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February 18, 2006
Die on the job
According to Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University, my kids will retire at age 85, BBC News reports. Shripad gives some sound reasons based on demographics, increases of life expectancy, and the cost of medical care.
In the US, the cost of social security and medical care would almost double if people retired at 65 under Tuljapurkar's scenario.But an increase in the retirement age to 85 would bring costs down to today's levels.
(See the seminars at CEPR.net for an explanation of why I mention medical care, but not social security. In a nutshell, social security costs make up only a tiny part of social security and medicale care costs.)
Maybe he's aiming to get us to commit mass suicide. That would bring down the cost of medical care, wouldn't it?
Seriously, the thought of a whole society of people working 60-65 years under approximately the same conditions as now has me recalling what Ripley said in one of the Alien movies about an aborted colony planet that got infested. She said something like, "Nuke it from orbit."
Posted by Mark at February 18, 2006 06:00 AM
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