OVERSTAYING ONE’S WELCOME

Pensions don't worry me or Mr Blair (Tom Utley, The Telegraph, November 18th, 2005)

What a blessed generation we belong to, compared to those before us, who had to suffer the deprivations of the war years, and the generation now growing up. My heart bleeds particularly for the young, saddled with student debt and with no hope, most of them, of getting their feet on the housing ladder. Even our grotty flat in Battersea would be beyond the means of most 26-year-olds, except for those with rich parents or swanky City jobs.

It is this poor, put-upon generation that Lord Turner and Mr Blair now expect to look after us pampered baby-boomers in our increasingly protracted old age. As time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer people of working age, supporting more and more of us oldies. Huge numbers of those who are made to pay more towards their own pensions will not even live to claim the fruits of their savings. On current projections, no fewer than 970,000 of the under-50s will die before they reach Lord Turner's recommended retirement age of 67.

I cannot believe that the report's proposals will solve the pensions crisis. All that they will do is push the problem further into the future, imposing ever-increasing burdens on succeeding generations. They will also leave pension funds at the mercy of politicians, who have shown that they cannot be trusted to keep their hands off them.

The best, the most public-spirited, solution to the pensions crisis is clearly the one that I have adopted myself: breed lots of children, so as to maintain the balance between the young and the old; and then drink and smoke yourself into an early grave. We baby-boomers picked a wonderful moment to enter the world. I don't like to end on a gloomy note, but the way things are going for the country, the best moment for our exit may be sooner,

More: Geneticists claim ageing breakthrough but immortality will have to wait (Ian Sample, The Guardian, November 18th, 2005)

A genetic experiment to unlock the secrets of the ageing process has created organisms that live six times their usual lifespan, raising hopes that it might be possible to slow ageing in humans.

The geneticists behind the study say the increase in lifespan is so striking, they may have tapped into one of the most fundamental mechanisms that controls the rate at which living creatures age.[...]

The research is a big step in a small field that has been progressing at pace since the advent of the new tools of genetics. Another paper published today in the US journal Science describes the discovery of 10 new genes that are thought to regulate longevity in yeast cells. "Even though yeast is a simple, single-cell organism, it's still capable of revealing mechanisms in the ageing process," said the study's lead researcher, Stanley Field of the University of Washington in Seattle.

According to Dr Longo, studies in animals are likely to continue for the next 10 years before tests in humans. If the same genetic mechanisms prove to exist in humans, he believes it could lead to drugs that suppress ageing, particularly after people have had families.

Were drugs to become available that dramatically extended lifespan, the social impact of a population boom could have serious consequences for homes and pension provision.

Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist at Cambridge University and advocate for therapies that greatly extend life, believes that while the problems should not be underestimated, it is unethical not to pursue anti-ageing research.

Imagine the joy and serenity of a seniority in which everyone younger views you with simmering resentment and dreams of lawful ways to get rid of you.