ST. GEORGE — Washington County business leaders reviewed "the good, the bad and the ugly" of a tumultuous year during an economic summit that attracted more than 600 people to sunny St. George on Wednesday.

The "good," according to Lecia Parks Langston, a state regional economist, included a broad-based, booming economy in 2005 and a job growth rate of 9 percent.

The "bad," she said, is a tight labor market and a possible slowing of Washington County's growth as the construction and housing markets slow or soften.

The "ugly" includes escalating home prices that mean many wage earners in the county can't afford to buy a home where they work, Langston noted.

Those attending the annual Washington County Economic Summit at the Dixie Center were treated to several break-out sessions dealing with the future of commercial and residential real estate, water development, branding Utah and employee theft.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who gave the keynote speech during the final session, said he was intrigued with the tie between rural Utah, China and India and how future population growth figures will affect those relationships.

"We are going to see something happen here, starting in 2008, that has never happened before," said Bennett. "The percentage of Americans reaching retirement age is going to double."

Mandated spending programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will be hard pressed to pay for all those retirees, he said.

But America isn't the only country facing growing numbers in their retirement population.

"The working age population is going to shrink in several countries, including China," said Bennett, who used a flurry of pie charts and graphs to illustrate his point. "Anyone who fears China taking over the world needs to understand the demographics of their one-child-per-couple policy and the problems it has created for them."

The United States is now dependent, he added, on the younger immigrant population to keep the country's population numbers up.

"Without immigration we would start to slip into negative population growth," Bennett said. "Think about that when you start talking about immigration."

The senator drew a gasp from the crowd when he said, "There are 15,000 Americans right now who are age 100 or older. In 20 years that number will be 5 million."

Bennett urged Utah's business community to consider how future population numbers could affect their current market plans.

"Demographics are destiny," he said. "Shrinking populations in countries like Italy, Germany and France will make them nonexistent in the world economy."

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E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com