Originally posted by monochrome Happy Friday.
There are projections that the global population will peak something this century. Russia's depopulation resembles an extrapolation of what Detroit and Buffalo have gone through. Europe's growth has come from immigration (legal and illegal, temporary and permanent), but eventually the supply of impoverished educated people of working age will dry up. Birthrates have declined in China (relaxation of restrictions on family size may not reverse the long-term trend) and India; when women are finally emancipated in the world of Islam, birthrates in the rest of the world will also decline.
At the microeconomic level, increasing productivity can balance out decreasing revenue, but it requires a different management mindset. For national governments, I suspect it will also take a very different outlook on how to govern. So, in my opinion, the world (or even Japan) isn't doomed, but we are in for decades of grief. Mind you, when hasn't there been man-made grief in the world?