25 years ago in college I had a course called "America's competitive future" and one topic was the whole productive citizen to unproductive citizen ratio.
If there are 20 young people working to support 1 old or otherwise unproductive person that is no big deal. There's plenty of tax base, pension, profit, etc to do that and no-one notices.
But what if it gets to 1 productive per 1 unproductive? That is unsustainable.
What do we do, as a society, then? Euthanasia? That is a problem future people will have to figure out.
This was a stunning wake-up call for early 20s college kids in the 90s.
That future time may very well be now.
Now add in the unfunded pensions, social security, insurance policies and you can see how there are very powerful people in very fancy board rooms figuring out how to whack a whole lot of people, right now.
25 years ago in college I had a course called "America's competitive future" and one topic was the whole productive citizen to unproductive citizen ratio.
If there are 20 young people working to support 1 old or otherwise unproductive person that is no big deal. There's plenty of tax base, pension, profit, etc to do that and no-one notices.
But what if it gets to 1 productive per 1 unproductive? That is unsustainable.
What do we do, as a society, then? Euthanasia? That is a problem future people will have to figure out.
This was a stunning wake-up call for early 20s college kids in the 90s.
That future time may very well be now.
Now add in the unfunded pensions, social security, insurance policies and you can see how there are very powerful people in very fancy board rooms figuring out how to whack a whole lot of people, right now.
No joke.
...wonderful addendum...