Back when the mighty northern glaciers were freshly melted, I had a casual job in retail. There were three main parts to my job – register, stocking shelves and moving boxes out the back. This list is in order from my least to most favourite.

I actually enjoyed moving boxes and getting sweaty. On register I was socially awkward, shy of my savage pimples under the glaring fluorescent tube lights, and I made mistakes.

Adding to this pressure was the possibility of receiving a Mystery Shopper. If you haven’t done retail, this is a person paid by the company to act like a shopper in order to ensure they are offered a basket if they are holding two or more items, are addressed by name if they use a credit card, that change is counted back, and of course that they get a big shit-eating grin from the poor spotty register monkey.

I never ended up getting a review from a mystery shopper but it was yet another source of terror for a timid young man.

Nevertheless, if you’ve ever had trouble at a shop or restaurant, you can see how mystery shoppers can be a good thing if properly deployed.

Today’s idea is a DOGE-like concept for mystery shoppers to analyze government services.

Town Hall mystery shopper

Some fancy there are easy solutions to get us through the coming demographic transition: immigration and/or AI.

However, neither magically solves the economic problem of an aging population, regardless of how you may feel about them in other terms.

Immigration

Some people have a very simple view of immigration that goes like this: there are many people in poor countries and a lack of people in rich countries. The poor people go work in the rich countries for higher wages and Bob’s your uncle.

To understand why this isn’t a perfect solution (aside from cultural concerns), you need to simultaneously keep in mind a few moving parts.

Bottomless pit?

In the dying decades of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths rampaged through the countryside. Goths had previously been allowed to peacefully settle within the Empire because farmers and soldiers were desperately needed following recurrent epidemics and low birth rates. However, these immigrants had been required to surrender their arms at the border and live in small groups, not as internal nations under their own leaders. In fact, this resettlement was often part of a punishment following a lost war.

Once the Huns began to attack Gothic lands from the east, however, these rules went out the window. So many Goths poured across the frontier that no Roman force could prevent them, disarm them or separate them.

The subsequent arrogant and callous treatment of the barbarians was not a clever move as by this time they were one of the few effective fighting forces still available in the West and the Huns were looming on the horizon.

Alaric I tried to find a place for his Visigoths within the Roman Empire. At one point, during a siege, he made a pretty fair offer: forget about the gold. Make me head of the Roman Army, I’ll take my people north to settle along the Danube frontier and we’ll guard it for you.

At this point Rome had no army to speak of to protect the border and no better way of getting the Goths out of their hair. This was a Godsend.

Rome said no.