So what you're saying is that someone needs to lose something they currently have. Either people in general ... or the government. Which is what the original t

So what you're saying is that someone needs to lose something they currently have. Either people in general ... or the government. Which is what the original thesis was, I believe, that someone needs to lose. But it gets a lot worse. The problem is that growth AND decline are both exponential processes. Not just growth. Decline too. Which means whatever percentage you say has to go to taking care of old people ... give it 20 years and it'll be more. A factor more. In fact, it will quickly rise to over 100% if population doesn't stabilize. In nature, for many species the exponential nature of shrinking population causes, by itself, without other causes, extinction. Luckily, usually local extinction. Cats are a great example of this. Areas almost always have a lot of cats ... or none. If you take current examples (that are getting worse) you see that what happens is that every generation about halves. BUT 4-5 generations are alive simultaneously. So in order to keep the same level of elderly care the expenses need to double 5 times. There's a tiny problem ... even theoretically 20% expenses on the elderly can only double twice. The third time you double it, it goes over 100%. But when maintaining elderly care takes 100% of global human labor, we're only about halfway to a real declining population. Or to put it more realistically, after all humans don't just undergo natural processes (thankfully), we adapt: unless population is growing at a minimum rate, the elderly will be abandoned. As soon as it becomes clear that this cannot be avoided, if needed we'll breed humans like in the Matrix to prevent this from continuing. Why? The people making that decision ... are the ones who are about to meet that fate. This is be why a declining economy is so incredibly, incredibly destructive. Exponential growth, with a growth rate smaller than one, is a killer.