The Closing of the West Begins

Two different stories, two different continents, same multi-generation trend underway. ZH: Canada Set To Announce 2 Year Ban On Foreign Purchases Of Residential Real Estate

"The foreign buyers ban will apply to condos, apartments, and single residential units," according to CTV. "Permanent residents, foreign workers, and students will be excluded from this new measure. Foreigners who are purchasing their primary residence here in Canada will be exempt."

The effects will likely be dramatic, as foreign purchases of real estate accounted for a lot of the bid that helped Canadian housing skyrocket to begin with.

"The timing is a classic case of closing the barn door after the horses have left," ForexLive's Adam Button wrote this week. He noted that the market had already started to cool in March amidst interest rate hikes.

It seems that way, but not if you realize this ban will last 20 or more years. Note that the Liberal government (nominally pro-diversity and pro-foreigner) is doing this, which means when the right returns to power, it will likely expand the rule.

Marine Le Pen is leading in a run-off poll for France's presidential election. Immigration is coming to an end. Mass deportation of unassimilated immigrants is coming. Western Europe could be virtually Muslim free by 2040, via deportations and assimilation and religious conversion.

As for the real estate topic, I discussed that before and explained why it is inevitable. A combination of affordability and demographic reality. Quick summary: the West was open because it could afford to be. The West made up the vast majority of middle class and wealthy people all the way until the fall of communism in the 1990s. In another decade, there will easily be several hundred million people who can outbid Americans for their homes. See this post from 2019: The West Will Restrict Foreign Home Ownership

Italy has been at the forefront of nationalist action and also, it drives home the point about the demographics. Here in 2017: Socionomics Alert: Europeans Hate Tourists, Let Alone Migrants and here in 2018: Mass Deportations Coming to Italy. (That was a provocative title as deportations are in the future, but I do expect Italy will lead the way unless France overtakes it here.) The big story there: they want tourism restricted! Italian cities that are popular tourist destinations, where it is a major part of the economy, want restrictions. For the same reason as real estate bans are coming: the number of people who can afford to visit far exceeds the carrying capacity of the culture.

I do not say this as an anti-natalist, but as reality: there are too many people. Only so many can live in a place without creating overcrowding. Each culture has a different definition. Chinese can live packed into small apartments, but many Americans want to live like lonely hermits in the woods. Chinese like "re nao," lots of loud noises, lights, fireworks going off. While the U.S. has noisy business districts, many places restrict noise and light pollution. I've lived in both countries and each has their merits. If forced to choose I'd pick rural American living, but I would miss China's cities. Still, the reality is the cultures are like oil and water in some ways, yin and yang. They cannot coexist on the same space of land. Hence noisy Chinatowns in China. And if you go to a foreign area in Beijing or Shanghai, you notice the population density and noise drops a great deal. Once I had a Chinese friend visit my hometown in the USA, a somewhat rural area, and she said "Oh it's so empty here, you can build so much!" Meanwhile, trying to get any development in that area is like pulling teeth because people live there because it is spacious.

Mass immigration into the West is already triggering conflict and it will boil over. Additionally, many immigrants came to the West because it is spacious and affordable, so you have situations such as immigrant Chinese demanding bans on foreign real estate buying in Vancouver. While the native white population might still have some misplaced racial guilt, recent immigrants may lead the charge for closing the doors to preserve the West they came for.

Toss in declining social mood, economic decline and the eventual financial and economic crises that will turn much of the West into "developing nations," plus the growing wave of nationalism, the coming wave of religious revival, the fracturing of the world into economic and information blocs...it's inevitable where this is headed at least for a time, if not for centuries to come. It could lead to a more peaceful world if nationalism turns inward instead of outward, but either way, the West will close its doors. Western universalism is ending right now, as we see with the Baizuo admin claiming "the world" is against Russia, which is far from the case. The West will eventually refocus on its European heritage, Christian religion and historic and cultural ties.

Since East Asia has far higher population density already and is far more culturally confident, it might become more open than the West for travel and living. It's likely the West will become intellectually open again. Today is the intellectual and moral Dark Age in the West with universities, media and science subverted by Mammon and Satan. The future will be brighter on that score, but good luck moving in for a few decades or more.