I came across this Economist chart which says that the age of western leaders appear to be getting younger.
The Economist writes,
THE developed world is getting older. But oddly enough, its leaders are getting younger. The chart shows the average age of the leaders of four Western countries (America, Britain, France and Germany) since 1950. In the 1950s, voters were happy to elect venerable leaders like Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer. The election of Jack Kennedy was the first sign that the cult of youth was flowering but then came the dominance of Ronald Reagan and Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s. Now the West’s leaders, including 40-somethings Barack Obama (just) and David Cameron, have never been younger. If the trend continues, the leaders will end up younger than the average citizen.
It dawned upon me that if the age trend of western leaders is indeed getting younger while their welfare programs (like in the US) has been benefiting seniors almost disproportionately, could these young leaders spearhead a radical change in the current welfare system?
For example in the US, a writer proposed that the future holds not for “class” warfare but for an “intergenerational” warfare—where the young will be pitted against the old.
Bruce Krastings at Businessinsider writes, (bold highlights mine)
As if on cue, the Congressional Budget Office has thrown out some numbers to fire up this emotive issue. The CBO report confirmed (to me) that age warfare is in our future.
CBO looked at all of the scenarios regarding Social Security. They ran a total of 500 simulations that reflect the different variables of the puzzle. The analysis assumed that there would be no changes in current law on SS. The objective of the exercise was to quantify the probabilities of which generation would most likely not get the benefits they were (A) paying for, (B) entitled to and (C) expecting.
The results of the CBO analysis is that there is societal/economic trouble in front of us on this issue. It should come as no surprise to readers that if you are young, you have a problem. The CBO report defines which generation(s) will be hurt and by how much. I found their conclusions to be very troubling.
If you were born in the 1940’s the probability that you will receive 100% of your scheduled benefits is nearly 100%. The people in this age group will die before SS is forced to make cuts in scheduled benefits.
If you were born in the Sixties things still do not look so bad. Depending on how long you will live the odds (76+%) are pretty good that you will get all of your scheduled benefits. However, if you were born in the Eighties you have a problem. The numbers fall off a cliff if you are between 30 and 40 years old today. In only 13% of the possible scenarios you will get what you are currently expecting from SS. If you were born after 1990 you simply have no statistical chance of getting what you are paying for. The full CBO report can be found here. This (hard to read) chart is from that report.
Could it be that the proverbial shot across the bow to reform the unsustainable welfare system has already been fired with the recent proposal of Congressman Paul Ryan?
Read Paul Ryan’s proposed Path to Prosperity here
As a caveat, I know the young Mr. Obama represents the other side of political fence which favors the continuation of the unsustainable system. But the point is, what cannot be sustained cannot last. And no amount of political prestidigitation will work for long because the laws of economics will make sure it doesn't.
And perhaps in the realization that this system can only mean imminent destabilization, thus young leaders might have the mettle to undertake drastic measures to reform the system.
Bottom line: The proverbial “kick the can down the road” for the West’s welfare system has perhaps has reached its near limits. And it might be possible that the trend of younger political leaders might just presage the required change to an unsustainable system.
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