October 03, 2011
Morning Edition had a segment with journalist Phillip Longman who told listeners that the world was suffering from having too few children [sorry, no link yet]. Longman wrongly said that European countries now have large budget deficits because they have too few workers and large pension obligations.
This is not true. European countries have large budget deficits because their economies collapsed as a result of the collapse of housing bubbles in countries like Spain, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. This can be easily shown by the fact that almost all of these countries had moderate budget deficits or surpluses just a few years ago, when their demographics were almost exactly the same.
The prospect of stagnant or declining populations actually offers many benefits for densely populated countries. It means that there will be less strain on infrastructure and natural resources (a larger percent of the population can have beachfront property). It also means that it will be easier for to meet targets on greenhouse gas emissions.
It would be useful if Morning Edition tried to make sure that the people it brings on to speak on economic issues at least had some knowledge of the economy.
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