What with demand for Volkswagens soaring, German Chancellor Merkel’s decision to let in (literally) countless numbers of newcomers from the Muslim world is being hailed as an economic masterstroke that will counteract the deleterious wage-boosting effects of the number of working-age residents in Germany being otherwise expected to plunge from 49.2 million in 2013 all the way down to 48.8 million in 2020.

But, strange as it may seem from reading The Economist, the word “demographics” means more than just “age.” One of the more interesting aspect of demographics is the “consanguinity” rate, or percentage of all marriages that are between first or second cousins, a statistic which correlates strikingly with a lack of what Europeans consider civic virtues.

Professor Alan Bittles of the Centre for Comparative Genomics at Murdoch U. tracks those rates at his Consang.net website.

Interestingly, the Merkel Youth seem to come overwhelmingly from inbred cultures, which is probably not coincidental.