Mike Beversluis

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Winter's coming

Via Spengler, here's a plot of two demographic age groups in the US and their ratio. He really should plot them on a zero to max scale, but I think we're turning Japanese, I really think so - at least in terms of our aging boomer population. The upshot is that I am not going to retire by selling a house. And the stock markets correlate well with the total population, which will level off and start to fall in the years to come - so where would you put your 401K?

Overall the implication is grim, although I think Spengler is too pessimistic about the US - he does have a pseudonym to live up to. I think the global US advantage will be maintained, which is a very tarnished silver lining, since it implies greater global poverty. This in turn implies that we can let young people immigrate in order to restore a semblance of a traditional age-distribution, but this is saving the wealthy (US) at the expense of the poor.

The other factor is that people are just as irrationally pessimistic in a recession as they are irrationally optimistic during a boom. We are also de-escalating in Iraq, and although there may be other storms brewing, there might be a peace dividend there too.

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posted by Mike Beversluis at Thursday, January 08, 2009

3 Comments:

  • The issue of age merits a far deeper analysis than the one I am able to give, but I think it is pretty evident that sooner or later the number of people living on the Earth will have to level off, and at the equilibrium the ratio young/old is more or less fixed and cannot be changed.

    I remember having read somewhere that it is considered likely that the US will reach the population of 500 million.
    Just for talking, in Italy the increase of the population right now is all due to immigration: the number of children per woman is below 1.5.

    By Blogger JTS, at 09 January, 2009 07:13  

  • I predict the Earths population will level off in the next 25 years, then start a long term, gradual decline.

    Where it will stop? Who knows -- it is up to women, the self-propelled definition of mystery.

    Does Spengler account for increases in productivity? If productivity exceeds population decline -- which is almost certain -- then what is the problem?

    By Blogger Hey Skipper, at 10 January, 2009 07:43  

  • I don't know about Spengler, but most innovations and productivity increases result disproportionally from the work of 30-40 year old workers. So perhaps it won't increase, at least not concomitantly. Has it done so in Japan or Italy in the last ten years?

    By Blogger Mike Beversluis, at 11 January, 2009 22:42  

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