Meanwhile in China, a fourth of their population will be over 65 in less than a decade, yet all we hear are the thousand ways that China's onrushing economy pwns us.
But now we're Japan. Wasn't it about five minutes ago that we were in danger of turning into Greece? Or were we in danger of becoming France? Wait... it was both. Mostly it depended on whose bad news had been in the papers that week. And before that, believe it or not, we were Japan again. Whatever, it was bad, and it was about to be us.
It's admittedly a snag that America's annual GDP is twice that of all three countries put together and would need to abruptly collapse at a huge exponential rate just to catch up (catch down?) to the other declining societies. But even so, it's all over. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife.
Well, we're similar to some of the European countries in that we have large unfunded liabilities for old-age benefits leading to deficit spending a growing burden on younger workers.
I wouldn't be so sanguine about China. They only very recently introduced old-age pensions and already they're projected to have >$10 trillion in pension deficits over the next 20 years.
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Meanwhile in China, a fourth of their population will be over 65 in less than a decade, yet all we hear are the thousand ways that China's onrushing economy pwns us.
But now we're Japan. Wasn't it about five minutes ago that we were in danger of turning into Greece? Or were we in danger of becoming France? Wait... it was both. Mostly it depended on whose bad news had been in the papers that week. And before that, believe it or not, we were Japan again. Whatever, it was bad, and it was about to be us.
It's admittedly a snag that America's annual GDP is twice that of all three countries put together and would need to abruptly collapse at a huge exponential rate just to catch up (catch down?) to the other declining societies. But even so, it's all over. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife.
Well, we're similar to some of the European countries in that we have large unfunded liabilities for old-age benefits leading to deficit spending a growing burden on younger workers.
I wouldn't be so sanguine about China. They only very recently introduced old-age pensions and already they're projected to have >$10 trillion in pension deficits over the next 20 years.
NY Times: "No Country for Old Age"
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/opinion/no-country-for-old-age.html
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