Europe Going Gray: Why Stimulus will Likely Fail
When Paul Krugman and other progressives talk about the risks of austerity in Europe, they are forgetting a basic fact: Europe and Japan are getting grayer and grayer. There are more retirees than young people, and that means lower and lower rates of productivity. I often cite two authors willing to confront this truth: Megan McArdle and Robert Samuelson. In the April 2012 issue of The Atlantic, McArdle bluntly assesses the issue of a graying population in the Western nations. It is a problem the United States will soon experience, too. First, a few paragraphs from the lengthy McArdle piece. You absolutely should read the entire article. (If you don't read The Atlantic, you should.) Europe's Real Crisis The Continent's problems are as much demographic as financial. They won't go away soon. By MEGAN MACROCELL http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/europe-8217-s-real-crisis/8915/ Italy's fertility rate has actually been inching up from it...