On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:09:19PM +0100, Charlie Stross wrote:
> See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/population/Story/0,2763,544116,00.html
>
> Executive summary: population growth is slowing, people are living
> longer. This means that the elderly population is about to bloat,
> while the work force shrinks. End result: an "ageing recession".
Of course, economics in the middle to late century will also be
affected by other factors such as whether AI enables largescale
automation, but the distribution of savings might have even greater
effect. The old have much money invested in long-term investments
such as pension funds, which might mean a tendency for capital to be
more risk-aversive.
Notice that nobody has said that maybe the retirement age ought to
move up. So beside anti-aging treatments we might need anti-pension
treatments :-)
If the first world enters ageing recessions, it is very likely that
at least parts of the third world can capitalize greatly on the
relative youth of their populations. And it is if course a great
argument for opening up borders and allowing immigration - it is
very likely the US is going to remain the economic powerhouse of the
economy if the predictions this article makes come true, simply
thanks to the relatively high immigration.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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