Sentios: The ratio applies so long as the economy is stable. If the economy is already unstable, it means nothing. You can see how that ratio works historically by looking at recessions and that ratio. Mind you, it doesn't exactly cause a bad economy, but it does exasperate any bad symptoms, and can aggravate an already weak economy.

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If you have a boom of young people you inevitably have a boom of old people (as we now have today) unless you have terrible living conditions.

The best population growth is stable growth. Having a glut anywhere can be bad depending on the situation, and if it depends on the situation then such a metric isn't that useful. A wave of young people can be the foundation for a long and prosperous economy, or it can be the downfall of many a government if all those young people are unemployed, as per the Arab Spring or the continuing instability in Africa. Or you can decay from the inside out, like Europe, and eventually China as they experience a massive bottleneck due to the scarcity of women.

You can have a growing economy or you can have a stable economy, pick one.



Or so the story goes.





However that is all based on the traditional idea that the old are nothing more than leeches on the economy is it not? A modern first world economy is hardly built on the physical ability of it's populous any more.

Sentios: You're misunderstanding what I mean by stable. I mean not about to fall apart. A lot of the economies in African nations are unstable because of regime changes, genocide recovery, or war recovery. So then that principle doesn't apply. The matter of fact is is the less people you have working, the less money is really moving around. Yes, some retirees spend a lot, but their monies come from pre-existing accounts such as social sec., IRAs, and 401ks, rather than working for an employer. They also produce nothing, no goods, no services.

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It's like it's really the 1960s...

PS. A stable economy would be stagnant pick a new word.

No, a stagnant economy would be stagnant, stable means it isn't falling apart.

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That's not what the word stable means.

Stable
not likely to change or fail; firmly established

I'm not focusing on the not likely to change, I mean the firmly establishment. I hope you're not offended, but I think the argument we're having is a bit stupid. Very semantic.

What I mean by stable economy is that it is more likely to grow than it is to fail, that the region the economy is in isn't in turmoil, and because of that, business can operate with certain ideas of security. The US has a stable economy because it isn't likely to fail, and the government there doesn't change every 10-20 years. African countries, sans South Africa, have had too much turmoil and political change for me to consider their economy stable.

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WTF Sen.
Let's do this with simple examples.
Stagnant: Money does not move around. Nobody is buying anything. See: the Great Depression
Stable: There is no significant growth/reduction, but there is trading. Money still moves around.

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Well yes it's semantic, I'm saying the word is commonly misused after all. You're talking about a healthy economy, one which is stable would not be growing or shrinking. If I were to inflate a balloon I wouldn't say it's stably growing I'd say it's steadily growing.


Stagnation refers to any slow down in economic growth, a stable economy would, as you agree, not be growing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_stagnation

I call bullshit. Even in made up economic theory land,
you still have population growth and technological advancement to increase production potential.

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Technological advancement replaces the role of population growth after industrialization and does it more efficiently with fewer negative effects.


Anyways it seems I need to link this at this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkp ... 47A45EF50D

Well then, that just about disproves me!


Did I say it was about physical ability? Did I say the old were leeches?

Also stop being dumb about the word stable. I said "stable growth". I'll give you 3 guesses to take a crack at how that modifies the word "stable". Also yes you can have stable growth. Imagine a car accelerating. The car is getting faster but the acceleration can remain stable. The phrase is not an inherent contradiction.

You say stable and yet you mean steady. I'd hate to be on a plane that is your definition of stable.

Good God, is it really that difficult for you to grasp its meaning?

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I like how our meaning is actually one of the examples in the dictionary.

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Steady growth doesn't necessarily mean stable growth Sentios. If I wanted to use steady, then I would have said steady. I do not mean steady. You do not get to put words in my mouth.

It's already bad enough to get hooked up on semantics, but it's even worse when you're wrong and no one is agreeing with you.

If you link to a source in the first place you might sound less crazy and you won't be stealing other peoples ideas. You do a shitty job representing that professor's ideas. Also, population growth usually follows a logistic curve, which increases forever but has a real limit as it approaches infinity.

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If we apply the third definition which you and Dacrum are so giddy about then Africa is stable, it's not ever experienced a sudden change for the better or worse (it can't really get worse). Actually that it's remained so shitty despite all the regime changes adds credence to the idea that it's stable.

...

I'm... I'm not even... Okay. I'm done.

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Volatile, Stable, Volatile, Stable!

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