Want to Live Longer?
Posted on Saturday, December 2nd, 2017
Andrew Scott is a Professor of Economics at the London Business School and is a co- author of The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. I came across his work in an interview from the Council of Foreign Relations and I find his work helpful, not only in planning for client’s retirement but also in looking at the emotional side of retirement. We have had massive transformations in how we long we live our lives and in the quality of our lives since the dawn of the 20th century. Scott’s work shows that a 65 year old today is equivalent to being 51 in 1922! Something to accept going forward is that our lives will be longer and lived with a greater vitality and, in accepting that, working longer needs to be part of our retirement plan. Not necessarily in that same job some of you might dread going to everyday but working at something we love doing. Importantly, Scott’s research found that white collar workers that work longer – live longer. Something to consider.
65 is the equivalent to 51 in 1922, and today’s 78-year-old, in terms of mortality risk, is the equivalent of a 65-year-old. And you think about this longer life expectancy—you know, by some counts, children being born today can expect to live to high 90s, early 100s, if not more. It’s not clear that simply saving more will solve the problem, as we’ve been talking about here.
People never save enough anyway. People are fairly unresponsive to interest rates. So I think if we’re looking at how we finance longer lives, it’s going to have to be working longer.
And of course what is very striking with the data, too, is that effectively blue-collar workers, the earlier they retire the longer they live. White collar workers, the longer they work, the longer they live. I mean, it’s—old age has a very varied distribution across individuals, and some of that is strongly linked to income and particularly education. – Andrew Scott
https://www.cfr.org/event/retirement-challenges-individuals-global-comparison
Some pundits that stand out as perpetual bulls on the market are calling for a respite in 2018. We think that they might be right. The market has been on quite a ride this week and we used the rally this week to lighten up for some of our more aggressive clients. We still see the possible tax reform passage as a “sell the news” event especially in light of end of the year regulatory funding issues and a possible government shutdown dead ahead.
The S&P 500 is now up 13 months in a row and seems to have hit a speed bump. As the technology stocks hit their old highs from 2007 the computer algorithms hit the sell button and began to buy value stocks. Changes in investment positioning may be in store as value may begin to outperform growth. Growth has been the winner for perhaps a bit too long as returns try to revert back to the mean. The yield curve here in the US is the flattest it has been since 2007 and we worry that it is about to invert and signal a recession. We warned two weeks ago that volatility would return and that it was only a matter of when. Well, it seems like this was the week. We expect more volatility to come as funding pressures increase with the turn of the calendar.
We have talked about the animal spirits being in control and now perhaps it is the computers turn. Keep an eye on key levels. We are watching 2666 on the S&P 500 very closely. The market bottomed at 666 in March of 2008. 4 times 666 is 2664. Close enough for government work. Programmers are humans after all and some numbers jump off the page. Call us crazy but we feel that it is an important hurdle and, make no mistake, the computers are in charge. We are still in it to win it but just a little less and a little less in.
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I think we aspire less to foresee the future and more to be a great contingency planner… you can respond very fast to what’s happening because you thought through all the possibilities, – Lloyd Blankfein
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Disclosure: This blog is informational and is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. If you are thinking about investing consider the risk. Everyone’s financial situation is different. Consult your financial advisor.