AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[emordnilap]

Its like listening to members of the dodo tribe go on about over population of birds, and coming up with reasons not to lay eggs for the sake of the planet.

Yeah, a bit daft. They should have shot humans instead.

[biffvernon]

If you actually read the whole article you find the answer to the posed question, Why have the white British left London? has little to do with the 'white' and more to do with the growth in affluence of what was once the poorest segment of the population.

Shame on the BBC for the cheap headline that could be attractive to the racist.

[UndercoverElephant]

An older population is only a problem if that population thinks they can all retire at an early age and be paid for by the young. Once the older population admits to itself that it can't retire early and will have to work into older age than previously you have no problem.

No problem apart from this takes jobs away from young people and leads to higher unemployment. Every old person who gets a job at B&Q instead of retiring is keeping a younger person out of that job.

[clv101]

No problem apart from this takes jobs away from young people and leads to higher unemployment. Every old person who gets a job at B&Q instead of retiring is keeping a younger person out of that job.

Not really sure about that logic. You could also say every young person getting a job boots out an old person, or every women getting a jobs keeps a man out of that job etc... Unemployment is unemployment, whether you are 26 or 62.

I've no problem with retirement age increasing in line with (healthy?) life expectancy - that's all we're really talking about here isn't it?

[jonny2mad]

If you actually read the whole article you find the answer to the posed question, Why have the white British left London? has little to do with the 'white' and more to do with the growth in affluence of what was once the poorest segment of the population.

Shame on the BBC for the cheap headline that could be attractive to the racist.

if you read further on the bbc article you will find comments from people who say I'm leaving london because its no longer part of england, or it is white flight .



If people says something to the people invading they are called names and jailed, so the only thing they can do is try to move away from the invader, and thats what they are doing .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -live.html

[UndercoverElephant]

No problem apart from this takes jobs away from young people and leads to higher unemployment. Every old person who gets a job at B&Q instead of retiring is keeping a younger person out of that job.

Not really sure about that logic. You could also say every young person getting a job boots out an old person, or every women getting a jobs keeps a man out of that job etc... Unemployment is unemployment, whether you are 26 or 62.

The logic is simple. If everybody retires at 65 then X (everybody who retires) number of jobs need filling, either by direct replacement by a much younger person, or by a chain of people shuffling between jobs. If instead, half of X continue to work until they are 75 then X/2 fewer jobs become available to anybody else. And the people who will be at the sharp end of this are young people looking for their first job.

My point is that if you try to solve these demographic problems by raising the retirement age and expecting people to work until they drop then there will be a price to pay in terms of unemployment because there will be more people competing for the same number of jobs.

[re]

if you read further on the bbc article you will find comments from people who say I'm leaving london because its no longer part of england, or it is white flight .

The plural of anecdote is not data.

[Little John]

No problem apart from this takes jobs away from young people and leads to higher unemployment. Every old person who gets a job at B&Q instead of retiring is keeping a younger person out of that job.

Not really sure about that logic. You could also say every young person getting a job boots out an old person, or every women getting a jobs keeps a man out of that job etc... Unemployment is unemployment, whether you are 26 or 62.

The logic is simple. If everybody retires at 65 then X (everybody who retires) number of jobs need filling, either by direct replacement by a much younger person, or by a chain of people shuffling between jobs. If instead, half of X continue to work until they are 75 then X/2 fewer jobs become available to anybody else. And the people who will be at the sharp end of this are young people looking for their first job.

My point is that if you try to solve these demographic problems by raising the retirement age and expecting people to work until they drop then there will be a price to pay in terms of unemployment because there will be more people competing for the same number of jobs.

Yes, and young unemployed people cost more in benefits than older retired people because they are more likely to have kids to support and, in turn, a bigger rent to pay to house them. In other words, in the absence of an increase in jobs per capita, moving the pension age upwards simply moves the benefit bill to a more expensive part of the population.

[jonny2mad]

if you read further on the bbc article you will find comments from people who say I'm leaving london because its no longer part of england, or it is white flight .

The plural of anecdote is not data.

White flight is a well known phenomenon thats been happening at least since the 1960s in europe and america, would you like to live somewhere where you feel you have no future and your a outsider .

And no matter what evidence I give biff, hes not going to believe it

[PS_RalphW]

The two problems are the declining supply of economically productive jobs and how to divide them among the workforce, and the increasing number of old people who can no longer work and require paid care services because they either have no offspring, or the offspring have moved away, or refuse to relinquish their own jobs to care for parents.

So we are faced with finding a mechanism that redistributes wealth from the economically productive (a declining proportion of the workforce) to fund a larger workforce of carers for the old. This is a societal problem, a question of either increasing taxes on the productive workforce, or mining the stored wealth of the retiring demographic whilst realising that the total wealth available is contracting year on year, and the nation has global debts which are ultimately unpayable in a finite world. Raising the retirement age for the healthy is a necessary but not sufficient requirement.

Current policy is to import cheap labour from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. This cannot continue and will eventually reverse.

As someone who is simultaneously facing a declining inheritance from paying the cost of my parent's nursing care whilst planning the best way of investing (my spouse's) inheritance to fund our own retirement and pay for my adopted children's continuing (not necessarily higher) education needs whilst working in a declining sector of the economy on a steadily declining real income, it is a subject I have considerable interest in.

I recognise that the most socially just solution my not be to my personal greatest advantage, but it is question all societies will have to answer in the coming decades.

I have just calculated that for the first time in 20 years my family income has declined to the point where it has met expenses coming the other way. Time for a financial review...

[re]

Hey Jonny,
Off Topic but where is that Friedrich Nietzsche quote from in your signature? Just wanted to see it in context.
I tried googleing it but all I got was powerswitch and a neo-nazi site.

[Little John]

Hey Jonny,
Off Topic but where is that Friedrich Nietzsche quote from in your signature? Just wanted to see it in context.
I tried googleing it but all I got was powerswitch and a neo-nazi site.

Well there's your answer

[kenneal - lagger]

..........
My point is that if you try to solve these demographic problems by raising the retirement age and expecting people to work until they drop then there will be a price to pay in terms of unemployment because there will be more people competing for the same number of jobs.

The answer is that people should work shorter hours and thus more people should be employed to do the same amount of work. The cost of employing people would have to be reduced, NI and such taxes would have to be redistributed onto other taxes, to encourage this.

This would free up people to grow more of their own food so we would be putting some farmers in the UK, Spain and Africa out of jobs but that would enable those farmers to do other things like grow fuel. That would also imply the provision of more allotments or garden space but that is not unachievable.

[clv101]

The answer is that people should work shorter hours and thus more people should be employed to do the same amount of work. The cost of employing people would have to be reduced, NI and such taxes would have to be redistributed onto other taxes, to encourage this.

This would free up people to grow more of their own food so we would be putting some farmers in the UK, Spain and Africa out of jobs but that would enable those farmers to do other things like grow fuel. That would also imply the provision of more allotments or garden space but that is not unachievable.

Spot on! It's madness to be taxing employment as high as we do when the unemployed are an abundant resource and simultaneously tax other things, especially non-renewable resources so lightly.

If the basic rate of tax was reduced from 20% to 10%, people would quite happily work for less (whist maintaining the same take home pay) allowing the employer to employ more people.

[jonny2mad]

Hey Jonny,
Off Topic but where is that Friedrich Nietzsche quote from in your signature? Just wanted to see it in context.
I tried googleing it but all I got was powerswitch and a neo-nazi site.

Off hand I can't remember, nietzsche speaks out against compassion quite a lot mainly in the context of being critical of Schopenhauers's ethics .
in Thus Spake Zarathustra he speaks out against compassion and things like pity and mercy .