Description:
The greatest demographic event to happen this century was the baby boom. From 1946 to 1965, 76 million live births were recorded in the United States alone, a phenomenon that's been responsible for everything from the surge in baby-food products in the '50s and early '60s to the roaring stock market of today, fueled in part by boomers investing for retirement. Peter Peterson, author of Gray Dawn, looks ahead at the implications of the baby boom, and what he sees is not the bliss that many of us imagine for our golden years but rather an iceberg that threatens to sink the economy and disenfranchise subsequent generations. As former chairman of Lehman Brothers and founding president of the Concord Coalition, Peterson, whose previous books include Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?, is no stranger to this topic. In Gray Dawn, he takes a worldview of "global aging," and considers countries such as Japan and Italy, where the problem of an aging population coupled with declining fertility are creating particularly acute and, in some cases, unsustainable generational disparities. Peterson writes that "We must make aging both more secure for older generations and less burdensome for younger generations." To this end he offers several solutions, among them encouraging longer working lives and requiring people to save for their own retirement. But avoiding the iceberg means turning the wheel now, before it's too late. Thoughtful, well-researched, and full of charts and statistics that do well to underscore Peterson's main arguments. If you've ever wondered what retirement might look like, you'll find this a provocative read. --Harry C. Edwards
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