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The triple lock is here to stay – politicalbetting.com

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  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    You could have (and we did have) 70-year old nurses giving vaccinations. You could have a 70-year old doing fire inspections. Maybe the answer is some flexibility in terms of what people are doing.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
  • Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    It has been a miserably wet year so far. I hope we have a dry summer.
    I am down on the Island, and while it rained heavily this morning, it was only a couple of hours. Pleasant spring sunshine now.

    Warmer, wetter winter is how we are affected by climate change. Summers have always been variable in a marine climate.
    What happened to the mediterranean summers we were promised.
    That ended when we Brexited and could no longer retire there!
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    edited March 27
    Angie is almost certainly safe, Guido of the Yard and Hodges of the Bicester Digest are all over it
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,392

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    You could have (and we did have) 70-year old nurses giving vaccinations. You could have a 70-year old doing fire inspections. Maybe the answer is some flexibility in terms of what people are doing.
    Exactly. We don't have many professional footballers in their 40's either. The idea that you would have one job for life and only do that is not for everyone.

    But it won't matter. Leon has assured us that AI will be taking over soon and all jobs will be gone. Even brickies, replaced by those clever robots that I see.
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    It should probably be relative to GDP, which would equally solve the issue.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    Reagan showed Republicans that deficits don't matter.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    This site should be revamped as WeatherforPensioners.com.

    Yes, deluges of miserable cold wet pissing down. And that's just the comments, not what is outside.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656

    277-3 in 20 overs in current IPL game.

    WTF is that

    Its like eating McDonalds every day. Give me a test match every time.
    Need to do something to equalise the game between bat and ball. It's becoming ridiculous. Soon we will on T1 and any score below 37 is a complete failure
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    similar to the Thatcher prosperity built on debt and north sea oil.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    It has been claimed that the defence spending brought down the Soviet Union, but I don't know if anyone's done a thorough, systematic analysis of that claim. Arguably, the failings of the communist system were just steadily building up and the short-term increase under Reagan on defence spending was irrelevant. I don't know. Does anyone know of a proper analysis?
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656

    277-3 in 20 overs in current IPL game.

    WTF is that

    Its like eating McDonalds every day. Give me a test match every time.
    Need to do something to equalise the game between bat and ball. It's becoming ridiculous. Soon we will on T1 and any score below 37 is a complete failure
    But at least we would be home sooner
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603
    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    It has been a miserably wet year so far. I hope we have a dry summer.
    I am down on the Island, and while it rained heavily this morning, it was only a couple of hours. Pleasant spring sunshine now.

    Warmer, wetter winter is how we are affected by climate change. Summers have always been variable in a marine climate.
    What happened to the mediterranean summers we were promised.
    That ended when we Brexited and could no longer retire there!
    There’s a strong overlap between people who think Brexit has stopped them from doing this and the people who would never gone through with it in any case.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Life expectancy is likely to start growing again, because the boomers all smoked and drank, while those under 40 have significantly healthier habits.

    Plus, the new immunotherapies for cancer and retrovirals will have an impact.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    The boomer generation or any other generation did not get much say in the matter. Well, a few dozen or even a couple of hundred might have been elected to parliament but the rest of the millions were not asked.

    As for why things are necessary, well, even assuming they are, probably because in the 1980s oil and privatisation revenues were spaffed on keeping millions on the dole instead of investing.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    221.20 a week is not comfortable. Taper it down to 50% for all based on income only as a mitigation
    I agree it isn't. But what pisses me off is that the rate at which it is paid is the same for those with private or public sector pensions of £60K a year or more. We need to spend more on poor pensioners and much, much less on those who have other income. The Universal state pension is an idiocy which should be abolished.

    As for some poor sod on minimum wage on zero hours with University fee debts to pay forking out for it in his taxes? It is grossly immoral.
    Agreed. Taper it down based on other income. Although everyone should get 'some' pension
    No, keep the triple lock for all pensioners. But reduce the threshold for the 40% tax band (what is it?, 45K, 50K ) for those of pensionable age.
    Abolish higher rate tax relief on private pension contributions. Funny how the pundits who benefit from this prefer to concentrate on the triple lock.
    Can't believe that loophole is still there. It's crazy. My ideal would be that the government match-funds everyone's pension saving up to a certain £££ per annum. Same absolute cap for everyone.
  • Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    Again, logarithmic scaling.

    It trebled in the 1970s too.

    The second tripling looks bigger than the first, but that's how exponential growth works. You should know that.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479
    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    Bore off.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    edited March 27
    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,913

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    Reagan showed Republicans that deficits don't matter.
    ... and they learnt the lesson.

    "Since 1981, federal budget deficits have increased under Republican presidents Reagan, both Bushes and Trump, while deficits have declined under Democratic presidents Clinton and Obama. The economy ran surpluses during Clinton's last four fiscal years, the first surpluses since 1969. The deficit was projected to decline sharply in Joe Biden's first fiscal year"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party#:~:text=The unemployment rate has risen on average under,1953 and 2020 began under Republican presidents.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479

    277-3 in 20 overs in current IPL game.

    WTF is that

    Its like eating McDonalds every day. Give me a test match every time.
    Need to do something to equalise the game between bat and ball. It's becoming ridiculous. Soon we will on T1 and any score below 37 is a complete failure
    How about each team starts with two wickets then earns a wicket every two overs? Just thought of that one (I'm sure it's a deeply flawed idea)
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    This is hilarious 🤣 🍿

    After Kennedy’s VP pick Nicole Shanahan was announced, Dems held a press conference call attacking RFK as a right wing extremist. 👉

    Team Trump issued a statement Denouncing #RFKJr as a “left wing lunatic!” 👈

    https://x.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1772783339147030602?s=20
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic: FWIW, the average monthly US Social Security benefit is $1907.
    https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01903
    It is indexed for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index. (I think it would not decrease, in the unlikely event of deflation.)

    Both Social Security and the immense Medicare program are predicted to go bankrupt, within the next decade or two. (When I see a little American kid, and think about the burden they will be carrying, I feel I ought to apologize to them.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/insolvency-on-horizon-for-social-security-medicare-soon-expert-says.html

    (Recently, the WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, argued, correctly, I believe, that the presidents most responsible for the US debt problem are Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Caveat: I haven't checked Kessler's arithmetic.)

    I don't think that the case.

    US national debt only really took off with Reaganism in the Eighties.


    That clearly took off in the 70s.

    Logarithmic scale.
    In the eight years under Reagan the national debt tripled, and the trend for debt to be reducing as a percentage of GDP was reversed.

    A lot of Reagans prosperity was government debt spending. Not a sustainable policy in the long term, even if desirable in the short. The defence spending in particular brought down the Soviet Union as it couldn't match it.
    It has been claimed that the defence spending brought down the Soviet Union, but I don't know if anyone's done a thorough, systematic analysis of that claim. Arguably, the failings of the communist system were just steadily building up and the short-term increase under Reagan on defence spending was irrelevant. I don't know. Does anyone know of a proper analysis?
    Tricky, because you'd need to factor in how/whether/when the USSR would have collapsed in any case. And that would be guesswork.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    Trent said:

    This is hilarious 🤣 🍿

    After Kennedy’s VP pick Nicole Shanahan was announced, Dems held a press conference call attacking RFK as a right wing extremist. 👉

    Team Trump issued a statement Denouncing #RFKJr as a “left wing lunatic!” 👈

    https://x.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1772783339147030602?s=20

    A dichotomy easily resolved if you remember Kennedy is both a right wing extremist and at the same time a lunatic well to the left of Donald Trump.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    Manchester police re-investigating Angela Rayner council house claims

    Labour’s deputy leader is accused of breaking electoral law for allegedly giving false information relating to capital gains tax on her former Stockport house


    Police are reassessing claims that Angela Rayner broke electoral law after receiving a complaint from the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

    James Daly, the MP for Bury North, said Greater Manchester police had failed to properly investigate claims the Labour deputy leader may have broken the law in the early 2010s when she lived between two council houses in Stockport.

    On Monday the police confirmed that a detective chief inspector had been assigned to reconsider the case, putting pressure on Rayner again, days after she launched a fightback in the media.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-rayner-council-house-tax-manchester-police-labour-party-79pk08rx0

    More desperate attacks by the cesspit party . And the police shouldn’t cave into pressure from politicians . This looks like currygate part 2 .
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Trent said:

    This is hilarious 🤣 🍿

    After Kennedy’s VP pick Nicole Shanahan was announced, Dems held a press conference call attacking RFK as a right wing extremist. 👉

    Team Trump issued a statement Denouncing #RFKJr as a “left wing lunatic!” 👈

    https://x.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1772783339147030602?s=20

    They're both correct in this case.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    And how are things in Moscow?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Yes please. She's hot. Kooky, but hot
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,412

    Leon said:

    Trent said:

    Leon said:

    Trent said:

    Things aint lookin so good for April. More gloom and misery. From netweather forum

    I see what you mean, the whole pattern after the 7th in particular on the GFS 00z has July 2023 written all over it though at this time of year the synoptics will not produce dangerous heat in southern Europe.

    The only comfort I can see is that April is often dissimilar to summer in terms of synoptics. Those synoptics would produce a disastrous summer for both the UK and rest of NW Europe, and southern Europe, if they were to recur in July and August.

    The GFS 00z is even worse than yesterday if that was at all possible. Suggests a first half of April perhaps even worse than 1983, 1998, 2000 or 2012. And far worse than the much-maligned 1986.

    I've never seen an April so dominated by endless cyclonic SW-ly conditions in the south. Remember 1998 and 2000 had a good few northerly interludes and 2012 was more NW-ly meaning it was brighter in between the rain belts, the first and second weeks being half-decent.

    Just hope it's wrong!

    Really seems something strange is going on if we have possibly the wettest first half of April on record following 9 months of prolonged wet conditions.

    I know I’ve been in the tropics for months but Jesus it’s COLD - it’s nearly April?
    Sunday was a decent day in that it was sunny but it was till cold. Beats the constant clag and rain.
    ChatGPT tells me it should be 12C max on March 27 in london

    It’s 9C max and “feels like” 7C with zero sun, light rain and a stiff chilly breeze

    So I’m not imagining it. Weather feels 5C below average - because it is
    Welcome to the concept of weather. The average max temp does not mean evert day should max out to that.

    You clearly are not (yet) an expert in statistics to add to your portfolio of expertise.
    Leon/Trent talking to to himself about bog-standard weather variations on a politics site, while copying and pasting posts from a weather site that we can all look at if we want to, is a whole new low of mundane shit.

    I think I preferred the endless boredom of PB Classic Guess Boris' Weight, which just goes to show how utterly tedious this weather chat is. The sun is shining outside my north London kitchen and I'm off for a walk.
    It's all muscle.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Life expectancy is likely to start growing again, because the boomers all smoked and drank, while those under 40 have significantly healthier habits.

    Plus, the new immunotherapies for cancer and retrovirals will have an impact.
    Not to mention people still do exercise as they get older.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    The US deficit only matters to the GOP when there’s a Dem in the WH .
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213
    ydoethur said:

    Trent said:

    This is hilarious 🤣 🍿

    After Kennedy’s VP pick Nicole Shanahan was announced, Dems held a press conference call attacking RFK as a right wing extremist. 👉

    Team Trump issued a statement Denouncing #RFKJr as a “left wing lunatic!” 👈

    https://x.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1772783339147030602?s=20

    A dichotomy easily resolved if you remember Kennedy is both a right wing extremist and at the same time a lunatic well to the left of Donald Trump.
    Horse Shoe Theory waves to you….
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    It has been a miserably wet year so far. I hope we have a dry summer.
    I am down on the Island, and while it rained heavily this morning, it was only a couple of hours. Pleasant spring sunshine now.

    Warmer, wetter winter is how we are affected by climate change. Summers have always been variable in a marine climate.
    What happened to the mediterranean summers we were promised.
    That ended when we Brexited and could no longer retire there!
    There’s a strong overlap between people who think Brexit has stopped them from doing this and the people who would never gone through with it in any case.
    I had advanced plans and I daresay you did too with all your bellyaching about the misfortune of Brexiting and for a good year or two after the vote.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    OOH. The York and Albany has SHUT

    London, eh. You go away for about six minutes (OK, about 5 months) and everything changes
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    What do we think of this.

    RFK Jr.’s VP Pick Calls for Chronic Disease Investigation

    Today,
    @RobertKennedyJr
    announced entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his VP running mate.

    She said, “Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now, here in the state of California, it is one in 22.”

    Three things are causing the chronic disease epidemic, Shanahan declared:

    1.) “One is the toxic substances in our environment, like endocrine, disrupting chemicals in our food, water, and soil.”

    2.) “Second is electromagnetic pollution. You don’t hear politicians talking much about that either.”

    3.) The third cause is the cumulative impact of medications and vaccinations received throughout childhood, for which comprehensive safety studies assessing long-term effects are currently lacking.

    • “No single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another ... We just don’t do that study right now, and we ought to.”

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1772723116688408970?s=20
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    Hmmm.

    I'm not sure that people being much thinner because they smoked so much was exactly a good thing.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    It has been a miserably wet year so far. I hope we have a dry summer.
    I am down on the Island, and while it rained heavily this morning, it was only a couple of hours. Pleasant spring sunshine now.

    Warmer, wetter winter is how we are affected by climate change. Summers have always been variable in a marine climate.
    What happened to the mediterranean summers we were promised.
    That ended when we Brexited and could no longer retire there!
    There’s a strong overlap between people who think Brexit has stopped them from doing this and the people who would never gone through with it in any case.
    I had advanced plans and I daresay you did too with all your bellyaching about the misfortune of Brexiting and for a good year or two after the vote.
    You are confusing him with William Glenn. I did that once. You don't make the same schoolboy error again.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Dr. Foxy - The Medicare and Medicaid programs began under Lyndon Johnson; the indexing of Social Security for inflation began under Richard Nixon.

    (To be fair, neither president was expecting the collapse in fertility that began after they left office.)
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098

    Leon said:

    Trent said:

    Leon said:

    Trent said:

    Things aint lookin so good for April. More gloom and misery. From netweather forum

    I see what you mean, the whole pattern after the 7th in particular on the GFS 00z has July 2023 written all over it though at this time of year the synoptics will not produce dangerous heat in southern Europe.

    The only comfort I can see is that April is often dissimilar to summer in terms of synoptics. Those synoptics would produce a disastrous summer for both the UK and rest of NW Europe, and southern Europe, if they were to recur in July and August.

    The GFS 00z is even worse than yesterday if that was at all possible. Suggests a first half of April perhaps even worse than 1983, 1998, 2000 or 2012. And far worse than the much-maligned 1986.

    I've never seen an April so dominated by endless cyclonic SW-ly conditions in the south. Remember 1998 and 2000 had a good few northerly interludes and 2012 was more NW-ly meaning it was brighter in between the rain belts, the first and second weeks being half-decent.

    Just hope it's wrong!

    Really seems something strange is going on if we have possibly the wettest first half of April on record following 9 months of prolonged wet conditions.

    I know I’ve been in the tropics for months but Jesus it’s COLD - it’s nearly April?
    Sunday was a decent day in that it was sunny but it was till cold. Beats the constant clag and rain.
    ChatGPT tells me it should be 12C max on March 27 in london

    It’s 9C max and “feels like” 7C with zero sun, light rain and a stiff chilly breeze

    So I’m not imagining it. Weather feels 5C below average - because it is
    Welcome to the concept of weather. The average max temp does not mean evert day should max out to that.

    You clearly are not (yet) an expert in statistics to add to your portfolio of expertise.
    Leon/Trent talking to to himself about bog-standard weather variations on a politics site, while copying and pasting posts from a weather site that we can all look at if we want to, is a whole new low of mundane shit.

    I think I preferred the endless boredom of PB Classic Guess Boris' Weight, which just goes to show how utterly tedious this weather chat is. The sun is shining outside my north London kitchen and I'm off for a walk.
    It's all muscle.
    Which was in fact the point of interest. Not his weight as such (yawn) but his *muscle/fat* ratio. A previous poster (Philip Tomkinson?) took the very controversial position that Boris was similar to an elite professional athlete on this metric. So, much discussion there and quite rightly.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    Trent said:

    What do we think of this.

    RFK Jr.’s VP Pick Calls for Chronic Disease Investigation

    Today,
    @RobertKennedyJr
    announced entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his VP running mate.

    She said, “Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now, here in the state of California, it is one in 22.”

    Three things are causing the chronic disease epidemic, Shanahan declared:

    1.) “One is the toxic substances in our environment, like endocrine, disrupting chemicals in our food, water, and soil.”

    2.) “Second is electromagnetic pollution. You don’t hear politicians talking much about that either.”

    3.) The third cause is the cumulative impact of medications and vaccinations received throughout childhood, for which comprehensive safety studies assessing long-term effects are currently lacking.

    • “No single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another ... We just don’t do that study right now, and we ought to.”

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1772723116688408970?s=20

    Is it going viral?
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    ydoethur said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    Hmmm.

    I'm not sure that people being much thinner because they smoked so much was exactly a good thing.
    People were more active generally often as part of their jobs. Also people tended to eat less sugar and there wasnt the same amount of junk food around.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    Taz said:

    FPT for @Cookie

    Layla Moran did indeed oppose a new reservoir.

    Classic NIMBY

    https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19855745.plans-huge-reservoir-abingdon-explained/

    Mind you Green councillors oppose solar farms in their area all the time.

    Bart is someone I rarely agree with but he is right on his "Screw the NIMBY" view.

    Solar farms are an eyesore and generate leccy when we don't need it, and don't generate when we do.

    I'd be opposing them if I was a councillor.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,307
    Glad to see Tom Hayes lost his LIBOR appeal.

    What I could tell you about that young man .......
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    Have you got the figures please.
  • ToryJimToryJim Posts: 4,189
    Trent said:

    What do we think of this.

    RFK Jr.’s VP Pick Calls for Chronic Disease Investigation

    Today,
    @RobertKennedyJr
    announced entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his VP running mate.

    She said, “Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now, here in the state of California, it is one in 22.”

    Three things are causing the chronic disease epidemic, Shanahan declared:

    1.) “One is the toxic substances in our environment, like endocrine, disrupting chemicals in our food, water, and soil.”

    2.) “Second is electromagnetic pollution. You don’t hear politicians talking much about that either.”

    3.) The third cause is the cumulative impact of medications and vaccinations received throughout childhood, for which comprehensive safety studies assessing long-term effects are currently lacking.

    • “No single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another ... We just don’t do that study right now, and we ought to.”

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1772723116688408970?s=20

    I think the standard cure for her second point is a tinfoil hat…perhaps she just needs to invest in one
  • CleitophonCleitophon Posts: 480
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,214

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    And how are things in Moscow?
    Whatever you do, don't go to the window in order to check.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    Trent said:

    14 day weather outlook for London is horrendous. Black clouds and rain or drizzle for all but 1 day in the next 2 weeks.

    It has been a miserably wet year so far. I hope we have a dry summer.
    I am down on the Island, and while it rained heavily this morning, it was only a couple of hours. Pleasant spring sunshine now.

    Warmer, wetter winter is how we are affected by climate change. Summers have always been variable in a marine climate.
    What happened to the mediterranean summers we were promised.
    That ended when we Brexited and could no longer retire there!
    There’s a strong overlap between people who think Brexit has stopped them from doing this and the people who would never gone through with it in any case.
    It has only stopped the poor from retiring to the Med. People with money still can, and that's all that matters isn't it?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    We are a LOT fatter than we were in the 1960-70s. Look at photos of Brits on beaches back then, there is barely a fatty to be seen

    The contrast between Americans now and then is even worse, of course
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    Trent said:

    ydoethur said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    Hmmm.

    I'm not sure that people being much thinner because they smoked so much was exactly a good thing.
    People were more active generally often as part of their jobs. Also people tended to eat less sugar and there wasnt the same amount of junk food around.
    Fortunately, there is actual evidence we can use. Measurements such as blood pressure, resting heart rate, liver and lung function, that will give us evidence rather than anecdote.

    And you know, there are many things which are open to debate. We can discuss whether free trade benefits everyone. We can argue about whether global warming is real or transitory, and if real whether man made or not.

    But public health statistics are data. We know what correlates with life expectancy. It is measured and recorded over millions and millions of people.

    The health of the young today is not just slightly better than their parents, it is dramatically so.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,407
    On topic, some of this reflects voter concern in general about not encouraging Government to shit on the little guy - i.e. it could be me next - and tapping up the wealthy/superrich instead. However, it also reflects that no-one in public life has really made the argument- although several economists have, few people will have read them - so it could be softer than it looks.

    My guess is that politically it's something that has to been seen to stay, for now, but those playing close attention will note that's not quite the same thing.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009

    Off-topic … have we talked enough about the TUV/Reform UK electoral pact? They say they are going to stand mutually agreed candidates in all the NI constituencies. I’m unclear if they will be labelled TUV candidates or TUV/Reform UK ones, but that’s beside the point. The point is that they’re not going to win any seats, but they may take votes from the DUP. Previously, the TUV has usually not stood in FPTP elections to avoid splitting the unionist vote.

    TUV candidates taking votes from the DUP could cost the DUP a couple of seats, maybe to the advantage of Alliance?

    I got the impression it was an SDLP/Labour type agreement.
    In electoral terms it might hand South Antrim to the UUP, would be nice to see the Trimblers back in Westminster
    Their language of “agreed” candidates and a common whip if elected seems to go one step further than the Lab/SDLP or LibDem/APNI arrangements.
    Yeah, that's very true. TUV are relatively niche hard unionist and not transfer friendly in NI devolved terms, maybe the Reform name helps them with that and Reform get to present as a whole UK party
    What will Catholic Refuk-ers in England, Scotland and Wales think about it though?
    That would be an ecumenical matter.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    edited March 27
    Trent said:

    ydoethur said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    Hmmm.

    I'm not sure that people being much thinner because they smoked so much was exactly a good thing.
    People were more active generally often as part of their jobs. Also people tended to eat less sugar and there wasnt the same amount of junk food around.
    Tended to eat less sugar?

    Do you mean that seriously?

    You do know that average sugar consumption has been declining dramatically over the last 40 years, even allowing for the increasing prevalence of it in processed foods?

    Less sugar in tea. Fewer sweets and cakes.

    https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/DP_Sweet Truth_62_web edited.pdf
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,721
    Trent said:

    What do we think of this.

    RFK Jr.’s VP Pick Calls for Chronic Disease Investigation

    Today,
    @RobertKennedyJr
    announced entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his VP running mate.

    She said, “Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now, here in the state of California, it is one in 22.”

    Three things are causing the chronic disease epidemic, Shanahan declared:

    1.) “One is the toxic substances in our environment, like endocrine, disrupting chemicals in our food, water, and soil.”

    2.) “Second is electromagnetic pollution. You don’t hear politicians talking much about that either.”

    3.) The third cause is the cumulative impact of medications and vaccinations received throughout childhood, for which comprehensive safety studies assessing long-term effects are currently lacking.

    • “No single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another ... We just don’t do that study right now, and we ought to.”

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1772723116688408970?s=20

    They seem a good match for each other.
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes and also if more young adults are now on blood pressure lowering medication that will skew the average blood pressure results downwards, And as we all know obesity can lead to cascading health problems in the future like heart disease and cancer.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Believe it or not I had the pleasure of meeting a real life Andrew Bridgen fan. I thought they only existed online.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,407
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    In certain demographics, though.

    I've seen plenty of men younger than me with a lot of podge - all aspiring to look like Rag & Bone Man.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    Not just a bit fatter!

    Obesity rates in children are far higher than the Seventies, with all its consequences for diabetes and cancer.


  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Here are the key claims in that Glenn Kessler column of nearly a year ago:
    "Which president has contributed the most to the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance? That would be Lyndon B. Johnson, according to a 2021 study by Charles Blahous, a former economic adviser to George W. Bush and a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 2010 through 2015. Through an exhaustive study of Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget reports, Blahous estimated LBJ’s share of the fiscal imbalance is 29.7 percent. Close behind is Richard M. Nixon, with 29.2 percent.

    Johnson enacted Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-1960s, and then Nixon in the early 1970s expanded both programs and also enhanced Social Security so that benefits were indexed to inflation. Social Security and Medicare are now so popular that both Biden and Republicans have pledged not to touch them as they haggle over other types of government spending. But in effect, according to this analysis, almost two-thirds of the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance is a result of policy choices made more than 50 years ago."
    (Links omitted.)
    source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/16/president-most-blame-spiraling-national-debt-is/
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,407
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    We are a LOT fatter than we were in the 1960-70s. Look at photos of Brits on beaches back then, there is barely a fatty to be seen

    The contrast between Americans now and then is even worse, of course
    Yes, and going the other way is smoking.

    In the 60s and 70s loads of people smoked so you could have a man not particularly overweight, if at all, but he looked 45 at 30.

    Today, hardly anyone smokes but there are plenty who eat lots of processed shite so obesity is the enemy.
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
    Im not convinced but im sure we will find out in time. Visual inspection to me says no. Lots of obesity about. Have you got the figures.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    Not just a bit fatter!

    Obesity rates in children are far higher than the Seventies, with all its consequences for diabetes and cancer.


    Quite so, @rcs1000 is DRAMATICALLY underplaying the obesity problem, and overstating the improvements in health
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
    So why is TikTok full of 20-year-olds obsessing about anti-aging treatments?
  • IcarusIcarus Posts: 993
    Trent said:

    ydoethur said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    Hmmm.

    I'm not sure that people being much thinner because they smoked so much was exactly a good thing.
    People were more active generally often as part of their jobs. Also people tended to eat less sugar and there wasnt the same amount of junk food around.
    Breakfast when I was young -in the 1950s usually had cornflakes with spoonfuls of sugar sprinkled on -though we also had Bemax wheatgerm on as well. Every grown up had sugar in their tea. Tea was jam sandwiches and cake!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    We are a LOT fatter than we were in the 1960-70s. Look at photos of Brits on beaches back then, there is barely a fatty to be seen

    The contrast between Americans now and then is even worse, of course
    That's because back them the average person chain smoked and coughed up pounds of phlegm every morning.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009

    Manchester police re-investigating Angela Rayner council house claims

    Labour’s deputy leader is accused of breaking electoral law for allegedly giving false information relating to capital gains tax on her former Stockport house


    Police are reassessing claims that Angela Rayner broke electoral law after receiving a complaint from the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

    James Daly, the MP for Bury North, said Greater Manchester police had failed to properly investigate claims the Labour deputy leader may have broken the law in the early 2010s when she lived between two council houses in Stockport.

    On Monday the police confirmed that a detective chief inspector had been assigned to reconsider the case, putting pressure on Rayner again, days after she launched a fightback in the media.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-rayner-council-house-tax-manchester-police-labour-party-79pk08rx0

    Obviously giving false information re CGT would be a breach of tax law but I'm not clear why it would be a breach of electoral law?
    False info on the electoral roll/where registered to vote is a crime punishable by up to 6 months or unlimited fine.
    It's that the allegation relates to

    Edit - I believe they are angling that if no crime occured re addresses registered to vote etc then the tax implications of the sales don't add up. Its a 'one or the other is wrong' accusation
    That is nonsense. You can be registered to vote at multiple addresses.

    Someone should ask GMP to investige Mr Daly for wasting police time.
    Providing false information about where you live and are registered to vote to the EC is a criminal offence, that isn't nonsense. I'm not accusing her, just saying what they are being asked to look at
    Unless the process has changed since I was an agent in 2015 candidates do not provide information to the electoral commission - everything goes to local returning officers and they check that the candidate's address on their nomination form corresponds to their electoral register record when papers are submitted. There's no scope for giving a false address, and nor is there any reason for a candidate to do so. At one time candidates' full addresses were printed on ballot papers but this is no longer a requirement, though candidates can still opt for it if they wish.
    The honourable member for Shipley gave an address in Cheshire.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
    So why is TikTok full of 20-year-olds obsessing about anti-aging treatments?
    Errr.

    That's evidence for my point. That's the young being concerned about their health.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,407
    Weather: trick is to man up and just get out there and do whatever you want to regardless. Assume changeability. Don't bank on anything. But don't let it affect your plans.

    You can control if you have the right clothes. So bring and wear the right clothes.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    We are a LOT fatter than we were in the 1960-70s. Look at photos of Brits on beaches back then, there is barely a fatty to be seen

    The contrast between Americans now and then is even worse, of course
    Yes, and going the other way is smoking.

    In the 60s and 70s loads of people smoked so you could have a man not particularly overweight, if at all, but he looked 45 at 30.

    Today, hardly anyone smokes but there are plenty who eat lots of processed shite so obesity is the enemy.
    I don;t understand why the NHS isn't handing out Ozempic and Wegovy. We now have effective pills for obesity. They actually WORK

    OK they are pricey but the money the nation would save, in lifelong healthcare, if we got all the blobs to drop 100 pounds would far outweight the initial expense. Just give them the damn pills!
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    Not just a bit fatter!

    Obesity rates in children are far higher than the Seventies, with all its consequences for diabetes and cancer.


    Quite so, @rcs1000 is DRAMATICALLY underplaying the obesity problem, and overstating the improvements in health
    Indeed. Obesity leads to cascading health problems over time. And if more people are on blood pressure medications blood pressure will appear artificially low.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
    So why is TikTok full of 20-year-olds obsessing about anti-aging treatments?
    Vanity.

    They may not be mentally as healthy possibly?

    Unfortunately I'm no longer youthful enough to suggest that without being an old part.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    edited March 27
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
  • anothernickanothernick Posts: 3,591

    Manchester police re-investigating Angela Rayner council house claims

    Labour’s deputy leader is accused of breaking electoral law for allegedly giving false information relating to capital gains tax on her former Stockport house


    Police are reassessing claims that Angela Rayner broke electoral law after receiving a complaint from the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

    James Daly, the MP for Bury North, said Greater Manchester police had failed to properly investigate claims the Labour deputy leader may have broken the law in the early 2010s when she lived between two council houses in Stockport.

    On Monday the police confirmed that a detective chief inspector had been assigned to reconsider the case, putting pressure on Rayner again, days after she launched a fightback in the media.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-rayner-council-house-tax-manchester-police-labour-party-79pk08rx0

    Obviously giving false information re CGT would be a breach of tax law but I'm not clear why it would be a breach of electoral law?
    False info on the electoral roll/where registered to vote is a crime punishable by up to 6 months or unlimited fine.
    It's that the allegation relates to

    Edit - I believe they are angling that if no crime occured re addresses registered to vote etc then the tax implications of the sales don't add up. Its a 'one or the other is wrong' accusation
    That is nonsense. You can be registered to vote at multiple addresses.

    Someone should ask GMP to investige Mr Daly for wasting police time.
    Providing false information about where you live and are registered to vote to the EC is a criminal offence, that isn't nonsense. I'm not accusing her, just saying what they are being asked to look at
    Unless the process has changed since I was an agent in 2015 candidates do not provide information to the electoral commission - everything goes to local returning officers and they check that the candidate's address on their nomination form corresponds to their electoral register record when papers are submitted. There's no scope for giving a false address, and nor is there any reason for a candidate to do so. At one time candidates' full addresses were printed on ballot papers but this is no longer a requirement, though candidates can still opt for it if they wish.
    The honourable member for Shipley gave an address in Cheshire.
    Perfectly legal - as long as you have an address in the UK (and meet citizenship requirements etc) you can stand in any constituency.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    Yes. But that's not 30 year olds dying, it's 75 year olds.

    My point is that under 40s are dramatically healthier than their parents.
    So why is TikTok full of 20-year-olds obsessing about anti-aging treatments?
    Errr.

    That's evidence for my point. That's the young being concerned about their health.
    Look rcs. Im sure its possible that in the elite areas of Los Angeles and London in which you live young people are pretty healthy. But thats a skewed sample. Go to Rotherham or Sunderland or mid America and your argument doesnt hold water.
  • anothernickanothernick Posts: 3,591
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Since most immigrants are in their 20s and 30s you would expect them to be healthier than the indigenous population, average age over 40. And sick people are less likely to be willing or able to move from their home country.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    What I am saying is not controversial

    We have a lot of immigration from Pakistan. In Pakistan life expectancy is 66

    https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/pakistan-life-expectancy

    If you import a lot of Pakistanis then UK national life expectancy will, on average, decline. Ditto African countries, India, Bangladesh, and so forth. As the migrants assimilate one can hope that their life expectancy will improve, but it won't if they keep importing brides and husbands from the homeland, and it really won't improve if these spouses are first cousins
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
    i never even mentioned Hispanics - you did - so no, I was not "wrong"
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
    Hispanic Americans are not a uniform group and many millions of them are undocumented, so you have to take statistics like that with a pinch of salt.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    What I am saying is not controversial

    We have a lot of immigration from Pakistan. In Pakistan life expectancy is 66

    https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/pakistan-life-expectancy

    If you import a lot of Pakistanis then UK national life expectancy will, on average, decline. Ditto African countries, India, Bangladesh, and so forth. As the migrants assimilate one can hope that their life expectancy will improve, but it won't if they keep importing brides and husbands from the homeland, and it really won't improve if these spouses are first cousins
    Life expectancy at birth is largely determined by childhood mortality.

    But isn't it better to import migrants who die within a year of pension age? Saves us a fortune.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
    i never even mentioned Hispanics - you did - so no, I was not "wrong"
    The vast majority of immigrants to America are Hispanics.
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    What I am saying is not controversial

    We have a lot of immigration from Pakistan. In Pakistan life expectancy is 66

    https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/pakistan-life-expectancy

    If you import a lot of Pakistanis then UK national life expectancy will, on average, decline. Ditto African countries, India, Bangladesh, and so forth. As the migrants assimilate one can hope that their life expectancy will improve, but it won't if they keep importing brides and husbands from the homeland, and it really won't improve if these spouses are first cousins
    Maybe we could send some of the pakistani immigrants to Hampstead so Kinabalu can educate them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
    Hispanic Americans are not a uniform group and many millions of them are undocumented, so you have to take statistics like that with a pinch of salt.
    Also, even if you focus on Hispanics, @foxy is wrong

    The Hispanic nations that send the most migrants to the USA are

    Mexico: life expectancy 70
    El Salvador: life expectancy 71
    Guatemala: life expectancy 72
    Venezuela: life expectancy 71

    The USA has a life expectancy of 77, so if it imports people from these countries then its life expectancy will go down
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Leon said:

    Landed in London!

    A mere 28 hours after my homewards journey began

    Its cold

    It may stay cold and wet for some time 😡
  • TrentTrent Posts: 150

    Leon said:

    Landed in London!

    A mere 28 hours after my homewards journey began

    Its cold

    It may stay cold and wet for some time 😡
    Oh please. We have already discussed that. Global warming innit. Makes the uk climate worse uniquely in the world.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    Do you know that Hispanic Americans have greater life expectancy than white ones? This is despite being in lower SE groups on average. Asian Americans live even longer still.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In 2021, life expectancy for,A study by Jack M.

    Isn't that coz of opioids and Tranq, etc, in America? These drugs overwhelmingly impacted poor white America, first. Little towns in West Virgnia and the like: sending life expectancy tumbling

    However I believe the drug problem is now hitting other ethnicities, too, so we may see similar problems with Hispanics

    The Asian American longevity advantage is not at all surprising - if you mean East Asians. They eat very healthily, they have high IQs, they don't suffer obesity
    A mix of reasons, but on current data Hispanic Americans are healthier, so you were wrong.
    i never even mentioned Hispanics - you did - so no, I was not "wrong"
    The vast majority of immigrants to America are Hispanics.
    Actually not true, either, it is absolutely not the vast majority, not any more

    "Among new immigrant arrivals, Asians outnumber Hispanics"

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ft_2020-08-20_immigrants_04b/

    Not your finest day on PB, eh @Foxy
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    What I am saying is not controversial

    We have a lot of immigration from Pakistan. In Pakistan life expectancy is 66

    https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/pakistan-life-expectancy

    If you import a lot of Pakistanis then UK national life expectancy will, on average, decline. Ditto African countries, India, Bangladesh, and so forth. As the migrants assimilate one can hope that their life expectancy will improve, but it won't if they keep importing brides and husbands from the homeland, and it really won't improve if these spouses are first cousins
    Life expectancy at birth is largely determined by childhood mortality.

    But isn't it better to import migrants who die within a year of pension age? Saves us a fortune.
    You could just not offer them pensions or a pathway to citizenship.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    Good afternoon, everyone

    A documentary about the 1972 bombing campaign of the IRA, made with the cooperation of the IRA.

    Includes Martin McMcGuiness, the man who was never on the IRA Army Council, setting up a bomb
    :
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/xkbwldvmb5/exposed-the-secret-army
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    edited March 27
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Trent said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    If I was under 30 I think that the triple lock would have me looking seriously for emigration. It is an outrageous penalty on the young and poor for the benefit of the old and comfortable.

    The full state pension is currently a meagre £10,600 pa, lower than most (all?) comparable countries, and not much to live on if a pensioner has no other significant source of income. It would be better policy to maintain the triple lock until the differential narrows further, while at the same time using the tax system to claw back much more money from those who also benefit from a significant private/public sector pension and/or large savings.
    It isn't a lot.

    However, imagine a world with 30 people in it. 10 are pensioners. 5 are stay at home parents or otherwise not working. 5 are children. And 10 are in work.

    In that scenario, £10k of every worker's income goes off to pay pensions, before *any* other expenses.

    The issue is not the size of the pension, it is the fact that what was affordable when you had lots of people of working age, and few pensioners, becomes very unaffordable if you have rising life expectancy and a low birth rate.
    The alternative is to raise the retirement age of course (having duly notified everyone as per the WASPI women who seem strikingly uninterested in any news).
    Before we raise the pension age too far, is it actually feasible to have 70-year-old brickies, roofers and firefighters? It's a bit like the PB Covid WFH discussion when we've all got cosy white collar jobs and the most strenuous thing we do all day is open a laptop. How many 70-year-old nurses does it take to turn a patient over?
    Also unless things change, currently life expectancy has peaked and isn't growing any more, actually it might be falling.

    So why is future pensioners retirement age being lifted to pay for current pensioners getting increases?

    Especially given its the boomer generation that is unaffordable and didn't save and public savings for their own retirement despite knowing about the demographics for decades.
    Yes as Foxy rightly pointed out peoples health is now deteriorating. The point foxy made about covid damaging peoples frontal lobes is extremely worrying. We could both be looking at lower life expectancy and economic decline.
    What utter tosh:

    People under the age of 40 are dramatically healthier than their parents, they don't smoke, they dribk less and they are much more likely to exercise.

    If you look at metrics like blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc., then the young adults of today are in dramatically better shape than their parents.
    Have you seen the levels of obesity about now. Your argument may just hold in a global city like London but not in the rest of the uk. Look at photos from the 1970s people were much slimmer. They were also much more active pre computers and smartphones.
    All the data is publicly available, and - yes - we are (on average) a bit fatter.

    But that is literally the only stat that has moved in the wrong direction. Every other measure of public health, particularly for the young, has moved for the better.

    And that's true everywhere in the UK, not just in London.
    British lige expectancy has fared worse than any other major economy 🤷

    https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy
    A lot of this (but not all) is immigration. We are importing people from poor countries with bad health and bad diets, and a tendency to do dysgenic things, so the overall life expectancy goes down, child mortality goes up, and so on

    Ditto America
    "They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing bad habits and terrible diets. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    What I am saying is not controversial

    We have a lot of immigration from Pakistan. In Pakistan life expectancy is 66

    https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/pakistan-life-expectancy

    If you import a lot of Pakistanis then UK national life expectancy will, on average, decline. Ditto African countries, India, Bangladesh, and so forth. As the migrants assimilate one can hope that their life expectancy will improve, but it won't if they keep importing brides and husbands from the homeland, and it really won't improve if these spouses are first cousins
    You strain quite hard to blame immigrants for an awful lot of things. Not sure why. Bit of 'lib baiting' perchance? Yes, very possibly. I prefer that explanation to the main alternative anyway.

    Just reading Trump's quote again, though, it's pretty hilarious. "They aren't sending their best. They aren't sending YOU," he says ... directly to the teeming mass of bottom drawer knuckle-draggers who make up his MAGA rally crowds.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,652

    Weather: trick is to man up and just get out there and do whatever you want to regardless. Assume changeability. Don't bank on anything. But don't let it affect your plans.

    You can control if you have the right clothes. So bring and wear the right clothes.

    We would not be the country we are without our weather. It is a glory.

This discussion has been closed.