ON 2015
The people we choose to manage our nations spend indiscriminately, while deferring billions or trillions of dollars in debt onto future generations.
The "Baby Boom" generation is nearing retirement age, and because Western nations in general have been able to substantially reduce their reproduction rate since the post-war years, those around middle-age now constitute a disproportionate percentage of the population.
Population surges have occurred in the past, but never on this scale, nor did most people live to an age where their physical and mental condition would significantly influence society.
2015 is the year when the number of individuals at or of retirement age will supersede Western society's ability to support them using the present system.
Most Western nations, however, began making changes a few years ago, diverting more revenue toward programs that target the elderly.
The problem being that as the aged are removed from the workforce, there are fewer people contributing taxes at a rate higher than their personal cost to the government, and a lower ratio of workers to retirees.
We won't see the first major impact on social security programs until 2011, but the aging populace is already having an influence on Western society.
The problems associated with growing old were once private issues, but now there is a considerable amount of money to be made from the large number of people who need or desire products and services tailored to the elderly.
Most people are aware that teenagers cost the insurance industry the most money, having more accidents overall; but when we look at the statistics broken down into crashes-per-kilometre driven, we find that age is worse than inexperience.
Corporate leaders see this as an opportunity to increase profits, and the coming labour shortage as a tool to manipulate government, for the Third World nations permit companies to ignore environmental concerns, and pay employees wages that...