On: Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth (By Milton Friedman)

[mattmaroon]

You have it backward. The percentage of people living into old age has not changed significantly. The average lifespan from birth has, but that's not relevant to SS. The average lifespan of someone who enters the system (an adult, at let's say age 18) is the same.

The percentage of people who live from the age of 18 to the age of 95 will not be higher than 40 years ago, in fact, it may be lower.

[justindz → mattmaroon]

This is an important point you've raised. In particular, lowered infant mortality combined with a poor grasp of statistics makes it look like you and I are living longer, even when those infants that might have died before could end up keeling over at 30 from health problems and we might die a few years earlier than we were likely to a few decades ago.

Also, people who are living longer as a result of advances in life-saving surgery are doing so in poor health as a result of the reasons for the increased necessity of these surgeries such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Increasing the retirement age in this context could mean attempting to employ a bunch of people not fit to be productive, in a worst case scenario.

[mattmaroon → justindz]

I blame it on the government for citing the worthless stat in the first place. They rarely express it as anything other than from birth expectancy. They should mention it from some stable age like 5, then simply show infant mortality stats separately. Though I guess they don't want to do that because we have one of the worst rates in the developed world.

[justindz → mattmaroon]

Congress is good at fund raising, not math.

[Retric → mattmaroon]

The average lifespan has not changed much once you hit 18, but your chances of dieing between 30 and 40 have gone up where your chances of dieing between 60 and 70 have gone down. I need to find and old actuarial table from the 50's to show compare with today.

Edit: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html

I should say the odds of hitting 100 from 1 are about the same but the odds of hitting 100 from 65 have increased.

Male death probability with some comments by me:

  01) 0.000513 
  06) 0.000182 
  11) 0.000104
  12) 0.000156	
  13) 0.000273  (wow big jump suicide?)
  14) 0.000435  (some car)
  18) 0.001061  (more car)
  21) 0.001361  (full car)
  23) 0.001438  (peak of early death risk)
  31) 0.001367  (still car)
  41) 0.002629  (start of heath issues?)
  51) 0.005657
  61) 0.012966
  71) 0.030131
  81) 0.075724  
  91) 0.199019  	
  101) 0.388563

PS: Old age is bad for your heath but 21 vs 31 is about the same because it's mostly accidental death aka car accidents. Just watch the increase from 14 till 23.

[mattmaroon → Retric]

That's not worth much in and of itself. It has to be compared with past data to be relevant to the argument. Also, it would have to be that 18-65 has gone down while 66+ has gone up. Seems highly unlikely to have done so significantly.

[Retric → mattmaroon]

Still looking, but I found one for japan: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hw/lifetb04/2.html

  1955: 40 and live to 60 = 71%;
  2004: 40 and live to 60 = 88%; 
  1955: 60 and live to 80 = 32%;
  2004: 60 and live to 80 = 64%;

Edit US: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005124.html (Looks like deaths are down per 100,000 people but I can't find the right tables.)

Edit: Got it: Even more old people in the US: 1990 vs 2000: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0905042.html look at Percent change in the over 75 age range. The US population was not growing anywhere near that fast.

[mattmaroon → Retric]

That's not showing anything about life spans, just the baby boomers getting older. It's the retiree to worker ratio shifting as they age.

[Retric → mattmaroon]

Baby boomers are not that old yet. These are the number of people over 75 in 2000 vs 1990. 1990 - 75 = 1915 and before vs 1925 and before.

95 years and over + 34%. Are you suggesting that there was a 34% population boom between around 1885 and 1905?