> unless you are an aspiring empire, or if you are surrounded by enemies, or if you have a huge debt.
Or if you depend on future generations to take care for older ones once they reach retirement age, which is all of them. (A savings account can't care for the elderly, so debt doesn't really have much to do with it; you can see the problem entirely while staying in real economic terms without looking at money.)
You can make up for some of that with immigration, but whether people will be very accepting of something like a >50% immigration rate over a single or two generations is also questionable.
I know this seems crazy, but if a country is willing to enforce a one-child-policy might they just turn their old folks into soylent green as well?
It doesn't mesh with existing chinese culture, so I wouldn't expect this to happen in our lifetime, but it wouldn't be the first time malthusian government policy is deployed at large scale.
If debt is just 0s, consider you haven't been out much. I dont think you'd get a good receiption for that message in 1950s germany, or today in argentina, or lebanon.
Or if you depend on future generations to take care for older ones once they reach retirement age, which is all of them. (A savings account can't care for the elderly, so debt doesn't really have much to do with it; you can see the problem entirely while staying in real economic terms without looking at money.)
You can make up for some of that with immigration, but whether people will be very accepting of something like a >50% immigration rate over a single or two generations is also questionable.