The Future is Gray, Small & Female: Disruptive Demographics and Transportation Tomorrow | MIT World

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS’ FISCAL OUTLOOK

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What GAO Found
The state and local government sector continues to face near- and long-term fiscal challenges which grow over time. Although the sector’s near-term operating balance remains negative, increases in federal grants-in-aid—largely from the Recovery Act—alleviated some near-term pressure. As shown in the insert to the figure below, the March 2010 operating balance measure (including 2009 Recovery Act funds) shows an improvement compared to the January 2009 simulation. In the near-term, the sector’s fiscal position can be attributed to several factors, including steep revenue declines.

GAO projects that the sector’s long-term fiscal position will steadily decline through 2060 absent any policy changes, as shown in figure 1. The decline in the sector’s operating balance is primarily driven by rising health care costs. The fiscal challenges confronting the state and local sector add to the nation’s overall fiscal difficulties. Because most state and local governments are required to balance their operating budgets, the declining fiscal conditions shown in GAO’s simulations suggest the fiscal pressures the sector faces and the extent to which these governments will need to make substantial policy changes to avoid growing imbalances.
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MetLife QuickFACTS - February Edition

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QuickFACTS is a monthly fact sheet produced by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. The focus is the emerging market of people 50+. MetLife compiles recent news and developments on multi-generational issues that impact its business and its customers.

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National Positive Ageing Strategy: Minister Áine Brady TD Invites Older People To Have Their Say, Ireland

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from Medical News Today

The Minister for Older People and Health Promotion, Áine Brady TD said that she is beginning a series of meetings around the country to hear at first hand the views of older people on issues that affect them. The meetings are a further part of the Minister's work to develop a new Positive Ageing Strategy. The Minister said that the new Strategy will set the direction for future policies, programmes and services for older people in Ireland.
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Elder Boom Will Be Felt Worldwide - Forbes.com

Population older than 65 could reach 1.3 billion by 2040 (HealthDay News) -- The proportion of people who are age 65 and older will double from 7 to 14 percent of the world's total population by 2040, says a new U.S. Census Bureau study. The over-65 population worldwide will grow from 506 million as of last year to 1.3 billion in 30 years. The unprecedented rate of increase will present challenges and opportunities, according to the report, commissioned by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. And the number of people 100 and older -- centenarians -- has risen dramatically, from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today; the greatest numbers of centenarians are found in the United States and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. Read More: Elder Boom Will Be Felt Worldwide - Forbes.com

TIME GOES BY | Dr. Butler and the Longevity Revolution

TIME GOES BY | Dr. Butler and the Longevity Revolution: "By “longevity revolution,” Dr. Butler means the profound effects that an aging population (elders will grow from the current 12 percent of the population to 20 percent by 2050) will have on just about everything."

Robert N. Butler: The Longevity Revolution Commonwealth Club

Future of the Internet III: How the Experts See It

by Janna Quitney Anderson, Director, Imagining the Internet, Elon University and Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project December 14, 2008 A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major technology advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. Here are the key findings in a new report based on the survey of experts by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing "arms race," with the "crackers" who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
• "Next-generation" engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

Elias Cohen: My Last Election? My Grandchildren’s First.

Posted by Dr. Bill Thomas in the Changing Aging Blog Elias S. Cohen is a legendary figure in the history of our culture's struggle to understand the importance of self-determination for all people. He reflects on the past the, the present and our shared future and offers us the insights of a true Elder: "In November two of my four grandchildren will vote for President of the U.S. and members of Congress for the first time. And I, and some of my friends and relatives may cast our votes for the last time. As Dr. Samuel Johnson said, “Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Voting in what Ithink may well be my last election certainly concentrates my mind. It feels. like making out a will---what is the bounty I leave to my grandchildren? For me, my vote will shape my legacy, the kind of country I want to leave to my grandchildren. I want to leave them a country that is not governed by ideologues and theologically based ideas, but rather by those who believe in civil rights, self-determination, respect for the widest range of belief systems, ethical principles, and evolving Constitutional law in this nation of immigrants and native born, drawn from the races and ethnic groups from around the world. I want my vote to re-establish credible and even inspiring leadership from the Office of the President as a hallmark of the most powerful position in the world. I want my grandchildren to look to the President with pride in his commitment to science and knowledge, ethical precepts, and the spirit of the law that has served us so well in the past. I want my grandchildren to live in a country whose national treasure and national conscience is devoted to preserving our countryside, our environment, and our rich variety of communities, services, and utilities. I want them to live in a country that does not squander our natural and economic resources and our unique American spirit on destructive wars, present and future. I want to leave my grandchildren a country whose government is at its best when it strikes poverty, disease, homelessness, unemployment and despair rater than a government that believes it should get out of the way of rampant and wanton economic exploitation of our markets, our environment, and the consuming public---an irrational belief in the magical hand of a free and unfettered market. And I want my grandchildren, when they to travel the world to know that they are representatives of a country viewed as a champion of human rights, equality, and opportunity rather than a country whose government’s blunders devastate countries, killing tens of thousands of civilians and causing the emigration of thousands from their homes. I want them to inherit a country whose leaders eschew “wars of choice” based upon unfounded speculations and blind strategies---a leaders who will spare them from other wars in which they and their children will be called upon to fight and pay for.Let them live in a country where they can afford to send their children to a post-high school education demanded by a technologically advanced society. Let them live in a country in which they can achieve a decent income, acquire sufficient resources capable of protecting them from unanticipated economic failure or erosion of monetary value, and protection from the economic assault of disease, disability, or chronic ailments. I want to leave them a country that will assure them a country better protected from assaults on civil liberties than the one I will die in. Next year more than five and half million of my age peers---those 75 and over will die. And over the following three years most of the rest of them will leave the voter registration rolls. For us, for them, this is the last opportunity to shape the legacy we would leave our grandchildren. This may well be my last vote for a President and Vice President of this remarkable country. In casting it, I will have my children and their children in the forefront of my thought and prayers."