by Outcast_Searcher » Sat 25 Jun 2011, 06:33:52
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoIllini', ' ')Regardless, long run, as fewer people land jobs, fewer people get married and have kids. The fact is that the US will likely be a somewhat older and smaller population country with more wealth in 30-40 years. What is so bad about that? There will not be some gigantic underclass of starving people or corporate slaves as folks here have always purported; these people will not be born due to the weak economy.
I understand and tend to agree with most of your post. The part I DON'T understand is the idea "with more wealth", which I highlighted from your quote.
Do you mean more wealth per capita? If so, maybe, given your low birth scenario, which I agree with from a demographic pressure point EXCEPT that our deteriorating educational standards tend to push it the other way, so net gains there may be minimal.
However, if you mean actual total wealth for the country -- especially relative to the global economy, I have to strongly but respectfully disagree. Wealth is created by productive work and innovation and capital formation.
Look to much of the Asian emerging economies for highly successful examples of that -- plus their culture and governments are doing FAR better than ours via investing in infrastructure and especially EDUCATION needed to productive and skilled workers.
The U.S., OTOH, becomes more and more the opposite of that. Malinvestment. Malincentives. When it doesn't work, whine a lot and do MORE of each. Rinse and repeat. Unless a credible means of strongly reversing this trend emerges (and I don't see it anywhere) -- I believe we will have far LESS wealth as a proportion of global wealth -- and we will deserve it by sowing the seeds of our own destruction via stupidity and short term greed.
If you doubt it, look at the general investment/spending trends and incentives from the previous administration. And then with this administration, bad has gone to worse (of course, continuing to scapegoat Bush makes great sport but doesn't change the reality).
How do you square this with more wealth in 30 to 40 years, especially given the other problems like food issues which you cite in your post?
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.