Panto_Villan

Yeah, okay. That’s only 12 years of data but if you’re making the point that anyone born in 2011 (which is when the pension rules came in) has had an unfair time of it then yes, I agree. There’s been a decline in life expectancy and they have to work three years extra, and perhaps even more in future. But if you’re talking about changes to the pension age you also have to bear in mind that the 65 pension age was set in 1948 when average life expectancy was 69, and it has increased a lot since then (in every part of the UK). The retirement age should have increased gradually with the increasing life expectancy, but it didn’t - and now the younger generation have to deal with all the increases at once.

I genuinely don't think there's one place in the UK where the age of death has not increased over the past 20 years though, even taking into account the declines in the past five years. Seriously - can you find even one region? The data is all there on the ONS website. Blackpool has the lowest life expectancy in the UK and the graph below is the change over time. Retirement age increased by 1 year in that period, and life expectancy increased by 1.3 years. It's obviously terrible that life expectancy has fallen over the past five years, but it's still nonsense to say that people aren't living longer if you look at things on any reasonable timescale - even when you're talking about literally the most deprived areas in the country, and including the effect of covid-19 in your figures. (yes, I'm aware age of death and life expectancy aren't literally the same thing, but they're very closely related)

The point I was making that sparked this was that tinker said it was a "lazy headline" and untrue to claim people are living longer than we used to. Life expectancy has only been decreasing for the past five years. It's ridiculous to say people are not living longer in the context of a wider discussion about the growth of inequality, rising asset prices and affordability of pensions which are all trends that take place over decades - during which time life expectancies have risen significantly. You need to measure both things over the same time period; and it seems like you agree with that at least. The data I posted was taken from here, which I assume is drawn from ONS data. The numbers in the previous post were from the ONS website directly, I believe. I wasn't really making an argument about infant mortality beyond the fact it won't have a huge effect on the average life expectancy of the UK because relatively few people die at that age. It's currently at 3.7 per 1000 births. When I say it hasn't got far to fall, I mean it statistically - it's literally not possible to reduce an infant mortality rate of 3.7 per 1000 by more than 3.7, so it's never going to be able to dramatically increase UK life expectancy figure like it can in the developing world. I don't particularly want to get sidetracked by talking about infant mortality beyond the statistical effect, and if you were just using it to illustrate causality then that's fine. However, I don't think it's relevant to the point I was making. Ultimately I don't agree with the premise that you can meaningfully argue people aren't living longer simply because it's possible to cherry pick specific time periods or (very) specific geographic areas where the rule becomes untrue. Obviously it's possible to do it, but when we're talking about national trends like inequality or the affordability of the pension triple lock, I don't see why you wouldn't also discuss life expectancy at a national level?

Yeah, but you're twisting the original point Jareth was making, that religous lunatics (which the current Israeli government are) probably shouldn't have access to nuclear weapons. The UK having a state church really isn't the same as having a government with religious fundamentalists in key positions. I think it's fair to say that religion runs Israel, and maybe India and Pakistan and America too. It's not fair to say religion runs the UK, and especially not France. Of course, there's plenty of other countries that also shouldn't have nuclear weapons for different reasons. But that doesn't disqualify the original statement.

It's just an illustration of how you're not necessarily comparing apples and oranges. I'm sure you've worked hard during your life and paid tax and NI while doing it - but ultimately if the next generation are going to have to work hard for even longer and pay more tax and NI while doing it, the fact you've already "paid your way" shouldn't exempt you from sharing any economic pain, right? You're already getting a better deal than if you'd have been born today. The house comparison was just highlighting that the prices of houses relative to earnings have increased hugely over the past thirty to forty years. It was much easier to buy a house back then than it is now, but that point is sometimes lost on older people who think younger people should just save up and buy a house like they did. This is the political problem with the pension triple lock, and it not being means tested. There are an awful lot of boomers who became relatively wealthy simply because they owned a house that massively increased in value, or had some money in stocks, or had a pension that would be completely unaffordable today. There's also a lot of boomers who didn't work jobs that allowed them to benefit from rising asset prices, who live in relative poverty. The triple lock is worth having for people in the latter category. But giving more money to people in the first category is just transferring money from those still working (and who have to deal with buying houses at hugely inflated prices etc) to people who are already very comfortable. It's not politically sustainable in the long term. That's why I said a few pages back I can definitely imagine the pension becoming means tested. It'll suck for me personally, but it's the right thing to do in my opinion.

Hmmm, I don't think you're interpreting the data correctly there. You're right that gains in life expectancy are averages, so a reduction in child mortality increases it without increasing the expected lifespan of an adult, but seeing large movements because of that tends to happen in countries that are still developing rather than advanced economies with good healthcare. Infant mortality is still decreasing here, but it's already low so there's a limit to how much further it can decrease. As for the bolded part - check the data. That's true today, but it was also true in 2010 and in 1980 and for every other year in the spreadsheet. It would only not be true if you're in a country where life expectancy is rising EXTREMELY quickly. The reason why is that any 66 year old alive today by definition is not one of the people who died young and dragged the average down for everyone else. The average life expectancy for a baby born today would probably be closer to 85 or 90 if you stripped out everyone who is going to die before they reach the age of 65 (which is what you're doing when you check the life expectancy of someone who is still alive at 66). It's the inverse effect of child mortality pulling life expectancy down for everyone else; if you survive childhood that means you'll probably outlive the average life expectancy.

I expect you saved up and bought and house when you were younger, too? Do you think it’s just as easy for the younger generation who have to save up and buy a house today?

You can't really talk about huge things like inequality and the affordability of pensions on the scale of a single city, but the life expectancy figures for Birmingham broadly follow the same trend as everywhere else. You're right that life expectancies have declined over the past five years, but even if you take that into account then they've still increased significantly overall in recent decades. Men today live 2.2 years longer than they did in 2001.

It's not a lazy headline. Life expectancy hit a peak in 2019 and has been declining since then, but it's clearly still increased significantly since the 1980s. Men would have expected to live 5 years after retirement in 1980, and now they'd expect to live about 12 years if they retire at 66. That's clearly a huge difference. Your points about inequality do seem like lazy headlines though - it has increased significantly since the 70s, but not to the extent that it's causing all the social issues you're ascribing to it, and it has barely changed at all in the last 15 years. In fact inequality has fallen since the 90s in general (the earnings of the top 1% have held up, but haven't really increased over the past 15 years). People are living longer and the boomers (who were a large population bulge) reaching retirement age means that the number of working people relative to the number of retired is increasing significantly. And the steadily rising asset prices over the past 50 years that sustained the pensions of the older generations are now reaching the point where similar future returns are impossible; e.g. house prices can't keep going up forever because fewer and fewer people can afford to buy them. Which means more costs will fall on the younger generations who have to support the current retirees. Feels like you're picking facts to suit a narrative rather than the other way around. There's several bigger problems than inequality in our society imo.

Sure, a lot of investment will be required to make that happen. But in any sensible world that money will be raised by increasing taxes on the most well-off in our society, which is generally (though not exclusively) the older generations due to the many decades of rising asset prices they enjoyed throughout their lifetimes. I think the assumption that it's a problem for the younger generations is quite indicative of the actual problem - the fact the older generation think they've already "paid their way" and shouldn't have to share the hardship, when the numbers don't back that up at all.

It's just not tenable to describe Britain as "run by a religion" (and if we were, it'd apparently be Hinduism). France is also avowedly secular, and it's the only other European nation with nukes.

Yeah, it's nowhere near the scale of a conflict like WW2 (even for the countries involved) but it's kinda mad this stuff is happening on Europe's doorstep. But then if you went back to 1980 and told everyone that the next major war in Europe would be the two largest parts of the Soviet Union fighting against each other, they'd probably have also been quite surprised about that too.

Read an interesting article on the election today, which points out that whatever happens in the Presidential election the Democrats are extremely likely to lose the senate (all seats up for election in battleground states thus cycle are currently held by democrats), whereas in a close election the Republicans are likely to lose the House. Which means whoever wins is unlikely to actually be able to govern.

They wouldn't be affected by means testing though, most likely - you'd either need income (which comes from a private pension / investments) or lots of assets. If you've got lots of assets then again it's not unreasonable to expect people to sell down to a more normal level before starting to get state support, imo.

That's how it works with most taxes and benefits, right? You have higher tax rates the more you earn, personal tax allowance is lost over £100k of tax, same with child support payments, unemployment benefits etc. If you're earning that much money then you don't need help from the state, and you're expected to pay more in to support the rest of society.

There was talk the Tories and Labour had quietly agreed to not mention the pension issue, because it's a financially ruinous policy that is wholly unfair on younger generations. And it's not even beneficial electorally; obviously Labour now have to pledge to keep the triple lock too. So we've just screwed the country for another term for no reason. As @Davkaus said above, I'd be absolutely astonished if it didn't end up being means tested by the time I get around to retiring. I just don't see the maths working any other way.

There’s pictures of the guy who had his ear chopped off at the mall a couple of days before the attack, so I’m now starting to believe the Russians have got the right people after all. I guess the terrorists didn’t expect to need an escape plan. I honestly can’t believe they allowed themselves to be taken alive. The same bloke is currently having his balls electrocuted, and that treatment is presumably going to continue for the rest of his life. I mean, if he is one of the terrorists who murdered civilians in cold blood then I’m not exactly going to shed any tears for him, but I’m sure there’s plenty of Ukrainian POWs and Russian political prisoners who have suffered similar. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1771945430772851046 Edit: not sure why the tweet won’t embed

Nah, took an hour for the armed response to arrive so the suspects were long gone.

Laughably, the guy with his ear cut off has already confessed on camera to being paid $5000 to carry out the attack. Because ISIS terrorists are totally in it for the money. Poor bastards. I wonder whether the real terrorists are preparing to go on another killing spree right now?

Feels unlikely the terrorists would have let themselves be taken alive; doubt they’ll be under any illusions about how they’ll be treated if they are. So I think those might be four innocent muslims who are going to be horrifically tortured and then probably executed.

I think you’re perhaps mistaking the way things are for the way they should be. Even someone that actively courts publicity is entitled to a certain degree of privacy, no? I feel like potentially life-threatening illness is up there with sexuality in terms of things that people are entitled to keep to themselves. That’s certainly a good way to handle it, but it might not be so simple to do when there’s young kids involved. They might want to give the kids some time to come to terms with it before going to school with literally everyone else knowing your mum might be about to die (perhaps why the news was released after school on a Friday), etc. Clearly it could have been handled much better overall, but I’m not sure the situation is as cut and dried as it was with Charles.

Lost one of my aunts to cancer at a similar age about a decade back, she also had a young family. Really horrible situation for everyone involved, turned so many lives upside down. As controversial as this opinion will be on VT, I hope the royals don’t have to go through that too.

I never said we weren’t capable of defending Britain, I said our forces probably wouldn’t have been up to the job of defending Ukraine. (Which is relevant if people are discussing why NATO hasn’t booted Russia out of Ukraine.)

Ukraine has a far larger (and arguably more capable) army than most European countries do. We shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that our military is far superior to theirs, and we would just be able to steamroll the Russians where they've failed. European armies are more elite and sophisticated, but a lot smaller and generally optimised for fighting insurgents rather than a high-intensity war against a major opponent. The British army only has 150 servicable tanks, and our artillery is in a terrible state. I'm not actually sure our army would have fared better against the Russians than the Ukrainian army did, and quite possibly would have fared a lot worse. Of course NATO collectively is far stronger than Russia is, and that would remain true even if you take out America. So Europe could band together and kick Russia out of Ukraine with military force if we really wanted to, but you shouldn't kid yourself that it would be easy work - we'd take significant losses doing it. Minefields work just as well against British or French troops as they do Ukrainians, and Russian air defences are numerous and formidable enough that we'd lose a lot of planes knocking them out. We might need to recruit and train additional soldiers, and we'd need to actually move our economies to a war footing in order to sustain the military action. So the answer to "why doesn't NATO just kick Russia out of Ukraine?" is probably less about the threat of nukes, but the expense and number of deaths that would result from doing it. It could be done, but rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure there's much appetite for taking such drastic steps over Ukraine (I think the calculus would be different if Russia attacked a EU or NATO country).

Yeah, I remember reading that too. It's certainly an interesting point and I do agree with it broadly - although the existence of the fundamentally warlike Klingons in the original series kinda implies that humanity might be forced into conflict even if the Federation itself has become the utopian ideal? To be fair, I do appreciate the way that DS9 used the wartime setting as a space to explore some of the ethical quandries of war / colonialism / etc too, which I think is far more authentic Trek than the newer series (like whatever that one with Jason Isaacs was) that just seem intent on making bad action flicks instead.