Bawww - the moos aren't going to like this

Blaming the childfree because we aren't ponying up and having kids?

As one country after another hits that seemingly "no going back" number to having an onerously aged population, a few suggestions are made. Read the last sentence

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The world is graying at a break-neck pace and that's bad news for the global economy.

By 2020, 13 countries will be "super-aged" -- with more than 20% of the population over 65 -- according to a report by Moody's Investor Service.

That number will rise to 34 nations by 2030. Only three qualify now: Germany, Italy and Japan.

"Demographic transition ... is now upon us," warn Elena Duggar and Madhavi Bokil, the authors of the Moody's report.
"The unprecedented pace of aging will have a significant negative effect on economic growth over the next two decades across all regions."

They cite Conference Board estimates that rapid aging will knock nearly one percentage point off global growth rates over the next decade.

According to Moody's, Greece and Finland will turn "super-aged" next year. Eight countries, including France and Sweden, will have joined them by 2020.

Canada, Spain and the U.K. will be "super-aged" by 2025, and the U.S. will follow by 2030.

The problem isn't confined to Europe and North America. Singapore and Korea will be in that category by 2030, while China will also face "severe aging pressures."

Aging populations create problems because there could be fewer working people to drive economic growth and support the retired population.

The report's authors say that this demographic trend will lead to a decline in household savings, which in turn will reduce global investment.

But policymakers can minimize the impact by encouraging immigration to expand the workforce, and by investing in technology to help workers become more productive.

Other measures could include policies to keep people in work by raising the retirement age or enticing stay-at-home mothers to return to their jobs.

Enticing? Right. As in "oh, please, please pleaaase. We know you are doing the Most Important Job in the World (even though the kids are now all in school) but we neeeed you back in the working population."

It should be more like "get your fat ass off that chair, quit playing Farmville or posting to message boards about how haaaard your life is and make yourself useful. your kids are in school and there's no reason for you to be a SAHM."

We CFs are blamed for the effects of the aging population; fewer people are being born to prop up the Ponzi scheme of gov't support for the aged; but consider this: almost one third of American mothers are SAHMs.

A third of the population of childbearing women choose to not work and contribute to Social Security, are (likely) not creating a personal retirement fund, and when they do return to work after 6 or 12 or 18 years of doing TMIJITW they'll be behind in their skills or simply not have the credentials to be ready for a job that will help them catch up, financially.

Breeders can carp all they like about the CF but, with the exception of a minority who have work issues or have fortuitously saved and retired early, we have been in the workforce, contributing for the cows who have not.

Ooooh this is gonna be gooooooood... Bring on the comments! jerry

The whole "growth" model is bullshit anyway. Only new housing starts are included in it. It doesn't count re-modeling of existing houses, which is better for the environment and it provides people with jobs.

"Growth" = trashing the environment, ponzi schemes, etc. We need to have a sustainable economy using existing resources. I welcome the graying of the populations because then maybe people will stop destroying the environment (cheap Chinese crap) for the sake of Da Childrun, so that Da childrun can have a "better" (more consuming) lifestyle than their parents did.

ETA: And maybe if people didn't have loaves they can't really afford, they could afford to properly save for their retirement.

So what if the UK will become "super-aged" by 2025? Here we already have a high rate of youth unemployment and many graduates wasting their degrees working as baristas, shop assistants etc because there aren't enough graduate-level jobs to go round. We don't need parunts shitting out more unemployed young people to add to the statistics.

Of course with 13 countries becoming super-aged, and fewer people there being economically active, there is a simple solution- allow in migrants from those countries which aren't super-aged! Of course a lot of pro-natalists like this unpleasant chap we have here are just xenophobic and racist and would rather people did their Duty To The Party and churned out more white babies than consider letting in fully-trained tax-paying workers who aren't the right colour.

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bell_flower
The whole "growth" model is bullshit anyway. Only new housing starts are included in it. It doesn't count re-modeling of existing houses, which is better for the environment and it provides people with jobs.

"Growth" = trashing the environment, ponzi schemes, etc. We need to have a sustainable economy using existing resources. I welcome the graying of the populations because then maybe people will stop destroying the environment (cheap Chinese crap) for the sake of Da Childrun, so that Da childrun can have a "better" (more consuming) lifestyle than their parents did.

ETA: And maybe if people didn't have loaves they can't really afford, they could afford to properly save for their retirement.

This, in spades. Uncontrolled and continuous growth in the body is cancer. How is it a good thing to keep producing more people to buy more useless junk? Especially when decent jobs are few and far between, even for educated people? Oh yeah, quarterly profits! As a wise person said, humans aren't the only species on the planet--we just act like it.

Remember that the Third Reich awarded special medals to mothers who produced a certain number of children for the Fatherland. I hope to God we don't see a return to that kind of attitude anywhere, but it doesn't look good.

It takes a child to raze a village.

I don't see how people can churn out articles like this. Perpetual growth is simply not possible in a finite system. Instead of fear-mongering like the west or banning sterilization like Iran, countries should be making plans to restructure their economies. Unemployment is fairly high and many things can be automated, and there are countries with large numbers of young people looking for opportunities abroad. We should be looking at how to create a sustainable system. This type of propoganda makes me sick, because the last thing we should be doing now is increasing the population.

The world needs less people in general. All these countries that scream how their population is ageing should take a step back and encourage neither useless immigration nor useless breeding. It is very often that immigrants from financially disadvantaged countries come to richer countries and then breed to within an inch of their lives and claim every state handout known to man. How is that good for anyone? Also, immigration is good to a certain extent, but when it gets to the point that someone doesn't understand you in London because you speak English, it's time to reassess. I used to live in Elephant&Castle so I know what I'm talking about. By all means encourage people with brains to immigrate and give them jobs, but car washers and strippers are not necessary.
Countries like the UK with their benefit crap should stop all child benefits and stop encouraging entire cities to permanently live on the dole.If all those lazy couch potatoes got off their asses and started to work there would be no need to import people. But of course those fatasses don't want to work but prefer to eat themselves to death in front of the TV.
I don't trust statistics anyway because they can be tweaked to bolster any agenda. I am convinced that this is happening in Eastern Europe with their natalist crap because there is no way the birth rate is declining, there are loaves and toadlers everywhere!

I read this same article yesterday and rejoiced. It's stupidly, ridiculously hard to get a job anymore. Once the boomers start retiring, maybe the rest of us can have a chance to build a life with a reasonable paycheck!

I don't know anything about economics, I actually detest business and economics talk and avoid it like the plague. But it seems to me that these people are just winging that the employment scene is going to be turning from one in which the employers are on top to one in which the employees are scarce and more valuable. They might actually have to start paying competitive salaries or *gasp* hiring someone and then training them on-the-job :bawl. The same thing happened after the Black Death and it was overall good for society (Renaissance, anyone?). The only people it was bad for were the rich, landed gentry who had less serfs to work the land and had to start paying people and treating them like human beings .

I say bring it on. It may be bad for "economic growth" for a couple of years, but the overall result will be better for society in general.

I am a bit disturbed over so many articles/new stories being circulated of late that seem to be vilifying the elderly population in one form or another. These stories are giving the impression that the elderly are a sick, disabled, money-less bane to society when that simply isn't true. While there are some disabled indigent elderly, as there are disabled indigent in EVERY age group, the majority are relatively healthy, able to live on their own and maintain their own homes, and are financially secure, at least that's true of most of the elderly with whom I am acquainted. I don't personally know any elderly people who solely rely on social security as their only source of income or who are on Medi-CAID. EVEN IF some elderly do rely on social security or Medicaid as their only source of income or insurance, they spent 30 plus years paying INTO social security. I am sick of the argument that young people pay the elderlys' social security because they are only referring to it where it applies to the elderly being on the receiving end. WHO, the fuck, do they think paid in for the generations before the current population of elderly?

Now that we have one in sixty-eight babies being born with Autism, along with an unprecedented number of "special needs" kids, like never before seen in history, THESE are the blood suckers of the social security system in America who will ONLY draw from the well while NEVER putting anything back in. SO, fuck the people who are blaming the elderly for doing nothing more than aging because it's the babies being born today and in the past 25 years who are and who will CONTINUE TO bleed social resources dry. One other thing I'd like to clear up for these ignorant fuckers is this Medi-CAID is the social freebie medical care that all the indigent kids are receiving and Medi-CARE is insurance that the elderly PAY for each month, based on heir eligibility and income. Medicare is neither cheap NOR is it free. :headbrick

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

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kidlesskim
I am a bit disturbed over so many articles/new stories being circulated of late that seem to be vilifying the elderly population in one form or another. These stories are giving the impression that the elderly are a sick, disabled, money-less bane to society when that simply isn't true. While there are some disabled indigent elderly, as there are disabled indigent in EVERY age group, the majority are relatively healthy, able to live on their own and maintain their own homes, and are financially secure, at least that's true of most of the elderly with whom I am acquainted. I don't personally know any elderly people who solely rely on social security as their only source of income or who are on Medi-CAID. EVEN IF some elderly do rely on social security or Medicaid as their only source of income or insurance, they spent 30 plus years paying INTO social security. I am sick of the argument that young people pay the elderlys' social security because they are only referring to it where it applies to the elderly being on the receiving end. WHO, the fuck, do they think paid in for the generations before the current population of elderly?

Now that we have one in sixty-eight babies being born with Autism, along with an unprecedented number of "special needs" kids, like never before seen in history, THESE are the blood suckers of the social security system in America who will ONLY draw from the well while NEVER putting anything back in. SO, fuck the people who are blaming the elderly for doing nothing more than aging because it's the babies being born today and in the past 25 years who are and who will CONTINUE TO bleed social resources dry. One other thing I'd like to clear up for these ignorant fuckers is this Medi-CAID is the social freebie medical care that all the indigent kids are receiving and Medi-CARE is insurance that the elderly PAY for each month, based on heir eligibility and income. Medicare is neither cheap NOR is it free. :headbrick

All of this is accurate. I also wonder where this idea comes from that all elderly people are gormless doters who need their asses wiped. My mother died from cancer aged 55 but she never got one single penny from the gubmint and worked until her death because she was was a workaholic and just couldn't not go to work. My father is nearing 70, still runs 7 miles a day and definitely doesn't need anyone to wipe his ass, actually he is still out there chasing ass. eyes2 One of his neighbors lived on her own with no help until she passed on in her sleep, aged 88. Several other neighbors are in the same position, either on their own or with their spouse. I've had ballet teachers and university lecturers in their 60s and 70s. Mick Jagger still prances around onstage. So where are all the needy old fogies we keep hearing about?

I have been wondering about all of these "old useless" people as well eyes2. That's what really bugs me when people squeal on and on about the fyooture. There are people from many different age groups working and contributing to society right now from 18 year olds to 70 year olds. People are living longer and healthier now.

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"I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all."
~Sigmund Freud

Vilifying the elderly is a tactic they use to divert blame from the real culprits: moos and corporations.

Moos are the ones breeding non-stop, producing tards, or welfare babies. They demand subsidized health care for their kids (my state has free kid health care), free food, free housing, free education. They use way more national resources than they pay for. The cost of education per child is only one example. Plus, there are all kinds of tax credits, kid credits, day care credits for them. Corporations want us to breed. More people means more workers, so wages stay depressed. Keep university expensive, so that students are saddled with huge debt after graduation. A person with a large debt to repay will take any job because of that debt, especially if it cannot be discharged in bankruptcy court.

Elderly people have paid into the system for an untold number of years. Elderly also pay property taxes that fund public schools. Even if they rent, a portion of that rent is considered property tax credit. Elderly are NOT the problem. They have EARNED what they receive at this point in their lives.

I'm in my 50's. I've had a job since I was 16 years old. I have been paying into the system all that time. I also pay high property taxes for schools that I won't ever need. Each year SS sends me a future benefit statement based on what I've paid all these years. And after all this, some person has the gall to suggest that I, and others like me would be a leech on the system??

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Now that we have one in sixty-eight babies being born with Autism, along with an unprecedented number of "special needs" kids, like never before seen in history, THESE are the blood suckers of the social security system in America who will ONLY draw from the well while NEVER putting anything back in

So true. There are tons of special needs kids in my district who have PAID AIDES, sometimes one or two PER CHILD. These Aides' sole job is to be with Spedley all day and keep him from harming himself/herself or other kids. No wonder schools are going bankrupt.

I was educated in public schools. I never needed an aide to follow me all damned day. I wasn't a behavioral problem. I went on to college and graduate school and I also worked part time jobs since age 14 without a break. I've paid into the system more than the Average Breeder Moo. My demographic is similar to Peace's.

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I'm in my 50's. I've had a job since I was 16 years old. I have been paying into the system all that time. I also pay high property taxes for schools that I won't ever need. Each year SS sends me a future benefit statement based on what I've paid all these years. And after all this, some person has the gall to suggest that I, and others like me would be a leech on the system??

PREACH IT.

The other issue is usage. I use the roads less than the Average Breeder family and I'm not breeding fyooooture resource suckers. I didn't spawn, so no brat of mine is using the skool system or the juvenile justice system. I didn't spawn with some loser guy and have to call the police because I needed a restraining order against my BabyDaddy. I have no need for social services because I'm doing a crappy job raising my kid, nor am I getting divorced and using Family court for my protracted custody battle. These "guardians ad litem" don't pay for themselves---that's more money out of the state coffers.

I don't have a kid using the "free" state insurance for Kyds. All of these things are common Breeder occurrences that are sucking these systems dry.

Yet someone has the temerity to suggest I'm the leech in this process? I think not. :yeah

First off, Moody's can go fuck themselves. They were the ones who were certifying garbage as AAA in the runup to the Global Financial Crisis. They have no credibility in my eyes.

I also reject this whole bit about a country's population ALWAYS has to go up lest the pweshus economy not go up. Give me a fucking break! Nothing goes up forever assholes, not the economy and not the world's population. Yeah, things may suck economy-wise in the future but it won't be the end of the world. I'm sick to death about how we're all supposed to worship at the altar of "the Economy" eyes2 And would a declining population be REALLY that bad? Less people consuming resources and all that.

But yeah, even more reason for me NOT to have children as they won't enjoy the same quality of life that I have or God forbid my parents had.

End rant.

:cen

I was looking up articles on this myself and I pretty much agree, old people are getting needlessly vilified. I always laugh at the oft repeated 'solution' of trying to bring in immigrants, as one poster put it on one article, as if immigrants won't themselves eventually grow old and join this dreaded class of 'old people.'

And when articles like this opine about the greying of the population and even declining of population, I can't help but rejoice. Haven't there been many a scientific article saying that human population growth is rampant? A reduction in population can only be good for that country, as it allows more jobs and freeing up of land that would have eventually gone to houses, enabling wildlife and other things to recover.

I am only in my 30s, but I hope one day this stigma about being old and 'useless' eventually dissipates. I might not be able to stop working even past 'retirement age,' and I would not want to be forcibly pushed aside for some coveted younger worker, who by this time if trends continue, might not even be able to wipe their own butt. .

"Now that we have one in sixty-eight babies being born with Autism, along with an unprecedented number of "special needs" kids, like never before seen in history, THESE are the blood suckers of the social security system in America who will ONLY draw from the well while NEVER putting anything back in."

This comment should be on highway billboards across the country (to counteract the anti-abortion ones.)

I still say we childfree are evening out the dipshits who have 3 or more kids, so no harm done.

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"[GFG's pregnancy is] kind of like at the stables where that one dumb, ugly-ass mare broke out of her corral one day and got herself screwed by the equally fugly colt that was due to be gelded the same afternoon."- Shiny

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Miss_Hannigan
I still say we're evening out the dipshits who have 3 or more kids, so no harm done.

This! Someone has to step aside and NOT sluice, because there are fuckers out there who will breed us into extinction. (Not that I care if the human race goes extinct...)

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stillwaters
Once the boomers start retiring, maybe the rest of us can have a chance to build a life with a reasonable paycheck!

I've had this thought many times. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say this before, but I think the job market is kind of like a royal family in this respect. In most royal families, it is the oldest living generation that gets to sit on the throne. The next generation can't inherit until the previous monarch dies. So if you're a prince and your dad (the king) dies when you're 18, then you become the next king at 18. However, if your dad/the king doesn't die until you're 40, then you can't become the new king until you're 40. Just look at the British royals. Prince Charles is in his mid 60's, and still hasn't become the King of England because his mom (Queen Elizabeth II) is still alive in her late 80's.

The problem with society is that we expect people to enter the workforce/earn a living/support themselves as soon as they reach physical adulthood (usually around age 18). People are living longer and more generations are alive at the same time. By the time someone reaches age 18, there are still plenty of people from older generations holding on to the same jobs they had 20 years ago. Instead of expecting people to get jobs as soon as they turn 18, we should expect people to get jobs whenever the generations that came before them have mostly retired. We will have to get used to the idea of a world where people don't get their first jobs until age 30, because that's when their parents' generation has finally retired and made room for them in the job market.

In the UK at least there are a number of factors. We currently have a very high rate of "youth unemployment" and the older generations who sneer at younger people for being workshy and unambitious often fail to accept that they have made better lives for themselves not via hard work alone, but because they had it relatively easy.

Decades ago jobs were more plentiful, secure jobs for life were the norm, benefits were available for people who couldn't work, our manufacturing industries offered apprenticeships, university education was free and research funding for academics was higher, the average house price was about five times the average annual salary, commuting was cheap, there was plenty of affordable social housing, private rents were lower and jobs paid well enough for a couple with children to live on just one wage. A poor person really could work their way out of poverty and make a good life for themselves.

A few decades later jobs are scarce, the job for life is a thing of the past, most jobs available for young people are insecure short-term or "zero-hours" contracts, most are part-time and don't pay enough to cover the cost of living, benefits are being cut and there is talk of scrapping them entirely for the under-25s, our manufacturing industries barely exist and apprenticeships are hard to come by, university education costs £9,000 per year and research funding cuts are causing a brain drain for academics, the average house price is closer to 24 times the average annual salary and you can't get a mortgage if you don't have a secure job, commuting is expensive, most of our social housing has been sold off and is now being rented out by private landlords at extortionate rates and jobs don't pay well enough to support a family on just one wage. We've got a whole generation of young people who have no way out of poverty and many who will never leave home- being looked after by their parents until they get sick, and then looking after their parents as carers until they die.

I'm only in my early 30s and hardly a baby boomer, and even I had it easier- I remember getting my first Saturday job at 17 after printing out lots of CVs and just going round pubs, shops and restaurants giving them out- I found something after a couple of weeks. It's still possible to find a job like that in some of the big cities but in many places no-one is hiring, places are closing down all the time and there's just nothing out there, There's no way I could have gone to university if it had costed £9,000 a year when I went. After graduating I signed on and got benefits until I found a job, and that didn't take long- now I'd get no benefits and no job! I probably would have left school at 18 and ended up on the dole with no hope of ever escaping the miserable little village I grew up in.

I really feel for the under-25s today, I only hope they grow up to become the ruling classes and do something to change things for the better, and that they don't feel so bitter and enraged that they take their frustrations out on the rest of us!

Please don't tell me this Elena Duggar is somehow connected to THE Duggars.......

Your all so right. So the greying of the population might knock a point off growth boo-hoo, the recession dones worse than that already shrinking must be worse than less growth, so by their logic the bankers are more of a problem.

It's not like the eldery are going to disapper, I guess the ponzi scheme of NI is a bit of a problem, but beyond that the economy will adjust. Being sterotypical, but sure maybe we need less diaper actories, and night clubs and more careworkers and bingo halls, but there have always been winners and losers. Get back to me when there is no unemployment and a massive shortage of bingo halls for the demand,then the eldery are an econmic issue