Originally Posted by
Phuz
Create multiple children, make 'em go to school.
You may not even realize how true these words are. Here's why...
As birthrates drop, and baby boomers age, there are more people living on the economy, but fewer people actually working, and therefore driving the economy.
This means there are fewer economic "things" available (food, products, servicves), but still many people who WANT these things.
So what has to give? The value of the dollar...
If a young working person bakes five loaves of bread on a given work day, assume he's going to keep one for himself. That leaves four loaves, but what if there are five retirees...
The retirees start a bidding war, and the commodity price goes up until one of the four cannot afford it. What about the young worker? He will still be able to afford HIS loaf, because he can always demand that his salary keep up with inflation...if he can't afford his loaf, he won't bother coming to work.
The point of this is that in a scenario where old people outnumber young people, the actual amount of money you have in retirement is not what matters...the important thing is how much you relative to OTHER retirees. Basically you don't want to be the poorest retiree...he's going to lose out. His fellow retirees and the younf worker will outbid him.
In this situation having $1M will not help you if everyone else has $3M....
If we all pop out loads of kiddies, then maybe there will a large enough production sector in the economy to provide for all the boomers....