I believe many of us will not think about dying till we arrive into our 40’s and this week has been all about the business of aging and death for me, starting with a 95 year old granduncle who lies in the ICU ward; a good friend telling me about her contribution to a charity, SASCO, championing dementia; and an impulsive purchase of a stem cell supplement from a direct selling scheme that markets themselves as the Rolls Royce of supplements*.
*On a side note, I am starting to believe that direct selling is the best way to milk the most profits from a unique and effective product that deserves better than the usual pharmacy shelf space.
Morbid as it is to tackle the topic as we watch the able-bodied tackle each other in the Singapore Rugby Sevens, we cannot help but wonder about death in the bustling ICU unit where every face mask and tissue box issued comes with a price tag and geriatric physiotherapy starts at 150 dollars for 5 minute slots.
Healthcare could be the saviour of our fledging economy just as I have always maintained that cancer is probably one of the most economic value-add disease with the amount of spending involved, going into GDP where healthcare spending takes up a sizeable chunk in the developed nations such as the USA with 17%, one of the highest in the world, Europe registering 10% numbers against China’s 5.5% and Singapore’s 4.9% for the year 2014. (source : World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS/countries/1W-EU-US?display=default)
An “aged society” is typically defined as one where more than 14% of the population are 65 or older and we have a few of those right now, led by grand old Japan which incidentally ranks top in terms of elderly quality of life, a contentious claim perhaps, with a recent FT article highlighting that Japan’s Elderly Turn To Life Of Crime To Ease Cost of Living because life in prison comes with free food, accommodation and healthcare.
Yet we will soon live in an “aged” world, by definition, as statistics reveal that 21.5% of global population will be over 60 by 2050. Does that mean we should live to be wary of the harmless old person we see on the street ?
Yes. For I have been harassed in the past months by a little old lady begging for cash with tears in her eyes at a certain public carpark, at least twice, and been informed by local residents that she is just a kooky senile who probably did not need the money.
It does not make full sense to me as I read about 2014 being the peak birth year of the world with 139 million babies born and that South Koreans would be extinct by 2750 as South Korea faces a rapid aging problem versus low birth rates which is not surprising because K Pop boys probably do not make good father material ? I have to specially mention this because of curiosity prompted me to Google the latest tv fad, Descendents of the Sun, that has gripped half the women I know and my horror at discovering that the “auntie” was actually the male lead (photo evidence below).
We approached this issue last year when we wrote When Is A Child A Commodity ? Economics of Parenthood (https://tradehaven.net/when-is-a-child-a-commodity-economics-of-parenthood/) and noted while it cost about US$245k or more to raise a child in New York, it was not too long ago that Japanese viewed their children as a an economic asset if anyone remembers TV soap, Oshin, that was remade recently into a film, and a practice that is still practiced in many parts of the world, such as American ally, Afghanistan, today.
Now as we read daily, the headlines about legalising assisted dying in the West, with Canada being the latest, Shanghai Says People Who Fail To Visit Parents Will Have Credit Scores Lowered.
The business of aging and dying is a big and lucrative one indeed and is a trend that many investment managers have latched on with their top picks of pharmaceutical companies, insurance and real estate companies (for those retirement villages).
With the headlines swinging towards Alzheimer’s disease and that it gets 13 times less research dollar then cancer, the latest claim to a cure by Singapore’s TauRX Pharmaceuticals* may make many investors rich.
*TauRX Pharmaceuticals did a few rounds of private capital raising in the past 3 years mostly out of accredited investors