Chinese population starts dropping this year, finally the young will have a chance to make it.
I'm actually worried more about the size gap between ages than I am about the shrinking size as even a halving the population would still be significantly more than America's. An older population means greater burdens on the young as they will become less productive and require more support and resources compared to younger people. The elderly are likely to use their seniority and numerical weight to strangle the energy, creativity, and boldness of youth.
When I look at America I see a country in which the old have ruined things for the younger generation. In particular, I see Boomers as primary contributors to America's decline. As children, they grew up during America's golden age with few worries and the best opportunities in the world. In their teenage years, they were empowered to experiment and party in an era full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll with sex. Yet despite all those advantages given to them, they also became entitled and ideological. They believed not only that they deserved it but the prosperity and greatness they enjoyed were because they were simply better than everyone else. Never really had to endure similar hardships as the rest of the world or their previous generations, when things got bad in adulthood, they grabbed the low-hanging fruits for growth by pursuing expansionary monetary policies and dismantling public institutions for private profit and short-term gain.
These old people still think of America as it was in the past and are less inclined to adopt new technologies or social reforms needed to be competitive globally. They are the largest generation and are living longer than ever. However, instead of using their influence for good, they tend to blame Millenials despite being the ones that raised them. Boomers are also actively stifling opportunities for the younger generations by ignoring future problems like Climate Change or ever-growing debt levels as they don't think that they will live that long to face its consequences. Instead, they use their disproportionate power and influence to hoard most of the nation's wealth and buy up real estate, and pursue rent-seeking behavior while placing higher tax burdens on others for their own social safety net for Social Security and Medicaid.
Even China's elderly aren't as spoiled as Americans, I fear what happened to China will eventually happen to China too due to its aging demographics. Japan still uses fax machines, stamps, paper applications, and coins because old people don't like change. They've become less risk-averse and conservative in business that their work culture has become stale and there are few startups or entrepreneurs. Instead of trying and doing, it has become seniority and obeying.
