People are being booted out of their jobs at 50

Me too, but:I think it depends a little on the {person\talents\situation}After my previous job was 'outsourced' I was able to find new employment that is better than what I had before and in a better location for me (closer to my elderly parents and other family), and thus I am now {better off re long term goals) than I was two years ago (ignoring for now the debts incurred from keeping a kid in college in the interim).It took a year of beating on doors in over 7 states with hat in hand. and I count myself lucky.my brother has more technical training but it is also more specific and he is in his third year of unemployment after grant funding was cut off in his specialty (radio astronomy) and the training he has is anachronistic now, while the young 'turks' have more relevant skills.outsourcing of jobs to countries that do not have the babyboom problem is a factor that counters your comforting thought on need for workers, but it can't apply to all jobs.there is also a problem of megacorps exporting profits and importing wages.I also worry about the quality of work available for the next generations.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

just a note.strictly speaking "life expectancy" stats have a problem.the expectancy of a 50 year old getting to 80 is higher than it is for a 20 year old because they have already survived to 50.the life expectancy of a 20 year old is also more than the general "life expectancy" statistic used because it is calculated from birth.this is a major problem when comparing life expectancies of different cultures, where one could have very high infant mortality but subsequent better health than the other.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

nice graphI can't help noticing that the 'smartest' 85 year olds are about as smart as the 'dumbest' 25 year olds ... but I also note that is NOT saying much for the "smarts" department another thing that could be skewing your graph is that the 'dumbest' eliminate themselves from the later groups (and from the reproduction pool) in some rather darwineskian ways

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

let's not conflate loyalty to the people you work for with loyalty to a faceless company.my grandfather worked for the same company for over 50 years, and received 3 gold watches in the process.his son was put in the position of firing 30 people that were his friends from childhood. he resigned.a person living in samwalltopia has no loyalty to how "two-job-joe" lives in wallmartworkerville.the one thing that is clear from the globalization of companies is that there is no such thing as company loyalty to employees once the company gets bigger than personal contact.you are better off changing jobs every 5 years (or less) and consolidating all your pensions and 401k's into your personal IRA. and hoping that social security is still around when you retire.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}