WEBVTT - Living Longer Means Rethinking How You Work Right Now 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:12.799 Hello, it's Maren Sums. That were Pierre. We have got 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.360 a great episode for you this week. We're talking about aging, 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.360 one of the opportunities and challenges of longer lives in 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.919 the twenty first century. Economists and author Andrew Scott is 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.880 with us to talk about his book The Longevity Imperative, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.760 building a better society for healthier, longer lives. So we 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.880 sort of stick around for that bit, but first, as always, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.840 senior reporter and author of the Money Distolveed newsletter, John 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:36.400 Steppeck is with me. 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:38.200 John, ma'am. 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.840 You know we're going to talk about other aging stuff now, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.800 about older people and how things are going to work 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.040 with him financially, because this week has been all about 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:53.760 the state pension and Richie Stunac's unbelievably ridiculous and stupid 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.480 nonsense about putting in place what he calls a triple 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.960 plus lock on the Who don't know all that, I 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.160 suspect everybody does. The UK pension, which is not not tiny, 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:06.240 comes with what we call a triple lock, whereby it 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.600 goes up every year by the higher of a completely 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.440 random number two and a half percent average wages or 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.360 inflation right, and richards Nik is suggesting adding to that 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.480 what he calls a plus, which is that the personal allowance, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.039 your income tax personal allowance will never be lower than 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.080 the state pension, so you will therefore never be taxed 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.200 on your state pension, unless, of course, you are already 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.240 taxed on your state pension because you don't have an 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.600 income tax allowance because you earn over one hundred thousand 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.680 pounds or one hundred and twenty five, where it's completely 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.560 tapered away that allowance. See, I'm already irritated. I've worked 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.559 myself up into a frenzy of fury, and I haven't 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.399 even let you speak yet, John, Why is this a 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.600 completely absurd idea? Not politically, by the way, because it's 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.360 an excellent political idea giving money away to pension It 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.640 gets you votes lovely. Why they bother at this point, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.600 I don't know. But why is it a an appalling 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:58.960 financial idea? 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:00.920 I mean to be clear that this is a personal 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.640 allow One of the reasons a bad idea is because 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.920 this personal allowance is only for pensioners. So like my 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.480 personal allowance won't be going up and the other will yours. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.160 It's only for the people getting the state pension. So 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.079 for a start, you mightage to get rid of one 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.519 of the few pieces of tax simplification that we've actually 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.239 seen over the last fourteen or so years, which was 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.520 the kind of harmonization of the personal allowance. So that's 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.040 one reason is bad. The other reason is bad is 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:34.440 because we we already can't afford this, and you're adding. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.280 And not only is it you know, it's more expense 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.880 for related to the state pension, but it's also because 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.560 of all of these lockings that we're doing, a it's 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.200 always going to rise in real terms, so it's always 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.280 going to be bigger than our basically can't inflate this 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:58.280 debt away. And on top of that, it's also uncertain, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.239 so you can have a rough idea of what liability 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.160 you're committing to, but if inflation spikes, as it has 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.200 done obviously in the last kind of couple of years, 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:14.120 then that liability rockets. So this is just it is. 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.320 I mean, it's so cynical in terms of being a 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.920 purely political move, and a lot of it seems to 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.680 be in response actually to well the last budget. So 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:31.760 Jeremy Hunt, National insurance contributions for employees, and obviously National 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.080 Insurance is a tax that isn't paid by pensioners because 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.480 it's a tax on people who work, or so people 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:44.400 of working age. And the reaction from me, I cannot 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:46.640 imagine that this is the majority of pensioners. But the 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.640 reaction from a kind of mouthy pro pensioner lobby group 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.440 was to be like, oh my god, you're terrible, this 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.640 is awful. How dare you know? You're given a tax 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.440 cut to other people. But this was not a. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.920 Tax rise for pension. It was an everything stays the 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.600 same for pensions, but working people while they're really paying 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.600 a lot of times. Now, let's try and ease it 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.040 up a little. And along the way, I mean, you 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.440 and I had this conversation, we kind of hope that 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.680 what it was was a glide path to getting rid 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.840 of NI altogether, because it's both dishonest and ridiculous and 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.919 complicated and having effectively having two income taxes inside a 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.479 tax system where we do not hypothecate which good thing, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.960 by the way, is absurd, absurd, So getting rid of 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.039 NI good thing. Pension is complaining about getting rid of 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:32.039 NI bad thing. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:33.520 Fah yeah. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:33.839 Yeah. 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:39.080 And also I think we're I feigned, I'm not completely 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.880 politically naive, but we are. We've gone well beyond the 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:48.320 point for many years now where politicians just seemply react 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.360 on a headline to headline basis. I mean, the other 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.400 reason that sus souikes pulling this out of the heart 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.520 is because she was I mean, I don't even know 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.400 why he was on Loose Women. Frankly, for anyone who 0:04:58.480 --> 0:04:59.920 doesn't know, this is some tea. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.440 John John's absolutely desperate to get on it. So question time, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.080 he must be on loose Women, right John, That's what 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:05.960 That's what the audience is. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.839 I mean, that's that's true. That's a good point. Maybe 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.720 that is why they go on. But a Janet Street Porters, 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.400 who I'm sure everyone remembers a kind of like music journalist, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.839 went back in the day. So I said to him, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.080 you know, why do you hate pensioners? And you know, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.800 I mean my immediate thought, and the thought of anyone 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.360 who actually knows anything about the financial system, would have been, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.359 what on earth are you talking about the one group 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.440 of people who are in no position to complain after 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.360 fourteen years of Tory misrule, if you want to put 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:43.480 it that way, pensioners. They've they've done so much better 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.640 than and aggregate than any other section of the population. 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.360 So I can sort of see why he must have 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.240 been panicking because he was thinking, oh my god, it's like, 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.880 you know, I used to forego one budget without throwing 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.279 them a freebie, and suddenly you know, I'm the that 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:05.480 lords them. So you know, but I think this kind 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:07.640 of like kne Jet policy. Is it posted tourning around 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.640 and presenting some facts to people, you know, instage Just 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.800 Piney can see, well, okay, we're going to make sure 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.360 you never have to pay tax on this and that. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:16.680 What's the next thing that's gonna what? 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.920 Just don't ever now, Just be just to be fair, 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.680 John and I aren't that far off being pensioned as ourselves. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.080 You know, this will come one day and then you'll 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.279 hear a full on turnaround from us, full on turnaround. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.440 We'll be wanting those tax breaks up. So we want 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.840 that state pension to be linked to everything under the sun, 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.520 et cetera, et cetera. None of those things are going 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.120 to happen. And it's very likely that once we get 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.360 a new labor government and that they have that wonderful 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.160 six months when they can actually do stuff if they 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.880 are brave enough. If they are brave enough, it may 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.360 be that they do look at the state pension, possibly 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:54.800 in the pension system as a whole, and say, hang 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.280 on a dick, we really need to make some changes here. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.640 This is so expensive. You know, the state pension is 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.040 already of a five percent of GDP eleven point three 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.560 percent of state spending. I've got that number in frontally 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.760 because both John and I have written about it this week, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:09.240 because that's how cross it makes it. So you can 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.240 find a column from that on me and money, just 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.200 not from John. But change is coming, right, I mean, 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.360 either we see the triple lock dumped somehow, we see 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.000 the triple lock abandoned, one element taken out right, or 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.640 we see big changes to the way tax relief on 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.120 pensions works. Or I was thinking about this the other day, 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.119 and I was thinking, and I mentioned this in the column. 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.520 I'm waiting for some pushback on it. Entirely possible. What 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.040 would happen if the state pension was abolished altogether? And 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.440 if I know, I know, I know. But let's say 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.720 that auto enrollment picks up, so there's a higher levels 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:51.720 of obligatory personal and state employer contributions. Right, maybe it 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.160 stops being maybe it stops in voluntary. Maybe everybody has 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.720 to enroll, right, Maybe that happens. And at the same time, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.880 we do have a very effective pension credit system where 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.920 if you if you come into your late sixties with 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:06.920 no income of any kind whatsoever, you get put in 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.160 the pension credit system. You get two hundred and one 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.040 pounds a week, you get housing benefit, and you get 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.080 all the other smaller payments that you get it in 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.680 your later years that one way or another would hold 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.720 body and sould together. So if you've got both those 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.880 systems running concurrently, do you need a state pension system? Now, 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.200 don't get me wrong, I want a state pension system, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:28.360 But do you need it? 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.679 I mean, I think this is a really good question. 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:39.760 It's a really tricky one. But I think that first 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.520 if you and I can talk about this in terms 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.120 that politicians would never dare but effectively, what your first 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.600 acknowledging is that a state the state pensions are benefit 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:52.920 rather than something that's sitting in a port with your 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.360 name on it. And then you're saying, well, actually, look, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.560 if it's a benefit, then maybe that means that not 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.280 everyone needs to get it. And I thought the other 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:08.040 interesting thing that you pointed out in your piece, and 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.520 this actually maybe where sort of frozen tax thresholds come 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:16.280 into play effectively. If you if you say you've got 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.040 a pension that's somehow you know, paigey, you know, like 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.320 in the region one hundred and thirty pounds a year, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:27.440 your entire state pension is getting clawed back anyway. So 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.160 there is a way, there is a point at which 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.760 if you kind of you, if you actually had the 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.520 goal to freeze the income tax threshold for the next 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.040 thirty years, say, and suddenly the number of people who 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.959 are you know, paying who are getting the personal allowance 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.200 claw back climbs to the same numbers, say as are 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.640 paying forty percent income tax today. It suddenly becomes a 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.959 kind of mainstream thing rather than a very rich thing. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:01.000 Then actually you could essentially remove this the pension by 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:01.680 the bike door. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.160 Not a recommendation, by the way, not a recommendation, right, John. 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.120 No, No, no, And I think even that would be 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:10.720 hard to get a. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.040 We with I suspect that'll be that'll be some means 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.320 with some kind of means testing coming under a labor 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.400 government would be my guess. I'm it's hard to imagine 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:20.880 how they'll be able to get away with the whole 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.719 idea of continuing to pay eleven to twelve pounds to 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.720 the wealthy, the riches, the one percent, the five percent, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.800 whatever it is. So watch out for some means testing 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.439 either way. Keevan Aisle State Pensions and do read John's 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:40.720 column on it. Do read my column on it. Welcome 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.920 to Meren Talks Money, the podcast in which people who 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.560 know the markets explain the markets. I'm Meren Sum's web. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.320 Here's my conversation with author Andrew J. Scott as we 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.640 talk about his book The Longevity Imperative, building a better 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.640 society for healthier, longer lives and, by the way, hopefully 0:10:55.640 --> 0:11:02.240 also richer lives. Andrew, Hello, thank you so much for 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:03.000 joining us today. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.000 Very kind, pleasure to be here, Maren, always good to talk. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.560 Excellent. Now you and I are both very, very very young, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:09.840 so a lot of the things we're going to talk 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:11.800 about today we don't have to worry about quite yet. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.480 So really, where we're thinking about our listeners who may 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:15.320 be older than us. 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.920 Right, Yeah, Aging is a process, and everyone's getting older. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.040 Aging is a process, not an event. That's one of 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:21.200 your catchphrases, right. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.880 Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I'm interesting this topic of longevity, 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:27.560 which I think is really about all of life rather 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:28.720 than just the end of life. 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.080 Okay, all right, then we're talking about us too. I 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:32.760 mean that the basis of the book is that we 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.280 are all living longer. A lot of us are living longer, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.040 and we're living longer in a healthier way. So the 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.280 stat that really jumps out is this one about how 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.000 in nineteen ninety there are only ninety five thousand people 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.280 who are over one hundred years old. Now it's around 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:49.280 half a million and rising fast, and that's a huge change. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.520 And then, of course we have the main driver behind 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.120 increasing lifespans, which is not so much that people are 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.920 living longer once they've passed sixty, is that they're not 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.640 dying younger. So can we talk about that a bit first, 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.520 in that I absolutely understand that these numbers, the average 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.720 numbers a rising because people don't die in their first 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.840 year or their second year or under five anymore. We've 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.880 pretty much nailed that. But is it really true that 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:20.200 if you are just separate out that people live longer. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.360 Yes, it is. I mean, you're certainly right that you know, 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:28.040 the fantastic improvements, particularly the rich countries in reducing from mortality, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.600 have had a huge impact, but it isn't just life 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.520 expectancy at birth. Basically, however old you are, we've seen 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.400 an increase in the number of years you can expect 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.120 to live ahead of you. It's certainly true that the 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.480 biggest increases have come at birth, but what we're finding 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.040 now is that, for instance, in Japan, Japanese women had 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.600 the highest life expectancy. A newborn girl in Japan has 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.760 I think in ninety seven percent chance are making it 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.520 to sixty. So what we're seeing now is nearly all 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:55.880 the life expectency gains are happening from the age of 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.960 seventy and above, so life expensive growth is slowing down. 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.920 But now it's almost entirely about your chances are going 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.600 beyond seventy into eighty and ninety. So that's the shift 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.800 that's happened. We've seen improvements at all ages, but now 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.320 the increases are coming more and more at the older ages. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.040 And what about the numbers that we've seen over the 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.160 last couple of years that suggested in some countries life 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.000 expectancy is actually falling, And I'm interested. You mentioned in 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.040 Japan right, where it's well into the late eighties. Now 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.400 the average woman can expect to live in Japan, right, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.320 But there's been a big change in diet and a 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.720 big change in environment in Japan over the last forty 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.920 or so years. So how confident are we that someone 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:42.079 born into modern Japan might have the same life chances 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.960 in terms of health as someone born into Japan fifty sixty, 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:47.440 seventy years ago. 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:48.400 What as an. 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.079 ECONOMISTYE is always told that the rules of forecasting is 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:52.920 the first one, never give a number, The second is 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.040 if you give a number, never give a date fat 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.240 and the thirties never give numbers or dates. So forecasting 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.280 is very difficult, particularly into the future. But now I 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:02.920 think we can be recently confident. I mean, I think 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.840 what's stunning is over the last one hundred and fifty years, 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.640 the best practice life expectancy, the country of the highest 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.640 life expectancy has increased two or three years every decay. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.080 And I think that's likely to slow down, possibly to 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.240 one or two, but I think it's still very likely. 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.520 And one of the problems we've got is life expectancy. Intuitively, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.480 it seems a simple concept, but it's actually quite complicated. 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.240 And when I first started in this area, statisticians that 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.960 I don't like life expectancy as a concept, and I thought, 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.560 why not. It's a great thing, but I can see 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.880 the challenges in particular the numbers you're referring to about declines. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.120 First of all, they're very much during COVID for most countries, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.680 which is understandable. Secondly, they tend to be focused on 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.760 the US. We saw a small foreign in life expectancy 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:50.280 outside of COVID, but that's totally due to this phenomena 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.640 of deaths of despair. It's midlife mortality. Your chance of 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.200 living longer at sixty five continues to increase. And the 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.760 big confusion in all of this is the blind numbers 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.520 that you tend to read, which the government promotes. It's 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.200 not really life expectancy. It's gonna sound a bit morbid. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.120 It's the average age of death. It basically assumes that 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.040 you live your entire life in that particular year. So 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.680 if you're a newborn, you use the survival rate of 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.760 a sixty year old today rather than the survival rate 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.240 you're likely to face in sixty years time. So those 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.760 tend to be very much an underestimate of life expectancy. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.040 That's why when you have a global pandemic, you see 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 a fall in life expectancy, But as the pandemic goes away, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.320 you see a return to growth. So I don't want 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.240 to trivialize and say it's going to be automatic, but 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.560 the vast majority of countries will continue to see gains 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.400 in life expectancy. I suppect those at the top will 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.680 see a slow down because, as I said earlier, sort 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:49.760 of the scope to improve life expensive if you'm going 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.120 from nought to sixty is pretty minimal now. So all 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.240 the gains are going to come later on. And yes, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.360 we have to worry about antibiotics resistance, Yes we have 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.800 to worry about a whole host of things, but it's 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.480 a pretty entrenched trend that I think, if you look 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.200 at some of the innovations that are coming along in 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.480 terms of medicine, is likely to continue. 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.120 Okes But there's this one to challenge I would make 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.040 to that, which is that this is the first generation 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.520 in which you could look at developed countries and say 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.880 that going on half of the population is obese. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:17.880 And no, I agree, But I think if you look 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.120 at inequality. That's a really big challenge. One of the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:22.800 status of us in the book is eighty percent of 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.160 how we age is down to behavior in the environment, 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.320 which means that aging is incredibly malleable. So of course 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.960 what happens the average may be different to what happens 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.520 in terms of those at the top end. But I 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.120 still think we'll see more and more people living into 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.960 older and older ages, and some of that may not 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:41.640 be a good thing, because we do have a health 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:43.920 system that tends to keep people alive rather than keep 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:44.600 people healthy. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.200 Okay, well, I'm going to ask you the question now 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.520 that I should ask you, because otherwise people all write 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.480 in and say why didn't you ask him? And you say, 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.040 aging is very malleable. What are the things that we 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.640 should all do outside taking powers of drugs to keep 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:59.640 ourselves as younger as possible. I know the answer, but 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.080 you know I'm asking you anyway. I'm hoping. I'm hoping 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:04.879 there'll be something new like sit on the sofa and 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:06.360 watch as much Telly as possible. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.479 Yeah, no, that's exactly well, I'm sure those things are 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.440 very good. This is where it gets very complicated, isn't it? 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.600 Because everyone sort of wants the big haha moment. But yeah, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.359 it's all sort of pretty obvious stuff at the moment. 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.600 I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff coming along 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.800 in terms of drugs and biology, but it's all the 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.240 stuff that everyone tells you and that you know, which is, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.680 don't eat too much, exercise a lot, keep moving, don't 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.520 drink too much alcohols and toxin smoking is bad for you. 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.760 Sleep is particularly important, A sense of purpose, a sense 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.520 of engagement, friendships, and all the stuff that we know 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.760 makes a good life. I think all this change is 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.320 a couple of things. The first is this is, as 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.120 Peter Astio says in his book Outlive, there's some sort 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.520 of breakthroughs in terms of what type of exercise to 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.439 do and how to do this sort of the diet, 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.000 the fasting stuff is very sort of trendy at the moment, 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.200 the high intensity draining, et cetera. So there's some sort 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.159 of innovations. But my own attitude and that is that 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.800 that's about optimizing as opposed to just mainly doing the 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.720 right thing eighty percent of the time. And then the 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.040 other thing that's really changed is your incentive to do it, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.040 because at the heart of my book is a statistic 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.600 that just says, you know, you are now the majority 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.000 of the young are now likely to become the older. Again, 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.160 going back to the ons, they estimate the fifty center 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.280 children born today will live into their nineties. And you 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.199 know you are now likely to get old. But we 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.840 fear getting old. So what do you do now to 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.520 age well? Because you can start to age better at eighty, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.200 it's a whole lot better to start when you're in thirty, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:32.520 forty to fifty or sixty. 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.480 And on the drug front, you mentioned way give you 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.320 ezempic briefly earlier. But that seems to me to be, 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.680 from what we understand so far, to be an antholute 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.600 game changer in allowing people to age well. In that 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.639 if it really can deal with a large part of 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.840 the obesity problem, and if the benefits to the heart 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.640 that we keep hearing about or turn out to be correct, 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.240 then that's something of a game change. It to people 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.520 who have not yet aged well, and I'll say, oh, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.960 I don't know, fifty six or whatever thing it feels 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.880 damn he said, I should, you know, take more exercise diet, 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.440 except twenty years ago I did. GLP one is a 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:08.320 drug that I've taken it. 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.119 But I think what's really interesting about them is there 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.200 a signpost where we're going to be going in terms 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.159 of treating health. In the book, I stress that we 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.320 don't really have a health system at the moment. We 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.719 have a system that treats disease. And I use that 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.639 great quote by wh Jordan that health is something that 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.600 medicine knows nothing about. And I was saying that to 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:29.520 a cardiologist the other day and they said, no, no, health 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.399 is just an incomplete diagnosis. Something will happen and then 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.879 we can do something about it. But we don't really 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.160 know how to maintain health. But because we focus on disease, 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.240 that's a really big problem with what's happening is we 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.640 live our longer lives because we're now vulnerable to aging 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.040 related diseases. And it's a bit of a dismal litany, 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:53.320 but cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, all of these, 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.520 the biggest risk factor is aging. The older, we get 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:57.760 them more like we are to get them. So if 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.560 you sort of tackle one of those diseases, say cancer, 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:02.840 you've still got the risk of all the other ones. 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.679 So your health is still impaired. Your life expectancy is 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.280