"Ship them Abroad"

Ships when not in usable state are ‘shipped’ to third world countries for decommissioning and de bundling and sold off as scrap. Imagine the pain on the economic and environmental balance sheets of countries if decommissioning old and unusable ships is not allowed; rather you are forced to spend heavily on them to keep them in working condition.

Something akin in happening with the handling of elderly and their pensions in the west. Greece is stretching the working age of potential retirees as it would not be able to fund current level of retirement benefits. America is increasingly concerned about the baby boomers entering the retirement age and UK and parts of Euro zone are hard pressed and most state pension plans are underfunded.

Is there is a way out? Well if we take a leaf from the ship building and its related ‘decommissioning’ industry, it makes absolute sense to carry out the ‘decommissioning’ of elderly ‘offshore’ (with all due respect). 

Retirees can be shipped to cheaper countries for medical treatments and even for permanent settlement (in cases which require permanent and continuing medical supervision and care). Medical Tourism is not too bad an idea and countries like Singapore, India and Chile have a competitive advantage in providing cheaper and sophisticated ‘overhauling services’ for the elderly. It’s about time the west harness this competitive advantage of emerging economies to reduce their “Defined Benefit” retirement plan expenditure. Clearly it might cost west some medical jobs, but more money in the hands of emerging economies will spike demand for imported goods from west (particularly technology and sophistical equipments including medical and aeronautical etc). The demand for technology and sophistical goods will create jobs in these industries (in the west), thus there will be a structural shift in some jobs from medical to other industries and the world economy will be better off.

All those ‘baby boomers’; get ready to be ‘shipped’ overseas. 

(Note: Equating medical tourism for elderly with off shoring is a satire on American Ideology of 'off shoring' anything and everything that saves cost.)