[Tublecane]

“This is a good point that has been intentionally and completely ignored by the US liberal media. I know that freepers know the position Western Europe is in with regards to the demographics. If we don’t become a beacon of Western civilization, we could enter a new dark age”

While undoubtedly there is an issue here, and certainly Europe is less, what shall I say, vital?, than the U.S., that is really more of a cultural problem. It has nothing to do with economics, the supposed subject of this thread. If our entire population lost interest in life and was in a mad dash to annihilate itself, it would still be possible to efficiently allocate scarce resources in the meantime. That is, before everyone was dead.

[bronkburnett]

this is simple math. 70% of our economy is based on consumption. the more people that there are to consume, then the more is consumed. dead people do not consume. old people consume little. people who are not born do not consume. so when the birth rate decreased, so did the future consumers. when the average age of baby boomers increased to 57 from 47 without an ample supply of people born from 1970 to 1985, consumption dropped. now, how is this government going to replace that missing consumption?

[nandrew]

Isn’t the point of this article that the Federal government needs to buy U.S. manufactured products, thus raising consumption.It then must destroy what it has purchased in order to increase actual demand without just replacing existing demand?