Terrel L. Shields
Elite Member
- Joined
- May 2, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified General Appraiser
- State
- Arkansas
We are living longer...kept alive by medication, interventions, machinery and operations...we are not genetically improving the species. In fact, by intervening at birth, we are making humans weaker and more prone to debilitating diseases like heart disease.
In 1920 if you developed a heart condition (the biggest risk factor in heart disease is, in fact, genetics, not healthy eating and living) you usually died in a few years period. The first attack probably killed you but if not, # 2 or 3 would. Likewise, diabetes was a death sentence. Nevertheless improvements in medicine have allowed a lot of people to continue living a very long time. As I write, I am waiting to hear from a friend who was taken off life support. He has been on dialysis for 2 plus years after developing kidney and bladder cancer. He was "healthy" until then and working. He is also seventh day adventist and was a "health nut" who did not smoke nor drink.
die anyway...my best friends mother developed Alzheimers when she was 54. It took 8 years to die at which time she had been curled up in a fetal position for about 4 years. My brother golfed every day he could get out. He died of Shy Drager syndrome...how prevalent is that? All 3 of the above have something in common. The cost of care was astronomical. In the first 2 it bankrupted them and the state paid much of the cost. In my brother's case, he was able to keep his insurance after retiring and the total bill in the last year of his life was over $1,000,000. Some part of that was paid in part by the taxpayer because the insurer dumped those costs off on Medicare ASAP.. My bro turned 65 3 months before his death. I am sure if an early diagnosis of any of the above, the outcome would have been much the same. In my brothers' case, I am confident that the employer would have found an excuse to fire him had they known of the disease, which is basically undiagnosible in the early part of its cycle - it's always mistaken for Parkinson's.
One other disease needs mentioned. Arthritis is very common and generally develops later in life (in my case I was diagnosed when I was 18.) Anyone who works outdoor work will find it can reach a point you cannot do your job. Carpenters are rarely 60 years old. Some are savvy enough to become a foreman or run a small company but they can no longer stand 8 hr. a day. Go into a meat packing plant. See how many are over 55. Not many.
Exercise will help arthritis but is no cure and if it is centered in your knees, "jogging" will be painful and eventually that pain means you simply should not and cannot continue...knee replacement surgery might or might not improve the condition.
Looking in my own family, people have had to quit work of a certain type time and again because of arthritis. A woodmill worker; horse trainer; a nightwatch that had to make rounds up and down stairs; standing on feet all day at Wal-Mart; carpenter work; mechanic on heavy machinery; and, even myself, I could not go back to the oil field and do exactly the same kind of work without hiring the rigging up and down be done by someone else.
That is the problem. The older worker is the risky worker health wise and therefore, is the potentially costliest. Someone asked what it took to be a manager for Wal-Mart and the reply from someone who was one, went something like this, "You need to be stupid enough to think that they will take care of you for life and healthy as a horse because they are going to work you like one...in other words you need to be young and gullible."
Yes, plan on a "second career"...at much lower income level and hope beyond hope that you live long enough to have the government pay for it. Nevermind the fact you've paid in enough to SSI and Medicare over the years to have bought a lifetime of care.
And if the skills you trained for in college are only going to serve you well for 15 - 20 years before that "transition" is required, then is the cost of education today worth it? probably not. We are all rapidly becoming the wards of the state in a state-industrial society where the government and the business world share a common goal that the average person does not benefit from... as Nassum Taleb put it that he could not understand why Republicans loved BIG business and hated BIG government and Democrats loved BIG government and hate BIG business. Taleb said BOTH are the problem and he hated them both.. As he put it on CNBC the other day, Big government has created benefits for Big business and called it stimulus but it actually makes the small businesses less competitive. And I agree.
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