Future of Work consortium

Every once in a while we like to share with you what we at WDC are currently reading. We're admittedly book junkies - always on the lookout for new and interesting insights into our favorite subject, the future of work. So here's another of the books that we’re enjoying at present

Note: I generally include links to the where you can find these books on Amazon.com, but I want to be completely candid that WDC has no financial arrangements with Amazon or any other booksellers; we just want to make it easy for you to read what others are saying about our favorite authors and tomes.

The Coming Generational Storm, by Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns (2004)

If you're looking for a book to read as you fall asleep at night, stay away from this one. It's a weighty tome about an incredibly important topic - the way demographics are changing the very fabric of our economy and our basic society. The subtitle is "What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future," but it's really about more than just economics. Think about politics, geography, recreation, health care, insurance, transportation - and that's just for starters.

Sure, we've all heard about how the impending retirements of millions of Baby Boomers are going to leave employers struggling to replace them, but how many of us understand just how the "aging" of America (the book is focused on North America) will impact the economy more broadly? Have you thought about how the stock market will behave when all of those "old fogies" starting spending their 401K's instead of investing them? Or who's going to buy all those big homes when the Boomers begin downsizing? Or what's going to really happen to Social Security and Medicare when 77 million new retirees begin drawing on those critical programs?

Like it or not, this is a book that will keep you awake at night. As well it should. Special thanks to Future of Work member Mark Lautman for alerting us to this highly unsettling account of our future.

Posted by Jim Ware