Friday, March 27, 2009
No AARP in Cuba
Does anyone think that people in the Obama administration might be watching this? Is there a chance that President Obama would mess around with the kick-in of Social Security or Medicare? Gotta be political suicide, no?
The reported figure of 77.3 years as the average life expectancy in Cuba was surprisingly high to me. I guess the figure is so high because Cuba's health delivery systems are so strong, as Michael Moore depicted in "Sicko," and Cuba has such a thriving and innovative pharma and medical device industry. Exactly.
I was also surprised that there were different retirement ages for men and women, and that the female age was lower. I thought socialism was supposed to be non-discriminatory between the sexes. Furthermore, I thought that if socialist leaders chose to discriminate in a command economy, that they would account for a woman's child bearing years, perhaps making the female retirement age greater than the male age. There are obviously factors at work here I do not understand.
4 Comments:
By 
silvermine, at
Sat Mar 28, 01:55:00 AM:
Well, it worked for the pigs in Animal Farm...
By , at
Sat Mar 28, 04:13:00 AM:
$20 a month ... hell I tip my barkeep more than that for a couple brewskies. No wonder these a**clowns don't want to open the country back up.
Googling Sicko once, I recall a newspaper analysis that suggested the lifespan and other data exploited by Fat Mikey was manure. Said that there are at least two systems in the country, and that only the 'important' folk got the good stuff.
As for messing with the ages here, it's certainly foreseeable. The system is badly broken. If anything, I'd expect Obama to look at different retirement rates, you know, since the 'system discrimates against black people', who don't live as long.
By , at
Sat Mar 28, 04:17:00 AM:
Since when does screwing men big-time constitute political suicide?
I don't see why Cuba pandering to women in order to promote and reinforce socialism any stranger than the exact same thing done here.
By , at
Sat Mar 28, 09:41:00 AM:
I doubt Cuba is pandering to women regarding retirement ages. They are probably letting women retire earlier in order to allow younger men to take those jobs. I image that a restless, underemployed young male population and the resulting potential for unrest might be a determining factor. It also might be that women are the primary caregivers for their parents.
In any case, I think we in the US are going to see a push by the Boomers to be allowed to work while on SSI or the earnings cap raised. The unions oppose raising the retirement age because they say that blue collar workers die younger regardless of race. Due to the economy, many more Boomers will be delaying retirement regardless of whether it is mandated or not.
A moderate
