Aging population effect in business: The economy of a nation depends on people. Economy drives on consumer demand generated both locally as well as external and the purchasing power that's generated by the people. This phenomenon was clearly demonstrated during the downturn and the global economic crisis that adversely affected leading economies in US and Europe due to restricted purchasing power. Mass layoffs and consequent unemployment seriously reduced consumer spending leading to a vicious cycle. These forced Governments to initiate bail outs at a cost to the budget shortage. All these challenge the importance of a healthy and cared population that's not an economic burden. Healthy population could bring in long-term benefits through higher productivity and improved quality of life reducing Government expenditure on health care. In the Western world health care and pension took a heavy beating within the financial turmoil. Sri Lanka too is facing issues of an ageing population Sri Lanka's health and education policies over the years have made a significant contribution in maintaining physical quality of life people ahead of many developing countries. A well-managed insurance scheme would minimize such precautionary needs channeling the savings to promote consumption. Retirement is another matter for Sri Lanka as 55 years (reduced from 60 in 1970) is considered reasonably low with most employees reaching their peak performance during 55 to 60 age range. Most countries have extended the retirement age beyond 60 years. France currently in the process of going through major pension reforms is planning to raise the statutory retirement age from 60 to 62; full pension benefits too are to be extended from 65 to 67. China now a global superpower and a prosperous economy is planning to implement a reliable affordable health care system covering the entire population through a series of steps such as building up health care services in the rural area, encouraging participation in health insurance schemes and reducing the costs of medical services. Sri Lanka too must take an example of the measures taken by the developed countries and further strengthen health care systems to build a healthy population that would not be dependent. Adequate insurance schemes, reasonable pension schemes and revision of retirement age are some examples.The Changing family:Male heads of family saw a steep rise in earnings inequality, and women experienced a less dramatic increase in earned income inequality. The combined impact of higher earnings inequality among men and women may explain 33 percent to 43 percent of the increase in overall inequality. The growing positive correlation of husbands and wives earnings has tended to increase the income gap between affluent dual-income families and other kinds of households. This factor may account for 13 percent of the increase in overall inequality. Finally, there was a sharp decline in the proportion of Americans who live in families where a married couple is present. This trend has boosted the percentage of families headed by a single person. Families of this type have much more inequality than married-couple families, and a high proportion of their members can be expected to have low equivalent incomes. This factor may account for 21 percent to 25 percent of the increase in overall inequality.Global Boom: You borrow from a bank to buy your house. The bank pools your mortgage - your home loan -- with lots of others. It then sells loans backed by those mortgages and thus called mortgage-backed obligations (MBOs). Lots of those MBOs, it seems, were sold to foreign investors, among them Chinese. So US economy was growing faster than it otherwise would have, in that houses sold faster than ever for higher and higher amounts, which were in turn spent on more and more goods and services, leading to greater growth. Also, more people became real estate brokers. Also, new real estate was being built, creating more construction jobs. And the same thing happened at the government level. The government has been spending more than it taxes, thus booming the economy. But spending more than it takes in means the government is running a shortage. It has to borrow the difference. It borrows by issuing Treasury bills -- short-term loans -- and Treasury bonds -- longer-term loans. It sells those loans to, among others, foreign governments, including the Chinese. In short, by lending us money in these ways and others, the Chinese have been fueling U.S. growth. But as with all growth fueled by borrowing, the end usually comes. And now it has -- for the time being at least.Global environmental impact on business:Climate change is one of the greatest challenges to life, all round the world. It threatens human life through its impacts on water level, crops, disease and fresh water supplies. The world has to address this, urgently, and Scotland must be sufficiently enlightened to take a global lead. The drive to reduce the impact of climate change will also have other positive advantages for Scotland. It will create economic opportunities in renewable energies, from world-leading technology export and manufacturing opportunities in marine energy and deep-water offshore wind-power, to rural jobs in the installation and maintenance of renewable heat technologies. Improved efficiency in business using less energy and water, and reducing waste, can reduce costs and promote the competitiveness we need as a nation.It is important that councils actively encourage the use of renewable energy sources, including heat as part of Scotland's transition to a low carbon economy. We will need to make much greater use of the nation's substantial renewable energy resources. Alongside that we must act to reduce the emissions from transport, housing, business, land management and other sources. We must improve Scotland's record on waste management and recycling, and that is not a matter for government alone. The whole nation must become better informed consumers. And our schools, colleges and universities must all work alongside the business sector looking to increase public awareness and researching ways of improving our performance, developing new solutions and technologies.

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