy: Too many people benefit from the status quo to change it; but the status quo isn't sustainable. Even modest efforts in France and Germany to curb social benefits have triggered backlashes. Many Europeans -- maybe most -- live in a state of delusion.

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Let's learn from the experience of others. Here in the US we see ever increasing clamor from those wanting more and more govt 'benefits', the funding for which comes from the younger working class. Any attempt to debate these growing entitlement issues is met with fear-mongering rhetoric to protect the status quo. Funny, nobody remembers piles of elderly dead and dying before we enacted Medicare, Medicade and now taxpayer subsidized drug benefits for coots and crones. And the generation educated BEFORE there was a multi-billion dollar NEA somehow put a dozen people on the moon.