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Article: The Miser's Pensioner.(Society)(pension finance)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- January 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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To be a Prodigal's Favourite--then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner--behold our lot!
O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!
--William Wordsworth "The Small Celandine"
THE 1973 CHARLTON HESTON film Soylent Green depicted a dystopian future in the year 2022 whereby old people had reached their "used-by date". They were processed into a green biscuit, "soylent green", to supply food for the younger generation. You didn't have to care for the old--you just ate them!
Ten years later another insightful film, The Ploughman's Lunch, depicted Jonathon Pryce as a journalist, clawing his way to ...