http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunh...l/10595322.htm
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Over the past 50 years, we've been having a big debate over two rival economic systems. Conservatives have tended to favor the American model, with smaller government and lower taxes, but less social support. Liberals have supported programs that lead to the European model, with bigger government, more generous support and less inequality.
I wonder if that debate is about to change.
In the next few decades both models are going to confront a big test: aging populations. The U.S. model is going to be challenged by this problem, but the European model is flat out unsustainable.
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Biased source, reasonable conclusion!
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Europe may find itself locked INTO phpbb_a vicious circle: An aging population means more public spending, which means higher taxes, which means lower growth, which means higher unemployment, which means more public spending, which means more taxes and even lower growth.
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Biscuitman was right to bring pensions to the fore in our battle. It is a key pillar in how the EU will end in disaster!
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The former Dutch prime minister, Wim Kok, recently released a scathing report that found that "the pure impact of aging populations will be to reduce the potential growth rate of the EU from the present rate, of 2 percent to 2.25 percent, to around 1.25 percent by 2040."
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The dutch being the only other sensible nation on pensions in the EU, being even more prudent thatn the U.K!
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We have stuck with a low-tax, high-growth economic model. This gives us the resources and the flexibility to deal with the problems caused by an aging population without having to face, at least for now, the horrific choices that confront our friends across the Atlantic.
The question is: Will we leave our children a system as flexible, dynamic and productive as the one that was, fortunately, left to us?
Or, by doing nothing, will we succumb to the same ineluctable pressures that now afflict Europe, and find that we are immobilized at the exact moment that China and India are passing us by?
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Our children will be the ones who suffer the most from the EU project folly! How can a people be so short sighted!
08-01-2005, 11:08 AM
How many more straws can the camel carry?
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