so will i be working until i'm 80 then?

[southeastastra]

wouldn't be surprised

I'd be quite happy working all my life, it's good to be busy but I think from about 60/65 I'd want/need to go to part time - 3 days a week would be good.

all these new diseases are appearing that we never had 50 years ago. Our food is full of additives, pesticides and chemicals

it's on BBC 1 News now , work til you drop and the pension timebomb

Incidentally the solution for low life expectancy in Glasgow isn't to keep everybody elses retirement's age low even if it is unaffordable - it is to make the lot of people in Glasgow better.

The way to do that sustainably is by encouraging companies to set up there, bringing work and jobs.

The way not to do it is to perpetuate dependency on welfare.

Maybe you need to bring in the actuaries longfingernails. That's what the private sector does.

To be honest, the men dying at 55 in the East End have been written off by the state and in the present political climate I don't think you'll find much will to make things better for their children and grandchildren.

There is another way of course. We could accept that we need to pay more tax.

blimey in france they are marching over this, here we just go 'oh well maybe it needs to happen'

southeastastra that is always the way, we always get stuffed because we just shrug our shoulders and accept it. The French can't push these policies through so easily.

Ok, well I suppose you could run it that if, at say 60, it was likely that you would be dead within the decade then you could start collecting a state pension. If not, you wait until 68, 70 whatever.

Just as at the moment if you go to buy an annuity and you have something that puts you at higher risk of earlier death (such as being male, having a life threatening condition such as cancer, being a smoker) you get a higher annual amount.

SuziKettles, they are not going to be so generous, they won't do you any favours, they want to squezze the last drop from you

it was only introduced at that age then because they didn't expect you to make it. Now that you have made it, they are pissed, and want to extend it

Well unless they bring back workhouses they're going to have to give something to the 60 somethings that aren't skipping about enjoying their second youth and thinking about a part time job in B&Q.

they'll bring them back if it means they can avoid paying out. There'll be a convenient financial crisis and they'll say there is no other way, just like they are saying now.

I'm personally quite happy to work until 70. I'm hoping I'll be healthy, I'm hoping there'll still be some sort of work for me.

To be honest, it makes financial planning for long term things like personal pensions and mortgages a little less scary.

i don't think they do live longer pickle

I never expected otherwise, tbh.

It's not really sustainable for anyone to kick around not working 30 years developing more and more expensive health problems unless they're very very rich.

Hmm workhouses are potentially expensive what with the gruel etc. I'm sure we can come up with a better way to deal with the economically inactive section of our society.

Soylent green anyone?

SuziKettles 70 is just the start, the socialists were planning for 68, Harman etc., the new govt. is just accelerating it. The train is on the same tracjk just going a bit faster. The French kid in the demo was right "non a la retraite a 110 ans", no to retirement at 110

euthanasia, every week there is another news report about a doctor who did something similar and was only struck off.

Wasn't there some talk a couple of years ago that life expectancy may well start going backwards due to child obesity, us insisting on pickling our livers at all cost, cost of medical advances likely to make them unavailable to the vast majority of people - and to publically funded health services?

So maybe the future's not completely bleak - just weather this storm of golden oldies and we'll be back to carking it at 50.

I think so, that's if you survive the MRSA etc.

I used to work (many years ago, in the early-mid 1970s) in a civil service dept where loads of people retired early on generous index-linked pensions.

Most of those people are probably still alive (in their 70s/80s now), still raking in massive pensions, & there are a lot of them out there.

However, they will all die at some point, won't they? NB I'm not recommending euthanasia for them (much ) but, as that generation gradually stops taking money from the state over the next 10-20 years, that will surely mean that the burden on the rest of us will diminish?