BrainsAsaCheapCommodity is a symptom of TooManyPeople, particularly educated people with experience.

Blame it on the Post war (WW2) mentality of various western governments to encourage population growth. A growth policy makers and ThinkTanks at the time felt population growth was a key ingredient to defending integrity of Nations.

* Most growth is NOT in "western" nations

The explosive population growth in past 60 years had not helped by big leaps in technology, the green revolution, computerisation, process automation, etc.

''The explosive population growth has, by and large, not occurred in the west--and where it has (such as the UnitedStates), immigration has played a key role.  Most of the new billions the world has seen have been born in developing nations.  Cultural biases for large families (often traditionally necessary due to a high mortality rate) coupled with lower mortality rates due to the aformentioned increased food distribution and improved medicine, and what would you expect?''
* As a matter of fact, excluding immigration and first generation births of immigrants, the U.S. and other western nations reached Zero Population growth decades ago (circa 1970 in the U.S). Some industrialized nations have in fact been experiencing negative population growth for some time (again neglecting immigration).
* Population growth in every country in the world tends towards zero in direct proportion with industrialization of a nation, with only 1 or 2 exceptions having to do with unusual aspects of culture there.

So we had a temporary growth in perceived wealth, in the first world and bits of third world, which generation X has taken to be their birthright.

''And generation Y, and Z probably to boot.''

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''What is a humane and peaceful way to deal with this inbalance of supply and demand (work vs workers)?''

Releasing workers that are TooOld has been one way to free up job positions for younger job market entrants. Is this acceptable and sufficient to deal with the problem the world is facing? Are we heading towards a period of drastic changes in population, just like a colony of overpopulated bacteria in a previously nutrient rich petri dish?

"Who knows. If India knew how to use condums, or could afford them, things may be different. " got deleted. However, without that deleted line, it is hard to understand why the below comment was made about India. (I am not saying I agree with the quote. I'm just not saying.)
''The problem the World (as a whole) is facing regarding overpopulation has little to do with whether IT workers over 35 routinely get sacked; or whether they are hired in the West or in India.''

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