From my perspective, the aging process is an incremental horror story.
Evidence supports the theory that the older you get, the more you'll be plundered. Usually ( more observation), until the pain of it exceeds the natural motivation to survive.

Don't wait for politicians to change the above towards a better world for the aging, since they represent the problem as usual.
The art of turning support services into a dogs breakfast for their capitilist mates, never reaches its ever heightening panicle.

To some of the aging, it's the anxiety of not living a life thrown out on the street, and starving themselves to pay the rent and power bills.
To others, it's an attack from the tax man, determined to drive the same aim with merciless effeciency.

I'm aware of two cases in front of my eyes, where this latter scenario plays out.
Both own multiple properties, and are severely cash-strapped from payments to local government through excessive rates, and astronomical land taxes. So don't feel cheated.

I go out into this world I don't recognise anymore, and constantly come back home shaking my head with disbelief!

Dan

On average, we're all living much longer than our grandparents and certainly our great-grand-parents. A century ago, people (on average) barely lived long enough to claim the age-pension. Two centuries ago, that would have been an impossible dream, with an average age at death of barely forty.

I hope that today's young people have long lives, with a fair share of contentment and achievement.

And that's all I hope for today's old people too. I'm not interested in some idiotic pitting of one against the other.

Maybe that's one problem with identity politics: that differentiated groups are perceived as being inherently in conflict, or even at war, with each other. Maybe anybody with their petty identities needs to be reminded that there are higher identities, that we are all equal human beings, not necessarily all that different., and go from there

Joe

Interesting.
Older folk didn't have access to electronic devices that meant, they had to read and remember stuff, do mental arithmetic and o on. Go into any supermarket and ask the assistant to make the change and count it back into your hand without the register telling them how much change you're entitled to. For most of us, we weren't exposed to illicit drugs that affected the development of the brain quite so much, as say Esmokes!

Little wonder older folk are preferred when it comes to professional appointments? They're still capable of using their own minds in problem-solving and innovation, without having to consult this or thal algorithm.

That said, recent surveys would seem to suggest, the average family wants but cannot afford one or two more kids! But cannot begin the family early enough given all the other impositions placed on them never ever visited on older folk, like HICS debt and having t save for forty years for a home deposit and even then being asked to carry a larger and larger share of the tax burden!

And to top it all off, being expected to put their lives on the line in any future conflict and for what, the rewards of being a good citizen and "homeowner" in a society that rewards their endeavour/enterprise and not one busy selling off their heritage at bargain-basement fire-sale prices.

So as to try and make a highly flawed ideological imperative work! Even though it never ever has and just as before, concentrating too much of our finite wealth in too few hands leads to quite massive economic downturns that included the Great Depression and the GFC!

The only lesson of history seems to be, that nobody, especially politicians, learns the lessons of history!
Alan B.

Oh I thought the planet wasn't going to be here in 12 years. Phew!

Jesus Joe.

That is infuriating soothsaying nonesense, straight from the halls of Sussex street.

That maybe the case for somebody living in an aboriginal community that wanders around with a bottle of coke in each hand and a fag dangling from the corner of their mouth, always demanding free services.

Out here in white town, it's entirely different. This is where the great divide was invented remember. And you may believe all is sweet now, we'll have a guess what. No it's not.

Out here it's a world ruled by the real estate market, where almost the entire wealth of the nation is traded away for profit. It has disasterous consequences for all in the end, And particularly the old, who are in need of more stable housing ( unavailable for a vast many). In need of health services, which are supplied in the most part, with upfront unaffordable costs. Huge costs for dental services without rebate at all. Obviously in your camp, nobody goes hungry for want of compassion.

A government on both sides which vacillates over how much bennifit they can both drag from welfare budgets and services, into a vote buying exercise aimed at the wealthy.
The tier of free or affordable welfare has been totally removed.

The missing link for the aged is extra cash to pay for the extra costs of aging, in a society built on the for-profit economic principal, where welfare services are also profit generating enterprises. Nobody does welfare for nothing. Turn onto Jacque Lambie for an update. Never have I seen any politician put life as it is for too many in our communities, in a nutshell better than she can.
It's blind logic, believing as you do, the divide which is large, is an imagined invention, engineered by the politically correct.

Dan

There is nothing nothing to say that anyone but the WW2 generation will be long livers; even they have been kept going - it couldn't be called living - by interference with nature. The baby boomers have already started dropping like flies.

"Imagine an Australia with fewer and fewer children, increasing life expectancy and more and more old people as well as a shrinking workforce and slow population growth."

Unfortunately, federal governments of both persuasions seem to believe that we can keep our population 'young' by importing an ever-increasing number of people. Population growth has actually accelerated in recent times due to our supercharged immigration program.

The idea that high immigration is needed to counter an ageing population is fallacious and has been debunked by every reputable organisation.

As economists Cameron Murray and Leith van Onselen have noted:

"High immigration is also thought to combat population ageing and be a remedy for these non-existent costs of ageing.

This is wrong. Low immigration can affect the age structure by helping to stabilise the population, but high immigration has almost no long-run effect besides increasing the total population level. This creates bigger problems in the future.

It is also widely thought that simply investing in infrastructure will accommodate high immigration and population growth at little cost.

This too is wrong.

Diseconomies of scale are a feature of rapid infrastructure expansion due to (1) the need to retrofit built-up cities, (2) the dilution of irreplaceable natural resources, and (3) the scale of investment relative to the stock of infrastructure."

(continued from above...)

In their report 'Three Economic Myths about Ageing: Participation, Immigration and Infrastructure', Murray and van Onselen make the following findings:

- Population ageing is a successful result of efforts to improve longevity.

- Countries with older populations maintain high workforce participation, are more productive, and grow faster economically.

- Ageing does not lower workforce participation in general. Since 2012 there have been more full-time workers aged over 65 than under 20.

- Low net immigration of between 50-80,000 permanent migrants per year can alter the age structure over the long-term by stabilising the population.

- Low net immigration increases GDP per capita and wage growth.

- High net immigration above this 50-80,000 amount has almost no additional effect on changing the age structure and simply increases the total population.

- Most of the increase in permanent migration since the early 2000s has been through the skilled migration program.

- This program primarily benefits the migrants themselves and increases wage competition for other workers.

- A focus on skilled immigration fosters a “brain drain” from developing countries, reducing human welfare.

- There is a real economic cost to high population growth due to the diseconomies of scale inherent in rapid infrastructure expansion.

- There is a real cost from environmental degradation due to development to accommodate much higher populations.

- The high costs of population growth are often ignored, as immigration policy is a federal matter, while infrastructure provision is predominantly a state and council matter.

- Population growth in general dilutes ownership of our environmental endowments, mineral wealth, fisheries, wildlife, and national parks.

- The political capital and resource devoted to managing high growth have an opportunity cost in terms of solving other social problems such as homelessness, indigenous disadvantage, mental health, and other social services.

Full report:

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AgeingMythReport_vPUBLISH.pdf

Spot of Pete you old mucker!. Its going to be fun watching these kids solve the problems ahead, without their ability to read, write or count! I recall my first 'trial' at Macquarie Uni back in 1990, when I had to mark 500+ essays a month after landing from Liverpool Uni (UK). I failed 40%, purely due to the unintelligible nature of the work. This kids are now senior managers somewhere, and may even have taught/indoctrinated this current generation of "Green Meanie CCCC" (Child Climate Change Cultists) activists who strike on schooldays, not weekends or holidays.

Compulsory contraception, Licencing of Child birth eligibility and the Chinese One Child Policy are starting to look good to this aging (59 now) "old fart".

Glad your mind is still sharp and focused. Cheers