If Brian allows himself to be offended so easily – we can be offensive, but can be offended only if we ‘take’ offence – his waning years will certainly be a problem for him; “senior” is one of the few respectful words used for us old farts in the Western world.

While there is sympathy for older people who have not reached pension age, but who are virtually unemployable thanks to the attitudes of employers, that particular problem affects not only seniors, but people in their 40’s. You are not officially a senior until the age of 55, when you receive a Senior’s Card, which, if Brian is so offended by the term ‘senior’ he will cut up and forgo the benefits of having the card.

“Starting a new career” etc. when you are 50 or more: that could be wishful thinking on the part of some. Because a few older people get publicity for doing things that they ‘shouldn’t be doing at certain ages, doesn't mean everyone is capable of such feats, or even wants to do something new. Some people are almost forced to think that they should be acting like kids, when they do not feel up to it – physically or mentally. We should not allow ourselves to be conned into this ‘increased lifespan’ idea.

The living longer projection is not proven, any more than the climate change models are proven. All that is known – after the event, as it were – is that people born between the First World War and the Second World War have, in many cases, lived for longer than in past eras. In trumpeting this ‘great find’, the ‘experts’ never seem to mention the toughening effects of war, the biggest recession ever, hard manual work, plain, healthy food and an overall simpler, settled life without the pressures of technology and constant change.

Baby boomers are dropping like flies already. The longer living is over – an aberration.

Death can come to anyone tomorrow. Don’t worry about what you think you should have; be glad to have what you’ve got.

The author's 'Maturelink' suggestion is blindingly practical and long overdue. The Western world's current obsession with raising the official retirement/pension age (now 70 in the UK) is being implemented with absolutely NO thought or planning for the inevitable consequences of aged unemployment.

Nevertrustpoliticians

I agree with every word of your comment, especially the 'living longer' premise, which as you say is not at all proven.

These 'living longer' statistics are measured mathematically and reflect an average figure, not actual lifespans. Earlier generations lived just as long as people do today, all things being equal. However, they had higher early-death rates among much younger people due to factors such as incurable diseases, scepticemia (very common), childbirth complications, infant death and infantry-heavy warfare. These young people's deaths were then reflected in the overall average lifespan of the era.

Also, men are measured as having shorter lifespans than women but this is not because they are less healthy. The figure comes about mainly because younger men have higher mortality rates than younger women - through road and other accidents, a culturally induced propensity for violence and, in earlier generations, war service. This then affects their overall lifespan figure.

I firmly believe that all the research statistics reflecting an increasingly longer life expectancy are driven by anti-welfare propaganda rather than facts.

Boomers are aging and retirement is on the horizon. Retirement requires planning for the lifestyle you plan to lead. Will you travel? will you retire overseas? how will you stay physically and mentally healthy? will you volunteer? will you work part time? There is a great deal of information on these topics on the web. I use several sites including Retirement And Good Living which I found to be very helpful because it covers many retirement related topics and has a great blog of posts by guests from around the globe.

Talk about the ultimate rip off, here we were back in the 70's being led to believe that part of our taxes were being put aside to provide for our retirements.

It has to be the ultimate con job, work hard and you will reap the rewards.

What they should have told us, or at least warned us of was that if you worked hard and did well for yourself, you could look forward to little to no support and as your reward you can provide for someone else.

rechtub

So what do you suggest we do with all those aged people who didn't 'work hard' enough and didn't 'do well' enough for themselves? Let them starve in their homes, sleep in the streets, die of despair?

Not everyone's life path will automatically lead them to a financially comfortable retirement. Low or unstable income, redundancies and periods of unemployment, business failure, long-term caring (for children, the elderly, ill and disabled relatives), personal traumas and disasters, illness, and plain old-fashioned bad luck make up the many and varied circumstances that lead to aged poverty.

As a hard-working, 'innocent' taxpayer, I'm more than happy for my taxes to be used to 'provide for someone else' whose life circumstances have been less fortunate than mine. Neither am I at all interested in sorting out which of these 'someone elses' are more worthy of receiving the benefit of my taxes than others. I'm more than happy for my taxes to support someone who is old and poor because of bad choices, stupid mistakes and/or (gasp!) a less than strong work ethic.

Killarney, while I get your point, we have to come up with a win win whereby the providers also reap the rewards of their efforts.

The other problem we face is that there are just so many somebody else's nowadays, so retirees are the least of our problems and, the blame for creating all the hanger oners lays fairly and squarely with successive governments and their gross miss management of our taxes.

While it's all well and good to provide for everything from single mothers to this who simply refuse to work, not to mention those who work the system to their advantage, very well I might add, governments have to understand that money can only be spent once and if they give to one un-intended beneficiary, not planned for at the time, then another has to miss out.

On the one hand they want us to be honest, while on the other hand they rob us for doing just that. Being honest.