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Aging and Cultural Implosion
From Steyn:Leonard Stern writes: A nation that doesn't replace itself becomes an aging nation, and that's why economists are terrified. Old people no longer generate wealth, yet they require huge amounts of state support in the form of health care, pensions and other programs... The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west. There is another potential answer: redefine aged. Before the 'Progressive' era people did not (could not) leave the work force at 65, or even 50; they would work doing whatever they could until they actually couldn't work. 80 year old farm laborers may not have been the most effective but neither were they entirely ineffective. Likewise, we did not always store our young workers in 'educational' centers for 10 years after they learned everything actually useful that they ever would. Posted by: Glenmore 2009-07-18 |
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