Well, you're right - my remarks about retirement shouldn't be over-simplified. It wasn't part of my thesis. Of course, those working in heavy manual jobs might not wish to continue them, but I did mention re-training, education. For instance, part-time jobs in the retail sector, service sector, government agencies, whatever. Please don't make the assumption I didn't think of those issues, and I was blithely suggesting everyone works until they drop.

Sadly you're missing the big picture here. When I was born in 1946 my then life expectancy was about 66 yrs. I am now 78, and anyone born today has a life expectancy of 81 years. In other words a pensioner from age 65 in 1946, would only have a few years in pensionable retirement. Even at age 68 yrs pensionable age, nowadays there's a more than even chance of living another 13 years or so.

What really annoys me though, as I'm part of the first wave of baby boomers, which finished in the mid 1960's, government, and societies have had fifty years of notice to put in place the policies, the services, the health facilities and care for this cohort moving through the population. It sadly seems that in politics that even fifty tears' notice is insufficient for planning and adjustment. Actually it makes me angry, it's the same here in NZ of course.

Not only that but the costs of looking after pensioners and the available medical treatment have rocketed. You cannot expect an ever decreasing proportion of those in working age to support ever increasing numbers of non-working pensioners. It's unfair. It's not a fair social contract. So labelling this as a cost-saving exercise might be accurate, but it's also unfair because governments are responsible for the welfare of everyone in society, not just the elderly. .

All I was pointing out was that high rates of immigration do not make sense to counter an ageing population, that a falling population isn't a bad thing, and , that there must be a hundred different ways that the elderly population can be cared for, along with providing them some remunerative work, which might itself raise quite bit of tax revenue. I mean, when I was working past pension age I paid considerably more in taxation than the benefit I was receiving. I was happy to work, it was a win-win. Surely we can do for others what I did for myself?