Forum Archive Index - May 2000

["malcolm coleman" <malcolmcoleman@hotmail.com>]

An interesting article from Thestreet.co.uk about aging populations.
I am wondering how many retired people in NZ are going to be venturing into 
the stockmarket in the coming years in order to furnish sufficient returns 
on their meagre capital to survive to their twilight years?
I for one can see myself playing the stockmarket more often than the golf 
course when I get to my (what was once called)pensionable age!
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The Age Old Dilemma
by Patrick Raggett  2/5/2000 9:39
The elderly are a growing problem. Noone, not even William Hague,  is 
calling for death squads working to commission yet. I mean a  problem purely 
in the financial sense, as Sunday's Money Programme  on BBC2 illustrated.
The programme was entitled, 'The Age Wave', and it is a tidal one. It  
opened in Florida, at some hell called an Active Adult Community -  one of 
those euphemisms the Yanks like to use to disguise  impending hysteria. 
Peopled by walnut faced aliens wearing gold  slippers, this retirement 
colony has its own cable TV company, "to  show what's going on in town," 
explained one Sharon Shrepple, with  no hint of irony. Well, she is 
American.
Such was the general level of activity, you got the feeling that a  
successful half turn at the tea dance by Sid from Agnes into the arms  of 
Gertrude, would make top billing on the cable news station.
In Florida, one in five people are over the age of 65 and, having gone  
golfing there and seen nobody capable of lifting a tee peg , I was  frankly 
relieved it was only 20%. And if, as the programme  maintained, "Florida is 
the future of humanity," then voluntary  euthanasia at 50 will be big as 
soon as the latest batch of  lastminute.com (LMC:LSE) surplus seats are 
blagged.
The serious point is that, for the first time in human history, the old  
will shortly outnumber the young by a substantial margin. This will  have a 
seismic effect on retirement ages, pension provision and the  labour market.
The Floridisation of the developed world means that those in the 40- to  
50-years-old bracket now, the Baby Boomers, can probably kiss  goodbye to 
that allotment on the Isle of Wight at 60 or 65. Instead, it  will be 
overtime at the office for another decade or so.
The reason for this is that politicians throughout Europe have been  playing 
'pass the pension time bomb parcel', hoping the music won't  stop with them 
holding it. But one day, however they bluster, the kitty  will have run dry.
By 2030 - and think how quickly time has past since Gordon Banks  got 
diarrhoea in Mexico - 25% of people in the developed world will be  over 65. 
The present generation of pensioners are probably going to be  the last to 
enjoy active and comfortable retirement.
Already there are examples, as the occasionally chilling programme  showed. 
Norman Holland retired at 53 from Lloyds Bank (LLOY:LSE),  but is now back 
as a part time machinist. In Italy, the mayor of the  small southern town 
Vastiogirardi buses in kids by day to the school.  By night, he visits local 
bars threatening bachelors with higher taxes if  they fail to marry and 
produce children. "The real risk is that in a few  years we will have to 
abandon the place." At 1.2 children per couple,  Italy has the lowest birth 
rate in the world - so much for Latin passion.
In the United Kingdom, the dependency ratio, between pensioners and  
workers, is 3.5. It will deteriorate to 2.7 by 2050, according to current  
projections. In Germany, the figure will be 1.4 and in Italy an  apocalyptic 
0.7. Maybe the fact that it is possible to draw a state  pension at 55 in 
Italy and no government has the will to do anything  about it has something 
to do with the trend there.
But you don't have to be a soothsayer to foresee the potential here for  
massive social unrest as the tax burden on the young grows  intolerable and 
health expenditure is increasingly weighted in favour of  the ever older.
Pensions entitlements may need to be curtailed. More fundamentally,  a 
re-think of what it means to be old will be needed in order to boost  the 
labour market. Companies like Asda already blaze the trail. Over  600 of its 
workers are over 65 and there is no age discrimination. Hats  off to them.
As septuagenarian employee Marge Woodgate put it, "I didn't think  they'd 
have me, but, surprise surprise, they did have me." More power  to you, 
Marge. She is exceptional now, but she won't be in the future.

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