And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have…
Death is the great leveller but an old age pension irons out the wrinkles.
The Great Depression saw old age poverty in the US reach 50% and on 14 August 1935 FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, the greatest industrial nation one of the last to make such provision.
Ameliorating our most desperate poverty has its cost. Apart from mankind’s general inability to fund long term liabilities, most of today’s advanced nations face an ageing population. In Uncle Sam’s case, the pension was 4% of GDP in the 2000s; is 5% – a trillion or so – today; and is likely to be 6% in time for the Act’s centenary.
As the quote above indicates, Macbeth didn’t make pension age; instead he chose to kill a sleeping King Duncan. The real Duncan was killed in action by Macbeth’s forces on 14 August 1040.
