Economist Laurence Kotlokoff paints a gloomy picture of United States economic future in the below talk at MIT and in his book The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future.
The aging United States demographics means that there will be more older people collecting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid than there are young people generating enough money for these programs. This financial gap will get larger and larger the more time we wait. Kotlokoff says we need to do something immediately otherwise the fiscal system is headed for a meltdown. He has his own ideas as to what we should do. But will the politicians listen is a different story.
The talk was given on April 28, 2004 as part of the authors at MIT series.