Reply to post: Re: What is this?

Re: What is this?

"They have what is know as experience."

They're also the leading demographic for having what is known as dementia.

But in all seriousness, there's usually at least some level of cognitive decline in everyone over the age of 60 (see El Presidente for a shining example). Older people do generally vote 'stupider' - they are consistently shown to be more racist, more frightened, and less informed and empathetic about the world in general (which is not surprising, since older generations are on aggregate less educated than younger generations, simply from the periodic increases in education leaving age), and more likely to vote based on stupid things ("I could never vote for Corbyn because he doesn't wear a proper suit and didn't sing the national anthem properly").

They also vote consistently and firmly in their own interests at the expense of literally everyone else, which has severely warped social policy in ways which are definitely economically harmful (there is no sensible reason for the triple-lock in the UK, for example. Pensions should not be guaranteed to rise every year in real terms, at the same time that more people are reaching pension age and living longer, when pensioners have become one of the the most asset-rich age groups). At the start of the current campaign, the Tories actually proudly announced that the state pension was nearly level with the median wage. Any sensible economist will tell you that this is economically suicidal; pensioners should be spending more than their income or else you get significant deflationary pressure (this is what's been happening to Japan for 30 years). Yet political parties will not act to stop this, since if they do (i.e., May's dementia tax proposal) they risk alienating the most active voting population.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not agreeing with Paxo or saying that some Logan's Run approach to politics where the aged are extracted from society en masse is the best solution, but it's not completely mad to say that something probably does need to be done to curb the Grey Vote's disproportionate electoral power.