Seniors may be a potent voting block, but as each new taxpayer becomes that much more precious, the demand will be to do what the government can to help people make new future taxpayers. For the old codgers it’s a win-win situation - the government ensures a supply of grandchildren and those will pay for their old age pension. I believe the similar statistic quoted for Canada was that when the CPP was set up, there were 10 taxpayers for each pensioner - within a decade or two it may be 2 to 1.
The Japanese graph is pretty much a straight line for the next 6 decades (I find graphs easier); when the population pyramid is more like a vertical pillar, the same number of people are dying each year on average. The number dying gets bigger when there’s a “lump” in the pyramid that reaches mortality ages. (I.e. North America, a few years from now with baby boomers) Or… if there’s a serious medical reason for a lot of early deaths. If the pyramid is shrinking toward the bottom, less people will die each year but the total population is also shrinking.
I picked Springfield (a) for the humor value and (b) it’s generic, there seems to be one in many locations.
Exactly - if the cables were lower, buried, they wouldn’t be a problem.