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Post by crabbyoldgit on Feb 20, 2022 10:11:29 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable.These young of course will age and require an even larger army of new young to look after them in some mad economic population ponzi scheme, which as all ponzi schemes must collapse.
Many years ago I was an avid reader of Private Eyes bulletins from Idi Amin as taken down verbatim in this the mick was taken for his economic plan of just printing endless money and an African system of producing as many male offspring as possible to ensure a safe old age. Now we have quantitative easeing and calls for immigration to fill jobs, many low skilled, which we have failed to train are own population to do.Sadly I hear many employers bemoaning the lack of skills as long as somebody else does the trainning and they can acquire these people at low cost. As an ex BT engineer, I see the new recruits being nearly all ex military signals, with the old excellent trainning infrastructure sold off and abandoned. My present part time job is 90% over 60 years old and no new blood comming through , customers are constantly asking us not to give up, they are getting scared, do not know what they are going to do in the future. But me being the boy of our team, 67 and the job requiring climbing roofs and general physical fitness it cannot go on much longer. We tryed to take on younger people but the job is dirty with long unplanned hours and the younsters just cannot seem to logically think through a problem and come up with solutions. Something is wrong with our education system , i dispare, there is an attitude of its too complicated , cannot be repaired, buy a new one. This most of the time is utter rubbish, the number of times i hear you cannot now work on your own car because only a garage can.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2022 11:37:13 GMT
Ah, training budgets are always cut first in any down turn. Then a lot of companies understand training the young but not the old. Then a lot of employees think that training is something done to them rather than learning that they have to do.
Constant growth is unsustainable, more "things" in the house is frankly crazy. I see someone has managed to be in the BBC today for reducing his "things" list to 407.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Feb 20, 2022 12:49:28 GMT
Because the best/most lucrative jobs are in the most densely populated areas, ie, the big cities. Except for the minor detail that commuting is an option. Nobody HAS to live in central London, for instance, yet the top 20 densest local authorities are London boroughs. All 32 boroughs are in the top 90 densest areas. There are much more affordable areas, far less densely populated, within easy commuting distance. All three of the English "most average" areas are commuter-belt, with the English average density 1/40th of the densest borough - and some of the most expensive areas in London are in the densest areas. The Scottish "most average" area is prime commute for the Scottish capital, which is far more expensive AND nearly 6x as dense. Having spent most of my working life commuting because we couldn't afford to live in London, I understand the concept! And spending 3 hours a day travelling does get a bit tedious. I remember drawing circles out from where I was working and looking up house prices until we found somewhere we could afford to buy, it was a long way out, and what we bought was a small terraced house. And yes we could have rented, but the rents were actually higher than the amount a mortgage lender would let us pay back a month, so we would have been even more broke and nothing to show for it.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Feb 20, 2022 12:54:54 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable. There are other options. One is to increase retirement age in line with life expectancies, to reduce the amount of economically unproductive time that people spend in their dotage. Except the downside of that is that is that many of the later years are not in adequate health and fitness to be economically productive. Another option is to reduce retirement benefits to a more financially sustainable level. Politically, the opposite path is being currently followed, with the "triple lock" ensuring that retirement benefits increase faster than the rest of the economy. Reducing life expectancies has certain... political unpalatabilities... Any other suggestions...?
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tallsuk
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Post by tallsuk on Feb 20, 2022 14:36:15 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable. There are other options. One is to increase retirement age in line with life expectancies, to reduce the amount of economically unproductive time that people spend in their dotage. Except the downside of that is that is that many of the later years are not in adequate health and fitness to be economically productive. Another option is to reduce retirement benefits to a more financially sustainable level. Politically, the opposite path is being currently followed, with the "triple lock" ensuring that retirement benefits increase faster than the rest of the economy. Reducing life expectancies has certain... political unpalatabilities... Any other suggestions...? These are valid options but you are not taking in to account one key factor, old people are far more likely to vote and therefore far more likely to be bribed by politicians.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Feb 20, 2022 14:38:32 GMT
There are other options. One is to increase retirement age in line with life expectancies, to reduce the amount of economically unproductive time that people spend in their dotage. Except the downside of that is that is that many of the later years are not in adequate health and fitness to be economically productive. Another option is to reduce retirement benefits to a more financially sustainable level. Politically, the opposite path is being currently followed, with the "triple lock" ensuring that retirement benefits increase faster than the rest of the economy. Reducing life expectancies has certain... political unpalatabilities... Any other suggestions...? These are valid options but you are not taking in to account one key factor, old people are far more likely to vote and therefore far more likely to be bribed by politicians. Ah, now that all depends on whether the priority of our politicians is improving the well-being of the country, or ensure their own re-election...
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Feb 20, 2022 17:25:11 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable.These young of course will age and require an even larger army of new young to look after them in some mad economic population ponzi scheme, which as all ponzi schemes must collapse... That's not the argument at all. Take another look at the population graph:  In a steady state, if the birth rate was just enough to maintain the population and there was no net immigration, the numbers in each cohort would be larger at the bottom and decline over time as people die. But that's not what the graph shows. There is a waist at the bottom because the birth rate is too low to maintain the population without immigration. There is also a bulge between 50 and 64. The birth rate is falling (as it is all over the developed world) because fewer and fewer women choose to have more than two children, while many choose to have one or none. If you were to project the graph forward over time, with no immigration, you would find significant and sustained population decline together with a massive rise in the dependency ratio. That is fiscally unaffordable and would cause major social problems. In an ideal world (that is to say, ideal for the UK) we'd have enough net immigration to sustain the population at about its present level (or just above). We'd still see a rise in the dependency ratio as the bulge between 50 and 64 moves into retirement, but it should be manageable, particularly if we allow enough immigration that the population rises a bit. Other developed countries face similar problems. For them, too, the solution should be to allow enough immigration to at least sustain the population - which is fine if the population of the world continues to grow. Whether that's sustainable is another matter, but it won't grow indefinitely. Globally, the birth rate is below replacement rate almost everywhere now except Africa, and Africa is likely to get there too. The world's population will continue to rise for a generation or two, simply because there are so many young people. But it should eventually begin to fall - as we must all surely hope. What happens then will be our great-grandchildrens' problem, if we haven't fried the planet by then. I anticipate the western world being much more welcoming of immigrants than it is today, with countries competing for them. At least, that's the optimistic view. The dystopian alternative is dictatorships forcing the birth rate up by Kinder, Küche, Kirche...
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james100
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Post by james100 on Feb 20, 2022 17:51:07 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable.These young of course will age and require an even larger army of new young to look after them in some mad economic population ponzi scheme, which as all ponzi schemes must collapse... <snip> The dystopian alternative is dictatorships forcing the birth rate up by Kinder, Küche, Kirche... Some less horrific alternatives discussed here too: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/society-and-culture/the-uks-birth-rate-has-hit-a-record-low-can-it-bounce-back "We are in the middle of a “baby bust.” The 2020 fertility rate was 1.58 children per woman in England and Wales, and even lower in Scotland at 1.29—figures that have decreased each year since 2012..."
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Feb 20, 2022 18:10:53 GMT
Thanks for the link. I take three messages from the article: 1. Pro-natalist policies won't substantially raise the birth rate in a democracy (for all the reasons it mentions). 2. Raising labour force participation by older people should be part of the solution. 3. As should immigration.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Feb 20, 2022 20:39:14 GMT
If the problem is global population what the UK population is doing is a pretty minor parameter.
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Post by overthehill on Feb 20, 2022 21:52:28 GMT
I'm expecting BoE interest rates and therefore savings rates to be 0.5% higher very soon, inflation is a runaway process if you give it enough fuel to ignite and just watch. Premium bonds are going to have to up their game.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Feb 21, 2022 10:22:57 GMT
If the problem is global population what the UK population is doing is a pretty minor parameter. That's a slightly different side of the same coin. The root cause of the problem both locally and globally is simply that modern medicine is too good. In developed economies, it means that average ages are rising, because people are living longer. In developing economies, it means that child mortality is dropping as well. Falling birth rates lag behind falling child mortality. People are still having lots of kids, partly because that's what they always had, partly because contraception isn't readily available or socio-religiously acceptable, partly because they're wealthier and can afford to. In the past, lots of those kids would have died young, and so populations wouldn't have risen. Now, they aren't, so they are. Add in that climate change is likely to render many parts of the developing world inhospitable, and if you think migration's a problem now, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Feb 21, 2022 11:21:50 GMT
Comment on Numbers of children amused me
Dad was one of 9
of the 9 5 had children a total of 12
Those children between them had 14
At that point I lose count
but not exactly an exponential boom
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macq
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Post by macq on Feb 21, 2022 12:40:38 GMT
The argument that we need to expand the young population to pay for the upkeep of the old is unsustainable.These young of course will age and require an even larger army of new young to look after them in some mad economic population ponzi scheme, which as all ponzi schemes must collapse... That's not the argument at all. Take another look at the population graph: In a steady state, if the birth rate was just enough to maintain the population and there was no net immigration, the numbers in each cohort would be larger at the bottom and decline over time as people die. But that's not what the graph shows. There is a waist at the bottom because the birth rate is too low to maintain the population without immigration. There is also a bulge between 50 and 64. The birth rate is falling (as it is all over the developed world) because fewer and fewer women choose to have more than two children, while many choose to have one or none. If you were to project the graph forward over time, with no immigration, you would find significant and sustained population decline together with a massive rise in the dependency ratio. That is fiscally unaffordable and would cause major social problems. In an ideal world (that is to say, ideal for the UK) we'd have enough net immigration to sustain the population at about its present level (or just above). We'd still see a rise in the dependency ratio as the bulge between 50 and 64 moves into retirement, but it should be manageable, particularly if we allow enough immigration that the population rises a bit. Other developed countries face similar problems. For them, too, the solution should be to allow enough immigration to at least sustain the population - which is fine if the population of the world continues to grow. Whether that's sustainable is another matter, but it won't grow indefinitely. Globally, the birth rate is below replacement rate almost everywhere now except Africa, and Africa is likely to get there too. The world's population will continue to rise for a generation or two, simply because there are so many young people. But it should eventually begin to fall - as we must all surely hope. What happens then will be our great-grandchildrens' problem, if we haven't fried the planet by then. I anticipate the western world being much more welcoming of immigrants than it is today, with countries competing for them. At least, that's the optimistic view. The dystopian alternative is dictatorships forcing the birth rate up by Kinder, Küche, Kirche... A bit ironic that a chart for population & birth numbers looks like a condom 
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michaelc
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Say No To T.D.S.
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Post by michaelc on Feb 21, 2022 13:56:59 GMT
... I'm then further attacked... Criticism is not the same as an attack. But I am sorry you feel that I did attack you. To prevent that happening going forwards I'll simply try to avoid responding to you. I'm sorry you feel that way RM. Thought it was fairly clear from the context that you "attacked" my argument. As you used to run this site, I'm sure you know where the "ignore" button is.
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