520R-Journal #4

Argue against " Impact of an aging population on the global Economy"

In "impact of an aging population on the global economy", author Jeremy J. Siegel opine s steep decline in the ratio of workers to retirees will crash the capital market in developed countries. And only capital ownership in developing countries as well as a healthy globalization can help developed countries solve this problem. I concede the decreasing rate of workers to retirees as a fact. However, I doubt the author's conclusion. And I state developed countries can maintain their capital market with the help of technology and exploiting developing countries.

To start with, author overlooked the effect caused by high technology. The decline in the ratio of workers to retirees wont be a problem, because high technology will increase the industry growth so that lack of goods should not be a problem to developed countries. Although the number will fall to about 2.5 workers per retiree. The high productivity will help less workers provide more supply to the whole retirement group and minimize the aging wave problem. Moreover, revolutionary invention still should be considered to benefit the developed country. For example, robot , being considered as the most revolutionary invention, is proceeding to be studied and applied. Scientists believe, as more and more research involve in artificial intelligence, robot will be originated eventually. And it will replace most of labour's work and work in a more effective and efficient way so that living off their wealth should not be a problem, because limited fortune can be exchanged to abundant supply.


The second fault author neglected is exploiting developing countries brings benefit to developed countries. It is the fact that companies in developed countries have being invested subsidiaries in developing countries in order to get higher profit by using cheaper labours. As larger and larger marker being explored, the developing countries and developing countries are no longer self-involved. Considering the assumption that there will be a rocketed increasing GDP in developing countries, developed countries still benefit so that the GDP would not shrink down dramatically as same as in author's prediction. Even the prediction is true in future, the exposeing market and high consumption in developing countries will promote the subsidiaries' business. Thus enough assets still can be sold into developing countries.


Even though all the assumption in this article are true,there still left the biggest doubt that author only analysis the forty years process when developing countries increase their market and trade with developed countries. However, after the year of 2005, when developing countries become developed countries, the decline ratio of workers to retiree still wont change. Based on author's information, when all countries stay in the same level, capital still cannot be sold out. This world still do not have enough workers to buy assets for their own age. So even the author's analysis about capital market is true, the globalization and depending on developing countries is not the solution.

To sum up, this argument does not give enough evidence to support to prove the reality, and some parts of it are questionable and need more information to testify its truth.

520 journal#3 academic reading and reading for pleasure

What is the difference, in your opinion, between academic reading and reading for pleasure? Describe the purpose of each, how you approach each, which you prefer, and why?

To begin with , I concede "reading for pleasure" and "academic reading" have different purposes. Reading for pleasure prefers to entertain people. When people have a rest, and want to find some fresh feelings. They usually look for reading for pleasure, such as novel, to fulfill themselves interests. In this condition, the function of reading for pleasure is as well as movie for enjoying fun at weekend. On the other hand, academic reading more approach to study in specific areas. For example, we generally can see academic reading as an argument to persuade readers to agree with some new discoveries or a description about a new theory or a character in history. Moreover, all of them are focusing on academic study. Based on this, we can see the first difference is purpose.

Furthermore , academic reading and reading for pleasure have different expression. Books from reading for pleasure are close to novels, fictions and poems, which use the narrative or descriptive way to express stories and author's motions. However, when we take a view on articles of academic reading, arguments and analysis are more common to express the author's idea and most of the articles only include the rational thought.

For these reasons, we can see these books from pleasure reading can create a comfortable atmosphere and bring fresh interest to audiences. For example, Harry Potter form J K Rowling be regarded as one of the most fantastic fictions and win the world's favour because it brings all the readers into a magic world to see what they cannot see in real world. And this grateful interest and amazing experience attract wide-range people falling in love with reading for pleasure. On the other hand academic reading introduce new theories and academic information to all the readers. Form these reading, we all appreciate new knowledge as one of factors can create new idea or inventions. Eventually in some specific research, I believe scientists are more like academic reading than pleasure reading when it is related to their study.

Frankly, I like reading for pleasure because it will bring pleasure and laughing into my life. However, I believe, there is an intersection between them. Because,in some sense, academic reading is also a pleasure of reading. When it refers to my study area, the content of article will attract me continuing reading the rest. And new thoughts generated from academic reading also can enrich my knowledge even create new opinion upon this study. Honestly, this is the most amazing experience for me when read academic reading.