I really don’t want to talk about the legislature and their shenanigans, and there isn’t a whole lot else going on in the state right now that’s worth talking about.
So let’s focus on some other stuff today, mainly our age.
In America we’re often fearful of the wrong things.
For instance, these days we really worry about Russia and what they could do to our country, and China is way up there too.
The problem with both those countries is that they’re graying. It’s a huge problem in America, too.
In America, the median age of the country is 38.1 years (39.8 in Montana). In China it’s 37.4 and in Russia it’s 39.6.
In America, 28% of the country is over the age of 55. In China, 21% of the country is over the age of 55 and in Russia it’s about 29%.
The Boomers.
All three nations have ‘em, and all three nations are seeing them get old and more dependent on the state for their healthcare. The costs of this are enormous.
At the same time, if you’re in the healthcare, assisted living, or death businesses...the next decade will be quite profitable.
China shot it’s foot off with it’s one-child policy.
We know that in China by 2040, there will only be two workers for every retired person. A huge portion of their country will be over the age of 65, and dependent on state-run healthcare. The costs to that nation will be enormous, and while those costs rise we’ll also see their worker productivity go down and the size of their military do the same.
Russia is in the same boat.
The huge country used to have a huge birthrate, of about 7.5 kids per woman back in 1920. That fell to 1.4 kids in 1994, two years after the country’s population peaked.
By 2015, 20% of Russia’s population was over the age of 65. This has impacted their military, as the current mobilization reserve in 2010 was 20 million, or 11 million fewer than it had been the year before. In America, the current mobilization reserve is 56 million and in China it’s 208 million. Those numbers will only decrease.
Rich countries just don’t have kids. Poor countries have a lot of kids.
This has created huge diasporas of people to the developed world, and in America we mostly get them from Latin American countries. We’re resentful for this, but we should be happy - Latinos actually assimilate into the country they join, unlike the huge population influx we’re not hearing about in the media, the Asians, who don’t assimilate. (We’ve seen a huge increase in Chinese coming to America, Canada, and most of all Australia since President Xi began his anti-corruption campaign in 2012 and all the corrupt government officials that had somehow become millionaires left the country).
Latino countries don’t have demographic problems.
If America didn’t have a lot of these Latin American workers coming here to work, we’d be in dire straits as we don’t have the young population to take over for the population that’s aging out of the workforce.
Already we see this in the colleges and universities, where it’s about 65% women and 35% men attending, with 70-30% in law school.
Women will be leading this country, as they’re already becoming the most educated and getting the highest paying jobs with that education. Men are mainly foregoing higher education to take over the trade jobs - and business ownership opportunities that sometimes come with them - to make up for the retiring Boomers.
We had over 74 million Boomers in 2016, down from their peak of 78 million in 1999.
It won’t be until 2028 that Generation X surpasses them in population, but we have to remember how small that generation born 1961 to 1981 really is, with just 64 million projected by 2028.
Millennials don’t have such problems, as the generation born between 1982 and 1997 had 71 million in 2016 and are expected to have 76 million when they peak in 2036.
So in conclusion, don’t get all worried about Russia and China. Those two countries have massive internal concerns, mostly brought on by their incredibly low birthrates over the past few decades.
Don’t get too worried about all the Mexicans and others coming from across the border - if we didn’t have them our economy would falter and it’d be harder and harder for our government to take care of the aging - and often conservative - Boomer generation.
Something to worry about is how hard it is for our younger generations here in America to get enough money to settle down and start a family. Our country’s birth rate has been below replacement since 1971, so we need these younger people to have kids, but they don't feel 'well-off enough' to do so.
If we don’t address these issues, we’re going to have serious problems in this country.
