In May 2053 I will be 100 years old and I’m looking forward to going to China to celebrate my birthday with a few friends. By that time I hope to fly there via outer space in less than one hour.
I am going to invite the estimated 487 million China elderly citizens to the party or more like one in four of the population. Ahead of that and in 15 years the China elderly will exceed the entire population of the United States of America. This in itself is a threat to the Chinese economy as those grey people draw their pensions. Despite the change in the one child policy birth rates remain low at 15million per annum just like they do in neighbouring Japan.
President Xi Xinping recently pointed out that there are only 7.7million beds in the 204,000 elderly care facilities. Clearly there is a shortage of beds and facilities which is no doubt a market to fill for any would be entrepreneurs.
Meantime in another statistic we see that of the $20.4 trillion USA debt, China holds just over 5% of that as at September namely $1.06 trillion , slightly less than Japan at $1.27 trillion. It’s unlikely that China will be selling off any soon as that will only give rise to an increase in global interest rates and a dollar devaluation. Meantime USA debt will continue to rise no doubt.
These are only numbers of course but with numbers as time passes they invariably compound , grow larger but in percentage terms can fall thereby reducing risk. That’s why people say that there’s ‘ safety in numbers ‘. Or is there a point that there is ‘ danger in numbers ‘ in terms of elderly and debt ? It’s a interesting debate but it’s catch 22 often for as we become increasingly savvy in medicine , finding vaccine for the odd virus that arises we must then address the ripple impact with all the added responsibilities as we prolong life.
China expects to increase its middle class from 400 million to 800 million in 10 years which will be a huge economic driver as they buy washing machines etc in mankind improvement and once the economy stops turning over only then will we see even bigger problems than we have now. Just think about it how many washing machines do we need ? Don’t despair however for with washing machines comes a guarantee about the only thing that does these days. Interesting times ( Chinese proverb ).
qbitblogger 