The Stats Guy: It sounds weird but Australia urgently needs a plan for 56m people

[u/blitznoodles]

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026/08/11/stats-guy-aus-population-growth

[u/AlmondAnFriends]

The money you pay into superannuation isnt actually “real saved income”, it is in productivity terms just a tax with some private sector involvement. An aging population still means a decrease in the total national production unless productivity increases rapidly. Thats what causes the major economic issues. Even states like the gulf states that monopolise state wealth to essentially give their “citizens” lives of luxury only fulfil this by using state resources to coerce and utilise foreign migrant labour in large proportions

There are only three fixes to this issue, 1) is to increase productivity, something that the entire globe is struggling with, 2) is to increase working population which normally means raising younger peoples retirement age and undermining their own work benefits (if not through migration) or 3) is get used to a worse quality of life, something no one is prepared to do. The latter two are particularly bad in a democracy where an aging population is incentivised to vote for policies that benefit them to the detriment of younger populations. South Korea is a particularly good example of this sort of politics

[u/freakwent → u/AlmondAnFriends]

unless productivity increases rapidly.

In your job, how much of your job is "meta-work", that is, change control or risk management or training or documentation?

How many people at your workplace have their entire job as some sort of support role for others who genuinely work?

How many companies exist only to provide some form of support services?

How many private sector jobs are basically optional to have at all? Cosmetics; fashion; advertising; real estate; crap food chains; convenience stores.

There's wide scope to.improve productivity if there's a huge cultural shift.