While it's certainly challenging times, it's nonsense to project even 5 years out. The article states the population is going to fall to a third by 2100? Ridiculous. You can't take a few points and draw a line, and claim it's a linear function. The birth rate is down because cost of living is so high, and the older generation has entrenched itself at the expense of the young. Similarly the economy is down because of massive de-leveraging - it won't be a straight line down forever. At some point both imbalances will be corrected. Maybe not in the next 10 years, but certainly by 2100.