Voluntary euthanasia would be a good start to solving the problem. 'They’ are only too eager to kill off thousands of unborn, undercover of 'abortion and women's 'rights’, but they do their best to keep old people alive - all the time complaining about what a nuisance we are and the cost of doing it.

There is no “value” in ageing or in the old. Old age is not just a pain in the butt; it's a pain all over when inevitable arthritis sets in. And that's just for people suffering the normal ailments of a worn out body. There are many people suffering much worse; my 99 year old mother-in-law for one: suffering in a gulag misnamed a nursing home, still lucid enough to know that she wants out, and has wanted out for years, now. I'm 'only’ 75, but still here, thanks only to costly medication and the lack of means to finish it all - the horrors of the only methods to get it over with are still too unappealing compared with living. I, and others, should be able to decide when to go, easily and peacefully. 'Three score years and ten’ would have been fine by me.

I note that there is no information, apart from a blithe “millions of people in their '60s, '70s, '80s, and beyond are robust, active, functional, experienced, capable and talented…..”.

How many millions of active ones out of the overall millions of people still hanging around because they are not allowed to do away with themselves? And ‘60’ is not old.

I read recently about a woman who said that she she was quite happy getting older. The silly bint had not reached 50! The only people talking about the magic of growing old are young people with poor imagination, and a total lack of observation. The sort who chunters about “maximising the participation of older people in the workforce and society”.

Leave us alone, you idiots, and let us decide when to go and how, with the bit of dignity still left to us.

I am 93 and agree with ttbn.

I know where you're coming from ttbn, & it happens fairly quickly once it starts. Once you have reached the bottom of your bucket list it starts to accelerate. I finished mine 15 years ago, & you shouldn't start trying to live a life through your kids or grand kids. My lady does a bit of that, & it brings her little joy.

I haven't sailed a boat in 15 years, & it is about as long since I canoed with the kids, down the river that is our back boundary. I still have a couple of horses, & the gear, but I'd need one of those cranes used to lift knights in shining armour onto their horses to mount one. The shock may be too much for my carrot munching old horses too.

The 2 classic sports cars I built from cheap wrecks early in my retirement get used less than once a month each, & my skill at flying my little remote control planes is not improving. My skill at repairing crash damage is, provided I have a big enough magnifying glass to see what I'm doing.

My son recently suggested I should use my classics as daily drivers & ignore shopping trolley dings & scratches. He is right of course, not much sense owning a couple of beautiful gleaming classic sports cars as they shove you into the furnace at the crematorium.

Yes, hugely undervalued and underutilized. There's simply no substitute for experience and acquired knowledge coupled to a still active and agile mind! And universally ignored by the young know-it-alls and ideologically driven idiots!

Postulating presumptuous pork-barreling politicians with an absurd asinine agenda?

That said the very best combination is youthful exuberance tempered by the wisdom and experience of older mentors. Rember, whipping never ever lightens the load!
Alan B.

Youth-in-Asia?

Which reminds moi. Here's a little ditty I wrote:

"On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night.

There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
'This could be heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say

[CHORUS BEING]
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face.
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'we haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty-nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say"

[CHORUS]
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, 'we are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
'Relax' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'"

Well I wrote it with a lil help from the Eagles :)

Scott Morrison doesn't seem to see much value in the oldies otherwise he wouldn't cut the pension if one happened to have a younger partner !

Rex,

Thank you for an excellent assessment of the positives and negatives of ageing.

<<Recognising the value of older workers and creating a more welcoming environment in the workplace would help improve labour force participation rates among this cohort >>

I know of a person in excellent health who is aged 60 and has applied for job after job, but without success. He has lots of experience. When he asks if his age is a hindrance for the rejection, of course the employer says, 'No', as to say otherwise would be discriminatory.

Since I'm a regular church goer, I notice this selectivity in the music sung. When I discuss the thrash or rock music being played, it's not unusual to hear from pastor or music director, 'The youth are our future'. That's a contemporary way of saying, 'Go jump, when it comes to the music choices for the ageing group'.

ttbn,

<<Voluntary euthanasia would be a good start to solving the problem.... There is no “value” in ageing or in the old>>

I agree that there are pains as we age and I've had my fair share after 5 open heart, valve replacement surgeries. However, my view is not as pessimistic as yours.

Voluntary euthanasia won't do it, but compulsory euthanasia will. It has reached such stages in Belgium and The Netherlands that some people who don't ask to be euthanised are given a deadly injection. See: http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/2016/02/involuntary-euthanasia-without-consent-by-patients/

No matter what my physical and mental limitations are as I grow older, I'm leaving my life and death in the hands of the Lord God who sustains my life and has stated in poetic form:

Your eyes [the Lord] saw my body even before it was formed.
You planned how many days I would live.
You wrote down the number of them in your book
before I had lived through even one of them (Psalm 139:16, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+139%3A16&version=NIRV).

It is alarming that in comments on articles about aging euthanasia pops up within the first few posts. While in articles about euthanasia, aging pops up within the first few posts.

There is a real danger of the voluntary part of euthanasia getting a little murky when put into practice.

Granny getting put down when it is convenient for the beneficiaries of the will or those who don't want the hassle of the older generation, seems more like murder than euthanasia.

Aka,

<<seems more like murder than euthanasia>>

However, putting the words of euthanasia and assisted suicide into legislation is not quite as confronting as voluntary murder and assisted killing would be.

When we are faced with the facts, legislating euthanasia is launching government and medical practitioners into a business which should be none of their business. Both government and the medical profession should be involved in upholding the Hippocratic Oath, part of which reads,

"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art". See: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909.

At end of life, their efforts should be focussed on easing the pain and palliative care, instead of hastening death by administration of 'a deadly drug'.

Oh dear.. the ageing population again.
Where have you been?
We have been here for a long time.
And for that long time we worked, we paid taxes, including surcharges to pay for our pensions because our employers paid no superannuation.
Those of us who are female worked at the same jobs for far less money than did the males.
Most of us had children who grew up to work and pay taxes and generally keep this country going. Some of us even went to war for the generations yet to come.
But now we are a burden, a problem, we have done the unthinkable, we aged.
We are here, we were here before you, we have worked longer than you who continually talk about us as the ageing.
If you were doing half the job that we did for this country you could possibly earn our respect.
The worst offenders are politicians who somehow think that our growing old is a problem for them.
Unless you have worked and paid taxes for fifty years or more, then you don't have the right to voice negative opinions about the ageing population.

But now we are a burden, a problem, we have done the unthinkable, we aged.
Hilily,
I see the young as OUR burden who take what we saved up for over fifty years !