There has been a considerable amount written on the downsides of the so-called demographic time-bomb that is associated with longer lives, and the proportion of the population over 65. But we humbly suggest that there is another side to this that is getting overlooked. If people are living longer, and they are functional much longer, then guess what — they are also consuming longer and paying taxes much longer. That means if you are living just 3 years longer, that’s 3 more vacations, maybe an extra car purchase and maybe another phone upgrade. It’s true, as is pointed out in this Economist article, that there will need to be a substantial rethink in what we think of as old (hello AGEIST), but the truth is that by adding a decade of expected life to the retirement math of the 1930s, you are also getting an increase in consumer spending, and all the demand that will create for goods and services. Some notes about the graph above- see the slope of the curves and how they are steepening. We expect those to become much steeper within a few years. Also these are composites of the entire population, including a lot of people who are not taking such great care of themselves.
