January 25, 2020

"I customarily killed old women. They all died, there by the big river. I didn't used to wait until they were completely dead to bury them. The women were afraid of me."

Said "a man from the Aché, an indigenous tribe in eastern Paraguay," quoted in "What happens when we're too old to be 'useful'?" (BBC).
As another anthropologist, Jared Diamond, points out, the Aché are hardly outliers. Among the Kualong, in Papua New Guinea, when a woman's husband died, it was her son's solemn duty to strangle her. In the Arctic, the Chukchi encouraged old people to kill themselves with the promise of rewards in the afterlife....

Some think we'll need a more radical shift in our attitudes to old age. There's talk of retirement itself being "retired". Perhaps, like our ancestors, we'll be expected to work for as long as we're able. But the varied customs of ancestral societies should give us pause, because they appear to have evolved in response to some discomfortingly hard-nosed trade-offs....

Once we relied on elders to store knowledge and instruct the young. Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?
That last line made me think of this article about Joe Biden I was just reading in The Washington Post, "Joe Biden unspools an endless supply of ‘Bidenisms’ on the campaign trail":
His expressions hark to a humble upbringing in Scranton, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., drawing attention to middle-class roots with sayings that anyone can live by: “Without your word, you’re not a man” (his dad); “As long as a person’s alive, they have the obligation to strive” (his mom).... “My dad had an expression... He said, ‘Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect.’ ” “My father used to say, ‘, the greatest sin of all is the abuse of power. And the ultimate sin, the cardinal sin, is for a man to raise his hand to a woman or a child’ ”... The family sayings are another iteration of Biden’s unique speaking style, one that is injected with a “folks!” here, a “not a joke!” there and a “here’s the deal” everywhere....
Maybe I need to hope the younger people feel a longing for that sort of folksy oldie thing.

108 comments:

rhhardin said...

I didn't used to wait

Use to wait. Did already puts it in the past. No use to try to put it further in the past with the past tense of what should be a bare infinitive.

JML said...

Maybe I need to hope the younger people feel a longing for that sort of folksy oldie thing.

That's why I'm here...

Michael K said...

Back in the day, PNG had no problem with juvenile delinquency as unruly teenagers were usually eaten. Then cannibalism was banned.

gilbar said...

What's THE BIGGEST PROBLEM facing the World?
That's Right! Over Population!!

But people (misguided people) continue to say:
"If there aren't more young people, WHO will pay for all these Old People on Social Security?"

CLEARLY, the Problem isn't "Who will pay SS?" The Problem is
HOW, do we efficiently (and greenly) GET THE FUCK RID, OF ALL THESE OLDSTERS???

Do you that people on Social Security contribute NOTHING to our economy?
Do you realize, MOST Trump voters are OLD?

If we KILL everyone that is over, say; 45... ALL OUR PROBLEMS WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF

rehajm said...

“If you’re paddling a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None, because ice cream doesn’t have bones!”

Another Bidenism from the campaign trail. I don’t know if that’s true, but...

Ryan said...

I was in Wilmington,DE this week for a court hearing. Not a very nice place.

Shouting Thomas said...

Sold my house in Woodstock 3 years ago and bought a house with my daughter and son-in-law.

I have a very nice garden apartment with double doors leading out to a patio and garden. My 3 grandkids live upstairs.

The grandkids saved me from living out my days as a mourning widower. What a delight it is to hear them laughing and running every morning.

They don’t need my wisdom so much as they need a lap to sit in for hours on end and relief from Mom and Dad, whose job it is to constantly correct their behavior. Mom and Dad need the breaks, too.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Some tribes in new Guinea and Borneo eat (I'd say ate but there's suspicion this still occurs) their dead elders as a form of respect and communion with the ancestors.

Since we'll all be dying of climate change shortly, I can imagine sitting around a fire passing on wisdom to my sons as we eat congress members.

"I know it's a Schiff sandwich son, but everyone's gotta take a bite"

stlcdr said...

To Biden: “Ok, boomer.”

Big Mike said...

Some think we'll need a more radical shift in our attitudes to old age. There's talk of retirement itself being "retired".

BBC? You mean those folks over in the UK who ration access to healthcare by age? That was Obama’s schtick, too, when he was pushing Obamacare — that red pill/blue pill business.

Leland said...

Once we relied on elders to store knowledge and instruct the young. Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?

Grandma corrects the bias from the schools and Wikipedia.

traditionalguy said...

Before the Trump ascendancy, this pagan tribal custom to stop wasting resources on the old was being inserted into our culture at the highest levels. The Universities were funding new Departments that normalized doctrines on how to weaponize Medical Ethics meant to convince family members to have their elderly family members refuse medical help and kill themselves. And that is 100% a fact.

Sebastian said...

Althouse! Bidenisms vs. Trumpisms: compare and contrast. You can do it!

Hypothesis: Trumpisms are less folksy and braindead-grandpaish, more funny, self-aware and obviously hyperbolic, more in-on-the-joke respectful of the audience.

Freeman Hunt said...

"who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?"

Is that a joke? The schools are terrible.

rcocean said...

All that old wisdom didn't seem to help Hunter Biden much. But as my Uncle Fred used to say: Never have sex without a condom. And never do business with Corrupt Ukrainian oil men.

rcocean said...

Trump is an outlier. He's a billionaire with the common touch, and an old person who doesn't seem old.

Original Mike said...

"and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?"

The schools couldn't teach my 8 year old granddaughter arithmetic. They gave her special help and she still struggled miserably. Two weeks after I started tutoring her, she's acing all the tests. Turns out she's not stupid, the schools suck. I don't think my daughter will be offing me anytime soon.

rhhardin said...

You want old people because retired people are the only trustworthy sources of truth. Cancel culture doesn't work on them.

rcocean said...

Yep in old tribal society old women were useless. Old men are more valuable. The flip side of when young, then young women are the most valuable, and young men are expendable in battle. Now that I'm over 55, I'm glad things have changed but we need to get rid of these over 80 types clogging up the Judiciary and top political offices. We don't need people who graduated HS when Ike was President, running the country and the culture.

rcocean said...

Solyvent Green for peeps over 75. There's a lot to be said for it.

Paco Wové said...

"The schools are terrible."

As is Wikipedia.

Fernandinande said...

And the ultimate sin, the cardinal sin, is for a man to raise his hand to a woman or a child’ 

Joe Biden denied Communion

William said...

How old do you have to be to recognize the extremely high b.s. content in Biden's comments? Who here had a father that passed along such sage wisdom? Even when my father was sober, he had very little to say about the dignity of labor. It just wasn't a big topic of conversation. I wonder if young people realize how full of it Biden is.

WK said...

Perhaps retirees will be forced to provide labor for all the free programs being offered by the Democrats. Or there will be a government work requirement added in order to receive social security. Really. How can people expect the government to pay them social security if they are not contributing.

jaydub said...

Some other Bidenisms daddy Joe should have passed on to his own kids:

1. Crack is for losers.
2. Don’t boff your sister-in-law.
3. If you must boff your brother's widow, wait until you are divorced from your first wife
4. Buy some rubbers before going to a strip club.
5. Stay out of Ukraine.

Could have saved everyone some problems.

Anonymous said...

But the varied customs of ancestral societies should give us pause, because they appear to have evolved in response to some discomfortingly hard-nosed trade-offs....

You can tell when the media is gearing up to propagandize for a particular policy (euthanizing the useless old) when they pretend to care about "discomfortingly hard-nosed trade-offs". Otherwise they're very, very adept at ignoring any discomforting truths and necessary trade-offs that make their own preferred policies unworkable.

Once we relied on elders to store knowledge and instruct the young. Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?

Of course, you probably do need Grandma more than ever to tell you where, why, and how schools and Wikipedia are full of shit. That "nobody in the past knew anything now worth knowing" is itself perennial revolutionary ideological bullshit that perenially leads to disaster, and it might be useful to have old people around to make you aware of that.

rcocean said...

Would it be better if we just killed everyone at a certain age, like 80? Then you'd know the day you were going to die. You could plan ahead and avoid terminal illness. You'd just put a little reminder on your calendar: "80th birthday, time to die".

Fernandinande said...

"What happens when we're too old to be 'useful'?"

I think a lot of people either forget, or never knew, that the lives and societies of "hunter gatherers" are more similar to the lives and societies of chimps or wolves than they are to those of people who can type.

rcocean said...

"Of course, you probably do need Grandma more than ever to tell you where, why, and how schools and Wikipedia are full of shit."

Plus Old people have books. Which can't be erased or deplatformed by Big Tech.

rehajm said...

Grandmas no catch either...

William said...

I think nowadays the experience of old people makes them stupider rather than wiser. I know that's true in my case. I have a shaky understanding of what's happening in the world around me or what particular gadget or app offers a way out of my befuddlement....On the plus side, I did succeed in making sufficient money before I became obsolete to insure a comfortable retirement and the respect of all those who wish to be remembered in the will....Does anyone ever really learn anything on their long fool's journey to the grave? You're just stupid in different ways at different stages of the journey.

jaydub said...

Most of our problems could be solved by killing off the Malthusians, perhaps starting with Greta. What could be more old school progressive than the selective culling of the weak and mentally challenged?

traditionalguy said...

Old Man Trump is closing in on 74. And his energy runs most of the world's politics. Hmmm?

Robert Cook said...

“If you’re paddling a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None, because ice cream doesn’t have bones!”

Where did you get this???

When I was in high school in Jax Beach, FL (1969-1973) a classmate of mine asked a joke riddle that I assumed he had made up, and I have always remembered it verbatim as he told it: “If a canoe lands in your back yard and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes does it take to fill up the doghouse? None, because ice cream has no holes.”

Did he get it from a common public source?

wendybar said...

Kill all the Babies and all the old people. Is that what they Democrats are going to try next?? Would not surprise me in the least. Just think of how much the government can save for their healthcare (more abortions!!!)

Lurker21 said...

I can just about hear Biden Sr. saying, "A job is more than a paycheck." That is something a parent who went through the Depression might say. The rest of the quotes sound made up.

But I don't see the larger point here. We "don't need" older people because we have "schools and Wikipedia," yet we keep them around. The traditional tribal society that supposedly benefits from their traditional wisdom gets rid of them. They get what they need from the elderly early and then dispense with them.

Apparently we moderns have more tolerance of people who have outlived their "usefulness" and maybe more of a desire for "traditional wisdom" than those tribal cultures.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Some old secular Boomers might live to regret the decline of Judeo-Christian values. Because there really is little practical value to keeping grannie and gramps alive.

Original Mike said...

"There's talk of retirement itself being "retired"."

Sorry, I ain't going back to work.

WK said...

“ My dad had an expression…”
My dad didn’t have expressions or sayings. I learned from his example. He worked 42 years in the steel mills in Cleveland. Started as a brick layer and moved up to skilled electrical trades. Shift work when I was growing up so sometimes not seeing him for days at a time as he provided for our family. Worked 6 day weeks at the end of his career because it was cheaper to pay overtime to existing workers than hire more. Work is hard. I did 2 summers while in college in the mill so have an appreciation for the environment and danger of the work. He always came to school and sports events and played catch in the yard. He demanded respect for our mother and showed her respect. I didn’t learn from what he said - but from the example he set. Actions versus words. I hope and try to do as well with my family as he did for us.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Biden's father was a used car salesman so

Bruce Hayden said...

“Some tribes in new Guinea and Borneo eat (I'd say ate but there's suspicion this still occurs) their dead elders as a form of respect and communion with the ancestors”

That is a really bad practice. One big problem with cannibalism is that appears to spread prion based diseases. It is though that that is where Mad Cow disease comes from (cows eating cows). Humans appear to react similarly to earring their own kind to bovines. It may be better though if you skip eating the brains. Interestingly though, it doesn’t seem to be a problem with some species where cannibalism is common, such as brown bears, and I think lions, it is possible that they have developed a defense or immunity from prion based diseases of this sort over millions of years. We haven’t yet.

jaydub said...

I'm over 75 (as of yesterday,) but if someone is going to "eliminate" me they had better pack a lunch and bring a first aid kit because it's going to be an all day job and he will likely suffer some blood loss before he finishes. Besides, my four grandkids would be disappointed if I was no longer around to pay their way through college.

Beth B said...

Ok Boomer, time to enter the Logan's Run carousel. How dare you destroy all those childhoods and dreams, and expect to be allowed to live past your usefulness? You're taking up resources. Gaia weeps! The time for action is now. That mass extinction Greta is always banging on about starts with YOU!

Original Mike said...

"Besides, my four grandkids would be disappointed if I was no longer around to pay their way through college."

Nah, they'll just take your money. That's what Warren and Sanders are all about.

Mary Beth said...

To Biden: “Ok, boomer.”

He's not a boomer, he's from the Silent Generation. (Isn't that ironic?)

Lucid-Ideas said...

@Bruce Hayden

Yeah. There's even reports as recent as 2019 of Huli and Fore headhunting still going on (and ritualistic warfare cannibalism) in New Guinea.

There's video on youtube from just last year, some of which got taken down, of one such battle happening on the main street in a provincial capital...with bows and arrows!

mockturtle said...

Rcocean asserts without a shred of evidence: Yep in old tribal society old women were useless. Old men are more valuable.

Old women can still cook, sew and spin yarn. Old men can only spin yarns.

So far as teaching the young is concerned, the 'knowledge' children acquire in schools and on the internet today is a blueprint for future disaster.

Maillard Reactionary said...

"Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?"

OK, that simplifies matters. So now since we have Wikipedia, we're all set. But where's poor Jared Diamond going to work, now that no one needs to know anything that you can't look up online? Will he have to learn a trade? Heaven forbid.

This "anthropologist" seems not to understand the economic differences between a stone-age subsistence culture and our (vastly wealthier) market/technology based culture, which has a 2500-year (roughly) legacy of human achievement behind it. Which we've inherited largely through, you know, books and stuff.

What a moron.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

He said, ‘Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about a big paycheck from a Ukrainian energy company. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. and making those around you respect your treachery...'

fify.

Fernandinande said...

You're just stupid in different ways at different stages of the journey.

I'm pretty sure you swiped that from Confucius.

gilbar said...

mockturtle said...
Rcocean asserts without a shred of evidence: Yep in old tribal society old women were useless. Old men are more valuable.


Now You Two :)
There's no point in picking nits! We Don't LIVE in an old tribal society!!
In our Brave New World, Old Men are JUST as useless as Old Women!

Once we KILL everyone over 55, everything will be taken care of

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

With Federal control of health care, there is no longer a "health care" sector of the economy. Doctors, nurses, the nursing home janitor, X-ray machine manufacturer, are all work in the "government sector."

All those government jobs depend on keeping old folks alive and comatose. Old people, and their presence on the voting rolls, are of huge importance.

Likewise, it is misleading to talk of the "education" sector of the economy. Those too are "government" jobs.

mockturtle said...

Angle-Dyne observes: You can tell when the media is gearing up to propagandize for a particular policy

Indeed! The media went into full 'war whoop' mode when our military involvement in Vietnam was imminent, showing more war movies than usual, and always in a positive light. And it was my grandfather who pointed that out to us.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

TRADITION!

mccullough said...

Too bad Biden’s dad didn’t tell him: “Tell your fucking Cokehead Son to pay child support. If that useless piece of shit doesn’t do it, then you step up and take care of the kid. If you don’t, then you are a piece of shit, too.”

n.n said...

planned parent.

Night Owl said...

Be afraid... The kids are coming...

Tom T. said...

I suspect that the killings disproportionately focus on old *women* because it's just assumed (as it is in our society) that it's natural for men to die first and women to outlive them.

William said...

My dear old dad, before he passed away, always used to tell us never to play poker with a guy named Doc or go to bed with a woman with more problems than you. I think he might have picked that up somewhere, but he passed it on to us. Also, I remember like it was yesterday that he told us " This above all else: To thine own self be true and never plagiarize a speech from Neil Kinnock. He's just too well known." Also, he used to tell me to take out the garbage. It wasn't a metaphor or anything. He wanted me to take out the garbage.

DanTheMan said...

>>My father used to say, ‘, the greatest sin of all is the abuse of power.

His dad also used to say:

"Making the whole family rich through self-serving political connections and insider trading is just peachy, Joey boy."

DanTheMan said...

>And the ultimate sin, the cardinal sin, is for a man to raise his hand to a woman or a child’ 

His dad also used to say:
"But if you LOWER your hand to feel up little girls, that's OK."

DanTheMan said...

>>When I was in high school in Jax Beach, FL (1969-1973) a classmate of mine asked a joke riddle that I assumed he had made up,

Cookie, the correct answer to that riddles is "No soap. Radio!"

mockturtle said...

My grandfather wisely counseled us to 'never put all of your money in one bank' and proceeded to explain the bank collapses of the Great Depression.

Michael said...

"Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?"

Information comes and goes, knowledge dates quickly, but wisdom is long-lasting and hard to come by. As a society we now seem uninterested in wisdom, but that's why we need Gradma.

mockturtle said...

Information comes and goes, knowledge dates quickly, but wisdom is long-lasting and hard to come by. As a society we now seem uninterested in wisdom, but that's why we need Gradma.

Well said, Michael. Knowledge is not equal to wisdom. Neither is intelligence, for that matter.

AZ Bob said...

I have noticed in some native cultures that it is the women who carry the water and it is the men who pray for rain. Which is more significant?

AZ Bob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

"My dad had an expression... My father used to say..."

My pappy said, "Son, you're gonna' drive me to drinkin'

If you don't stop firin' that that prosecutor Shokin

TJM said...

Ann,

How is your racist Sami Schalk doing? It is profs like that who diminish a universities reputation

Darleen said...

Biden may be quoting his parents, or making it up .. but too bad he never lived by any of those words.

Darleen said...

One things books can't give you is the personal experience of actually living in that time before you were born.

I loved listening to my grandparents talk about their growing up and experiences as a young adult. My grandpa (b 1901) left school after the 8th grade & with two friends worked their way across the country from PA to CA. He then went to work for the Hal Roach studios.

My own late father (b 1928) was living on his own at 15 while attending Los Angeles High School.

I treasure copies of letters I have from a 2x great grandfather written while he was with Union troops during the civil war and a letter from a great-uncle written while he was recovering from the horrendous treatment he received from Germans after being a POW during WWI.

History books tend to cover the macro events and biographies tend to be of the big movers & shakers of those events. Eyewitness accounts bring so much more to the table.

JAORE said...

My father passed along a lot of wisdom. It took me a few years to recognize it as wisdom. But, hey, that's the way of the world.

But I'd have had my brain screaming BULL SHIT if his words were as diametrically opposed to his actions as Joe Biden's.

My Dad was a good man. I was extremely lucky.


Point two, someone forgot to hide the truth about the noble savages.

Narr said...

Jared Diamond didn't say "who needs Grandma when you have schools and Wikipedia?" At least I can't get that from a careful reading of the BBC article. It is a moronic statement but it's not Diamond's.

The great Steyn pointed out years ago that the modern age, particularly in America, has produced concepts that earlier societies never had-- retirement, teenager, award shows . . .

My own father (1923-1961, a decorated bomber pilot in WWII) worked hard as long as he could; he did the best he could for his four sons but he wasn't one for ageless wisdom.

I've advised my own son that he has to be useful to others in order to help himself, not to sit with his back towards the door, and that womens' tears are a very common element in this Universe.

Narr
For his 18th birthday I gave him a hardcopy of the US Army FM 21-76

bagoh20 said...

Mr Biden, why did your son, with no experience or qualifications, get such a rich position with a company in the Ukraine while you were Vice President?

"C'mon man!"

Ken B said...

The Democrats are trying to build a caste system. Old deplorable whites will be the lowest caste, with obvious consequences. And yet I'd be willing to bet that certain old white folks will still be allowed to live.

Roughcoat said...

The movie Midsommar addresses these issues. It's a Shirley Jackson-esque horror movie, very good, creepy in a way that stays with you.

bagoh20 said...

My dad died when I was 17. There are only two quotes from him that I can remember and they happened on the same occasion. Once I asked him for $20 to take out a girl. After he gave it to me, I thanked him for it. He said, "Don't ever thank me. I'm your dad, and it's my job to give you what you need." I never agreed with that, even then, and I don't know why he said it, but he did drink a lot. Then he said: "Be respectful and show her a good time, and don't come home smelling your finger." Sometimes parents expect too much.

Roughcoat said...

Actually earlier (pre-industrial age) societies did have what could be categorized as a variant of the concept of retirement for the elderly.

They didn't have the concept of the teenager per se, but they did recognize that there was such a thing as adolescence and that it was a transitional period, a time of sturm and drang, and an especially difficult age for boys. The ancient Greek philosophers had a lot to say in this regard and their observations hold up today. They were acutely aware of the problem of juvenile delinquency. The Spartans dealt with it by organizing their adolescent boys into murder squads sent out at night to randomly terrorize and kill the Helots. The Persians understood that adolescent boys needed strong male supervision and had to be given something to with a purpose. See what Xenophon says about this in "The Education of Cyrus."

bagoh20 said...

Ladies, remember this: the Second Amendment is the only thing that can protect you from the tribe, or some member of it, deciding you are just a burden on the rest of us and need a good strangling. Protect it or you have no protection.

Roughcoat said...

The Spartans also dealt with the problem of juvenile delinquency by having adult men, the Spartiates, sodomize pre-pubescent and adolescent boys and girls. This was the Spartan way of forcing the youngsters to accept the Spartan way with its harsh inflexible discipline and obedience to authority. Basically the Spartans butt-fucked the rebelliousness and individualism out of their youth. For that reasons I found the movie "300" amusing because it portrays the sodomizing homosexual men as macho heterosexuals and the hypermasculine Persians as sexually deviant homosexuals. When in fact the reverse was true for both groups.

Marc in Eugene said...

Boris Johnson may know it, but I'd wager six talents of gold that no one now sitting in the Congress, or working in the President's Exectuive Office, has read amd learned from the Cyropaedia.

Lee Moore said...

One thing the oldies could think about would be to get their retaliation in first.

If "usefulness to society" is the key thing, then maybe two thirds of college students should start watching their backs.

Of course, our society has solved this "usefulness to society" problem long ago. You work and save money to acquire property. When you're old your "usefulness to society" comes from being a property owner. You start selling down your property in exchange for services which the younger folk provide voluntarily. Thereby acquiring property that they'll be able to sell down when they're old.

You only get a fundamental structural problem if you don't have property rights. So let's not go that way.

ALP said...

You have to get older before you realize the outcome of choices made while young. Thus old farts have a lot to teach young pissants about making choices.

Original Mike said...

"Of course, our society has solved this "usefulness to society" problem long ago. You work and save money to acquire property. When you're old your "usefulness to society" comes from being a property owner. You start selling down your property in exchange for services which the younger folk provide voluntarily. Thereby acquiring property that they'll be able to sell down when they're old."

EXACTLY!

Original Mike said...

But the socialists don't want to work for it, like their predecessors did. They want to take it.

Lee Moore said...

The other small point is arithmetic. You wanna go to college till your mid twenties, work till you're 65, and then have a long comfortable 25 year retirememt ? Do the math.

(a) suppose you are a dependent child until you're 14, when you go out to work. You work until 65, then you retire, then at 70 you die. Maybe your great grandparents' life cycle.

(b) suppose you are a dependent child until you're 18, then you go to college until you're 25. At 26 you go out to work. You work until 65, then you retire, then at 90 you die. Maybe your, or your kid's life cycle.

Assume interest rates of 3%, no inflation, no tax, free tuition, no exceptional medical costs in old age. And assume annual pay of 100 while you're working.

If you are to consume the same amount every year of your life, how much of your income, each year of your working life, do you need to save to pay for your childhood and your retirement ? In scenario (a) and in scenario (b) ?

Answer (a) = 41% saving rate required

Answer (b) = 66% saving rate required

If you assume your consumption is lower during your non productive years, say 50% of the rate of consumption when you're working, you obviously get a lower required saving rate for both scenarios. But a much starker difference between hard working great gramp and lazy you.

Answer (a) = 26% saving rate required

Answer (b) = 49% saving rate required

Original Mike said...

I was 30 before I got out of college with my advanced degree, but I did the math. Saved my ass off. Result: comfortable retirement.

Narr said...

Yeah, the Spartans kicked ass, after they fucked it. It worked for them, for a fairly short time IIRC; the oft-mocked Prussian Junker class might be placed in the same category . . .

My ancient/Byzantine history prof--a great old-school act-it-out lecturer--had a recurring phrase for victorious barbarians, who "Swept through the land dishonoring maidens and boys."

He got busted with Kitty Pron a few years later.

Narr
IYKWIM

Roughcoat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Roughcoat said...

the oft-mocked Prussian Junker class might be placed in the same category

The perpetually womanizing officers of the fin de siècle Austrian Army mocked their Prussian counterparts -- whom they hated -- for the rampant homosexuality in their ranks, say they were afflicted with "Potsdam Disease." When the Redl affair broke in all of its deviant grandeur his fellow officers opined that the libidinous colonel had been spending too much time among the Prussians.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Just think if we did that once you hit 70? Goodbye Pelosi, Trump, Shumer, Kerry, Feinstein, Biden, Warren, Bloomberg, Bernie, Grassley, Romney........hmmmm it may be something we should onsider.

Original Mike said...

They'd all get exemptions, Soup.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Good point Mike!

I'm Full of Soup said...

I would exempt Trump myself. He does not act like he's 70.

I'd make Deniro take Trump's place at the Soylent factory.

mockturtle said...

Bagoh suggests: Ladies, remember this: the Second Amendment is the only thing that can protect you from the tribe, or some member of it, deciding you are just a burden on the rest of us and need a good strangling. Protect it or you have no protection.

Don't worry about me, I'm well armed. I'm also an NRA member and write my representatives often on Second Amendment Rights. So far, here in AZ, they are pretty dependable. I worry about TX, though, with all the libs moving there.

Narr said...

Yeah, kill all the oldsters, except those grandfathered in. And you eat old people only as a last resort--more fit for the knacker's yard than the BBQ.

Manchester made a lot of Gay Kaiserdom in Arms of Krupp, and even Nabokov found some fun in the notion of the soldier-queer, with antecedents from the Russian aristocracy and back through Frederick the Great and Karl XII of Sweden.

Narr
Charles the Beloved indeed

n.n said...

Planned Parent. Reduce your burden. Exonerate your lifestyle. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Go Green, Soylent Green.

Roughcoat said...

Charles XII was not a homosexual, he was an ascetic warrior monk. Manchester was a something of fabulist who hyperbolized his World War II experiences and bragged to his readers that he had an abnormally large penis.

Roughcoat said...

But Friedrich was indeed a poof.

Josephbleau said...

America is so great that it offers a path for people of all inclinations. You can retire on very little money if you get one acre and a shack in west Texas with an old truck to get you 5 miles to the Walmart. Alternatively you can save a fraction of your income and live like a king for 20 years.

gerry said...

By all means, let's return to pagan, pre-bourgeois sentiments concerning old age and physical debilitation. We can also expose infants not murdered pre-birth. We can make these things part of reparations packages, forcing those seeking damages for the benefits of civilization to return to their desired lifestyles.

Joanne Jacobs said...

Two words on the utility of grandmothers: Free babysitting.

I do not believe Biden's father discussed the "abuse of power" with his children.

My father told me: "Never laugh at your own jokes."

Josephbleau said...

My father told me: "Never laugh at your own jokes."

Thus, in a stroke, denying Man his greatest pleasure.

Robert Cook said...

"I would exempt Trump myself. He does not act like he's 70."

True. He acts like a spoiled five year old.

Bob Loblaw said...

You want old people because retired people are the only trustworthy sources of truth. Cancel culture doesn't work on them.

You can't have a Marxist society with all those old people remembering how much better things were before the Great Leader took over. These people want to get rid of grandma because as long as she's around they don't control the past.

Caligula said...

"euthanizing the useless old ..."

Well yes, but the euthanasia will be "voluntary."

And why is such a thing necessary now? Because Climate Change.

Skeptical Voter said...

Joe has a rich fantasy life and spews a lot of malarkey. All of those sayings are true and correct, but somehow I don't think Joe absorbed the lessons.

Skeptical Voter said...

All that Joe remembers--and all that he has to offer---is malarkey.