This Modern World: Statistics don't lie, do they?

[meegbear]

We all live longer than we used to, so of course we should raise the retirement age!



http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/11/16/this_modern_world

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. k

[ThomCat]

2. Yes, punish poor people because rich people are doing well.

Give rich people more money, and give rich people longer life spans, and then tell poor people they have to pay for it by working longer and giving up their benefits and chance to retire.

Yup. That's exactly what is happening. :grr:

[TBF]

25. It's the "american dream" nt

[Vickers]

3. Trivia: the second panel is Yvette Vickers in "Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman"

Ask me how I know...

:P

[Angry Dragon]

19. Okay ..........How do you know that??

[Evasporque]

4. Tom Tommorrow is the best political satrist...nt

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. No, he isn't.

He is the best political satIrist.

Yours,
The Spelling Nazi Commie

[myrna minx]

5. K&R

:applause:

[Starry Messenger]

6. recommend.

[donco6]

7. Could it be that the wealthier half live longer, because they have HEALTH CARE?

What a concept.

But you guys do know this is all moot right? It's a DONE DEAL. It's all over but the shoutin'.

[BillStein]

9. you say that

like you think tea-partiers and/or repugs will consider it an argument for health care.

[Igel]

10. Health care?

Sure.

But the wealthy are typically better educated, as well, and that makes a difference on things like following doctor's orders. Yes, people have looked at not only treatment but things like the difference in how the educated/well-off vs. the less-educated/poor follow the treatment once prescribed. The poor/uneducated (there's a decent overlap there) more often don't finish courses of treatment, buy the drugs prescribed as prescribed, or follow instructions.

Then there are differences in diet, exercise, and the like that depend on income as well as education.

The poor are also likely to live in areas with higher-than-average mortality from homicides, accidental or otherwise.

And while it's probably not a large contribution, if you're chronically ill at age 25 you're more likely to be poor at age 55 than if you're healthy at age 25. You're also more likely to be dead at age 65. And there are likely genetic contributions, for whatever reasons, on things like hypertension due to sodium retention or incidence of type II diabetes.

There are other factors involved as well. Which is the dominant one, how do we apportion responsibility among the different causes? Not a clue. I assume others have done it but I'm not going go google it.

Of greater interest is how much of "monsters" the designers of SS were, to look at life expectancy by income/wealth decile in the '30s through the '00s and age at which retirees could apply for SS. After all, we have the implicit claim that it's unfair and evil to rage the age at which SS kicks in so that it's not much higher than the life expectancy for the lowest 50% of workers, while acknowledging that the life expectancy has increased for this group. I know that where my parents worked this was the case--within a year or two of retirement a vast number of workers died. I wonder what it was historically for SS.

[Wednesdays]

24. Yeah...poor people deserve to die young

'cause it's all their own damn fault. :spank:

[guitar man]

15. part of it could be

that the wealthy have never had to do what a lot of us peons have had to do. Some examples of what I've had to do include breathing smoke off the end of a welding rod for 12 hours a day, washing up printing presses with trichlorethylene or MEK, cleaning out the inside of crude oil storage tanks and so on and so forth. Not that great for life expectancy.

Neither is sitting up late at night at the kitchen table with a pile of bills trying to figure out which ones to pay and which ones to try to hold at bay, taking on 2 and 3 jobs to try and feed a family because one job just doesn't cut it anymore.

Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that the wealthy would have a longer life expectancy that we do....

[TexasObserver]

11. recommend

[Edweird]

12. KnR

[Poboy]

13. recommend

[gratuitous]

14. Cruel jokes are the best kind!

Ask Andy Harris, newly-minted member of the House of Representatives.

[DirkGently]

16. Nailed it.

[Blue_Tires]

17. Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes had a great quote about statistics

"When I think about statistics, I think about that time I read the newspaper and saw a man had drowned in a lake that was an average of three feet deep"

[Qutzupalotl]

18. The third panel sounds like an argument for means testing.

It makes it sound like there are a lot of uber-wealthy receiving benefits. I don't know how widespread a problem that is. Maybe someone here can respond.

On the one hand, it's galling that the rich receive benefits intended as a safety net for the poor. Then again, we can't very well expect the rich to pay for something they can't use; we can't both lift the cap on taxable earnings and kick the wealthy off the recipients list.

Then there's the question of who'd do the kicking off, and what their agenda would be. Means testing sounds like a euphemism, an excuse to dismantle the program.

I guess the best response is to tell the rich to think of it as insurance; even if they don't end up needing it, they know it's there if they lose everything. And most of them will take it anyway.

[Greyhound]

20. As always, he's nailed it.

You just can't fix stupid.
:kick: & R

[anAustralianobserver]

21. great one!

[TheKentuckian]

22. Excellent

[laughingliberal]

23. Holy Cat Food!

K&R

[Quantess]

26. that was the least sarcastic Tom Tomorrow I've ever seen.

[LWolf]

27. Ask the data dictators in public education. nt

[Scruffy1]

28. Great one.