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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.women
Subject: Re: Women, insurance, and everything
Message-ID: <2669@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Jun-84 21:48:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2669
Posted: Mon Jun  4 21:48:57 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 06:26:50 EDT
References: dicomed.195
Lines: 49


>From: boylan@dicomed.UUCP (Chris Boylan) Sun Jun  3 15:28:05 1984
>
>My impression was that women live longer than men regardless
>of the smoking factor.  Is there a definitive reference about this?
>
I keep referring to a Pennsylvania study that indicated almost
(but not) all the mortality difference is due to smoking.
Unfortunately, my notes on that are at home.  I'll try to remember
to post something on it tomorrow.  In any event, no single study is
definitive, of course.  The point is that we don't know exactly
what the relationships are.  We just know that sex is not the only
(and almost certainly not the most important) predictor of
life expectancy, but most retirement programs have used it and
no other.

>All this retirement stuff is a bunch of crud.  Why don't "they"
>simply leave it up to the individual to setup an IRA style account
>and spend it upon retirement however/how fast they feel like it?
>If people don't plan ahead or blow it all early in retirement,
>too bad for them.  I am not against starvation based upon stupidity...

But it isn't stupidity that keeps me from knowing how long I'll live.
I could try surviving just on the interest, but I don't love my heirs
all THAT much.  Or I could assume that I'll live to, say, 88 and
if I overshoot dive off a bridge or go on welfare or look you up
for a loan.  Hmm.  Seems to make more sense to have a group of people
get together and take advantage of the fact they'll live a fairly
predictable life span on the average and on that basis dole out
principal and interest to all concerned.  That's what we call a
lifetime annuity.

And you can have it your way AND my way, since you can 'roll over'
an IRA into an annuity at retirement.  So everybody's happy!

Quite agree on the poor nature of the current retirement system.
Although almost everybody works where there is a retirement plan
of some kind, a good majority of us (meaning Americans) have
very poor prospects, unless we've worked at one place for 40 years.

That's one reason I like Duke's plan - fully vested from day 1,
even if I quit tomorrow!  If only private businesses had TIAA/CREFF
and so on...

Well, I've got mine!
D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-4146
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