freekb

That's about right. On the flip side, thanks to those near zero interest rate policy those boomers are at getting a shit deal on their annuities. If they're not financially astute through the inevitable inflatation their income will be shredded to bits. Will that lead to gangs of eldery, like in Japan? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/3213349/Japan-struggles-with-elderly-crime-wave.html "Win some, lose some, always screw the young", a boomer anthem.

I've met deGrey - I've strong reservations on his approach. He claimed that "the first person to become 1000 years old has been born already", though he seems to be toning that down a little these days. His argument goes like this: - repair some of the damage that each of the seven sins of ageing do. - this buys you time, enough for research to figure out how to get rid of some more of the damage caused. - Repeat. The problem with that approach is that is assumes that you can find sufficient solutions all seven classes of damage in the same window of time. I think it's very possible that we may solve some classes, but not all. I think odds are that t will bottleneck around one or two for a really long time. Simply put, we may not die any more from heart disease or alzheimers but everyone still ends up dying from cancer or so. We won't have solved aging, just reduced the number of problems that get us in the end.

Japan and UK savings rates aren't all that different it seems (hard to compare, net vs. gross). See http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/household-saving-rates-forecasts-2012-1_hssv-gr-table-2012-1-en;jsessionid=3htil9du4i7j.x-oecd-live-01 3 years. Any data to support that?

Agreed. However, I can't see why the debt-crack-addicts in charge would or even can stop with low rates. It's just too damaging and unaffordable. Only if forced by the markets, rates will go up. As long as there's a way to manipulate the market, the can will be kicked down the road. Japan seems to be running out of options, but I don't understand why the UK can't or wouldn't pull the same tricks for decades.

If Kyle Bass (the hedgie that runs Hayman Capital) is to be believed, Japan will pop in about 2-3 years. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtEw2FdVe_0 (8mins) and more in depth, if you have the hour to spare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUc8-GUC1hY Let's assume his scenario happens and Japan pops by 2015. Markets get spooked, Japan (partially) defaults, Yen turns into Argentinian peso. Does this trigger a new debt crisis affecting UK rates through contagion or will the markets shrug it off and carry on as usual? If the latter, then perhaps we're looking at another decade or even longer of kicking the can down the road. If the former, then we've got a double if condition that needs to be met. Say Japan Pops and Contagion each have a 75% chance of happening, then there's only 50% chance it goes POP over here. I don't know what the odds are, but it's a lot of ifs.

Why would rates rise? BOJ has managed to keep rates below 2% for 20 years, and below 0.5% for about 15 years. See and (sorry - don't know how to inline pictures properyly) That was on the back of an epic property bubble. Now, we have the added bonus of an epic government debt bubble thanks to QE & bailouts. Politically, interest rates must stay down or goverments won't be able to roll over debt and service the interest. The new BOE governor has already signalled he's not going to be hung up on inflation targeting and more focussed on growth. AFAIK keeping rates low is the way to go if that's the intent..

I don't have the numbers to argue either case, so I'm staying out of that bit. However, don't confuse the clustering that happens with truly random events for statistically significant. The problem with 100 year events is that they are rare and therefore sample size is too limited to draw statistically meaningful conclusions from them. The link below explains. http://www.stevekass.com/2011/04/13/math-causes-most-disease-clusters/ You can do this experiment yourself. Generate a short series of random numbers (say 100), turn them into event type/event strength, plot them on a smallish grid, say 30x10 (to represent the world map/coordinate). It's very likely that a bunch of clusters will form. I've not done it myself, but I've seen it done. When I have more time, I'll give this a go in Excel - if you're interested. If you find that interesting, read up on "the law of small numbers" (specifically, "Belief in the law of small numbers" Tversky/Kahnemann).

I think the mantra is more along the lines of "Reject everything, unless accompanied by a large body of evidence. Independently verifiable and up to the usual rigorous scientific standards". Often impractical, but qualitatively high. ".. has made accurate forecasts in the past.." Surely the classic line from investment literature "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." applies? Consider the phenomenon of Apophenia (less pretentiously, 'patternicity'), the mind's tendency to see patterns in random data. This short video by Michael Shermer explains it succinctly It's an answer phrased in the context a question on religion, but don't let that distract from the idea.

A few logical fallacies here: "Of 88 reviews, most give it 5 stars, 4 give 3 stars, 3 give 3 no 1 or 2 star reviews.....hmmm.......interesting." using Erewhon888's earlier post about fallacies, that one falls under: "Appeals to Motives in Place of Support, .....Popularity: a proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true" The next other one "I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and therefore I have a very critical and logical approach when assessing supporting data to an hypothesis.", is a weaker version of "proof by eminent authority" or a variation on an ad-hominem. It's equivalent to Harold Shipman (a doctor and Serial Killer) saying "I am a doctor and therefore I save lives". It's a possibly true statement, but it doesn't exclude behaving in the exact opposite way. Therefore, the statement does not strengthen the argument.

American health care suffers from political & policy problems and business exploits it. That's not a reason to dispair nor is it the fault of science, just the jerks that exploit it. There's still reason for optimism, humanity is doing ever better and solving more and more problems. That certain countries are failing to maximize the benefits from it, is a different problem, usually a because of political and cultural (the idiots that keep voting for the idiot politicians) stupidity. If policy were made on a rational basis, we'd all be better off.

"The tyranny of scientists". What tyranny? Scientists are underpaid, largely ignored and have no particular social standing in many countries, especially the more anti-intellectual countries. Scientists, when they dare to speak up usually get whacked hard or ignored. Recent examples of this: UK Government advisor Dr. David Nutt vs. Alan Johnson. Nutt got sacked for daring to publicly speak about facts on the drug-policy and the relative drugs harms. Johnson didn't like what he heard, so he booted Nutt out. Professor Edzard Ernest got nearly pushed out of a job for laying into princes Charles as a purveyor of quack medicine. References: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/30/edzard-ernst-homeopathy-complementary-medicine Experience, religion, intuition and tradition are merely amateur attempts at providing explanations/theories about the world. Once you become a bit more intellectually rigorous and intellectually honest, you end up with the scientific method. This doesn't mean that scientists are saints. I know plenty, most of their work is a joke and nothing more than an exercise in staying employed and getting grant money. But they're not the real practitioners of science, just people that work in academia doing cargo-cult science. The public (and funding bodies) is too ignorant to tell the difference. You may think that I'm dismissing experience, religion, intuition - and you're right. At best, these nothing more than a stepping stone for exploring an interesting phenomenon in a more rigorous fashion with the best tool humans have - the scientific method. "In my experience, the world appears flat. Therefore it is." Surely not.

The final sentence is, the rest is of the post are facts giving cause for genuine optimism.

Simple counterpoint to the 'dark ages' argument: We (the world's population) have the longest life expectancy in history, while at the same time having the largest population that is better fed than ever. Smallpox and Rinderpest has been eradicated, Polio is pretty much gone. We are keeping people with HIV healthy and alive for decades. Cancer outcomes are better than ever.... We have developed a dirt-cheap global voice & data communication & navigation network (GSM, internet & GPS) in just a few decades. We're on the verge of privatizing access to space, possibly another revolution on the scale of air-travel. We are getting ever closer to good renewable energy sources and possibly even fusion. Yes, the dark ages surely.