In Point of Fact

from NewsLink, Vol. 1, No. 2, Winter 1997

Does Europe's "Pyramid Scheme" sound familiar?
"In 1960, Western Europe still had a population pyramid with a broad base of young and a narrow cap of old people; in 1995 the "age" tree has become a pumpkin with few young people, many mid-lifers (still in the active labor force) and a growing, though not yet dominant number of retirees. After 2020, we will have a mushroom; very few young, few mid-lifers, many old people. The pyramid will stand on its head! ... By about 2030, there will be one pensioner for one active worker with the consequence that the worker's pension payroll tax would, on average, equal the average pension." Wilfried Prewo, Welfare State to Social State: Empowerment, Individual Responsibility and Effective Compassion, Center for the New Europe.

The ERA of 1993: Strike One - poor test scores; Strike Two - special education!
"Massachusetts' above national average spending to send above average numbers of children to special education programs is placing $1.3 billion worth of education reforms in 'jeopardy,' school superintendents told lawmakers."
Dan Boylan, "Why does special education cost so much?" State House News Service, February 12, 1997.

Yes, Virginia, taxes do count: "Look at DC," says the Brookings Institution.
"The [district's] tax structure ... is dysfunctional here, and the tax collection system is broken and does not work. You are not going to get [any growth] from the District economy unless you make the cost of doing business [lower]."
Carol O'Cleiracain, Brookings Institution, in the Washington Post, December 14, 1996.

 

Look Ma, no busy signals!
"There should be well over 1 billion Internet users before the end of the decade. By the end of the decade there will be more than 1 million networks connected. Traffic in the network will exceed telephone traffic. There has never been any technology or innovation in human history that comes close in speed of adoption, significance and impact."
Dan Tapscott, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, 1996.

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NewsLink is the quarterly newsletter of the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University. © 1996-2002. All rights reserved.

Revised on 9/9/02 4:01 PM