Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (July 1, 2024)
Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (July 1, 2024) One very unpleasant and seemingly unavoidable reality of living in a world with collapsing human demographics (fewer births, fewer marriages, later marriages, smaller families) is that most countries on earth now have too many older people and too few younger people – too many people who are no longer economically “productive” and not enough gainfully employed people who would support them through their taxes, insurance payments and with their actual physical assistance. This approaching tsunami merely adds to the already dire situation in healthcare and social insurance systems in much of the world. The powers-that-be (the powerful policy makers who themselves have often never done a real day’s work in their lives) have responded to this problem by making the existing system ever more expensive and ever less effective and responsive to the needs of ordinary people. The entire monstrosity of a system has become like this due to ever more government interference & control, higher taxation and ever higher insurance premiums – we need to remind ourselves that any & all “insurance” behaves much like a tax. The tail end of human life is now marked by the ever-increasing need for long-term and assisted nursing home care which is profoundly expensive. Both the insurance policies being marketed for this type of service and the actual service are incredibly expensive – so expensive that they are out of the financial reach of most people. And once again, public policy makers have responded to this predicament by having the government assume the financial cost for this type of service. In reality, most so-called “developed” economies on earth (these countries are primarily located in the Northern Hemisphere and in the so-called “western” cultural realm) are beyond bankrupt. In other words, their governments are…