The Elderly Economy

Here is quite a "sentence to ponder" from Tyler Cowen:

Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now.

Here's the explanation:

The revolution has two aspects. First, we are not producing babies like we used to. In just a generation, world fertility has halved to just 2.6 babies per woman. In most of Europe and much of east Asia, fertility is closer to one child per woman than two, way below long-term replacement levels. The notion that the populations of places such as Brazil and India will go on expanding looks misplaced: in fact, they could soon be contracting.

It goes on to explain that traditional pensions and social security schemes where young workers support old workers will not survive. Here's a bit of historical perspective:

The idea of a retirement age was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s, when as chancellor of Germany he needed a starting age for paying war pensions. He chose the age of 65 because that was typically when ex-soldiers died.

Retirement will be pushed back. Under the current state teacher pension system I can retire at 51. That's 5 years as a child, 17 years of education for 28 years of work so I can "rest" for 25 years (at least, my grandpa is over 90). This is bankrupting both governments and private businesses that try to use it. Overall this isn't bad news, we are healthier at 70 than our ancestors ever were. We shouldn't be afraid, but we should be willing to change.