How Demographics are Going to Change Everything

Demographics are the art and the science of statistics about population. Before you immediately assume they are boring and irrelevant, read one more paragraph.

In the late 1990’s, the U.S. economy had ten new working-age taxpayers to help support each newly retiring senior. That’s ten to one. (10:1) But in 2012, for the first time in our country’s entire history, we have more newly retiring seniors than we have new working-age population! (I know it is unpopular, but we have aborted 40 millions potential workers, too).

It gets worse. Much worse. By 2022, there may well be only one new working-age citizen for ten new senior citizens. (1:10). It is a total reversal of the system, as we know it.

Understand, that all of Social Security, taxes and even the stock markets are based on the idea that new workers will be funding those that have retired. After all, if the seniors sell their stocks to live, who will buy them when ten sell and only one worker is buying?

How will Social Security survive with only one worker’s taxes trying to support ten retirees? Unless it changes, it cannot. We live a lot longer now, too. In 1950, most people expected to live only five to eight more years after reaching age 65. Currently, that has doubled to about fifteen years, and it’s climbing.

With this kind of increase in the sheer numbers of retirees, and with retirees living twice as long as they ever have, cuts will have to be made and they will be unpopular. It might just be political suicide to touch this electrified “third rail” of politics.

Someone--sooner or later--will have to deal with this issue. As for me, I do not think that Social Security can survive, as we know it. The problem is in the demographics.

Thirty True Things

Thirty True Things

These are not necessarily, “the” thirty truest things, but I believe them all to be true. What do you think?

30. Every boy needs a dog.

29. God gives you only enough good shots in golf to keep you coming back.

28. Insanity is continuing to do the exact same thing, but expecting different results.

27. Failing at times is assured, but being a “failure” is a decision you make.

26. We should spend a lot of time visiting with our grandparents while we have them.

25. Death of a loved one feels deeply wrong and unnatural, and that is because it was never intended to begin with.

24. Words, not just sticks and stones, can hurt.

23. People should be judged on the content of their character, not their color.

22. God has a sense of humor. (Consider the duck-billed platypus, or the way you wore your hair at senior prom.)

21. There are no dead atheists.

20. The suicide rate among the poor will never catch up with that of the rich.

19. Fathers should help support the children they help make.

18. Insurance companies don’t seem to like to pay claims.

17. Contrary to poplar belief, not all lawyers are crooked.

16. Only true Christianity through faith in Jesus offers forgiveness and a right relationship to God, forever.

15. Camping makes you appreciate the outdoors while there, and the indoors when you return home.

14. Debt is a curse, not a blessing, and one does not have to live with a car note forever.

13. Love people, use things; never the other way around.

12. You just can’t make everybody happy.

11. Feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, you feed him for lifetime.

10. If you shall not work, neither should you eat. (Notice it is “shall not”, not “cannot.”)

9. Kids can help out with small chores at age 3, and more thereafter; and should always say “Sir” and “Ma’am.”

8. There is always one person at every execution...the mother.

7. Macs are just better computers than PCs.

6. Placing a child for adoption is an act of love, not abandonment.

5. Abortion kills children.

4. Parenting is the most important job in the world.

3. Love is best lived out, and should be said on a daily basis.

2. No one, on his deathbed, ever wished he had spent more time at the office.

1. There is nothing all that wrong with this old world, it’s just the people in it.

Our Society Today

OUR SOCIETY

A society can be judged by how we treat the most helpless among us.

The single most helpless life is a “fetus” (Greek for “baby”). We have aborted 50 million lives in what is supposed to be the safest place on earth, their own mother’s wombs. This loss of 50 millions souls is also a loss of a large work force as well. This is one reason why Social Security is bankrupt, as many of the terminated children would be working and paying in their share during the 37 years since abortion was legalized.

Further, people are quick to blame God for things like cancer. However, it is possible that the scientist destined to cure cancer was sent, and was aborted. Ironically, many who are rabid in their support for healthcare reform do not believe in the right of healthcare for the unborn. Future generations may well look back on this as the “slavery of our time”… a time when one “race” of people had no rights. Not even the right to life.

The way our society treats the elderly is also troubling. Nursing Homes in Tennessee are the fifth worse in the whole nation. Many chronically under staff and have trouble with getting good aides when they do hire one. No doubt there are some who just cannot be cared for at home. And, there are certainly good nursing homes out there, but I wind up having to sue those that mistreat the elderly, allow infected bedsores and repeated falls.

I often say that the World War II generation was our finest generation. Too many are just shelved at nursing homes while their children’s worlds are in turmoil due to serial divorces and constant activity. The economy seems to be set up for both parents to have to work outside the home, and thus entrust the state with the education of the children. This is a very recent concept. All this hurts another class of people: our children.

Were things really better “Back in the good old days?” In the 1950’s, a couple's work schedules in the 1950s, the husband probably had a 40-hour working week. The time commuting to work was much lower and other activities probably accounted for 55-60 hours of his waking time. The mother was often a stay-at-home mother, and usually took a job as a teacher, nurse or secretary to pay extra bills from time to time. There was more time and enough money to support this home-centered lifestyle.

Now, our kids are busy too. Many parents have their children involved in a whole range of outside activities such as competitive sports. Oddly, this is in an effort to give our kids the best in life. Some of the sports actually play on Sundays, preventing church attendance as a family. What little theology is taught today to kids is poked fun of at school, as atheistic evolution is taught as fact! Parents have missed the main thing to teach children, which is how to have a personal relationship with Christ, because it was not taught to them. Lost in one generation! Families are rarely sitting down at the table to eat dinner together in our society. And if many families did, they would be too busy texting friends to talk.

The way we treat our unborn children, our elderly and our young children tell much about our society. The world was not always like this. It does not have to continue to spiral downward. No one can change things in your family until someone decides they need to change. Decide to be a family that has dinner together, that attends a Bible-teaching church together, that honors traditional marriage, that takes a stand on issues based on principles (not convenience) and that makes a difference for the short time we are here.