The demographic explanation for the Eurozone's woes

NYT biz-page profile of yet another economist "doomster" who correctly called the recent woes. Naturally, the man is now considered a seer of the highest order, but the fellow, Edward Hugh, seems to be taking it well enough.

And I say that with some empathy: whenever I was introduced in years past as somebody who "foresaw 9/11," I felt that sort of hype was completely misplaced.  I foresaw types of things happening, and if you line up enough "bad" predictions, I guarantee you, you'll eventually become a celebrated seer--for a bit. But once you start lapping that crap up, you're finished as a thinker and you just start chasing celebrity, something Hugh seems bemusedly detached from as a life goal.

His main point is a simple one, which is why it's so robust: a eurozone that combined aging saver societies with demographically younger, credit-friendly populations was doomed to have a rough marriage. It's almost the globalization-integration equivalent of the stingy old rich guy marrying the spendthrift younger wife, except this "marriage" didn't come with the sanctity of political integration. So go figure, when the first credit crisis hits, these two sides turn on each other--the microcosm being nasty old frugal Angela Merkel shaking her finger at those crazy young Greeks and Irish and Spainairds!

Very cool and transmittable concept.

Rest of the story is how he's a suitably hot blogger with a--now--almost cliched unconventional career path. The stirring victory of the non-conformist!

But note how he's hard up for money. 

Good to have the day job, and that old PhD sometimes proves handy in that regard.

My point: a lot of us monkeys all over the planet banging away in our blogs, hoping this stay-at-home venue brings us great riches. And yeah, get enough monkeys and enough typewriters and somebody will bang out "War and Peace" on a regular basis. You just can't count on that as a viable career path.