Author Topic: Retire at 100  (Read 7006 times)

RWD

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Retire at 100
« on: February 14, 2015, 07:28:37 PM »
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/02/09/a-retirement-age-of-100-its-coming/

Some interesting stuff in there, but their conclusion is all wrong...

kathrynd

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2015, 07:44:03 PM »
Interesting story.

We do have a lot of people living well into their 80' & 90's...
Future generations, I am not so sure about, because of the obesity problems plaguing our countries.

Should the life expectancy continue to increase, retirement age will also need to be increased.

There is no excuse for any average  healthy,able bodied  20-30 yr old to not be FI  by the time they reach Retirement age.
...well actually, they will have plenty of excuses...most of  them start with they spent all their money on 'wants'.


lizzie

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2015, 06:31:56 AM »
I was startled to read the claim that a baby born today could live to 150 or beyond, with no source or explanation or anything. That's decades beyond the lifespan of the oldest living humans today.

MrsPete

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2015, 08:59:17 AM »
Multiple thoughts:

- A couple months ago, leafing through a magazine in the doctor's office, I read that HALF of the babies today could expect to live to be 100 years old.  I don't even remember the magazine (it was a baby magazine /new parents magazine), but I was surprised and question whether this could be true. 

- We can look around us and see that 80 and 90 year olds today are more numerous and more healthy than 80 and 90 year olds I remember from my childhood.  However, at the same time, I can accept the argument that today's 80 and 90 year olds grew up eating vegetables and walking to school . . . where as so many small children today are being raised on a steady diet of Happy Meals and TV shows.  We can see the increases in obesity, diabetes and more . . . these things will have to affect tomorow's 80 and 90 year olds. 

- Note that this increase in lifespan is connected to financial status.  Not all socio-economic groups are enjoying this longer, healthier lifespan.

- I totally agree with the article's conclusion:  If we as a society are living longer and traditional pensions are no longer "a thing", it behooves us to reconsider the financial side of retirement.

- I question whether his mid-article facts are truthful, especially the unsupported idea that we're suddenly going to almost DOUBLE our lifespan to 150 years. 




mydogismyheart

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2015, 03:00:22 PM »
Interesting story.

Future generations, I am not so sure about, because of the obesity problems plaguing our countries.


This is what is expected.  Those who work in nutrition and other health fields are saying that the current generation is the FIRST generation that is expected to NOT live as long as the previous generation.  It's not just obesity but it's also all the garbage in our food as well.  Hormones, GMOs, tons of crap.

I don't know that I see 150 being impossible. I mean, I don't see how it's possible, but if you look back the last several hundred years you will see how medical and nutritional advances have helped people live longer.  There were time periods where the life expectancy was only 50 or 60.  Go even farther back and it was younger than that.  I bet back then they thought it was insane to live to be 100.  Will be interesting to see how that pans out.  Although, I may be dead by then. LOL

KodeBlue

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2015, 03:16:01 PM »
Think of this- how many posters here can remember their great-grandparents? when I was growing up it was rare for a great-grandparent to be alive when a child was born. In the last couple of years our congregation has had 3 bat or bar mitzvahs where a great-grandparent was present. If someone takes care of themselves modern medicine has made life expectancy much longer.

Static Void

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2015, 03:26:38 PM »
Increase in lifespan is happening. How much is an open question, but that is the trend.

I think it's dubious that "working longer" in the current sense of the word is the correct, or even viable, resulting social change. We need fewer and fewer farmers. We need fewer and fewer workers of any sort.

We can keep making up new useless jobs for a little while (like advertising executive, social aggregator, and software engineer, to name just a few blights on our society) but really, come on.

People don't need jobs, they need 2000kCal per day, and a warm dry place to sleep. Should be easy.

caliq

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2015, 03:31:47 PM »
Think of this- how many posters here can remember their great-grandparents? when I was growing up it was rare for a great-grandparent to be alive when a child was born. In the last couple of years our congregation has had 3 bat or bar mitzvahs where a great-grandparent was present. If someone takes care of themselves modern medicine has made life expectancy much longer.

I'm 23.  My great-grandma was born in 1899, moved in with my parents after outliving her only daughter and her husband in 1989, lived at home with us until 2001ish, and then passed away in a nursing home in 2003 less than week before her 104th birthday.  Thanks for bringing this up and giving me cause to think of her -- always puts a smile on my face :)

She never learned to drive or how to use the microwave (there were several instances of melted plastic things when I was too young to know not to ask her for help...).  She still raked leaves and vacuumed and cleared rocks from the backyard, despite my parents' protests, well into her late 90s.  She grew up on a midwestern farm and as far as I know, was a small farmer with her husband until he died in the 1960s or 70s -- so very physically active and likely eating very healthy farm-to-table type food.

I think you're absolutely right that it has a lot to do with taking care of yourself, but it's also very dependent on genetics.  She never had cancer, or any sort of neurodegenerative disease; she was clear minded until the very end. 

Unfortunately I think, as a lot of people have mentioned here, that subsequent generations haven't taken as good care of themselves throughout their lives, and that the trends we're seeing right now won't continue.  The group of people currently pushing the boundaries are in the unique position of being old enough to have spent a good portion of their lives eating relatively healthy whole foods and being physically active, but young enough to be benefiting from the exponential advances in modern medicine.  Sad to say, I don't think it will last.

kathrynd

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2015, 08:26:50 PM »
When my husband and I travel, we like to look at old graveyards.
There were still a lot of people reaching relatively old age, a long time ago.
The discovery of antibiotics has made the largest difference,I think, or they could have longer.

I'm 54, but plan on living to 104.
I don't smoke, rarely drink, and try my best to eat a good diet.

My diet is improving, as I read more about nutrition.
I don't want to take supplements, but would rather get everything I need thru diet.
Plan on adding wheat germ,flax, chia, and nutritional yeast...

One thing I found helpful, is keeping track of everything I eat on my Cron-o-meter (google it)
It shows me what I am lacking, so I can try to improve.

Eating 1200 calories a day, is pretty easy for me, but the challenge is making the best food decisions.

If certain foods are shown to contribute to diabetes and heart disease, I assume, it probably works for others like cancer, macular degeneration, alzheimers etc.

Even if a calorie reduced diet doesn't increase longevity, hopefully it will increase the quality of life.

deborah

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2015, 08:33:49 PM »
My great aunt died at 105. She couldn't really hear, and she couldn't really see, but she was 103 when she moved into assisted living. Before that she lived in the same house for 84 years that she had moved to when they married. It was on the top of a hill, and she walked down the hill to the shops, and walked back up each day.

I'm not sure I'd want to live that long not really being able to see or hear.

marty998

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2015, 09:26:20 PM »
Up until very recently, life expectancy in the west was increasing at a rate of 4 months EVERY YEAR. We've added 13 years to the average life over the last 40 years.

I say very recently, because the kids of today are fat. And fat kills people early through cardio-vascular disease and various types of cancer.

Should we be able to reverse this fatness afflicting us, I don't doubt that one day people will live to 150.

Wasn't too many generations ago (15?) that living beyond 50 was considered a grand old age.

MrsPete

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2015, 08:18:33 AM »
Several disjointed thoughts:

- I'm mid-40s, and I can remember my great-grandparents well. 

- It was only last year that I lost my last grandparent.

- I totally agree with the comment that antibiotics are a big reason we're living longer, but they don't necessarily help you live healthier, at least long-term -- they just get you past an infection.  Two more things that ought to be lumped together with antibiotics:  Vaccinations and medical assistance in childbirth.  After all, we no longer fear polio, and I don't personally know any woman who's died giving birth -- yet those were very real fears only two generations ago. 

- Keep in mind, too, that average can be a confusing term.  If you look at my family history, you'll see that the men tended to die 55-60, while the women lived to near 100.  So you might say that my family was averaging 77ish years, but that wouldn't really be truthful.  (Interesting note, in the last 15 years we have learned that my family carries a deadly-but-until-recently-unknown blood disorder which affects -- you guessed it -- almost exclusively men.  Since treatment is simple, the younger men in my family have every opportunity to avoid following this family trend.)  How many children in the past failed to make it to age 5?  Their numbers brought down the life expectancy average. 



RetiredAt63

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2015, 12:18:33 PM »
Average life expectancy is a loaded term, in that most people do not use it correctly.  It means nothing in terms of what age people have reached when they "die of old age".  It means what it says, what is the average of all ages of death.  So if a society/country has lots of babies dying before 5, and lots of women dying in childbirth, plus young men dying of all sorts of things, you are going to have a low average life expectancy.  They are offset by the elders living to their 70's, 80's and 90's - there just aren't that many of them. When a society removes those causes, average life expectancy goes up. 

What is more meaningful is looking at life expectancy given a certain age (i.e. you survived those hazards.  Of course, once you hit your 30's, family history and your own lifestyle choices are going to have a huge impact on your life expectancy.

This paper (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/oca-bac/sp-ds/Pages/jcm20140110.aspx) is really interesting, it breaks things down by several criteria).   It looks like things are stabilizing (slide 3).  It has all sorts of other interesting stats for those who like this kind of analysis.

maizefolk

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #13 on: February 16, 2015, 01:54:09 PM »
I came here to make some of the same points as RetiredAt63. Life expectancy has been going up a lot, but a big proportion of the gains have come from reducing infant mortality and causes of death in early to middle age (appendicitis, infected wounds, illnesses guarded against by vaccination). If you look at the modal age of death (the age at which the largest percentage of people die), it's actually changed a lot less and has stayed somewhere in the 70s for at least the past couple of centuries. See the two fascinating charts here showing the distribution of age at death for people in england in the mid 19th century and late 20th century: http://www.longevitas.co.uk/site/informationmatrix/mortalitytransformation.html

TL;DR version: Access to modern medicine drastically increases your odds of surviving from birth to 80 but has made much less progress at increasing the remaining life expectancy for someone who has already survived to 80.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2015, 05:04:43 PM »
Yes, after 80 (or 70) it is your genes and your self-care.  And since we have these years (assuming we make it to 60) let's enjoy them and be in good shape (financially and physically) for them.

As a therapy dog team we visit a senior's residence once a week.  Some residents are really active, out half the time, doing all sorts of things, and some barely leave their rooms for meals.  I want to be in the first category, and then die in my sleep at 95.   I had a great-uncle who made it to 100.5, it is possible.

maizefolk

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2015, 09:15:52 PM »
It's a good goal, best of luck to you!

And that's a good point, there's a huge range in how much people able to participate and enjoy their lives in those final decades that isn't so easily quantified with mortality tables.

deborah

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #16 on: February 17, 2015, 03:19:09 AM »
Average life expectancy is a loaded term, in that most people do not use it correctly.  It means nothing in terms of what age people have reached when they "die of old age".  It means what it says, what is the average of all ages of death.  So if a society/country has lots of babies dying before 5, and lots of women dying in childbirth, plus young men dying of all sorts of things, you are going to have a low average life expectancy.  They are offset by the elders living to their 70's, 80's and 90's - there just aren't that many of them. When a society removes those causes, average life expectancy goes up. 

What is more meaningful is looking at life expectancy given a certain age (i.e. you survived those hazards.  Of course, once you hit your 30's, family history and your own lifestyle choices are going to have a huge impact on your life expectancy.

This paper (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/oca-bac/sp-ds/Pages/jcm20140110.aspx) is really interesting, it breaks things down by several criteria).   It looks like things are stabilizing (slide 3).  It has all sorts of other interesting stats for those who like this kind of analysis.
As a dissenting point of view, look at http://www.aga.gov.au/publications/life_table_2010-12/downloads/Australian_Life_Tables_2010-12_20141212.pdf - the Australian Life Tables I was reading a few days ago. Page 7 and page 8 use a logarithmic scale to show improvements in mortality at various ages since 1885 in Australia.  Even at age 85, mortality has more than halved for both men and women in that time - which I consider to be an amazing improvement. Most of that improvement has been since 1970. People who are 65 have doubled their life expectancy - from about 75 to about 85. The really interesting tables are on pages 13 - 15 showing the changing distribution of life expectancy from birth and from age 65.

ote: sometimes I have trouble going directly to a PDF - see http://www.aga.gov.au/publications/#life_tables and open the first PDF in the Life Tables section.

GuitarStv

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #17 on: February 17, 2015, 08:29:57 AM »
I don't want to live that long anyway.

I have relatives in their late 90s.  It's not a pretty picture.  Your body goes, your mind goes, you're alive . . . but you're no longer really living.  Yes, I'm aware that there are the occasional mentally still there and not crippled elderly, but they're few and far between.  Spend some time in a nursing home and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Early retirement is really the only way I can see to enjoy freedom in life before biology screws you over.

Jack

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2015, 09:50:23 AM »
"Whether your great-grandparents were still around" sounds to me like a useless measure of longevity. My parents were almost 40 when I was born, so I only remember one out of four grandparents, let alone great-grandparents. In contrast, my wife was born when her mother was a teenager, and is now almost 30 and still has a great-grandparent alive. It seems to me that having four generations alive at the same time is much more likely to be caused by a family trend of having children young, not necessarily living longer.

caliq

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2015, 01:48:18 PM »
"Whether your great-grandparents were still around" sounds to me like a useless measure of longevity. My parents were almost 40 when I was born, so I only remember one out of four grandparents, let alone great-grandparents. In contrast, my wife was born when her mother was a teenager, and is now almost 30 and still has a great-grandparent alive. It seems to me that having four generations alive at the same time is much more likely to be caused by a family trend of having children young, not necessarily living longer.

And also impacted by life choices of the individuals.

I was talking about my great grandmother who lived to practically 104 upthread -- but I was born when my parents were 31/32 and only one of my natural grandparents was alive at that point.  The other three died of lung cancer :( Actually, so did the fourth, but not until five years ago or so. 

deborah

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2015, 02:00:04 PM »
My mother's parents married young (not for the time, but definitely for now). My father's parents married old for the time (they waited for the first world war to end). My mother was the first born. My father's parents waited for the farm to be supporting, then had their first child. Then a swaggie set fire to the property, and everything went up in flames, so they waited until they were back on their feet to have my father. As a result, my father's parents were the same age as my mother's grandparents. I do remember three of my great grandparents.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Retire at 100
« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2015, 11:10:24 AM »
deborah - yes longevity is also going up for those who made it to their 50's and 60's, how much depends on the country and the socio-economic groups in that country.  Some of the other parts of the paper I posted look at that.  I am not seeing the men having heart attacks in their 40s and 50s that I saw among my friends' fathers when I was a teenager, so that group seems to be living longer. I was more concerned with misusing average age at death because it is so misleading.

I am fortunate in that most of my family members who made it to old age were mentally sharp to the end, or almost the end.  I have hopes . . .

 

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