Comments for The Nonsense About a Demographic Crisis at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.cepr.net Fri, 24 May 2013 10:19:03 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis#comment-20614 Megan Mcardle too. - anon Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:48:04 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis#comment-20599 The only person I know who worries overmuch about the aging U.S. population is the Times's Ross Douthat, who also gets paid by The New York Times, so far as I can tell, to worry in print about all similar crises, such as the fact that too many of us are consuming small amounts of dihydrogen monoxide over long periods of time. - Lex Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:29:06 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis#comment-20587 Request for clarification: If productivity gains are going into corporate coffers and are not showing up in workers' paychecks (the source of Social Security funding) how do the productivity gains compensate for the declining worker/retiree ratio? - Dan Wasserman Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:47:51 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis#comment-20579 Over on Krugman's blog, he has suddenly woken up to the fact that the increasing use of robots to replace workers is changing everything. Capital benefits, labor loses. Expect to see a lot more discussion of this in the near future. It seems to have been triggered by Apple's announcement that they're bringing some manufacturing back to the U.S., along with a couple of other articles on "reshoring" that have appeared recently. I'm not qualified to analyze the implications, but it seems to me that if demand for human labor falls, so will wages. Robot-assisted productivity [i]per worker[/i] may rise dramatically, but the number of available jobs will fall equally dramatically. Which I guess reinforces your point that intra-generational transfers of wealth will be a much bigger bone of contention than inter-generational ones. - Rob Lewis Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:56:16 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis#comment-20576 I think you need to talk more about this, because it seems to be a BIG threat to retirees in the future. "Readers may rightly note than most workers have not see the gains of productivity growth over the last three decades, but this just highlights the importance of intra-generational distribution. The impact of battles over distribution of income within generations will dwarf the impact of battles over distribution between generation." - waterflaws Sun, 09 Dec 2012 10:41:08 +0100