Is death spiral an over-dramatic term? Robert J. Samuelson doesn't think so, and he explains why in this column.
How does the Greek crisis relate to us here in the United States? Well, we have an aging population. It isn't as bad as the situation in Greece or much of Europe, let alone China and Japan, but it's bad enough. One of the factors which has kept our population younger, and thus provided us with a broader base of working-age people to support the welfare state, has been our relatively high immigration rate. And a lot of people want to kill that particular golden goose.
One way to look at it is that we need to encourage lots of young people from other countries to move to the U.S., get jobs, and contribute to Social Security and Medicare, or those programs will go broke.
And at least we have that option.
Glenn A Knight
In my study
Sunday, May 23, 2010
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1 comment:
Glenn:
Your link to the Samuelson article doesn't seem to be working right now so I haven't read it.
I do however want to take issue with one of your comments. You write:
"One of the factors which has kept our population younger, and thus provided us with a broader base of working-age people to support the welfare state, has been our relatively high immigration rate. And a lot of people want to kill that particular golden goose."
I think you're conflating a couple things. First, there's the subject of an American immigration policy that seeks to bring the best and brightest (or, as you suggest, at least bring people that will keep my pacemaker charged when I need one). As far as I know no one is having that discussion. Next, there's the subject with which you are conflating the discussion we aren't having: the bizarre controversy over what to do about people that come into the country illegally. Like you I've done some travelling around the world and no matter where I go, I see people that want to move here. This 'good will' (from a marketing point of view) is indeed a national treasure. We should definitely discuss what we want our immigration plans to be. But I don't see why there is so much hate and discontent over the idea that as a nation we have the rightfull authority to make those decisions on our own, enforce them with our laws, and unceremoniously show the door to foreigners cheeky enough to come here thinking they have some "right" to be here just because they want one.
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