Entitlement Crisis in England

I wrote a little while about what is being called the "upcoming Entitlement Crisis".

I am glad to see this is getting increasing visibility in the news. The problem has both a political and economic side: with more visibility there is a better chance of having a thoughtful and merciful political solution. Failing that, there will be a market-driven and merciless economic solution.

Glenn Reynolds wrote about pensions on Dec. 1st, and has had other relevant posts since about U.S. issues.

I have noticed that England seems to be the "canary in the coal mine" for this crisis, as well as other issues.

Regarding pensions, I saw this article that claims three-quarters of all new jobs there since 1997 have been governmental jobs with high pensions. There is also a British town where half the people claiming incapacity benefits instead of working. A otherwise un-notable article about welfare for mothers has an interesting set of comments in which the "kids need their moms" crowd and the "moms don't need so many kids" crowd argue past each other without ever having real dialogue; I was surprised that no commenter mentioned the country's rocketing promiscuity issue.