America's Aging Population

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • The Conflict Between Israel and Hamas

  • The Race for Speaker of the House

  • Aging Populations in Congress and the American Public

  • Outside of Politics: Taylor Swift

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EPISODE RESOURCES

CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HAMAS

AGING POPULATION

I'm Just Pete (SNL)

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:14] Music interlude.  

Sarah [00:00:34] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. Thank you for joining us. Today, we're going to talk about our aging population, both in America and around the globe. Before we get to that conversation, we're going to check in with the news. We're going to talk about Israel and Gaza. We're going to talk about the speaker of the House or lack thereof, as the case may be, and why we both find Jim Jordan a completely unacceptable answer to that problem. Spoiler alert. And then an Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about Taylor Swift, because there's nothing else to talk about, guys. She has established her world dominance. That is the only topic available to us right now, is Taylor Swift. So that's what we're going to talk about. Beth, today's the day we get to make our big surprise announcement. Are you excited?  

Beth [00:01:21] I am something well past excited.  

Sarah [00:01:23] We are both well past excited. You guys, we did it. We as a community have achieved our-- there's not a word big enough to describe this goal for our community, this achievement.  

Beth [00:01:37] We have been working toward it since March 2019. We checked our receipts. March 2019 we have been working on this.  

Sarah [00:01:43] Okay, guys, on Friday, we are talking to the Secretary of Transportation. Pete Buttigieg.[Applause].  

Beth [00:01:58] I was trying to picture people doing their laundry, like throwing some socks up in the air, people driving down the road and honking their horns. Hooray. If you're walking your dog, I hope you're doing a little dance. That's our energy about this.  

Sarah [00:02:09] He's come and guys, we talked to him. It was a complete and total delight. And we will be sharing that interview with you on Friday. Get excited.  

Beth [00:02:18] Did I nearly cry just when I saw his face on the screen because I was so excited that we finally made it? I did. And I am not the one who sheds tears when we record it. It was exciting. It was really exciting.  

Sarah [00:02:29] And it just speaks to him because our expectations were so high and he met and exceeded them.  

Beth [00:02:33] That's right.  

Sarah [00:02:34] Expectations since 2019. And he was like, I got this, y'all going to love me. And he was right.  

Beth [00:02:37] It's true. Also exciting this week...  

Sarah [00:02:40] Oh, my gosh. Y'all, we don't know. We got too much going on. There's too much fun things going on.  

Beth [00:02:44] It's the week of our Paducah live show.  

Sarah [00:02:47] We're doing it. It's time for all of us to hang out. And Paducah is going to be an amazing time. We want to specifically thank Fearless Finance, one of our sponsors who has made this weekend possible. You know fearless finance from their ads on the show. They offer a fresh approach to financial planning, and their entire business is built on making financial advice accessible and affordable because they know that financial literacy, stress reduction and financial security are critical to overall well-being.  

Beth [00:03:14] We like to work with people who understand who we are, and that's why Fearless Finance has been a good partnership for us. Because Elizabeth Pennington, who works for Fearless Finance, is a long time listener and supporter of the show. And their approach, like ours, is different. They meet with clients virtually. They charge you by the hour, not based on the products that they're selling you and taking some commission. You only pay for the time you use down to the quarter or hour. And no question is too small or problem too big. You are never too poor to talk with Fearless Finance. It is not just for wealthy people. They want to help you on your journey. And because they want to help you in a very personable way, they are coming to Paducah. Elizabeth will be there. We're so excited to finally meet her in person and she will be at the McCracken County Public Library on Saturday at 2:45 to share five steps to financial wellness.  

Sarah [00:04:09] And that's after my husband's Everyday Carry class at 2 p.m.. Y'all, he's so excited. He's wearing me out with his questions, with his excitement, with his preparation. I mean, he's a six. He's going to over prepare by like a lot. So get excited, have every Everyday Carry question you could possibly have answered by Nicholas at the library. There's going to be a Flower and Furbish flower arranging class. Meg is doing a class. You guys, it's going to be such a fun weekend. We cannot wait to see all of you and thank you to Fearless Finance for helping make this possible. Up next, we're going to check in on the news.  

[00:04:46] Music Interlude  

[00:04:57] The conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate. This morning I read, Beth, there had been 6000 missiles launched into the Gaza Strip over the past like week. That is hard to contemplate.  

Beth [00:05:16] The more I read about this conflict, the less I try to make any sense of it or relate to it in any way. I'm trying to understand because I think understanding is a form of care, as we've talked about. But I have released any sense of pressure that I might have felt to have an opinion on how this war should be conducted. And I just feel a complete sense of grief about the fact that this is happening. I continue to feel concern and care for my Jewish friends and now for my Muslim friends as well as this conflict reverberates throughout the world and individuals react to it in ways that are really destructive. But I just cannot pressure myself to feel like I need to have a stance on the foreign policy at work here, because this is very, very hard and this area of the world is so unrelatable to my life experience that the more I see, the more humbled I am about it.  

Sarah [00:06:14] Yes. I mean, I'm rooting for the diplomats. That's where I feel very comfortable.  

Beth [00:06:18] Yeah, that's good.  

Sarah [00:06:18] I'm rooting for the people who do this for a living, who understand the complexity of this region and are saying our best hope right now is to get the border with Egypt open. As of Monday morning when we're recording, Egypt said we're not willing to open until you let us provide relief, let our trucks in full of water and gas so that then foreign nationals can go out. And that seems to be the sticking point. I'm rooting for those people. I'm rooting for the diplomats, I'm rooting for Joe Biden saying you cannot occupy this place. We do not want an expanded conflict in the West Bank. We do not want an expanded conflict with Iran. Those are the people that I'm just watching and rooting for and following because I know that they have expertise I don't. I know that they understand the complexity better than I can. I know they have-- oh, I don't know-- actual power to affect outcomes in this region of the world. And so I'm just a team diplomat at this point because it is a humanitarian crisis. It is a tragedy of epic proportions, the suffering of the people in Gaza, the Palestinians who were told to evacuate when they can't, when there's nowhere to go, when there's no water, when there's no gas. To read these reports to see children dead, dying, suffering, it's taxing. I loved the Israeli psychologist who was giving guidance around taking in the reporting and videos from the terrorist attack and just said it's more than a soul can carry. And I thought, that's right. That's exactly right. It's more than a soul can carry right now, what is happening in this part of the world. 

Beth [00:07:51] That's right. And there is the suffering in Gaza. There is the suffering in Israel still unfolding. So many Israeli soldiers are going to die the more they advance into Gaza. It's just a horrible situation.  

Sarah [00:08:05] And they've revised the amount of people that have been kidnapped and held hostage. It's 199 now, including many Americans. What we see, though, I think you were right to reference, is how this plays out with people across the globe. We had a heinous, heinous hate crime in Chicago where a 71 year old landlord of a mother and seven year old boy, there was some sort of conflict and then he stabbed the little boy, killed the little boy, harmed the mother. The authorities are saying they believe that the conflict between Israel and Palestine played a role and that this was a hate crime. France experienced the stabbing of a teacher there on high alert with regards to this type of violence. Again, it's more than souls can carry, and some souls are going to break and lash out in violence.  

Beth [00:08:52] I was really comforted, challenged-- a lot of things at one time-- by Matt Iglesias's essay last week where he said sometimes Americans pay too much attention to the Middle East and we do it in ways that are not contributive. We layer our own politics on top of the situations where our own politics do not fit. I turned on CNN when Steve Scalise dropped out of the speaker's race last week just to kind of check in and see what was being said about it. And there was nothing about it. It was just in the crawl. But everything was Israel and Hamas. And I thought, if you are watching hours of this and a lot of people in our country do, especially older people take in hours and hours and hours of this coverage, it will break you. I mean, I just can't. I can't do it. I can reflect on it, and it is with me always. And I think about the rituals that helped me get through a situation like this, that helped my soul carry it. But I am concerned about the saturation of this event and the effect it's going to have on people's psyches, the effect it's already having, obviously.  

Sarah [00:10:03] Well, and when people say, "Well, that's such a privilege. Oh, you can just check out." I really bristle at that critique because it's not a privileged position in human history not to pay attention to global suffering all at once. It's an evolutionary position. We are not evolved to do that. For thousands and thousands of years, it was enough and all that a human could do to hold the suffering in their own community. We didn't understand what was happening around the world. We had no way to know those things. And so to me it's like I don't know how I feel when people launch that critique because I just think, like, is someone in Palestine supposed to hold the suffering of someone in Ukraine? Are they supposed to be really dialed into that? Not even somebody in Palestine, just someone in Lebanon or Libya or someone suffering with a sick child in Utah. I don't care. That's not what our brains have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years is to take in all the suffering taking place right now across our entire planet. It's too much. I'm not saying you should not pay attention to the world. Obviously, we host a news podcast. I think that's really important. But I think acknowledging that, consuming the global suffering-- because that's what it is, it's just consumption. Consuming global suffering that way is really, really detrimental, especially in that sort of cable news format, which I don't really have almost any kind words for.  

Beth [00:11:43] I think that part of that tendency of Americans to layer our world framework on top of all these events inform some of that, because we sort of trained ourselves over the past few years that when something horrible is happening, you must be in it all day, every day, and you must be making pronouncements about it all day, every day. And you must be working to develop exactly the right posture and words yourself about it. And none of that is contributory to the people on the ground in Western Asia right now. None of it is contributory, I think, to our friends and neighbors who are really suffering in a personal way because of their connection to the people on the ground there. And I do believe in thoughts and prayers. We have mocked that expression to a point that it kind of hurts me because I think it does matter to know what's going on, to care about it, to try to send some good energy and whatever way you do. To light a candle, to have a silent moment. I loved watching a football game last night that they began with a moment of silence. I think that matters. And I think that that's in many ways the best we can do and then commit to, okay, here in front of me, how do I make this better? How do I give what I have to give in my community right now? Because we don't know the future and what could arrive at our doorstep here at some point.  

Sarah [00:13:08] Well, because I think we're talking about the difference between awareness and that sort of consumption. Once you understand what's happening, yes, the situation on the ground is ever evolving and changing, but you can't unknow the cruelty and suffering of the terrorist attacks. You can't unknow that missiles are falling from the sky and killing thousands of people in Palestine. That is the thing that lives in your brain and heart and soul now. Period. Now, I am not advocating for a certain bury your head in the sand naivete, like, oh, I can't know about the suffering. Nobody likes that person. Nobody wants to be that person. And we all know the person that I'm talking about, right? But I just think that there's this other thing that unless you're angry, weeping, grieving about it to the level of the people on the ground all the time, you're doing something wrong. I don't think it's available to us to do that anyway. Sort of like what I used to call concern trolling. Like where you're just not caring. You're not sending out to the world. You're trying to draw from it. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's an energetic withdrawal. And if everybody else isn't doing that too, then you're mad. And to me, that's like, no. That's a no for me. I don't love that. To me it’s like that energetic flow. Are you sending something good that way? Are you trying to pull something out of it?  

Beth [00:14:31] I think that what I observe in all of this, in all of the behavior that I look around and would classify as not super healthy, is just our need to control something. And I fully understand that. And I'm doing it in my own ways, in my own life. I was very ugly to my children on Saturday. Okay. So I get it. There are pieces of us that when it's more than a soul can carry, look for some way to control it. I know we have a bunch of listeners who want to hear us talk about sort of the really unfortunate anti-Semitism that's come out of some college campuses in the wake of this and some super progressive organizations. And I'll tell you what I am trying to do right now is show up in ways that are meaningful to my Jewish friends and now also to my Muslim friends. I would rather talk to college students than about them.  

Sarah [00:15:27] Word.  

Beth [00:15:28] That is an age in life where a lot of things are working on you. And I am so sad for the pain that those statements have caused. But I would rather talk to you college students than about them here on this podcast. And I am trying to just look at all of that stuff with the grace of understanding that people are grasping for any kind of control that they can right now.  

Sarah [00:15:50]  Now, that's true. Grasping for control seems like a good transition to talk about the House of Representatives. Steve Scalise is out. I think you listened to our podcast when I said, Do you need this in your life right now, Steve? And he said, I don't. I actually don't need this. So he's dropped out, which leaves Representative Jim Jordan, who does not have the votes even in the internal not public vote. He's 55 short. But as we're recording on Monday, the reporting is that he's going to call a vote to the floor tomorrow. I don't anticipate him winning that. But he's trying to threaten Colin and Sean Hanitty and his producers. All the backup he can handle to try to pressure, threaten, cajole the 55 holdouts to join him. I don't know.  

Beth [00:16:39] I just need us collectively to take a breath together and say it is unacceptable that this is the candidate of a majority of the Republican conference. They might as well make Sidney Powell the Speaker of the House because Jim Jordan was right in the effort to overturn the last election with her. Jim Jordan, going back to his days as a state legislator, has been using strong arm tactics, has been spreading things that are not true, has been disrespecting all of the pillars that make a democracy work. Jim Jordan is manifestly an unacceptable choice to be anywhere near the line of succession. And this again is why, even though he did better than I thought he could, I am never going to come to Kevin McCarthy's defense because Kevin McCarthy made Jim Jordan the chair of the Judiciary Committee. Jim Jordan is only a legitimate option because Kevin McCarthy made that bargain with him. And all of it just makes me so sad. Our country desperately needs the house to open, but it doesn't need the house to open under Jim Jordan's leadership, worse than it needs to stay in this situation right now. I hope sincerely-- and I'm not even going to use the word moderate because we're talking about some very, very conservative people in the House. But I hope the people who are interested in responsible governance can figure something out with Democrats quickly. Jim Jordan is not it.  

Sarah [00:18:13] No. Jim Jordan is a bad person. It's not just a bad politician. He's a bad person. Just on the most[inaudible] official level. I feel like his pallor reflects that he is like distinctly gray. Just going to put that out there. Back to our previous conversation about this. I know this is reflective of the growing power of this wing of the Republican Party. It didn't feel good to watch this happen along with the reporting from The New York Times about how Donald Trump has taken over so many state Republican parties in a way to basically stack the deck in his favor. From changing the rules in California, where it's not proportional, it's just majority winner take all, to the rules in Nevada. It's just so alarming. And my more hopeful self says, well, this is the desire to be a permanent minority party. And that said, that's my most hopeful take. That's my most hopeful take, is that they just want to be a permanent minority. But I don't think Donald Trump does. Donald Trump wants to win. Well, he wants to save himself. I don't really think he wants to be president again. He just doesn't want to go to jail. And it's just so disturbing to watch this morally bankrupt, politically craven wing of this party continue to assert itself and grow.  

Beth [00:19:39] I don't even know what to make of the idea that they just want to be a permanent minority because they do raise an awful lot of money and win an awful lot of elections. Jim Jordan wants to be the speaker. Clearly, he's pulled out every tool that he has. I think the breakdown of his relationship with Steve Scalise is related to how badly Jim Jordan wanted to be the speaker. I mean, the reporting that I've read is that Jordan approached Scalise with this promise to support him on the floor, but only for one vote, and then Scalise would have to support Jordan after that. And Jordan's team has said they might go to multiple votes if they have to. So I think that is reflective. These are two people who've been working together for a very long time and should have some sort of relationship. And that's how he treats a friend. If I were Steve Scalise, I would have backed out of that and said, "No, thank you. I don't want to be the mayor of crazytown either." But I am so distraught that under these circumstances, when the world is this serious and domestically we have so many pressing matters, that budget deadline is ticking and they cannot get it together to even put a person in charge of the gavel. I also don't like this plan to put Patrick McHenry in charge. I generally have more respect for him than Jim Jordan, for sure.  

Sarah [00:20:56] That's a very low bar.  

Beth [00:20:57] But the fact that his first act when he becomes the interim speaker is to kick people out of their offices in the Capitol, doesn't make me feel like this is a person who handles stress well enough to be in the line of succession? And that's what everybody has to keep focusing on. The speaker of the House is after the vice president in the line of succession. It is a big deal.  

Sarah [00:21:21] I don't know. And I just think so often in situations like this, I pull on history. I try to think how do the parties usually behave? What's happened? And I just think we're off the rails here. I don't have anything to point to. I don't have anything to look to except for like pre-Civil War era. That's not particularly helpful. I don't even know what to look to in an effort to try to predict what will happen next. That's not a pleasant feeling.  

Beth [00:21:46] I mean, we're going to make it through. We've had terrible speakers before. So however this turns out, we will make it through it. I think it's just disappointing because I had so hoped that after the Trump presidency there would be a moment of like sobering up, okay, we're not going to do it this way anymore. This way doesn't feel good for anyone. It's not enjoyable. It's not good for the country. And this shows me that we are so far from there.  

Sarah [00:22:15] You would think with as much age and in theory wisdom in Congress, that we’re in a better position. And that's what we're going to talk about next. We are going to talk about the aging population in Congress. We're going to talk about the aging population in the United States.  

[00:22:27] Music Interlude 

[00:22:47] We did not want to let another episode of Pantsuit Politics pass without acknowledging the passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein at the age of 90. Was an incredible senator, an incredible politician. Survived so many things, passed so much incredible legislation, was instrumental in many, many moments in American history over the last, I don't know, three to four decades. And so we just wanted to talk about her and her legacy before we talked about the aging population of the United States.  

Beth [00:23:21] Well, she was a formidable person. When I had to write a little bit about this while you were on vacation, Sarah, what kept coming to me is that she was unintimidated by public life. She was unintimidated by pressures from her own party. She was unintimidated by the seriousness of the topics she was pursuing. I most respect her handling of the post 9/11. How did we do? And her willingness to shine a light on the use of torture by our government, and to say that this is not who we are or how we operate. I think it had to be frightening. And she just seemed clear on what she was there to do and resolve to do it. 

Sarah [00:24:04] Well, and you know what I think as we talk about her legacy? There is a moment where the New York Times headline was oldest United States senator passes away. And I thought, man, that sucks. For one thing, that's not her legacy. But I thought, I hope everybody else up there takes a lesson. That when you overstay, that becomes your legacy. The legacy, instead of talking about the torture memo and her incredible leadership in San Francisco and her time as United States senator, became she sure did stay until the age of 90. I hope Chuck Grassley was looking at that and taking some notes.  

Beth [00:24:41] A lot of the negative press around her, especially in the couple of years before her decline became so obvious, it was about tension with much younger people. You remember the Sunshine activist?  

Sarah [00:24:54] Yeah.  

Beth [00:24:55] And some of the internal staffing issues in her office. And what really struck me preparing for this episode is how Washington D.C. is really powered by very, very old adults and very, very young adults without a whole lot in the middle. I just read Cassidy Hutchinson's book, and my main takeaway from that book is that asking people in their twenties to do what we ask all those staffers in their twenties to do as they are led by people in their 60, 70s and eighties, it is no wonder we have a level of dysfunction happening almost all the time.  

Sarah [00:25:38] Yeah, there is sort of like a middle level, very powerful middle level in committees and chiefs of staff, but they're outnumbered, that's for dang sure. And I think it's hard because it creates tension. I don't know, maybe that is a good sort of demographic interplay because that is going to be increasingly, I think, the interplay in the United States, this rapidly aging and very powerful generation and a growing young population that is voting in much higher percentages than previous youthful generations. What I think is sort of an interesting interplay. But with Feinstein, with Grassley, and of course with Joe Biden, who is now 80 years old, there's just a really difficult conversation. And I think the more we can realize that we are a representative democracy and that this isn't just about the gerontocracy in the United States, this is about a growing demographic tension that people are living longer and that has repercussions for everything as long as we continue to make it about Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein and not realize like, no, look around everybody, this is applicable to all of our lives and not just because of the people we elect.  

Beth [00:26:53] And it's true throughout the developed world. Part of what's so striking about Gaza is how young the people there are. That is unique. And much of Africa, people are very, very young. And that is unique. Because almost uniformly the rest of the world, we are just getting older and having fewer children, and so the balance is not there. And when we say we're getting older, huge groups of people aging and living longer than they have before is just changing all of our needs around housing and infrastructure and health care. It is a very daunting challenge. A good challenge, I guess. On the spectrum of challenges you can have that people are living longer, but it comes with a lot.  

Sarah [00:27:40] No, it's absolutely a good challenge. And I do not want to skip over the fact that this is a testament to human progress because people live longer and have fewer children because their standard of living improves. We have just beaten into the ground global poverty levels. We have elevated massive proportions of the global population out of poverty, and that has resulted in longer lives. People are living longer, not even in the developed world, everywhere. This is a statistic I ran across while I was doing research. In every year since 1950, average life expectancy around the world has risen by 18 weeks. Every year, 18 weeks.  

Beth [00:28:26] That gives some context to the statistic that jumped out at me so much, which is how fast this has happened, because in 1913 global life expectancy was 34.  

Sarah [00:28:37] Thirty four.  

Beth [00:28:38] In 1913. And by 2022 it was 72. Global life expectancy in that span of time. That's incredible to me.  

Sarah [00:28:49] And so, to me, it's like this isn't a problem. This is a transition. The global population, particularly led by the United States and some other industrial nations-- Japan's been dealing with this for a while. When you elevate people's lives, when you reduce poverty, when you reduce infectious diseases, people live longer and they have fewer children. And that presents a whole other set of challenges. Let's just look at the success in an opportunity. Not like we've missed something up. We didn't mess something up. We got people to live longer. That's incredible. I mean, the average age, we're talking about 72 globally. But the average lifespan is just increasing and increasing and increasing. Now, it does seem like we maxed it out. No one's been documented to live longer than 120. But that proportion of people who are living past 80, 90, 100, those numbers are just growing. And I think the first thing we have to talk about as we're talking about people living longer is lifespan versus health span. We're both reading Peter Attia's book, Outlive Right Now. Just so fascinating. He really makes the case for a new medicine 3.0, is what he calls it, that pays a lot closer attention to not just lifespan, but living a healthier life longer. I was very struck by that chart at the beginning of his book where he says, if you eliminate the lives saved by an infectious disease and just antibiotics and washing our hands, which is great job, human species, I'm really glad we figured that one out, you don't really see this dramatic increase in lifespans. Like, we've gotten really good at those acute issues, but not good at dealing with some of the chronic things that maybe you still live, but your health sucks and you're not in a good space.  

Beth [00:30:33] Yeah, he identifies what he calls the Four Horsemen and they are cancer, Alzheimer's and other forms of cognitive disease, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome.  

Sarah [00:30:45] And so he's like, we don't do a good job. And that's the thing. I think the first glaring like red flag, this is a thing we have to figure out, particularly the United States, is that we are living longer but we are spending more and more and more on health care like it's far outpacing the growth. And so I think we have to find a more efficient-- I'm not calling for death panels. Sarah Palin, I remember that. But we have to find a more efficient way to care for our aging population that's not just extending lifespans. I think all the time about Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal, where he says, "When a family asks me, is there anything else I can do? The answer is almost always yes. But the real question is, should I?" Because if you're just judging people's lives out but they have no quality of life, they don't have that health span. And I think that's a question that I am hearing people grapple with more and more and more as our population continues to age.  

Beth [00:31:45] I just read an incredible book that we'll link in the show notes about health insurance. It's called We've Got You Covered. And it's these two economists who have studied health care for a very long time and said that at parties people are always saying, well, okay, so what should we do? And they decided they finally wanted to put down their thoughts on what we should do and they advocate for a universal automatic enrollment basic system for everyone. But when they talk about basic, they mean real, real basic.  

Sarah [00:32:21] Like catastrophic, pretty much.  

Beth [00:32:23] No, because it would still include well checks and vaccines. But they're talking about models that have been used in places like Singapore where it's not a pretty office. You might have to wait a while to get there. When you get there, you are not in a comfortable and private space, but it's a stripped down basic level of care for everybody that you don't have to do anything to have access to. No bureaucracy around it whatsoever. By virtue of living here, you have this automatic health insurance and then the ability to buy upgrades.  

Sarah [00:33:01] Okay, I like it.  

Beth [00:33:02] And I bring this up because I think a lot of that expense, as we talk about people getting older, happens because that basic level of care is not attended to all the way throughout life. And so we don't catch things early enough and by the time we're treating, we can treat, but treating is really, really expensive.  

Sarah [00:33:21] And ineffective.  

Beth [00:33:23] And ineffective. I also bring it up because I think the more that we have things that just everybody is part of. That gives us more models for places to build some community. It's not that I think that a universal super basic health insurance would build community. I don't think that that's like a panacea, is going to solve all the world's problems. The authors of this book say that's not going to solve all the world's problems. But I do think we need more examples of how we live in cross generational, cross socioeconomic status way if we are to solve some of the challenges of an aging population. The loneliness factor, the isolation factor, as people are getting older, especially people who do not live near immediate family or who are estranged from immediate family. That is where so much of the health care cost is driven to. People who are on their own, they're not eating well, they're not sleeping well, they're not getting exercise. They're not getting any kind of social connection with other people. And that is a recipe for poor health.  

Sarah [00:34:32] Yeah. Well, and that gets to the sort of labor and financial aspect of this, is not only we do have an aging population, but this particular population made live through proliferated a lot of changes in the way we deal with finances as we age. So we went from a population, the greatest generation, the silent generation, where there was a lot of pensions. Now we still have public pension. Let's not ever forget that we have Social Security, public pension. We'll talk about that in a minute. But private pensions, they don't exist on the level that they did. And actually we were talking about this in a previous conversation in our team, and I was like, I wonder how many baby boomers don't have retirement at all? And Maggie looked it up, you guys, it's half. Holy shit. Half of baby boomers have no retirement savings. That's terrifying to me. Truly terrifying.  

Beth [00:35:29] That is also going to change things for generations, right? Because so many people are able to buy a house because they have inherited some money or they've received some money from family members. Like the fact that we have so many people who can't support their own retirement means they're not going to be passing that wealth on to another generation. And that will change the balance of things for a long time.  

Sarah [00:35:52] And also people are working longer and longer and longer. Like I said, the gerontocracy in DC is a manifestation of what's happening in other parts of our culture. I mean, I have family members who are in their seventies still working full time. I don't think we fully grappled with how that's going to change things. I read another article, every week it feels like, about the growing elderly homeless population. There was a really interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about the homeless population in Florida because the cost of living is rising and rising. And so you have investors come in, then suddenly people are priced out of the affordable rental they have. They have no savings, they have no pension, They have nowhere to go. They have no retirement. And so it's like homeless shelters are trying to figure out how to deal with elderly populations. And I think there's just all this fallout, that we knew this cohort was aging, we knew this was coming for us. And I think we just sort of buried our heads in the sand.  

Beth [00:36:53] And I think we need to figure out some kind of shift in our approach to it, because we can't build enough retirement homes to make this work. If people are going to live longer and have a longer section of life, be that time where maybe you can't do stairs, maybe you need grab bars in the restroom, maybe you need more hands on medical attention, we just can't keep building places to say, okay, go over here. You're going to live in a nursing home or retirement home for 30, 40 years? That doesn't make any sense. So a lot of things need to adjust to figure out how to deal with so many people. And I don't even know the work answer because when I think about my life, if I am blessed to live a long time, I don't want to not work at all for a huge part of that. I love to work. Now I probably want to work differently. But not at all I think would would be isolating. It would cut me off from people. It would cut me off from sections of my brain and creativity. And I don't know, I just have this whiteboard in my mind of like all these different facets of life that need to shift around this.  

Sarah [00:38:06] I mean, I think one big thing is when you have a public pension fund like Social Security and you have health care costs rising in something like the public health care for the elderly like Medicare, and people are living longer and better lives, but we have this huge cohort with our retirement savings we have got to find a fair and equitable way to transition to an older retirement age. I'm not saying we do it on a dime because we have to find a way to transition to the people who lived and built their lives, expecting that to come in a certain time. And again, we just said there's this huge financial burden with the rising cost of health care, with the rising cost of housing. But we need to start figuring this part out if we are going to have fewer workers contributing to Social Security and an aging population than we need that again can be an opportunity because people are living longer, healthier lives and can work for longer. I think we have got to figure out that transition and that there needs to be a transition. We can't continue to depend on systems that are built around a 55 or a 65 age of retirement if people are going to be living into their eighties and nineties. And that's what I really appreciate about the Outlive book. Longevity is a huge thing right now. I am also obsessed with it. I want to be a supercentenarian. I want to live to be 110. Now that's my new goal. But I like that he talked so much about this is not about individual choices. We've all read about the Silicon Valley tech guys who are using their money to outsmart aging, but this needs to be a systematic approach. We need to look at a lot of things that have to transition into this new understanding that there are going to be fewer babies born and people are living longer. This is the new reality for not just the United States but the globe, and we have to adjust accordingly.  

Beth [00:40:05] And in the United States in particular, I think it's another call for us to rethink immigration. I think it's another call for us to rethink incarceration and all of the ways in which we have prevented people who can contribute to solutions from contributing, all of the ways in which our workforce can adapt so that there are rewarding, contributive appropriate ways for older workers to still be in the workforce, but on terms that are healthy and happy for them. And I really believe we can do that in ways that will improve life for everyone. I especially believe in connecting older and younger people. I love to read an article about a daycare and a nursing home that have worked together. That is my favorite kind of article. You come across those, please send them to me. I will read one every single day. It makes me so happy. I just want us to be like in that mindset all the time. How can we reach out to each other? Because we are in this big transitional shift for populations?  

Sarah [00:41:08] Yeah, and I think when we talk about it that way, it just feels more like nobody's doing anything wrong. This is just the new reality around the globe. Less babies, people living longer, healthier lives. Okay, great. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what that's going to look like. Let's talk about how AI can formulate this. Let's talk about if you want more babies and you better come up with a much better supportive environment for women who want to have children. For families who want to adopt children. For families who want to have children. There needs to be a lot better approach to, oh, I don't know, daycare. I'm just going to pull something out of the air that I think would be a great place to start. Or maternity and paternity leave, like all those things, like all those components. I hope that we're getting to a place where instead of doing this constant generational warfare, we can see that we're all a piece of the whole and that this has to be a new approach to things.  

Beth [00:42:03] And it comes at you fast. We are getting to be an age where a major shift in Social Security would be something we'd have to think about and plan for. It happens really fast, and I think that also gives me a greater sense of longing for solutions. The one other thing I want to mention from the Outlive book while we're talking about this, because it tracks with what the International Monetary Fund is saying we all need to do about an aging population. He talks about how the best medicine we have is exercise. Exercise is our best tool. And, look, I don't like that. I've mentioned before. I don't like to squat. I hate the feeling of my heart beating fast. I don't enjoy it, but I am convicted that is correct. That is correct. And so that means a lot of things because right now exercise is like a pretty privileged thing in the United States. We got to make that more available in terms of time and access to space and equipment for lots and lots more people. I share your-- I'm going to call it a dream, not a goal, because I feel like a goal should be something I'm capable of achieving on my own.  

Sarah [00:43:13] Yeah, fair enough.  

Beth [00:43:15] But I share your dream to live a long life. As we've said before, I love it here.  

Sarah [00:43:20] I do. I just love it here.  

Beth [00:43:21] I really am enjoying my life and would like to stay with it as long as I can. But I want everybody around me to stay with it too. And so where we can make those investments in better air ventilation would make a difference for these issues. Like all of the things that we're capable of doing, I think we are in an investment generation and it helps me to see it that way too. As somebody who worries about our fiscal situation more and more, I just see it's so transitional. We are an investment generation.  

Sarah [00:43:52] And we just always have to remember that we, just like any human life, you cannot plot it out and walk a straight line. I was reading this weekend about how part of the reason that they believe global temperatures have risen so dramatically-- like July was the hottest, August was the hottest and September was the hottest, just off the charts-- is this Faustian bargain we struck where we reduced air pollution. Well, the air pollution was blocking some of the sun. And it's like, what? But I love it here. And it's so hot here. Because you do things like reduce air pollution and increase global temperatures. It's freaking complicated. And honestly it goes back to our beginning conversation about like we just want to control things so badly. We're so precious in the way that we think we'll just keep at this. For everything we figure out in this transition to people living longer lives, fewer babies being born-- and every time I say the statement fewer babies being born, I get a shiver down my spine because I think of The Handmaid's Tale, because I think fewer babies makes people freak all the way out. There is something like truly, in our evolutionary biology that just freaks people out to the point where, like, there's a little baby boom right now and I'm very much enjoying it. And every time I feel bad and I feel like Margaret Atwood is like, be careful with that emotion. Like in my subconscious she's always like a little devil on my shoulder. Devil or angel, I guess, depending on how you think about it. But we have to understand that as we transition to this and we think about this, it's going to be enormously complicated. And every time we think we figure something out, we're going to realize like that had 16 negative consequences that we didn't see coming because we're not going to perfect it, guys. Being a human on planet Earth is a really, really messy proposition. And it doesn't matter what the demographic changes are, it will remain a very messy proposition.  

Beth [00:45:50] We are living the eternal scientific method and that's okay. We are allowed some trial and error.  

Sarah [00:45:55] That's right. That's right. I do think that overall-- and maybe this is just because I put on readers for the first time this weekend and realized, oh, these are things I need now. I do think overall an aging population is not a burden. Enormous wisdom comes with age, enormous wisdom. I spent much of the weekend going through some of my like college videos and some old emails, the earnest cluelessness present in my email chains from my twenties took my breath away, guys. I thought, hell, I'll figure it out. I had nothing figured out. I had zero things figured out. And so I think an aging population is an enormous gift. I really do. I think there is so much wisdom that comes from a population that's just seen a lot of things. I don't think it's always a gift. Again, it's a messy proposition, but I don't want to talk about it. And not only because I'm aging myself as we all are, even your local two year old. But not just because I want people to see me that way, but because I do think it is true. And I think another constant among human societies is a prominent role of elders. And I think maybe we're missing that and maybe this is our time to sort of reclaim the role of elders in a society.  

[00:47:24] Music Interlude 

[00:47:41] Beth, we like to end our show talking about what's going on Outside of Politics. And there is only one option. There's just the one thing going on in human existence right now, and that's Taylor Swift. Try and avoid it. I would like to tell you, do your best. Do your best here as a person here on planet Earth in October of 2023 to find something to talk about that does not involve Taylor Swift. If you go to the movies, she's dominating? You like football. You say you like football? I got news. Excited Saturday Night Live's back on TV? Guess who was there. Doesn't matter? It doesn't matter. She's here. She's there. She's everywhere. She's like Roy Kent.  

Beth [00:48:27] I texted you while we were at Disneyland that they are playing Taylor Swift music. Does Disneyland ever play Non-Disney music? Rarely.  

Sarah [00:48:33] No, they do now.  

Beth [00:48:34] No one's going to resist anymore. Resistance is futile.  

Sarah [00:48:36] It's futile. That's what I keep telling my sons. They're like, "Oh, I don't like her."" I'm like, Everyone's a Swifty now. Get on board."  

Beth [00:48:43] We did go see the Eras movie this weekend. We were not able to see her life. I am trying to deal with the bitterness that has hardened around my heart about this.  

Sarah [00:48:52]  I understand.  

Beth [00:48:54] We go in the theater and when you look down the hallway, the little signs above each theater that tell you what's playing in there. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor.  

Sarah [00:49:04] It's like you're back in the 1950s where there's one screen. Doesn't matter.  

Beth [00:49:08] We go in, the entire screen is just her. It's just pink background and there's Taylor. And then it's just the concert. There's no framing around it. There's no chatting. There's no behind the scenes, just the concert. I loved it as a way for my kids to see it. I did not want to take them to the Eras tour. I feel no guilt about this whatsoever. I wanted to go and enjoy that concert and not parent through it.  

Sarah [00:49:36] That's right.  

Beth [00:49:38] So this was a great way to let them see it. And they enjoyed it. Now, we did go in the morning and our theater was dead. People were at a movie, not a concert. So it was quiet. Nobody was singing and dancing or standing up or anything.  

Sarah [00:49:50] Taylor wouldn't like that, guy.  

Beth [00:49:53] Taylor would not like it. She told us what she wanted us to do. I think someone just needed to start. And several times I thought, should I be that person? Should I just get up and do this?  

Sarah [00:50:03] You should have.  

Beth [00:50:03] But a few minutes in, it was like the moment was lost. It had to start from the beginning. So that's my advice. If you go, you should fix my mistake just from the beginning, be the person who gets on your feet and says this is how we're going to approach the situation. People were dressed up, everybody came ready to have a good time, but then we just sat and watched the movie. So for me, other than yay, my girls got to see it, it was kind of like that looks like a really fun show that I didn't get to go to. And it did look like a really fun show, but I wasn't there. It wasn't a substitute for the experience, for sure.  

Sarah [00:50:36] Well, listen, the genius and key to Taylor's dominance is that even if you do go, the whole time you're like, I think I want to go again. I went with Ashley, an incredibly loyal, lovely listener who opened up her two tickets. She got four and the pre-sale to me and my friend Kate. And I'm telling you, we were walking out of the arena and Ashley and Kate were trying to like, could we go on Sunday? Could we make it happen? Like, it's just you're going to see more. So I am going to say right now, if there are any listeners who want to put good into the universe and soften Beth's heart and have maybe some extra tickets in the fall, hit us up because that's what I did. I just plead openly on the Internet and said, "Who wants to make Sarah's dreams come true?" So I think there's someone out there that can make your Taylor dreams come true in the fall. She's coming to Cincinnati again?  

Beth [00:51:23] She's going to Indianapolis. I couldn't get tickets for that one. Listen, pleading on the Internet is not really my style, but I appreciate you doing that for me.  

Sarah [00:51:30] I'll do it for you.  

Beth [00:51:30] My heart is a little bit better about it. My friend Jane too we both looked at each other a couple times and we were like maybe we want to go more Eras.  

Sarah [00:51:37] Yeah, it does. Again, you could go on the tour and you'd be walking out being like, I want to go again. It's addictive.  

Beth [00:51:42] If you did watch SNL, I've been so ready for SNL to come back. Not a sketch went by without a Taylor reference, I don't think, except one which you have to find on the internet even if you watch nothing else. And that is that Pete Davidson hosted and they did an I'm Just Ken spoof about Pete Davidson. That was chef's kiss. It was fantastic.  

Sarah [00:52:03] I love Pete Davidson. I root for Pete Davidson. I make no apologies about it. I'm just very invested in his life and his recovery and his success. I just am, I can't help myself. But I love that. And she was at the after party with Travis. They were both looking very cute. I just lean in everybody. Stephanie McNeil, who I love, who does sort of influence her beat, wrote this thing like, is she going to face a backlash? And I'm like, no. First of all, she's already done that. We already had our time where everybody hated Taylor Swift. She wrote some songs about it. She's already evolved past that. Do I think she will continue this level of dominance in perpetuity? No. But I do think now it's just Taylor's world, y'all. And we're all living in it. We're just all living in it.  

Beth [00:52:47] I hope there's something corrective about this, too, because we've had a block of years where we thought it was more fun to tear someone down than build them up.  

Sarah [00:52:56] Yes.  

Beth [00:52:57] I would love to take this thing we're doing with Taylor and just spread that around.  

Sarah [00:53:01] Yeah. [Crosstalk].  

Beth [00:53:02] It's so much more fun to be excited about a person than to be all nasty about someone.  

Sarah [00:53:06] Yes, I agree. I don't want to curse it. Because I believe that when energy is good, we try not to upset it. We just keep it tied to our vest. That is why from now in October, you will not hear me say the word flu until probably May. So I just don't like to call that energy forth. But I do think there's some-- maybe it's because Ellen killed Twitter. But there does seem to be some aspect of the Internet that is healing itself. I know I keep citing this example, but it also involves Taylor Swift, which is Sophie Turner and the Jonas divorce, where people were like, you're not going to call her a bad mother. We won't have it. And then she went out with Taylor. So even there, she's like, hey, we're not going to do that anymore. We don't tear women down when they get divorced and call them bad mothers. And here's Taylor Swift to show up at this dinner to be like, no, for real, guys, we don't do that anymore. We're not going to slut shame. We're not going to bad mom shame. We're moving on, we're progressing, we've evolved. Taylor has led us there. This is who we are now as a species.  

Beth [00:54:06] Well, and not just her, a bunch of celebrities are just so much more supportive of each other than I can remember in, like, the nineties when we grew up and it was all like, let's be heinous to everyone, especially women. But I think about like Brandi Carlile and how generous she is with other people. I was impressed with both Taylor and Travis because they each had a little SNL cameo, but it was seconds and they didn't make it all about them, even though it will be all about them today [inaudible] discussing it. But they didn't make it all about them. They just kind of showed up. More people are talking about ice space than would have otherwise because Taylor introduced her. And I really dig that.  

Sarah [00:54:47] Yeah, I think it's great. Let's just lean into this energy, everybody. We've all been through enough and continue to go through enough. When we can find moments of joy and levity and just never forget the complete and total mastery this woman has over her career and music and public relations, let's just enjoy it. We don't have to tear her down about that. We can just be inspired by her mastery and find our own moments of mastery in our own lives. Taylor. I love you, Taylor. Fully. I've been fully converted and I'm enjoying every second of it. So thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We look forward to hearing from you on all topics that we've covered in this episode, which was wide ranging, as always, and we will be back in yours on Friday with-- speaking of mastery, speaking of joy, Beth is making a heart sign with her hands right now. We'll be back in tears on Friday with secretary Pete Buttigieg. And until then, keep it nuanced, y'all. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. The Lebo Family.

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.   

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