This reminds me of a nice discussion on Edward Hugh blog in 2005 about demographics and PAYGO vs capitalization systems:
http://bonoboathome.blogspot.com/2005/09/oecd-ageing-model.html Laurent On Wed, 2010-06-09 at 09:00 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: > New York TIMES / June 8, 2010 > The Blog Prophet of Euro Zone Doom > By LANDON THOMAS Jr. > > BARCELONA, Spain — For years, almost nobody paid attention to the > sky-is-falling alarms of Edward Hugh, a gregarious British blogger and > self-taught economist who repeatedly predicted that the euro zone > could not survive. > > Living a largely hand-to-mouth existence here on his part-time > teacher’s salary, he sent one post after another into the Internet > wilderness. It was the height of policy folly, he warned, to think > that aging, penny-pinching Germans could successfully coexist under > one currency umbrella with the more youthful, credit-card-wielding > Irish, Greeks and Spaniards who shared the euro with them. > > But now that the European sovereign debt crisis is rattling world > markets, driving the euro lower almost every day and raising doubts > about the future of the monetary union, his voluminous musings have > become a must-read for an influential and growing global audience, > including policy makers in the White House. > > ... > > At the same time, Mr. Hugh is determined to resist some of the > newfound temptations that have lately come his way. He said he had > turned down lucrative offers from hedge funds to provide exclusive > research because he did not want his views monopolized by any one > entity — although he said he was considering an offer to join the > stable of contributors who work for Mr. Roubini. > > And when the Michael Milken Institute — financed by Mr. Milken, a > felon who managed to hang on to a fortune even after having to pay a > $550 million fine for his actions during the junk-bond boom of the > 1980s — paid him $3,000 for a short report he did in a day on Eastern > Europe, Mr. Hugh gave the money to a friend who was having trouble > paying her mortgage, he said. > > “I don’t want to take a check from Michael Milken, thank you very > much,” he said. > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/global/09blogger.html] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
