Customer Reviews

Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America--and the World

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Pete Peterson has written several books on the looming bankruptcy of the Social Security system. In this book, he covers the G-7 nations, which are in worse shape than the United States is.

On page 72, he makes a point that I should have seen sometime over the last 41 years, when I first began looking into this problem. An unfunded liability must be amortized, just like a home mortgage. As of 1999, the unfunded liability of Social Secutrity was $10 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare was also $10 trillion. The yearly amortization payment that the U.S. government must set aside each year to fund these two programs over the next 30 years at 6% interest is $1.4 trillion per year. You can verify this on any amortization calculator on the Web. Just take off 9 zeroes when you enter 20,000, and stick them back on when you derive the yearly amortization figure.

The estimated U.S. government budget for fiscal 2000 is $2 trillion. This means that, in order to fund these two off-budget programs, the government must spend 75% of its budget.

Peterson might also have made this point: If (if!!!!) the government does not do this, then this year's $1.4 trillion shortfall must be added to the total unfunded liability. And if the government refuses to fund next year's amortization schedule, it will add another $1.5 trillion. And so on, until.... "Sorry, gramps: no more payments to you." I'm age 58. That's me.

The Federal Reserve System will create the money, thereby creating mass inflation, or else Congress will move up the retirement age, year by year, stiffing the geezers. The government-guaranteed retirement myth will end.

The book shows that Japan will hit the actuarial brick wall in 2003. Italy will hit it in 2005. The G-7 dominoes will topple.

This is a great book. When the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations says a crisis is looming, you had better believe it.

This is a useful and interesting book. It is about a crucial subject. It is particularly timely for anyone interested in both government policy and investment strategies for the 21st century. Demographic trends will be a driving force in the new century. In my recent book, Winning the Global Game, I examine population growth in the emerging markets at great depth. Peterson contributes a very useful focus on the implications of the aging waves that will sweep over every advanced economy. He does the best job I have seen on this key topic.

Peter Peterson does it again! I've read his other books, and this one is arguably the most compelling. The reason is simple: Mr. Peterson takes his concerns about the coming U.S. age wave and globalizes them, talking about how the aging of the industrialized world is likely to overwhelm countries that are totally unprepared for this demographic tsunami. For those who like to read public policy prophesy, this book is a gem. And it is also very scary, because it is rooted in a plethora of facts--ones that are very difficult to refute.

The author combines a large amount of statistics and graphs with his insightful comments to let the reader discover how aging is not just a phenomenon of aging Baby Boomers in the U.S. but a trend in all industrial societies. He then shows the possible problems including fewer workers per retiree, more health care needs, etc. that will challenge social planners and national budgets. Highly informative.

This is my husband's 2nd copy of this book. It is one of his "text books," in which he re-reads sections as needed. He bought this 2nd copy to use as a loaner to his friends because he wants to keep his original copy in his "life-lessons-and-direction-for-the-future" library for his own use.

Good informational book to help understand the effects of the aging population on our country and what that means for us.

I was rather disappointed in Mr. Peterson's work. He dwells much too long on trying to convince us of "the problem". Nearly the first half of the book is spent on statistic overload! Even after wading through the numbers and graphs, I am still skeptical of his conclusions and would caution readers to do further research. Certainly the Baby Boomers are an aging bulge in the population of the US and will create some challenges. However, the author fails to mention the "echo boom" (baby boomer's children which are equal in number) and he glosses over the impact of the huge young immigration population that comes into the country every year. Both of these facts will "soften" the impact of the "Gray Doom" that Mr. Peterson tries to create. I just don't anticipate the tremendous problem of which he tries to make us aware. But I did find interesting the apparently huge impact that abortions and birth control will have on our future. Another disappointment was very little discussion of aging trends and buying habits. Despite these shortcomings, I enjoyed parts of the book and it stimulated thinking about the future and the impact of aging populations.

If you invest in the stock market and want to know the trends for the next 10 to 30 years you need to know the demographics detailed in Gray Dawn. Peterson also compares the U.S. to the other 22 developed nations of the world and the econonics of an aging population. A fascinating book .

In follow up to my skeptical, first review of Mr Peterson's "Gray Doom", I researched the total population numbers. Here are the facts. According to the US Census Bureau, in 1999 the median age is 35.5 and the mean age is 36.4. In 2030, when the "Peterson crisis" hits, the median age will be 38.5 and the mean age will be 39.9. Yes, our total population will be older but I have a hard time getting too alarmed over 3 years. In fact, if wisdom comes with age, maybe our "older" society will be better. I think Mr. Peterson should present all the facts and stop trying to alarm us needlessly. By the way, is he a Democrat?

This book is chock-full of speciousnonsense,employingsuperficial and misleading use of statistics,worst-case scenarios, and outright horror stories more designed to frighten and divide different elements of the American electorate for crass conservative political purposes than it is an objective and useful text about the subject at hand. What neo-conservative apologist Mr. Pete Petersen and the think-tank (isn't that an absolute oxymoron?) he's associated with doesn't want you to know is that our heroes in the U.S. Congress have been systematically frittering away the 'surplus' money all we aging soon-to-be-seniors have been contributing since the late 1960s in order to hide their own profligate and irresponsible spending agendas like STAR WARS and the new missile defense system that can't tell a warhead from a drone. Hey, guys! Have a bake-sale instead.

In essence, the only reason social security is potentially underfunded in the long-term is because of their ( ), waste, and abuse. A small corrective action taken now by Congress can correct an imbalance. Yeah, I know, congressional action is another oxymoron, but a fellow has to have some hope. Hey! Why don't we curtail the Congress's retirement program instead? Not in this life. More seriously, Mr Petersen uses the worst possible case scenario to build his case, assuming all seniors will stop working, that the economy will not contiue to grow, and ignoring the fact that all the money given to seniors by way of social security and medicare go back into the economy and is not "lost" at all, any more than money spent on defense or agriculture by the Congress is lost. Only in Mr. Petersen's neighborhood.

The bottom line in all this is that there are obviously a number of much better, clearer, and smarter books that make much more sense about the prospects associated with the aging babyboomer population as well as covering the welter of issues associated with the long-term social, economic, and political impacts one can reasonably associate with a gradually aging population. Try "America The Wise" by Theodore Roszak out instead, and consign this gloomy, silly, superficial and self-serving piece of neo-conservative political ( ) for the dustbin of history, where it rightly belongs. END

This isn't an exceptionally good book for a number of reasons that aren't really being euclidated in the other reviews.

First, whoever reads this obviously has to realize that the author was a partner at an investment bank AND leans conservatively. These two points DO give liberals reason to question where his heart lies; to discount the whole of the book for that reason hints that readers aren't being open minded and fair. And before you write this review off as bad, note that I gave it two stars too....

Peterson tries in this book to make a point-- that due to what in techincal terms are called Phase-III demographic shifts (i.e. birth rate falls, death rate falls, a higher percentage of the population reaches the retirement age...) the means of entitlement that have become traditional don't work as simply any more. In his other book ('The greying...') he makes the case for the United States; in this one he focuses on Western Europe.

His evidence as presented is valid. There is no lock-box; paying for my retirement (I'm 22 right now...) with the wages of my children will be impossible without significant structural changes in the system. (Personally, I think that paying for it with the stock market is pretty bad karma too.... but that's neither here nor there for this review....) European countries and Japan are due to be hit doubly hard because of their traditionally-greater entitlements and the specifics of their demographies.... most economists would agree on these points....

And his solutions are good-- given that people have the ability to save (assuming that people reliant on Social Security do.... not other rich people... like the author...) and that people are willing to work. His solutions aren't biased so much by his position excepting the possibility that he may not realize that for lots of people, saving is an impossibility.... working longer in years is more or less a definate....

But these aren't really earth-shattering ideas. Adding to this, I find his writing style annoying. More so than this, I find reviewers who have slammed this book as being bad just based on it being written by an I.Banker annoying.

Think! And.... by a book on this pheonomenon by a better economist.... who doesn't try to dumb down the information....