Just as GLP-1 drugs hit the mainstream, the last of us Baby Boomers hits the minimum Social Security retirement age (1964+62=2026).
Working-age slaves pay taxes to fund Boomers’ Medicare. These costs will increase because GLP-1 drugs are expensive. Working-age slaves pay taxes to fund Boomers’ Social Security (our beloved Ponzi scheme). Boomers will now live 10 years longer because they’ll all be back to their design weight via GLP-1. A Boomer who lives longer will drain Social Security, thus forcing those of working age to pay higher tax rates and/or receive lower benefits themselves (maybe those of current working age will become eligible for Social Security at age 85?). A Boomer who lives longer in a state such as California will hog prime real estate due to Proposition 13 that caps property tax increases on long-held real estate (we have the same thing in Florida, but it is limited to a primary residence). Boomers who are mostly blind will inflict massive traffic jams on those of working age by going for jaunts in their self-driving cars, thus stealing time from the working age Americans who support the comfortably retired.
Here’s the latest expensive drug (Retatrutide) that the working age slaves will have to buy for us Boomers:
Google AI: “Experts estimate the monthly cost could range between $1,000 and $1,500+ once available. … Phase 3 trials are expected to conclude in Q3 2026, with potential commercial release following afterward.”
Novo Nordisk apparently learned from history:
LOL! This means boomers need to contribute to the working-age population in the form of soft currency, via wisdom, writing books, socializing, etc., and by telling them whether work, and hard-currency, is really the most important thing in life.
> via wisdom
So they are planning on acquiring that some day, or what?
The notion of generational warfare is absurd and disingenuous (as well as toxic), yet here we are. It’s as absurd as the monoculture, synthetic pharmaceuticals under discussion here. The Silent Generation actively undermined the lives of their children, when they weren’t neglecting them. One room school houses seemed a much better idea, if they did have to insist on forced schooling. Some Asian immigrants I knew growing up abandoned the idea of traditional idea extended families living together as soon as they passed through the American mis-education system (AKA, warehousing for the damned.) Like the rows of trees in original European “curated” monoculture forests, very orderly but not healthy — abstraction taken too far.
> back to their design weight
Achievable and much more sustainable through a natural diet and exercise.
People try to put us d-, down,
Just because we get around.
Things they do look awful c-, c-, cold,
I hope I die before I get old.*
— The Who, My Generation
* An unfufilled hope for 2/3 of the writers, stuttering Daltry (82) and Townshend (80) are still around — Entwistle died in 2002 at 57 from a cocaine-induced heart attack.
> So they are planning on acquiring that some day, or what?
LOL!
> Some Asian immigrants I knew growing up abandoned the idea of traditional idea extended families living together as soon as they passed through the American mis-education system […]
Oh, it has been abandoned in parts of SE Asia, at least in India, as well! There’s a strong effect of the American culture in India, but I believe the abandonment is because of a lack of independent and realistic thinking. People in India don’t seem to learn that from the Americans for some reason.
“Ask your doctor about Ozempic”
I’ve got a little secret to share about America’s real strength — weaponized marketers. How else could you convince a people who developed a diet with an integrated preventative medicine system (ayurveda) to chow down at Micky D’s? China, too. Find out how to disarm the American marketing machine, and Indians will probably go back to living amongst their family again. Just say “no”, and brace for the impact:
I seldom reciprocated, but I have always had a type of female admirer. It usually began with two females looking at me, giggling, and followed by an earnest “my friend likes you”. Every single time I found out they were marketing majors. For people so pushy, they are very shy IRL. Realtors, web analytic grrls, drug reps, aircraft mockup models.
I heard a lot of “ewww, no you are an unkempt hippy” from the popular girls, but marketing chicks just never took no for an answer without resorting to a campaign of hate, as per their instinct and training. I married a woman from a 3rd world country that didn’t have TVs and is immune to advertising of any kind, except cola. She doesn’t even recognize the Oscar-Meyer bologna ad, which I have memorized.
Sure, I agree with you on everything.
Nobody is pressuring India to leave its preventative medicine system. AFAIK, these were developed when ‘Gyana yoga’ or Buddhism were popular, i.e., when people made less emotional decisions, or when they weren’t manipulated so easily by the cognitive biases used by advertisements to manipulate people.
If a group of emotional people disarmed the American marketing machine, they would direct those same emotions toward something else. Maybe to boycott things from United States that actually benefit them. Then someone would have to redirect those emotions elsewhere so that they don’t self-sabotage.
I have thought long and hard about this, and this is what I concluded:
1. There’s some force of Nature that gives birth to people of a certain disposition, emotional/rational, at different times and in different places.
2. When people start making emotional decisions, they always need a guiding hand so that they don’t self-sabotage.
Perhaps this ditty is relevant, I associate it strongly with my marketing admirer “grrls”:
When I say I love you, you say “You better!”
You better you better you bet
When I say I need you, you scream “You better!”
You better you better you bet
Or love is going to cut you
Just like a knife
— Pete Townshend, You Better You Bet
Like these girls hacking-in to the love-centers of the brain, the marketers are jacking-in to some low-level motivational neuronal pathways (the so-called “novelty response” from neurological theory). It’s what they do. Call me old-fashioned, but the “original profession” makes me queasy. Most anything that has to be advertised is suspect and worthy of scrutiny, and we should.
Stopped dating long ago, so haven’t kept up on the current state of obesity. When you’re not dating, everyone seems skinny. When you’re dating, as a lower income male in silicon valley, everyone seems obese.
Fasting is free, quick-acting, and can be done anywhere by anyone. Why is it not pushed as a realistic alternative? I suppose it would get in the way of nonstop consumption, though.
Phil tell me honestly and I’m not being snarky. Is it possible to kill SS in our lifetime?
Anon: I don’t think it would be possible to terminate the program due to its political popularity and, also, because the alternatives might be worse. Since it can print money, the government is actually not a terrible insurer of last resort for longevity risk. Note that there really isn’t any private market equivalent to Social Security. Insurance companies sell annuities, but they’re not typically inflation-adjusted like Social Security. The worst part of Social Security is probably SSDI. That’s what enables families to spend four generations without anyone working.
> That’s what enables families to spend four generations without anyone working.
I guess that would make SSDI a safety net turned perpetual funding for disabled dynasties.
Approx. 10 million people in the U.S. are getting SSDI benefits. Kind of like covering all of Manhattan with a safety net for a reno in midtown. Probably have homeless people camping on it all over, as it extended into Long Island and Jersey.
I’m too dumb to ever figure out how to get benefits, even if I was disabled — so I’m just a payor. I don’t have disabled people kind of money for a lawyer to feed at the trough.
I’ve got fingers crossed if they shutdown social security that I will at least get my lifetime of premiums back. Hardy, har, har.
Maybe these healthier, long-lived Boomers will use have fewer health-related expenses?
Mitch: That’s impossible! The tobacco companies saved states huge amounts of money because “treating” lung cancer at 65 was way cheaper than paying a pension until age 85 and then paying to “treat” some other form of cancer. The health care system will still have a $2 million end-of-life festival for each of us, whether we live to 55 or 155.
I remember watching “Thank you for smoking”, but don’t remember hearing this argument in the film.
“Atkinson and Townsend (1977) noted that the financial benefits the British National Health Service would enjoy if there was a 40 percent reduction in smoking in Britain would be more than offset by the increased cost of retirement pensions. … Many estimates of the effect of smoking on the total demand for health care services in the country find that it is small in the long run. Smokers certainly experience more health problems per year of life, but this is offset by the fact that they live fewer years. With a lower incidence of smoking, there would be more elderly who require additional health care services. The reduced demand caused by the improved health status of the former smokers is offset by the extra care needed by the additional elderly. There might be some initial reduction in the demand for health care if smoking was reduced. The improvements in health status would presumably occur before the age structure was significantly altered. However, in the long run the two effects offset each other. … Table 8.3 indicates that the Social Security cost of smoking is smaller for single women than for single men. In general single women get a higher rate of return from Social Security for two reasons. First, they have longer life expectancies, and, second, they have lower earnings and the system is progressive. … The real internal rate of return for two-earner couples in which both smoke is 2.95 percent, whereas it is 3.68 percent if neither smokes. … The aggregate implications of our results are that smokers “save” the Social Security system hundreds of billions of dollars.”
— https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11584/c11584.pdf
(Note that “hundreds of billions of dollars” was in 1989 dollars. So that’s over $1 trillion in today’s mini-dollars.)
That is really cool!
> […] second, they have lower earnings and the system is progressive
This is also noteworthy. My overall observation from Sweden was that in a welfare state, being naturally close to the mean would give the most personal happiness.
Maybe a way to swing Republicans around on the cannabis issue. Just think of all the money we’ll save on Social Security with increased lung cancer in potheads, assuming we only make flower legal. “That sickly sweet smell, folks, is the smell of saving money.” Think, GOP, think. Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senicide
> Just think of all the money we’ll save on Social Security with increased lung cancer in potheads, assuming we only make flower legal.
LOL! Ssshhh! Potheads may wisen up and start ingesting weed, LOL!
Looks like the flower can be heated (decarboxylated) to make edibles:
https://www.rootsciences.com/blog/cannabis-decarboxylation-101-everything-you-need-to-know/#Why_decarboxylation_is_necessary_for_edibles