Old Geezers

[El Sid]

 Bumped into Tikay in Brighton at the weekend, the old geezer was flushed with success, hopefully, well deserved. He made a comment about my longevity and I was too much of a gentleman to mention his. Tikay got me to thinking and I came up with an idea that would help guys of Tikay's advancing years and, sort out the countries problems at the same time. Here is how the system would work, and believe me - it would work.
For a limited period of time we drop the retirement age from 65 to 60 as an incentive to any old guys who don't want to give up work, we increase the pension for those who want to take up the offer by 50% This scheme is totally optional, but you can be sure there will be enough takers to create a vacuum in the jobs market which will put the young unemployed, where they belong, in work.
 The maths works out - This is something of a five year plan, and eventually those who took the extra pension, would come back into line with the rest of the country. By then the country would be out of the very deep c#@p that if finds itself in at the moment. Remember - you heard the idea here first - maybe the more astute mathematical geniuses that frequent this site could check it out on the slide-rule to see just how sensible an idea this is.
 No need, of course, for Tikay to take early retirement, as, like Bruce Forsythe, he would be difficult to replace.   All the best - EL Sid.

[tikay]

Sid!

Great to see you on Saturday.

Post more, Sir, post more.

[El Sid]

Nice to see you too - you put on an excellent tournament - now that they are fixing the karzis, hopefully more people will frequent the Rendezvous.

[ScottMGee]

increasing the state pension by 50% and allowing people to take it 5 years early would cost about about £100k per retiring person. Are you sure the maths work out?

[El Sid]

It would work a treat, the money would go back into the economy. Over 80% of pensioners are depressed at what their lives came to after most of them working hard and trying to do what was assumed to be the right thing. Moral standards could not slip much lower, as I drove home from a poker game the other night, a young girl was defecating at the side of the road and a couple of hundred yards further on (on Brighton sea front ) two men were engaged in a sexuall act. It's easy to laugh about the state of affairs as you make your way through multitudes of mindless drunks but we are definitely way past our finest hour. The generation of drug takers in the 70s and 80s  have produced a plethora of wonky kids who suffer from the side effects of their parents lunatic indulgence. Evolution has produced the perfect storm, it's something of a Sodom and Gomorrah scenario - but what else would you expect?  It will take a generation of 1930's hardship to change perspectives, hard times create better people, hard times create true values. I realise how fortunate I was to have lived in what was a time of abundance and some relatively decent values. It's a terrible shame for a lot of young people who are not given much hope!