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aging

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

As I slide toward my 40th birthday, I'm starting to notice age issues again (for the first time since I was in my teens).

One of my young Japanese-school classmates this past Winter complained that Japan was "full of old people". This morning I thought to look it up. Sure enough, the median age here is 44 years. In Canada, it's 40.4 years. I still haven't caught the median in each of these aging lands. By comparison, China's median age is 34 years. Maybe that's why it seemed a bit more vigorous in our recent visit.

I wonder how these aging lands are going to deal with the problem of a dwindling tax base and climbing social benefits bills. My guess is that they'll take the easiest route and simply go broke trying to provide lavish health and pensions benefits for retirees. And then what.

That's going to be an interesting day.