Diminished Stature

"The impact of global aging on the collective temperament of the developed countries is more difficult to quantify than its impact on their economies, but the consequences could be just as important, or even more so. We may also see increasing pressure on governments to block foreign competition. This shift in business pschology could be mirrored by a broader shift in social mood.

We know tht extremely youthful socieities are in some ways dysfunctional, prone to violence, instability, and state failure. Meanwhile, the rapid growth in ethnic and religious minority populations, due to ongoing immigration and higher-than-average minority fertility, could strain civic cohesion and foster a new diaspora politics. In Europe, the demographic ebb tide may deepen the crisis of confidence that is reflected in such best-selling books as: France Is Falling by Nicolas Baverez, Can Germany Be Saved?

Over the next few decades, the outlook in the US will increasingly diverge from that in the rest of the developed world. The US faces serious structural challenges, including a bloated health care sector, a chronically low savings rate, and a political system that has difficulty making meaningful trade-offs among competing priorities. Ye, unlike Europe and Japan, the Usnited states will still have the youth and the economic resources to play a major geopolitical role. The real challenge facing the US by the 2020's may not be so much its inability to lead the developed world, as the inability of the other developed nations to lend much assistance." - Neil Howe and richard Jackson.

GB