Wait but aren't you German, GOD. Germany's birthrates are worse than Japan's? Worse even than Spain's, and Spain is producing fewer children (in aggregate numbers) than they were in the late 19th Century, when their population was much, much smaller. Given Germany's 1.3 fertility rate, there should be 1.54 middle aged people for every young person around you, if my math is correct and the gender ratios are natural. I'm suspicious of your assertion.

Ghosts and ghouls and pay-as-you-go public pension systems......be afraid, be very afraid.

as i am young too, i dont have to do much with old persons :P
But indeed, the imagination how much my generation will have to pay is kind of horrifying :-/

Wisconsin will still be here when you grow up.

Last time I was in Wisconsin, the most exciting thing was a random amusement park outside of Madison. We went home two days early because there was nothing to do. And I've been to Iowa twice and live in Indiana. If there's nothing to do, I mean there is genuinely nothing to do.

An aging population puts pressure on the burden of their health and well being on the younger generation. So we will likely see an era of jobs for all young adults (who are citizens), but having to increase immigration in order to fill the essential 'undesirable' jobs such as agriculture - these industries will most likely remain underpaid.

In addition to this the graying population will have to be catered for somehow (most likely higher taxes). There will be greater incentives for the elderly to stay in the work force after 'retirement'.

IMHO you can take this coming ageing demographic either optimistically or pessimistically. I have to say I am more pessimistic about the twin scenarios of extremely high oil prices, crossed with human induced climate-change, than I am about our aging population. I think we will find ways to look after our elderly, how we happen to go about doing this could entirely depend on what sort of situation we find ourselves with, in a post-oil economy.

@gopher re Spain's low birth rate: can't blame them for not bringing children into the world. You see you can effectively buy into Spanish citizenship (which by default means you can work & live pretty much anywhere in the EU) if you buy an investment property worth €160k (about USD 200k) - http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2012/11/19/spains-bad-debt-ratio-up-to-record-107-percent

What's your take on this our resident economist gopher? Buy now, wait a year or two, wait longer or steer clear?

( when I say you can't blame the for not having kids I'm referring to the risk of parents losing their jobs etc with the high unemployment rate)

What I hated about the last American election was all those adds from seniors says we paid for it. In reality the average senior has received something like 2.5 times the benefit then what they actually paid into it.

Social security is a ponzy scheme and America is going to go bankrupt over it.

But I am Canadian so why should I care?

@kaner.....you are speaking of a theoretical result rather than what is observed. Countries with inverted population pyramids tend to have massive youth unemployment at the same time. Probably as a result of the political economy yielding bad equilibriums as a result of really horrible policy outcomes. Spain, Italy and Greece have had quite high youth joblessness for over a decade.

And just to pick on you, do you not see the inconsistency of your fears? While I definitely count myself as a confirmed skeptic with regards to the climate change alarmism that seems to be the elite opinion consensus, sky-high oil prices would seem to be the opposite fear. But it still leaves the obvious question of why should this "oil crisis" be fundamentally different than the previous six? At current trends, the US would surpass Saudi Arabia in oil production within a decade. And I told by my friends within the super-major oil companies that Saudi Arabia is currently sitting on almost 14 million barrels of daily capacity, while pumping around 9. It only took a million barrels of daily dumping in 1985-1986 to panic the market and cut the price by 75%. As it is, the US is practically swimming in oil because of supply mismatches.

@fasces.....Social Security is in virtually no danger of going broke. What you have said is factually inaccurate. I cannot speak with any real knowledge of Canadian public pensions, but you would be lucky to have a system as soundly funded as Social Security......given current population and income projections for the US over the next 75 years.

@Amby.....I'll tell you when my adviser buys his beach house in Sitges. He has the money, has been actively planning for several years and is in Madrid right now talking to their government.

@gopher - love you mate. Can never tell when you're dead serious or you're taking the piss. Explains why you're so good at Dip ;-)

Can't talk now.....in state of mourning.....throat cancer succeeds where Kristin Shepard and Cliff Barnes failed....is life worth living for a Texan in a world without JR?

@Gopher: I got this from a variaty of sources:
Reliable journals and newspapers such as http://www.economist.com/node/18529505
The opinions of notable economists such as:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLTfOAYfbao
And most importantly, the words of the US government itself:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economic-policy/ss-medicare/Documents/post.pdf

Please stop acting like you know what your talking about when clearly you don't. I could also provide other sources such as the WSJ, CBO and other youtube videos of notable economists explaining how social security is a soon to be bankrupt ponzi scheme, but I didn't want to have to spend time tracking it down.

In the words of the US government:
Social Security faces a shortfall over the indefinite future of $13.6 trillion in present-value terms, an amount equal to 3.5 percent of future taxable payrolls. Looking at the gap over a shorter horizon provides only limited information on the financial status of the program.

So yes, I am very lucky that CPP is sound funded UNLIKE social security.

@fasces.....this is literally what I do professionally. Your Economist article said not one single meaningful word about Social Security. States in the US have employees. Those employees have pensions funded by the states. This in no way affect Social Security. I believe that you are confused about what you are talking about. Calpers going broke would have absolutely zero impact on the federal Social Security benefits for retirees. Your government document from the Treasury Department says in the title that it is not addressing Social Security retirement as a standalone program with a dedicated funding source. I've read the actual report that that 3.5% figure came from. And you are misrepresenting it. That is the largest single year deficit over a 70 year cycle assuming the worst case scenario and it is only as a percentage of the the capped taxable payrolls, not even total payrolls....let alone GDP. The inflation linked cap can easily be raised given that GDP per capita grows at 2.2 percent above inflation. As for your noted economist, he teaches at the Palumbo Donahue School of Business. Anyone wanna take a stab at what state that school is even in, sans Google? Larry Kotlikoff is the source to go to for fiscal nightmare analysis and even he does not claim that the Social Security retirement system is bankrupt. It offers shitty returns and is a terrible deal for everyone born after 1960, but it is not bankrupt. People claiming that Social Security is broke are generally mistakenly conflating multiple separate programs together. I'm sure that it is confusing for foreigners, but Americans say Social Security when they mean lots of different things, which are frequently unrelated.....much as most Americans say Budget Deficit when they mean National Debt.

Where I am is literally the premier place in the world for this kind of stuff. While it is not my primary area, I took the entire Public Econ sequence here because it is the best in the world and have written half of a paper on one aspect of public pension dynamics. Plus I have the passed tests that let me call myself an actuary. SSDI could easily run into problems in the next few years if we get a double dip recession, but again that is a different creature and would be reformed long before it endangered the larger Social Security retirement system. In fact, my friend Joe is referenced in the current issue of The Economist on pretty much that very subject.

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/social-security-deficits