Category: zerohedge

The world is experiencing a seismic demographic shift and, as Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones details below, no country is immune to the consequences.

While increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates are considered major achievements in modern science and healthcare, they will have a significant impact on future generations.

Today’s graphic relies on OECD data to demonstrate how the old-age to working-age ratio will change by 2060, highlighting some of the world’s fastest aging countries.

The Demographic Debacle

By 2050, there will be 10 billion people on earth, compared to 7.7 billion today—and many of them will be living longer. As a result, the number of elderly people per 100 working-age people will nearly triple—from 20 in 1980, to 58 in 2060.

Populations are getting older in all OECD countries, yet there are clear differences in the pace of aging. For instance, Japan holds the title for having the oldest population, with ⅓ of its citizens already over the age of 65. By 2030, the country’s workforce is expected to fall by 8 million—leading to a major potential labor shortage.

In another example, while South Korea currently boasts a younger than average population, it will age rapidly and end up with the highest old-to-young ratio among developed countries.

A Declining Workforce

Globally, the working-age population will see a 10% decrease by 2060. It will fall the most drastically by 35% or more in Greece, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. On the other end of the scale, it will increase by more than 20% in Australia, Mexico, and Israel.

Israel’s notably higher increase of 67% is due to the country’s high fertility rate, which is comparable to “baby boom” numbers seen in the U.S. following the second World War.

As countries prepare for the coming decades, workforce shortages are just one of the impacts of aging populations already being felt.

Managing the Risks

There are many other social and economic risks that we can come to expect as the global population continues to age:

• The Squeezed Middle: With more people claiming pension benefits but less people paying income taxes, the shrinking workforce may be forced to pay higher taxes.

• Rising Healthcare Costs: Longer lives do not necessarily mean healthier lives, with those over 65 more likely to have at least one chronic disease and require expensive, long-term care.

• Economic Slowdown: Changing workforces may lead capital to flow away from rapidly aging countries to younger countries, shifting the global distribution of economic power.

The strain on pension systems is perhaps the most evident sign of a drastically aging population. Although the average retirement age is gradually increasing in many countries, people are saving insufficiently for their increased life span—resulting in an estimated $400 trillion deficit by 2050.

Pensions Under Pressure

A pension is promised, but not necessarily guaranteed. Any changes made to existing government programs can alter the lives of future retirees entirely—but effective pension reforms that lessen the growing deficit are required urgently.

Towards a Better System

Certain countries are making great strides towards more sustainable pension systems, and the Global Pension Index suggests initiatives that governments can take into consideration, such as:

1. Continuing to increase the age of retirement

2. Increasing the level of savings—both inside and outside pension funds

3. Increasing the coverage of private pensions across the labor force, including self-employed and contract employees, to provide improved integration between various pillars

4. Preserving retirement funds by limiting the access to benefits before the retirement age

5. Increasing the trust and confidence of all stakeholders by improving transparency of pension plans

Although 59% of employees are expecting to continue earning well into their retirement years, providing people with better incentives and options to make working at an older age easier could be crucial for ensuring continued economic growth.

Live Long and Prosper

As 2020 marks the beginning of the Decade of Healthy Ageing, the world is undoubtedly entering a pivotal period.

Countries all over the world face tremendous pressure to effectively manage their aging populations, but preparing for this demographic shift early will contribute to the economic advancement of countries, and allow populations—both young and old—to live long and prosper.

Authored by Eduardo Neret via Campus Reform,

Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, Campus Reform Digital Reporter Eduardo Neret went to American University to ask students to react to claims that the nominees are “too white” and not diverse enough.

“I definitely think there’s a problem,” one student said of the mostly white and male Oscar nominees.

“I feel like, as a Latina woman, I want to see more representation in entertainment.” 

“It’s not reflective of our actual population,” another student added.

WATCH:

Students also reflected on the need for more diversity in other areas of society. 

“White men need to understand that not every thought that they have is worth saying,” one student said. 

“I feel like there’s a lot of white males [on campus],” a different student said.

“The majority of my professors are white men,” one student said as an example of how the presence of white men was a problem on campus. 

Others disagreed.

“Qualifications and the quality of the work should be the priority as opposed to your level of melanin or chromosomes,” one student said. 

In more continuing fallout over the Jan.3 assassination by drone of the IRGC’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iraq and Russia are preparing for deepening military coordination, reports the AP. 

Iraq’s Defense Ministry announced Thursday that increased “cooperation and coordination” is being discussed with Moscow amid worsened relations with Washington, which even last month included President Trump issuing brazen threats of “very big” sanctions on Baghdad if American troops are kicked out of the country. 

This week Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi and Russian Ambassador Maksim Maksimov met to discuss future military cooperation. Crucially, Gen. Ghanimi highlighted Russia’s successful anti-ISIS operations over the past years, especially in Syria where the Russian military has supported Assad since being invited there in 2015.

On Russia’s role in Iraq, Ghanimi said Moscow had provided “our armed forces with advanced and effective equipment and weapons that had a major role in resolving many battles,” according to the ministry statement.

It’s been long rumored that since late summer Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to deliver either Russia’s advanced S-400 or S-300 anti-air missile defense systems – a prospect which US officials have condemned. 

Like other areas of the Middle East, as US adventurism heightens pressure for a US withdrawal, Russia appears to be seizing the opportunity to move in. This much was affirmed in AP’s reporting, via at least one anonymous senior official:

A senior Iraqi military intelligence official told The Associated Press that Russia, among other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of fraught US.-Iraq relations following Soleimani’s killing.

“Iraq still needs aerial reconnaissance planes. There are countries that have given signals to Iraq to support us or equip us with reconnaissance planes such as Russia and Iran,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

Many military analysts have of late noted that the “blowback” from the incredibly risky operation which killed Soleimani will be a hastening of American forces’ exit from the region.

It could also actually serve to increase Baghdad’s dependency on Iran – something which appears to be already in the works. And now we have confirmation that Moscow will seek to benefit as well from the worsened US-Iraq relations, certainly now at the lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government. 

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Feminist group thinks heterosexual relationships are “violent” and should be banned

The “Federation des Femmes du Quebec” is a Canadian feminist group that receives $120,000 of taxpayer funding each year.

And the Federation’s President recently took to Twitter to declare:

“Heterosexual couple relationships are really violent. In addition, the vast majority are relationships based on religion. It may be time to have a conversation about their ban and abolition.” (Translated from French.)

After a backlash, she walked back her statement and apologized.

She explained that her Tweets were an emotional reaction to the news that a man who had murdered his girlfriend was released on parole and killed another 22 year old woman.

So rather than blame a justice system which let a killer walk free, she blamed all straight men.

Click here for the full story.

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118 “unlicensed handymen” arrested in Florida

Undercover police in Florida spent six months luring unlicensed handymen to fake jobs to arrest them.

These are guys who do things like paint houses, install tile, redo bathrooms, and install light fixtures.

Clearly these are among the most horrific crimes against society– guys trying to earn a buck by doing hard labor for their patrons.

Luckily for the citizens of Florida, a total of 118 of these handymen were ARRESTED during a six-month sting operation.

Did Florida run out of actual criminals?? Heaven forbid that two consenting adults trade labor for money without the government’s approval.

Click here for the full story.

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It’s illegal for Chinese to criticize their government’s pitiful Coronavirus response

China recently sent out an “Announcement on the Special Control of Rumors Related to New Coronavirus Pneumonia.”

The announcement reminds citizens that it is illegal to spread false information or induce panic online. And the government considers anything about the Coronavirus that doesn’t come directly from government sources “false information”.

Anyone who violates this ban and shares what the government considers rumors about the outbreak could face up to seven years in prison.

China has also made clear that the government considers criticizing their response to the Coronavirus outbreak a violation of the law.

Already China arrested dozens of social media users for spreading “false information without verification.”

This is all made even more absurd by China’s terrible response to the outbreak. Instead of tackling the issue head-on, they tried to hide it for over a month. Hundreds of people have now died, and more than 20,000 have been infected.

Yet China’s government is still more concerned about keeping information from spreading rather than keeping the disease from spreading.

Click here for the full story.

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California wants to make voting mandatory

About 64% of California voters participated in the 2018 midterm elections.

That’s actually a pretty high turnout as these things go. But not good enough for California.

A state Senator introduced a bill this week to make it mandatory for registered voters to participate in every single election.

You would no longer have the option of sitting out if you don’t like the candidates.

And that’s what this bill ignores. Not voting IS voting. It is making a statement that there is no one WORTH voting for.

The timing of the bill looks kind of silly too… I mean politicians can’t even design an app that functions properly to count votes. It’s been nearly a week and the Iowa votes haven’t been fully counted yet.

And at the same time, they want to force everyone into this flawed system.

Click here for the full story.

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And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

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Democrats have caught the vapors after President Trump tweeted a montage of Nancy Pelosi tearing up a copy of his State of the Union speech after various honorees received accolades.

While Pelosi actually tore up the speech after Trump was finished giving it, the clip tweeted by Trump encapsulates a widely-shared sentiment among conservatives; that Pelosi’s theatrics were deeply insulting to those honored during the speech – including a former Tuskegee Airman, a low income family who received a scholarship, and several others.

pic.twitter.com/QhTWvcY4Ke

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2020

Perhaps most triggered of all was top Pelosi aide Drew Hammill, who got in a Twitter argument with Facebook spox Andy Stone.

“The American people know that the President has no qualms about lying to them – but it is a shame to see Twitter and Facebook, sources of news for millions, do the same,” said Hammill, adding “The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people…” to which Sovern replied “Sorry, are you suggesting the President didn’t make those remarks and the Speaker didn’t rip the speech?”

Facebook spox tussling with top Pelosi aide over an edited video tweeted by Trump of Pelosi ripping up his SOTU speech pic.twitter.com/5lKtQrhQ68

— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) February 7, 2020

As the 2020 presidential election approaches, Facebook and Twitter have published their own policies on deepfakes and edited videos like this Pelosi clip. Facebook’s policy only affects videos that were created by artificial intelligence or machine learning algorithms that would “likely mislead” someone. Twitter announced its own rules this week that don’t take effect until March. But its rules state that manipulated media that is “likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm” could be labeled or removed. –The Verge

Other triggered leftists include Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), according to The Verge. Khanna notably included Trump’s tweet in his own, exposing an entirely different demographic to the clip.

.@Twitter must take this misleading video about @SpeakerPelosi down now.

Social media platforms are a place where people come for news & information.

They need to have certain standards.

Falsity has never been part of our 1st Amendment tradition. https://t.co/dwiDeKNd3D

— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) February 7, 2020

We’re so sorry this is happening to them.

Op-Ed authored by attorney and journalist Techno Fog

In November of 2019, Jessie Liu, the former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, declined to press charges against two U.S. Park Police officers who fatally shot a harmless and unarmed driver four times in the head.

Next week, on February 13, 2020, Liu – who was rejected last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the #3 spot at the DOJ – will attend a hearing for her nomination to be the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes at the Department of the Treasury. 

If this makes you angry, it should. Only in D.C. does cowardice get you a promotion.

The driver was Bijan Ghaisar, a 25 year-old young man who fled the scene of a minor car accident. (He was the one who had been hit.) Officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya followed him and eventually blocked his Jeep’s path at an intersection. Ghaisar turned his car from the officers and tried to get away at a low speed. The officers weren’t threatened – Ghaisar didn’t have a gun and they weren’t in the path of a speeding car. They responded by firing nine shots into his Jeep at close range. He was hit four times in the head and once in the wrist. He later died at the hospital.

This video shows the fatal shots and the moments leading up to the killing.

It’s clear from the video that the officers – who claimed self defense – weren’t in danger. The Jeep wasn’t speeding in their direction; rather, it was moving ever so slowly to the side. Making matters worse – if that’s possible – the final few shots were put on Ghaisar after the Jeep started rolling into a ditch. By that point he was apparently incapacitated. The officers just finished the job.

Despite the video evidence, Liu declined to press charges. Her office defended her decision, stating that “there is insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers willfully committed a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242. Specifically, the Department is unable to disprove a claim of self-defense or defense of others by the officers.”

“Insufficient evidence.”

“Unable to disprove a claim of self-defense.”

What’s more, Liu’s office declined to issue a written report on the case, as is standard practice in high-profile police shootings. And according to the Washington Post, she stymied a Fairfax prosecutor’s request for FBI agents to appear before a grand jury about the shooting.  

Making matters worse – Liu was a roadblock to the local prosecution as well.

Virginia prosecutors’ request for FBI agents to appear before a grand jury “were stymied by Liu herself” pic.twitter.com/HvW0VlBk2g

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 7, 2020

Ghaisar’s family disagreed:

“Today’s decision was a cowardly act by a Department of Justice that is afraid to hold law enforcement, especially federal law enforcement, accountable when it commits murder.”

They’re right. Jessie Liu denied a murder victim justice. She refused to hold federal officers accountable – which Fairfax County Prosecutors decided to pursue last December after Lieu gave them a pass. She trivialized the grief of the family by disputing what they and the rest of the world saw with their own eyes – an unjustified execution.

Liu is the manifestation of everything wrong with DC: the powerful protecting the institutions from those it victimized. If she gets the job at Treasury, it would show that not only does crime pay, but the cover-up pays better.

Authored by Karl Evers-Hillstrom via OpenSecrets.org

President Donald Trump has more campaign cash on hand than the entire Democratic field combined, building on his money advantage as 2020 Democrats burn through their reserves to woo voters in early primary states. 

Trump’s campaign has nearly $103 million in the bank, compared to less than $85 million combined for the Democratic hopefuls. The president grew his bank by 24 percent from October to December while most of the remaining Democrats burned through their reserves. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the current polling leader in Iowa, raised $34 million from October through December but spent almost $50 million. That spending, driven partly by expensive TV ad buys in early primary states, left Sanders with just over $18 million in the bank. Sanders surged in recent months, taking the top spot in Iowa and New Hampshire polls and joining former Vice President Joe Biden atop national polls. 

After critics raised concerns about the Biden campaign burning through campaign cash at a seemingly unsustainably rate, Biden dropped his opposition to super PAC support in October. Thanks to $5.5 million in Iowa ad buys from Unite the Country — a pro-Biden super PAC funded by ultra-wealthy donors — Biden was one of the few Democrats who didn’t lose millions of dollars over the latest three-month period.

The same can’t be said for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who burned through 47 and 38 percent of their cash reserves, respectively. Warren’s financial losses are coupled with losses in early primary polls, which left her with $13.7 million on hand and little momentum with Iowa voters in the Feb. 3 contest.

At this time in the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama had $18.6 million on hand and Hillary Clinton had nearly $38 million in the bank. In another two-horse primary race in 2016, Clinton also had about $38 million, while Sanders entered the new year with $28.3 million on hand.

Chart and data via OpenSecrets.org

The 2020 Democratic primary features more viable candidates than past contests, effectively forcing candidates to spend heavily to stay in the race. The primary is disrupted by two billionaire self funders, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, who are saturating the airwaves with political ads and driving up prices for their opponents. Bloomberg has already poured $200 million of his own money into the campaign, obliterating self-funding records. He can afford to keep his campaign afloat perpetually, and the Democratic National Committee recently changed its debate rules to give Bloomberg a chance to participate. 

Meanwhile, Trump is comfortably building on his money advantage. The Republican incumbent has an unprecedented $103 million on hand, more than President Obama’s $82 million at this point in 2012. His powerful joint fundraising committees, Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee, have another $21 million in the bank. Trump’s fundraising machine gets campaign cash from small donors and ultra-rich patrons, then transfers that money to his campaign, the Republican National Committee and allied lawmakers such as Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). 

Democratic presidential nominees generally launch a joint fundraising committee with the DNC and state parties to bring in big-dollar donations for the party. There is no presumptive nominee currently in sight, leaving the party with few fundraising resources and little money to spend on outreach in swing states. The threat of a drawn out primary is worrying some Democratic leaders that Democratic candidates will be low on money by the time the party selects a nominee. 

In what is clearly not a good sign for the ongoing re-certification of the disastrous 737 MAX, Boeing faced more criticism this week as a NASA safety panel recommended a review of the planemaker’s software verification processes after revealing there was a second software problem during a CST-100 Starliner test flight that could have led to a “catastrophic” failure.

As SpaceNews.com reports, during a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, that examined the December uncrewed test flight of Starliner that was cut short by a timer error, NASA officials said:

“While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure.”

Those problems, Paul Hill said, suggested broader issues with how Boeing develops and tests the software used by the spacecraft.

“The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing’s verification processes,” he said.

The panel called for reviews of Boeing’s flight software integration and testing processes.

“Further, with confidence at risk for a spacecraft that is intended to carry humans in space, the panel recommends an even broader Boeing assessment of, and corrective actions in, Boeing’s [systems engineering and integration] processes and verification testing.”

NASA officials are still determining if another uncrewed test flight of the Boeing Starliner is needed before putting astronauts on board. But Boeing has already booked a $410 million Q4 charge in case NASA orders another uncrewed test flight.

Authored by Mark Glennon and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,

We’re often told that Illinois is not losing its highly taxed residents. For example, a Chicago Magazine article last week had a headline saying exactly that. Don’t worry about lost income from the rich leaving, we’re supposed to believe. It’s just poorer folks fleeing.

It’s simply not true. There’s recent, hard data directly refuting that claim. If you want the best evidence, the Internal Revenue Service released its latest state-to-state migration numbers last month. Wirepoints analyzed the number of people moving into and out of Illinois and their net impact by income groups.

The data show that while lower income groups are fleeing Illinois in somewhat larger numbers, bigger earners are leaving, too. And they’re the ones that account for the overwhelming share of wealth lost by the state.

Specifically, tax filers with income over $200,000 made up 11% of all filers who fled, and they accounted for over half of the income that left Illinois.

Here are the details:

The IRS breaks down tax filers by Adjusted Gross Income (“AGI”) when it reports interstate migration data. Its new release covered the most recent year available, 2018.

First, let’s look at the net number of tax filers leaving Illinois in each income group. As you can see, the largest group is filers with under $25,000 in income. A net of over 9,900 filers were lost. But they were hardly alone. The wealthiest bracket of $200,000 and above, which is a vastly smaller portion of Illinois’ population, lost nearly half that, 4,800.

But look which group took most of the income with them. Below are the raw numbers on lost AGI from each category of earners. The bulk of lost income clearly came from the net loss of Illinois’ high earners. Those with incomes over $200,000 took $3.1 billion of income with them out of the net $5.6 billion total lost.

Now look at those numbers as percentages. Below is the number of people leaving and the AGI they took with them, by category, as a percentage of the total. The bigger earners were responsible for the lion’s share of lost income. Filers with incomes over $200,000 took with them 55 percent of the net income Illinois lost to other states.

This article focused on the most recent numbers, which are for the 2018 tax year. However, the story has been similar since at least 2012, as you can see from the chart below. For further information on the new IRS data including comparisons to other states, see our article from last month linked here.

The next time you read somebody claiming that wealthy Illinoisans aren’t fleeing, remember these facts.

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Read more about Illinois’s financial and out-migration crisis:

• New IRS data release: Record losses of taxable income and taxpayers for Illinois

• New IRS data reveals winners and losers of wealth migration across 50 states

• New Census data shows Illinois lost population for the sixth year in a row

• Illinois’ demographic collapse: fewer immigrants, fewer babies and fleeing residents

• Leaving Illinois: One family’s math

There was something strange in last month’s consumer credit data from the Federal Reserve: at a time when Americans were getting ready to unleash a record holiday spending spree, revolving, i.e., credit card debt actually contract the most since March, which meant that either Americans were saving a whole lot more or their hourly incomes had soared higher. And since neither of these had happened, it wasn’t clear just how US consumers entered the last month of the year with the first November decline in revolving debt since 2013.

In fact, as we concluded our January post on consumer credit, “considering the strong end to the year for retail sales, especially online, we assume this was a one-off event, and in December any credit card “shrinkage” was more than offset with aggressive year-end “charging.” If not, then the US consumer may indeed be reaching the limits of their debt-funded spending euphoria.”

Well, we were right again: the answer was revealed on Friday afternoon when the Fed reported the consumer credit change for the last month of 2019, and of the decade… and it was a doozy.

With analysts expecting a $15BN increase in consumer credit, the actual print was a whopping $22.1 billion, bringing total consumer credit outstanding to a new monthly all time high of $4.2 trillion.

However it was the composition of this number that sparked raised eyebrows across Wall Street, because while consumers added a rather subdued $9.4bn in non-revolving credit, i.e., auto and student loans, it was the $12.63 billion surge in revolving credit that explained not only November’s modest drop in credit card debt, but the record holiday spending in 2019, which – as we now know – was to a record extent thanks to credit card debt. In fact, as the chart below shows, it was the biggest one month increase in credit card debt since 1998!

And so, for yet another month, Americans sank ever deeper in debt just so their obsession with purchasing things they don’t need nor cad afford – obviously – can be satisfied. Although in a world in which central banks and politicians now openly encourage excessive spending and living beyond one’s means, who can blame Americans for doing just as all monetary and fiscal officials demand of them…