March 7, 2006
WHO CAN AFFORD A BILLION WELFARE CHECKS? (via Pepys):
China's Underpopulation Crisis: India has one, too (Ian Bremmer, March 7, 2006, Slate)
Recent reports from researchers at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs suggest that China's workforce may begin to shrink sooner than we thought. According to Deutsche Bank's analysis, the percentage of working-age Chinese in the population (those aged 15 to 64) will peak around 2010 at 72.2 percent. Over the next 40 years, that number will fall steadily to just 60.7 percent, according to U.N. forecasts. The steep drop is due in large part to China's one-child policy, first implemented in 1979. Also, many Chinese retire before they are 64; China's current retirement age is 50 for most women and 60 for most men.Posted by Orrin Judd at March 7, 2006 5:37 PMThere are two reasons this shift will put considerable strain on China's economic performance. First, the country's explosive economic growth over the last several years is due mostly to its plentiful supply of cheap labor. When the working-age population begins to drop five years from now, China's appeal to international investors may begin to fall as well.
Second, by 2050, every 10 Chinese workers will support seven Chinese who are too young or too old to work, according to Goldman Sachs. Even that projection is based on the optimistic assumption that the central government will soon persuade its citizens to work until they are 64. The Deutsche Bank study includes a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the transition from the current pension system to a more sustainable one could cost developing China $100 billion, not including the financial burden on local governments.
The population is aging in Japan and in many European countries, as well, but these states are already wealthy. The financial stresses on China, where the average per-capita income remains a fraction of those of developed states, will be much more difficult to bear. Then there are the health-care costs. No one can forecast with confidence what it will cost China to care for the 265 million citizens who will be over the age of 65 by 2020. The worst of the crunch is many years away. But the new reports suggest that the shrinking of China's labor force will begin by the end of this decade.
Does anyone else suffer from cognitive dissonance when moving from BrothersJudd, where the optimists are those who think that, after some decline, world population will stabilize, to the real world, where people are still worried about overpopulation?
Posted by: David Cohen at March 7, 2006 6:12 PMIt'll stabilize and start growing again once we're down to the monotheists.
Posted by: oj at March 7, 2006 6:18 PMOptimist.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 7, 2006 6:52 PMThere was a column in the LA Times on Sunday that decried the SD abortion law while noting how overpopulated the planet is (actually it's not, but she, as a member of the "reality-based community", I'm sure, can't be expected to know that). The funniest part of the column was her claim that 10 billion people starve to death every year. But the author insisted that of course she was not advocating abortion as a means of population control. No, no. That would be wrong, you see.
Posted by: b at March 7, 2006 7:06 PM10 billion?
Posted by: David Cohen at March 7, 2006 7:26 PMThe difference is that here we are not blinded by Deipohobia. The bien-pensants elsewhere are so condusmed by their Oedipal rage at the Creator and His creation that they lash out in rage at child-bearing.
They make a holocaust of their children to Moloch. What better explanation for how wrong they have been about population and ecology over the last 50 years, and how right we have been.
Witches, all of them.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 7, 2006 8:16 PMWhat makes them think China will take care of their old?
They don't provide HC now.
Posted by: Sandy P. at March 7, 2006 9:06 PMDavid: Yep. Billion with a B. As I said, funny stuff.
Posted by: b at March 7, 2006 10:43 PMb:
I think the LA Times printed a correction that the number should have been 10 million. I have no idea whether 10M is close to the truth. What's amazing is that the Times ran with the 10B number, and it got past all their fact checkers and editors, though the number is greater than the world's population.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at March 8, 2006 5:49 AMFred J.,
You're giving the Los Angeles Times the benefit of the doubt, if you think it has a fact checker.
If it fits the Democratic National Committee playbook, the Los Angeles Times goes with it.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at March 8, 2006 9:11 AMThe planet itself is clearly overpopulated in relative terms, although not absolute, but of course curbing population growth in developed nations is a bizarre and irrelevant response.
A better response would be to take a million third-worlders a year, put them through an intense course learning English and American cultural knowledge, and then allow those who finish in the top 80% to become U.S. citizens.
In other words, the cure for relative overpopulation is more development of human capital, not fewer people.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 8, 2006 9:15 AMTop the contrary, it's obviously underpopulated given that the highest standards of living are found at the two most densely populated locales on earth, Tokyo & NYC.
Posted by: oj at March 8, 2006 9:19 AMYeah, those also happen to be the largest cities of the two most technologically-advanced nations on Earth.
Jakarta, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo are all larger cities, and nobody thinks of them as Paradise on Earth.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 8, 2006 9:55 AMYes, populatiuon is meaningless. Order society well and we can keep adding folks infinitely.
Posted by: oj at March 8, 2006 9:58 AMWhich is why I wrote "The planet itself is clearly overpopulated in relative terms, although not absolute, [...] the cure for relative overpopulation is more development of human capital, not fewer people."
It's underpopulated in relative terms, since it'
s relative to the planet.
No, it's relative to well-ordered societies, as you noted. Mere square milage means almost nothing.
Badly-ordered societies live in a Malthusian world.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 8, 2006 11:36 AMBrazil is hardly Malthusian
Posted by: oj at March 8, 2006 11:49 AMBut Africa is, and so is the Middle East.
It's just that the M.E. hasn't hit crunch time yet.
But they will, within the 21st century.
The fact that we'll bail them out doesn't mean that they were in no danger.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 8, 2006 1:58 PMNo, they aren't. Rather fewer folk are dying in the Middle East than died in European countries in the 20th Century.
Posted by: oj at March 8, 2006 2:03 PMPerhaps that's why I wrote that they haven't hit crunch time YET.
Ever larger populations solely supported by a wasting asset - you do the math.
Oh, wait...
In simple terms, they're going to run out of money long before they run out of a desire to eat.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 9, 2006 1:34 AMYes, you stumbled at the point of wasting assets. That's the Malthusian/Darwinian error too.
Posted by: oj at March 9, 2006 7:12 AMSo the official Orrin line is that the M.E. oil deposits are inexhaustible ?
That's bad news for the mass transit crowd.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 9, 2006 4:27 PM
When the planet explodes there'll still be plenty of oil available.
Posted by: oj at March 9, 2006 4:33 PMThat's true, but it won't be in the Middle East.
Similarly, there's more than enough food available to feed everyone on Earth, but people still starve.
Resource distribution, geography, and culture matter.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 10, 2006 7:02 AM
Yes, the assets are ample.
Posted by: oj at March 10, 2006 7:07 AMNot in the Middle East.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 10, 2006 10:03 AM
Yes, in the Middle East. We'll stop demanding gas before they stop supplying it.
Posted by: oj at March 10, 2006 10:07 AM