August 15, 2025 • 52 mins
Analyzing Life Expectancy with Actuary Expert Philip Lehpamer | Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics PodcastIn this compelling episode of the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast hosted by Dian Griesel, the conversation delves deeply into the concept of life expectancy with special guest and actuary expert Philip Lehpamer. Philip explains the role of an actuary, how life expectancy tables are constructed, and the factors that influence these statistics. They also discuss the differential life expectancy between males and females, the historical trends in life expectancy in the United States, and interesting actuarial studies on Hollywood actors and major league sports players. The episode wraps up with a discussion on Philip's book 'Unwavering Love'. Engaging and enlightening, this episode offers a unique perspective on the science behind life expectancy.
Please SUBSCRIBE! I’m Dian Griesel, Ph.D. aka @SilverDisobedience to my hundreds of thousands of monthly blog readers. You can learn more about me here: https://diangriesel.com
But for starters…I am a perception analyst, counselor, hypnotherapist, author of 16 books and a Wilhelmina model. For 30 years I have helped my clients to achieve greater understanding as to how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally.
This episode was recorded in collaboration with The Manhattan Center, New York City, New York. https://www.themanhattancenter.com/
Show Run:00:00 Introduction and Today's Topic00:18 The Importance of Discussing Death01:21 Introducing the Expert: Philip Lehpamer01:51 Understanding Actuarial Science02:33 Life Expectancy and Actuarial Tables07:15 Gender Differences in Life Expectancy16:18 Social Security and Actuarial Calculations17:18 Life Expectancy Trends Over Time26:50 Social Security and Mortality Rates29:29 Hypothetical Life Tables33:15 Hollywood Mortality Study40:59 Survivor Curves and Life Expectancy45:26 Unwavering Love: The Book50:29 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Silver Despedance Perception
Dynamics podcast. I'm Diane Grissel.
Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics with
an expert. So what's one of my favorite
topics? While there are many, but I like
to talk about death. And the reason I like to talk
about death, even though a lot of people think that sounds
(00:22):
morbid, is because if we recognize the fact that our time
on earth is finite, we get X amount of time.
And I don't care about all thosebio hackers or all these people
that say they're going to live forever, you know, or all the
people that get to 50 and say, whoa, we're halfway there.
I don't know too many 100 year olds.
(00:43):
So to me, when you focus in on death, you can really start to
live. For me, it started sometime
after September 11th when I losta lot of people that I really
loved. And as time went on, I started
to realize that, you know, 50 isn't necessarily the midway
mark. There's plenty of people that
die far more early, far, way before they ever get close to
(01:07):
50. And there are people that do
live into their 90s and are living spectacular lives.
One of my closest friend is going to be 85 this summer.
And frankly, she's a rock star still and very active in
business. But my guest today is Philip La
Palma. I had to really practice that
(01:28):
name, just for the record, and he's given me the thumbs up off
camera right now. But Philip Le Palmer, he has
spent a lifetime as an actuarial.
Now he's going to explain exactly what an actuarial,
actuarial or actuary is. Maybe that's really what it is.
You're an actuary who works on actuarial tables.
(01:48):
But we're going to learn this with him.
And basically from my understanding, you know what,
forget my understanding. Let's just go to the expert.
Phil, thank you for joining me. Diane, thank you very much for
inviting me to talk about what an actuary does.
(02:09):
Yes, this is what we want to talk.
About what does an actuary do? OK, now hold on, because from my
perspective and what I want to understand is how does an
actuary decide when we're going to die?
Because that's really kind of what insurance is about.
They're setting a timeline of this is an average.
(02:30):
So fill me in, correct me, let'sfind out what I need to know.
An actuary does not know when you're going to die.
OK. All right.
So you're not going to give Amy that answer this afternoon?
No crystal ball, Phil. Absolutely not.
OK. Not only that, I mean I what a
(02:55):
probability of death means? Yes, all right.
What the probability of death means?
Is that what an actuary tries tocalculate?
A probability of death. Yeah, think of a table of
numbers. OK.
All right, starting with age 0, which is birth.
(03:18):
OK. All the way out to age, let's
say 120. OK, an aside.
Those people that Doge found on the Social Security.
Just an aside, OK, there has been only one documented death
of a person living beyond 120 inthe entire world.
(03:44):
Wow. One person.
That's good to know. All right, it was a French lady.
She lived to 1997, so she was 120, and I don't know how many
days. And there was some dispute over
that, but the French people who investigated said that this is
(04:10):
legitimate. OK.
Nobody else in the entire world has been documented beyond 120.
OK, so you were talking about these charts, yes.
So you start at 0, yes, and the chart goes to 120. 20, Correct.
OK, OK. And then next to each age, OK,
(04:34):
there's a number. All right.
And we'll say that the chart starts at 100,000 people.
OK, 100,000 babies age 0. Yeah.
All right. Now, at age 1, one year later,
how many of the 100,000 are still alive?
(04:59):
And there's a number and there'sa number, all right?
And at age 2, how many are stillalive out of the original
100,000, out of the original. Now the original number has
already been reduced, right? Right.
Because it's down to 1 year olds, right?
(05:19):
So now you're saying what? How many of those one year old
children will live to make age 2, right?
And you just keep going all the way down now.
So obviously, yeah, one side of the chart is going up, the other
side of the chart is going down.Yes.
(05:41):
Because you're going up an age right down in the likelihood
that you're going to keep advancing.
Right now I'll do a little bit of a switch there.
OK, OK. Instead of starting at 100,000
and recording deaths so to speak, but you're still
recording people who are not alive, you can start out the
(06:03):
other way. How would that be?
You give the number of deaths between 8 zero and one and then
you give the number of deaths between 1:00 and 2:00 and all
the way down. So are you looking at it as it
as a survivor of on the life side, which may be more positive
(06:29):
or are you actually, are you, are you actually counting the
deaths All right. Well, that's the glass half
full, glass empty theory and everything in life, right?
Am I surviving another day or did I, you know, cheat death?
Yes. So if you don't like talking
(06:50):
about death probabilities, we can talk about survivor
probabilities. OK.
Right. But it's all kind of right.
It's just a different. Way a different perspective.
Correct. Yes, very, very good.
So I I should mention something else right now.
(07:10):
OK. As everybody's probably aware,
the ladies live longer than the men.
Why do you think that is? I've always been curious about.
That I, I, I really, I really don't know.
And and the it's significant. Is it because we just nag a
(07:31):
little we we tire you guys out so.
I don't know why this is the case, but as a person who worked
on this for many years, and that's one of the one of the
(07:52):
things that a life insurance actuary does.
There are other actuaries, there's casualty actuaries,
there's pension actuaries and soon.
But then then there's life actuaries.
All right? So that's a narrow subset of the
of the actuarial universe. OK, all right.
(08:14):
But to get back to what I started to say.
So women live longer by about how much?
OK. That's a very good question.
And I'm going to take a look at a table now, a table of numbers,
right? And I'm going to use the word
(08:35):
life expectancy, OK? OK, So this is the life
expectancy of a male OK at birthin the United States of America.
OK, I'm sure that varies a lot around.
During the calendar year 2022, OK, which is the last time or is
(08:59):
it's the most recent table that the Social Security
Administration. Put out.
As put out. Wow.
So it's the Social Security Administration that keeps these
charts. They're one, one place to go.
OK, OK. And it's a very good place to
go. Probably.
Right, anybody can go to the. I'm sure each life insurance
(09:25):
company keeps track of. Oh, sure.
Sure, sure. If I'm saying that, yeah, you
would go to Social Security on the Internet, Yeah, I think it's
SSA, yeah. SSA.
And you can and just put in lifeexpectancy and tables will pop
up. OK, so now we're.
Yeah. So, So what I started to say was
(09:48):
that the life expectancy according to this table of the
males age of 74.74, not quite age 78, right.
OK. So that's the life expectancy.
And what is that? That's.
So 7 about 74 for a male. Yes, yeah, is.
(10:12):
It for a woman. 8080.81. 80 That's a big spread.
It's. Fierce.
It's it's not. Yes, it's a little 5, a little
bit over 5. Used to be even greater at one
point in time. I mean, it's really yes, yes.
So it's important for some calculations to be able to have
(10:37):
a table for males versus femalesand a table for females.
Yeah, I would bet that's very important.
I mean, I worked in drug development for years, and the
interesting thing about drug development for the very large
majority is that it's all titrated and based on males.
(10:58):
So. Which potentially creates danger
for women taking the drugs. Which is why this is even that
much more interesting to me. I'm going to really be thinking
about this. Since we're on this, yeah, there
is such a thing as a unisex table, all right, If you go to
(11:24):
the IRS. Yeah.
Right. That kills everybody off when
they look at what they have to pay every April.
But but but they love a unisex table and they have published A
unisex table which they use to do taxes.
(11:44):
To figure out how long most people will pay their taxes.
Did this table and this gets into.
No, this gets into. This too much fun.
And, and, and you can talk to, I'm sure you talk to people who
give financial. Advice.
(12:05):
Advice to others and if they're talking to, let's say, a, a, a,
a man, right, Right. And how long you need those
savings or that retirement moneyto last?
Right. And and how much of it, if
they've set up some kind of trust where some of it is going
somewhere else and somewhere andnow they're using this Luna sex
(12:26):
table, they're not really reflecting the mortality
experience of the male, right, right.
So there's all these. The IRS just wants to know about
how long are we going to be ableto tax each person?
How many years? OK, then the insurance companies
want to know, you know, how can we charge the most and pay the
(12:48):
least when these people? Kick it.
Yeah, well anyway, let me get back to how.
Serious, do actuarial conversations get when you get
together with your buddies? Do you laugh a lot or is it
usually? Serious.
(13:10):
It's, it's very serious in the sense, you know, we about deaf.
We are talking about deaf peopleand we're laughing.
We're. Talking about, we're talking
about numbers. Numbers.
We're not really numbers. We're all just a number.
Well, you're in this category. For example like this.
(13:31):
OK, so I have a question. Yeah, sure.
I'm 64 years old. What is your chart estimate?
I'm going to live. Well.
Assuming I look both ways, you know, eat, you know, we'll,
we'll just say assuming I don't do something stupid like walk
out on the street and get hit bya city bike.
OK, which has already happened. All right.
So you asked a specific questionand I'll answer the specific
(13:54):
question and then we'll talk forall the reasons why it doesn't
apply to you even though you're a female and I guess age 64 is
what I'm hearing, is that right?Yes.
Yup. OK, So what I have here for
people who are listening and. Actually, don't tell me because
(14:16):
that's kind of like I don't go to fortune tellers.
I don't want anything in my headnegative.
So forget that I, you know what people?
I no longer want to know how long I might live.
We're just skipping over. I don't go to fortune tellers
either because, you know, reading my horoscope in the
newspaper is about as far as I want to go into somebody
predicting my future. OK, let's look in generalities.
(14:38):
OK, I, I just want to get back to the point that really when
you have a table like this, yeah, it really doesn't tell you
how long you're going to live. And that's the.
So, you know, if you ask what? Does it tell you?
What information does it give you as a professional?
OK, so this particular table. Yeah.
(15:00):
Says it's and it's put out by the Social Security
Administration and the Social Security Administration has
records on everybody under Social Security.
So they periodically, this is a period life table dated 2022
(15:21):
where they're assuming now that the person is looking at this
maybe many years later. But it's a set of numbers that
were he basically calculated on the Social Security records in
(15:48):
that calendar year for that period of time.
And it's not a projection really.
It's a static table. And any mortality table is a
hypothetical, right? It's it's, it's hypothetical.
But hold on, in the world of finance, which is really what
Social Security falls under, OK,it's, you know, it's one of the
(16:10):
biggest financial structures, you know, within the within the
United States. Now sometime around 62, I think,
I got my first notice from the secure Social Security
Administration that said, you know, if you start taking money
at this age, you could take thismuch out.
If you start taking the money atthis much, oh, you get more, you
(16:34):
know, So I'm sure people walk around all day long, not
counting the fact that you can'town earn over a certain amount
or you're not going to get any of it, you know, but clearly a
lot of actuarial. Well.
Accounting and mathematics go into the Social Security
Administration saying, well, if you start taking money at 63,
(16:54):
you get this lower amount because we're going to have to
pay you off this long even though you already chipped into
it. But if you take it at 67 or 7.
And that's all based on their records.
Whatever they have, they have detailed records and they're
keeping track of that. And that's I guess constantly in
flux because you could have war break out which would throw off
(17:16):
certain numbers if. You know, people were, yeah.
Would it, would it be of interest to you and to maybe the
people who are listening to talkabout this, this vague concept
of life expectancy? Definitely in in in aggregate,
even on a unisex basis. I love that topic.
(17:36):
OK, I'm going to look for a chart.
Yep. OK of life expectancy on a
unisex basis of the United States of America, OK from 1860.
Oh. Right.
Are we living longer? Are we living less?
(17:56):
Oh yes, let's find this. All right, so let me.
OK. This is just one of remember,
all of this is once again what I'm saying when I say it's
hypothetical. Yeah, right.
Like you have the tendency to say like as you did how long,
what is the? What does the table say?
Of course, I realize it's hypothetical, but I am curious,
(18:19):
you know, to have all the supposedly we're eating
healthier, we're doing things better, we go to more doctors,
which could make it a double edged sword.
Are we living longer? Less.
And what does that life look like?
OK, here we go. We're looking at a chart.
(18:41):
Hold on. I'm going to try.
I don't know if we can see this chart or not, but I'm going to
try to. Or maybe I'll show it after.
Yeah. OK, So what does that chart tell
you? OK.
Because I can't read it. It's what you're looking at, it
says on the bottom, on the bottom of this chart, I have
(19:03):
years starting with the year 1860, OK, and it goes, this
chart goes to 2020. OK.
OK. But I know the numbers beyond
2020. Yeah, OK.
And it's an upward trend, exceptthere are 3 periods of time when
(19:31):
it went down. OK, the first time life
expectancy went down was at the very beginning of this table,
the war. Yeah.
The Civil War makes sense. There's a There was a drop.
Yeah, OK. After the war stabilized and
(19:52):
life expectancy in the United States increased significantly,
the next big drop World War One yes, World War One, because
World War One was a. Humongous casualties.
And there was a gigantic pandemic, the Spanish flu,
(20:13):
right, is what it was. Called.
So that period of time, boom, life expectancy went the other
way. But afterwards it regrouped
again and continued to improve and it was improves every year
and then it starts leveling off the next drop.
(20:35):
All right. First drop civil war, basically.
Second drop Spanish flu, First World War one.
Korean War or World War 2 now? Interesting.
Vietnam No. Sadly, recently 2015 in 2015,
(20:57):
life expectancy in the United States dropped minutely
slightly. Now it had been going up
slightly, but it dropped. I could say I could, I could
actually see that. And my prediction on that would
be in 2008, 2009, the financial crisis.
(21:17):
And I don't think a lot of people felt like they recovered
in 2015. I think it was probably around
2017 that I finally felt like mybusinesses were coming out of.
That all right? Well.
Interesting. OK, so when's the next step,
Phil? Well, the 2015 dip was really
(21:42):
very slight. I mean you could almost say just
was level. And there was no dip in like
1985. No.
Interesting. No, because I was thinking.
Of the AIDS epidemic. It was leveling off and in the
aggregate was leveling off, right.
And then it's part of what I call the 2015 dip.
(22:06):
It sort of came back, but then we had COVID, Yeah, All right.
So the period of time between 2015 and currently really in, in
the COVID one now is a real dip.It's a real dip in this chart.
(22:27):
I, I couldn't find one, But I mean, I, I was looking at the
numbers, you know, life expectancy dropped, Needless to
say, because of, of, of, of COVID.
So in like in 2019 life expectancy, this unisex had it
(22:51):
at age 78.792000 and 20 instead of 78.79, we're now 76.98.
So a drop again, right, Right. Not unexpected.
I mean, given the fact that we had something like COVID.
(23:15):
But this whole pattern of leveling off in 2015 is, I don't
know if I don't know the reason for that.
I mean, you were speculating. I mean it's.
Why? Why?
Maybe it's leveled off because the bottom line is humans just
(23:37):
don't live that long. And we, you know, and maybe
we're actually realizing there is an average finite date.
I don't know. Yeah.
But that that date has been moving.
It's been. It's been.
So was that a higher point Now you're saying it's dropped down?
From that right, right. The fact that it's leveling off
(24:01):
right in this particular countryin the United States at this
time is a reflection of something and I don't know what
it is. And I, even though this topic is
of general interest to me, I mean, I haven't investigated.
I love this other other, other other countries and I I could be
(24:24):
doing that, but I, I, I put a lot of this on the side after I
retired. All right.
Well, well, we're going to talk about writing a book too, but we
still got to stick to this topica bit.
I have a question for. You.
I I recently read someplace, I don't remember where it was, and
(24:44):
it said if by age 65. So I'm wondering if you know of
charts on this. They say if by age 65 you
haven't had a major health issueyour life, expect you're on the
higher side of the life expectancy.
Now again, obviously that assumes you're not, you're
looking both ways and you're notdriving without, you know, Yeah,
(25:05):
you're not drinking and driving,you know, stupid shit, stupid
stuff, stupid poop. You know the are there charts on
that that say based on? Yeah, I I'm, I guess.
(25:26):
There's probably charts on everything.
If you were working for, let's say that even the Social
Security Administration in this particular area, right, the
chief actuary, we have a new chief actuary.
Her name is Karen and I'm going to butcher the last time I go.
(25:50):
OK, so, but so there was a new the Social Security
Administration. I had a chief actuary guy who
was in place for like 20 some years.
He's an authority on on all of this.
And Congress has always been coming to him because he keeps
saying to them Social Security is going to go.
(26:12):
Bankrupt. Yeah, Yeah.
For the last few years, income is not equivalent to the
expenditures. And therefore we're headed
toward the day or the year, and I think the current year
somewhere 2033. So it's like 8 years away
approximately, maybe 7 years away that they're going to have
(26:35):
to be broken. Yeah, they're going to have to
cut benefits. And it's been a big topic with
the politicians and so on and soforth.
So how did I get off on this topic here?
I just lost my train of thought.That's OK.
Because we're talking about Social Security government, that
(26:56):
the time frames of how long people are live will live.
You know how that system how strong it is or not?
Yes, yeah. And, and it's like like, So
what, what, what, what is going to happen?
What are we supposed to do? What are we going to do?
We've been talking about this for a long time.
I mean, the prior chief actuaries has been hammering
(27:16):
away at this for a long particular period of time.
Has anything happened? Oh well.
Well, I'm just curious when whenyou saw the the Doge
announcements of when they went through Social Security and they
found out all the people that were getting Social Security
that were not even alive, did you have any thoughts on that
(27:40):
one way or another? I mean, and that's not getting
political. I'm just trying to like, it's
like, wow, really? So the Social Security
Administration makes all those charts, but was paying out
people that had, you know, someone who had been 300 years
old. Like how the heck did that
happen? No, there's there's something
wrong there. Yeah, yeah, I.
(28:01):
And you're telling me only one person in the whole world lived
to be 120? Well, on that chart there, I
mean, we've been paying out for how many years?
Like there were a few 100 peoplethat were in the 150 year range.
Is, is, is, is all that true? Well, I guess who knows, We can
look at all kinds of conspiracies today.
(28:24):
And this is, this is the great difficulty with people who like
actuaries, right? Fellows of the Society of
Actuaries, they're interested inthis stuff.
They take it seriously. They spend hours on it and they
know how difficult it is. And then all of a sudden, out of
(28:47):
the blue, somebody's saying thisand somebody else is saying this
and somebody else is saying this.
What are things you calculate? Obviously anytime I've, you
know, I have life insurance policies and, you know, they
say, you know, do you jump out of airplanes?
Do you, you know, drive your caron a racetrack?
(29:09):
You know what are kind of thingsthat you're trying to calculate
into your numbers? When, when you're doing a a
population mortality study, you're not concerned about what
people are dying of. I mean the tables that I'm
(29:32):
referring to that the Social Security Administration puts
out, right? They don't care how you die.
It's just like when. Yeah, they are calculating and,
and it's for a, you know, a specific period of time.
They don't even attempt to adjust it, you know, so it's a,
(29:52):
it's a hypothetical table at a certain moment in time for a
given population. But it, so it, it's all
hypothetical, but it does conveyinformation.
And looking at a chart like thisover the years, you can see that
(30:12):
life expectancy was definitely increasing significantly for
most of the time that this country was around.
If you think about it, if you were going to.
Take a guess, yeah? We won't talk about why it's not
now or why it's now stagnated ordipped a bit.
What do you think were the factors?
(30:33):
Just out of curiosity, would yousay sanitation, you know?
I I, I I I mean I. Really don't have to do with
sanitation and refrigeration. I'd.
You know, Yeah, Well, the peoplewho put this chart out, they
were starting to say negative trends in society.
(30:57):
Negative trends in society. Well, OK, give me an example.
Such as unbalanced diets. All right, lifestyles, they're
too. Extreme.
No, no, Two people are relaxing too much.
(31:21):
You know, they're they're not exercise leisure.
They're leisurely. Yeah.
They're, you know, they're not exercising.
They're not, they're not paying attention.
Right. So their lifestyle is.
Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah.
Well, higher medical cost, yeah,right.
(31:45):
Some people. Well, I should probably go to
the doctor, but you know, it's. Going to cost too much so I'll
skip it or I'll delay it. I'll delay it, yeah.
So I guess all these increasing rates of suicide, Yes, well, I
mean, that is obviously in life expectancy.
(32:06):
Yeah, but why are there increasing rates of suicide?
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, life tables are
hypothetical and, and what I find them interesting and
(32:28):
especially the Social Security one where I can look at let's
say the death expectancy of males versus the death
expectancy of females, right, age by age, I and I'm able to
look at that. And then if I wanted to do a
(32:52):
study, OK, if I wanted to do a study of a particular group of
people, I could then get that list of people.
It will be. I'll make it very specific
because I've done a couple of these.
(33:13):
OK. And I you're just triggered a
question. OK, so one of the studies I did
after I retired, just because I do this, I was doing this this
kind of stuff for fun at the time.
We all have different things, ways we get our kicks.
Right, so I, I said, and what triggered this is I was reading
(33:41):
an article about how terrible Hollywood was that actors were
dying. And there was even at that time
that there was a video which I looked at and they and they
started off how terrible it is. And they went to James Dean.
(34:07):
Yeah. Right.
The young guy who plowed into a right, right in the 1950s.
And and then there was Natalie Wood, right.
The boating accident. Yeah.
Yeah. And Sal Mineo killed himself or?
Exactly. Right And then there was Nick
Adams, who was another character.
(34:27):
So this and so they went throughall these horrible deaths of
stars, Hollywood actors and actresses, and I said well, OK,
so. What's the variable?
Do they really die faster or earlier?
(34:47):
Or what? Right.
So I said I need a list of Hollywood actors and actresses,
and behold, there is such a list.
Yeah, right. Ephraim and Nolan, it it, it,
it, it's a book on Hollywood. It's not only Hollywood actors
(35:09):
and actresses, but it's all of Hollywood there.
There's information about directors, there's a costume
designers, etcetera. But in that book you can look
up, and I did. I looked up their life.
Spans. I, I the, the actors and
(35:30):
actresses, their movies are listed there.
Their date of birth is there, assuming that the book is
correct, right? I, I can.
So I took all the Hollywood actors and actresses that were
in Ephraim and Nolan's book, andI did a study.
(35:54):
And what does this study mean? I said when did these people
become actors or actresses? Because it was at that point
then that they became in into the study, correct?
I'm not. I'm following you, right?
So all that is critical information.
(36:15):
Very much so. Right.
And you have to display this on a chart.
You know what? Would you conclude?
Oh well. The people in Hollywood actually
die earlier than other people. Or no.
OK. No, because I'm comparing it
against, once again, what is thebase.
It's the Social Security numbers.
(36:36):
Social Security is the entire population, right.
OK. In that in that population, you
have, let's say, people who don't have finances, who don't,
right. Yeah.
Now, generally, you would think that known Hollywood actors and
actresses probably. Had a little more money had.
(36:57):
A little bit more money, right So if they have more money,
they're probably taking care of themselves a little bit better.
So I so I'm I'm matched, right. You do a comparison year by
year. Let me just yeah, this is
(37:23):
mortality experiences of. As a matter of fact, there's a
picture of I guess James Dean and Natalie Wood from the movie
which triggered all of this. So I do a comparison, OK.
And there is a a little bit I was a little bit surprised at
(37:48):
this because for example, I did 100 year observation period,
right. So the 100 years I just started
in 1915 and went to 2014. All right, so and I did it in
you can once you have the data, you can put it in in all
(38:08):
different ways. But if I have an observation
period 1915 to 1924 etcetera, etcetera, and I'm looking at now
at actresses, not actors, I'll go back to the actors in just a
moment. But when I get to the period of
time 1965 to 1974, Hollywood actresses had worse mortality
(38:36):
than the general population. The next decade also the 1975 to
1984 worse mortality than the population, 1985 to 1994 worst
mortality. That doesn't happen on the male
side. It happens.
And it happens only during those3 observation periods.
(38:56):
So what was going on in Hollywood during this particular
time period of time? Tranquilizers, the birth control
pill, abortion. I mean, I think there were
probably some significant thingsthat women were impacted by guy
that men weren't. I I have, but I mean that jumps
(39:17):
off the page. Yeah, that jumps off the page.
So you you discover things here and that's why this.
So you get the information and then it needs interpretation.
Yes, I'm we're we're very good at producing numbers, but then
(39:38):
trying to explain those numbers that's.
Yeah. Yeah, so.
So whenever I do a mortality study, I present what I did, how
I did it, and here it is. Here's my observations.
You figure it out, you tell me what it means.
(40:02):
But I've got a question for you,OK?
You said that in the most recentSocial Security.
Chart that women are living a little more than five years
longer than men. Yes, yes, I never is.
There a crossover point in the in the age 40s or age 50s or age
(40:22):
60s where women start to get that year edge over men?
Or is it just plain shows up sometime between 74 and 80?
OK. Like where there's got to be a
crossover point where sudden no.Really.
No. That's crazy.
(40:42):
You. Think like, you know, in your
50s, you know, men start to die a little sooner or in your 60s,
like it like it just happens. Like at the Deathspan, the Death
Star swoops in and just seems totake more men, sometime around
age 74 on average. OK, let's let's try to envision
(41:06):
what I would call now a survivorcurve.
OK. A survivor curve.
Yeah. All right.
So I have an X axis now. Yeah.
And my ages now are now at the bottom.
Yeah, on the X axis, running from zero to 120.
OK, OK. And at the top now, I start with
(41:29):
my, let's say my 100,000 male male babies.
And then over here I have my 100,000 female babies, right?
So there's a drop, right? Some babies just die between
(41:50):
zero and one. Some die, but very, very few.
If you think of the survivor curve it, it's dropping very,
very slowly, right? Very, very slowly.
Very, very slowly. So now I'm going to zero to 10
to 20 to 30. Yeah, there are debts, but it's
(42:12):
on both male and female side. But it's very, very, very slow.
Uh huh. Very slow.
It doesn't. Where does the?
That's. What I'm trying to figure out
where's the acceleration curve? When do you know you're going
down the hill? OK, 60s. 60s.
(42:33):
Yeah, the 60s is when it starts.Definitely for the men.
Wow. Definitely for the men.
I mean, if if you have this picture of this curve for for
males, you would see that's it'snow.
Yeah, the roller coaster. This is like the this is the
(42:55):
drop. It's and it's bad news.
Yeah, it's bad news for the ladies.
It's happening a little bit later, a touch later.
But it's also both those survivor curves are.
Significantly stopped down mid 60s early 60s.
(43:18):
No I'm just curious. My father had a heart attack at
62. Yeah.
So I'm always curious, you know?Yeah, but his parents and my
mother's parents lived all till late 90s.
So you've got all those things. So I just I'm curious things
that. Change.
Yeah, like what causes all this?I mean, how much is it ready
(43:40):
into it? How much is it really?
You know, I, I. See, I kind of look at life when
your number's up, your number's up.
So that's probably also why I get very into my mother used to
say that to me, you know, I've had three, four plane crashes.
So it's like, you know, and I'm still sitting here.
(44:00):
So explain that one. When your number's up, your
number's up if it. Was my four plane.
I did you know I'd really screw up an actuarial table, no.
I mean. Oh, that's a topic for another
pocket. But yes, four and an incident
and worse, a really bad boating crash that I would say was worse
(44:23):
than all the four plane crashes.OK, Yeah.
So, you know, so that's why I'm a believer of your numbers up,
you know, when there's so many things that could happen and why
don't they happen or why do theyhappen?
So that's a whole other topic, but I was curious if there was
any point where it's interestingyou say by your 60s, that's when
(44:45):
you're. Oh yeah, the survivor curve is
it really starts. 60s. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I mean your survivor curve both for males and females
are are there. But once again, for the ladies,
(45:07):
it starts a little bit later, like.
Interesting. Starts a little bit later, but
it's the same slope then, so to speak.
It's, you know, it's parallel slopes.
Well, that's why they say you'redownhill.
Now we've given a whole new visual to that expression
downhill. Yeah, yeah.
(45:27):
Hold on, we could really keep talking about this, but I do
want to talk about your book a minute because you have a book
called Unwavering Love. Yes, unwavering love.
And in this book, you cover a lot of things.
You bring in your actuarial experience, yes.
And you tell a story. Yes, tell.
(45:49):
Us a little bit about this because I want to make sure we
get that in. OK, no, thank you for mentoring,
mentioning this book. I was not a writer.
As a matter of fact, when I was a young man, I was told I would
never be a writer, literally. But you were good at math.
Oh, yeah. You know, you know how how a lot
(46:17):
of mathematics teachers sometimes say, well, it's
obvious. I don't know if you've ever
heard that, but I mean, that's athat was a common criticism of
mathematical teachers. And I think they realized that,
so they stopped saying that. But no, I just got this.
Anyone in this class have a question besides Diane Grisell?
(46:38):
Well, anyway, yeah. So yeah, I was definitely a
mathematics person. But what happened, you know,
after I did a couple of these studies, besides Hollywood
actors, I also did Major League Baseball players, Major League
football players. Major League Baseball players do
(46:59):
a better mortality than than thefootball players, but the
football players still are much better than the population.
Wow. Yes, yeah.
And this. I bet a lot of people wouldn't
believe that. I know and so.
Major League football players dobetter than the general topic.
Of course. Well, that's very interesting.
(47:20):
Goes to show you that you can get your head banged around a
lot, but at least if you keep your heart pumping and you keep
working on your physical well-being and you're
exercising. Interesting.
Oh, I never would have guessed that one, Phil.
Well, I did a mortality study onthis because back in the day, I
believe it was Dick Butkis. Yeah, Dick Butkis, right.
(47:44):
Chicago Bears. I know exactly who you're
talking to. They were in negotiations with
the union or something, and Butkus and company were claiming
that there are mortality experience was worse than the
general population. And I said this cannot be true.
So I looked at the statistics. It's not true.
(48:07):
Interesting. Yeah.
It's not true when when you havethe general population, it's
everybody. I mean, Social Security, that's
everybody. You've got a lot of really
people who are really ill and, and, and they're, they're not
(48:29):
getting the right care or they're whatever the reason.
I mean, why has in the United States now, why for the last 10
years are we not really improvedmortality like like we were
improving it for so many years? I don't know the answer to that,
but I mean, it's irrefutable. If you do these studies and are
(48:51):
conscientious, something is going on.
You're not improving mortality rates or that you just that's
where it caps out. Yeah, but it, it is improving
very slowly, right? It's improving very, very
slowly. And I, and you can see that it's
(49:14):
it every year there are more andmore people making it to 100.
Every year there are more and more people making it to 110.
There's very few of them, right?There's a lot of documentation,
especially on the ladies, right?Because as I said, the the the
(49:38):
well documented case in France where she was 122.
No, nobody has made it beyond 120 except this one lady 1997.
But there are ladies making it to 119 and 300 days or something
like that. I think that's in second place
(49:58):
some lady in Japan. So ladies throughout the world
are pushing it up, up slowly. And also the men.
I mean, right now I think there's a guy in Brazil who's at
age 112. So he's pushing it up.
So there there is. There is improvement, Yeah.
(50:20):
But it's so slow and so minute when you're only talking a
handful of people, given the fact that there's millions of
people out there. Right?
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I don't want this to
end, but our time is up. Oh, OK.
Yeah, but the book is interesting.
But the book. Is interesting and we're going
to look for this. Thank you, Diane.
(50:40):
Thank you for. Thank you so much.
I mean, I enjoyed this tremendously because you trigger
so many thoughts and we're goingto have to talk about this again
because I still have a lot more questions.
OK? I know I'm going to be
percolating this conversation for a long time.
Right. And I, yeah, just remember that
(51:02):
these, and it's difficult to saythey're hypothetical.
They're hypothetical, but they do reveal something.
And that that's like all statistics.
You have to figure. You get a number, you get a, you
get a conclusion. What does it mean?
Yeah. And I guess that interpretation
is up for interpretation. Well, thank you.
(51:28):
Well. Thank you, thank you, Thank you
for having me. And I, I, what else can I say?
Thank you very much. Well, I've been talking with
Phil Le Palmer and we're going to have information about he and
his book in the info below. And just definitely check out
his book because it's a good oneAnd I'm Diane Gorsell.
(51:49):
This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast we're recording in Manhattan Center.
Super cool place and I'm very lucky to be here and grateful.
So and I'm also grateful for youfor watching this podcast and
sharing it and making it as big as it's getting, which is
getting Uber cool. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Phil. I appreciate it.
(52:10):
Thank you. Take care.
Hold on. Wait a second.
We have to do one more thing. Got any good cemetery jokes?
Only kidding. You'll have to read in the
comments below. Goodbye.
Thanks. Hit Subscribe.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Silver Despedance Perception
Dynamics podcast. I'm Diane Grissel.
Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics with
an expert. So what's one of my favorite
topics? While there are many, but I like
to talk about death. And the reason I like to talk
about death, even though a lot of people think that sounds
(00:22):
morbid, is because if we recognize the fact that our time
on earth is finite, we get X amount of time.
And I don't care about all thosebio hackers or all these people
that say they're going to live forever, you know, or all the
people that get to 50 and say, whoa, we're halfway there.
I don't know too many 100 year olds.
(00:43):
So to me, when you focus in on death, you can really start to
live. For me, it started sometime
after September 11th when I losta lot of people that I really
loved. And as time went on, I started
to realize that, you know, 50 isn't necessarily the midway
mark. There's plenty of people that
die far more early, far, way before they ever get close to
(01:07):
50. And there are people that do
live into their 90s and are living spectacular lives.
One of my closest friend is going to be 85 this summer.
And frankly, she's a rock star still and very active in
business. But my guest today is Philip La
Palma. I had to really practice that
(01:28):
name, just for the record, and he's given me the thumbs up off
camera right now. But Philip Le Palmer, he has
spent a lifetime as an actuarial.
Now he's going to explain exactly what an actuarial,
actuarial or actuary is. Maybe that's really what it is.
You're an actuary who works on actuarial tables.
(01:48):
But we're going to learn this with him.
And basically from my understanding, you know what,
forget my understanding. Let's just go to the expert.
Phil, thank you for joining me. Diane, thank you very much for
inviting me to talk about what an actuary does.
(02:09):
Yes, this is what we want to talk.
About what does an actuary do? OK, now hold on, because from my
perspective and what I want to understand is how does an
actuary decide when we're going to die?
Because that's really kind of what insurance is about.
They're setting a timeline of this is an average.
(02:30):
So fill me in, correct me, let'sfind out what I need to know.
An actuary does not know when you're going to die.
OK. All right.
So you're not going to give Amy that answer this afternoon?
No crystal ball, Phil. Absolutely not.
OK. Not only that, I mean I what a
(02:55):
probability of death means? Yes, all right.
What the probability of death means?
Is that what an actuary tries tocalculate?
A probability of death. Yeah, think of a table of
numbers. OK.
All right, starting with age 0, which is birth.
(03:18):
OK. All the way out to age, let's
say 120. OK, an aside.
Those people that Doge found on the Social Security.
Just an aside, OK, there has been only one documented death
of a person living beyond 120 inthe entire world.
(03:44):
Wow. One person.
That's good to know. All right, it was a French lady.
She lived to 1997, so she was 120, and I don't know how many
days. And there was some dispute over
that, but the French people who investigated said that this is
(04:10):
legitimate. OK.
Nobody else in the entire world has been documented beyond 120.
OK, so you were talking about these charts, yes.
So you start at 0, yes, and the chart goes to 120. 20, Correct.
OK, OK. And then next to each age, OK,
(04:34):
there's a number. All right.
And we'll say that the chart starts at 100,000 people.
OK, 100,000 babies age 0. Yeah.
All right. Now, at age 1, one year later,
how many of the 100,000 are still alive?
(04:59):
And there's a number and there'sa number, all right?
And at age 2, how many are stillalive out of the original
100,000, out of the original. Now the original number has
already been reduced, right? Right.
Because it's down to 1 year olds, right?
(05:19):
So now you're saying what? How many of those one year old
children will live to make age 2, right?
And you just keep going all the way down now.
So obviously, yeah, one side of the chart is going up, the other
side of the chart is going down.Yes.
(05:41):
Because you're going up an age right down in the likelihood
that you're going to keep advancing.
Right now I'll do a little bit of a switch there.
OK, OK. Instead of starting at 100,000
and recording deaths so to speak, but you're still
recording people who are not alive, you can start out the
(06:03):
other way. How would that be?
You give the number of deaths between 8 zero and one and then
you give the number of deaths between 1:00 and 2:00 and all
the way down. So are you looking at it as it
as a survivor of on the life side, which may be more positive
(06:29):
or are you actually, are you, are you actually counting the
deaths All right. Well, that's the glass half
full, glass empty theory and everything in life, right?
Am I surviving another day or did I, you know, cheat death?
Yes. So if you don't like talking
(06:50):
about death probabilities, we can talk about survivor
probabilities. OK.
Right. But it's all kind of right.
It's just a different. Way a different perspective.
Correct. Yes, very, very good.
So I I should mention something else right now.
(07:10):
OK. As everybody's probably aware,
the ladies live longer than the men.
Why do you think that is? I've always been curious about.
That I, I, I really, I really don't know.
And and the it's significant. Is it because we just nag a
(07:31):
little we we tire you guys out so.
I don't know why this is the case, but as a person who worked
on this for many years, and that's one of the one of the
(07:52):
things that a life insurance actuary does.
There are other actuaries, there's casualty actuaries,
there's pension actuaries and soon.
But then then there's life actuaries.
All right? So that's a narrow subset of the
of the actuarial universe. OK, all right.
(08:14):
But to get back to what I started to say.
So women live longer by about how much?
OK. That's a very good question.
And I'm going to take a look at a table now, a table of numbers,
right? And I'm going to use the word
(08:35):
life expectancy, OK? OK, So this is the life
expectancy of a male OK at birthin the United States of America.
OK, I'm sure that varies a lot around.
During the calendar year 2022, OK, which is the last time or is
(08:59):
it's the most recent table that the Social Security
Administration. Put out.
As put out. Wow.
So it's the Social Security Administration that keeps these
charts. They're one, one place to go.
OK, OK. And it's a very good place to
go. Probably.
Right, anybody can go to the. I'm sure each life insurance
(09:25):
company keeps track of. Oh, sure.
Sure, sure. If I'm saying that, yeah, you
would go to Social Security on the Internet, Yeah, I think it's
SSA, yeah. SSA.
And you can and just put in lifeexpectancy and tables will pop
up. OK, so now we're.
Yeah. So, So what I started to say was
(09:48):
that the life expectancy according to this table of the
males age of 74.74, not quite age 78, right.
OK. So that's the life expectancy.
And what is that? That's.
So 7 about 74 for a male. Yes, yeah, is.
(10:12):
It for a woman. 8080.81. 80 That's a big spread.
It's. Fierce.
It's it's not. Yes, it's a little 5, a little
bit over 5. Used to be even greater at one
point in time. I mean, it's really yes, yes.
So it's important for some calculations to be able to have
(10:37):
a table for males versus femalesand a table for females.
Yeah, I would bet that's very important.
I mean, I worked in drug development for years, and the
interesting thing about drug development for the very large
majority is that it's all titrated and based on males.
(10:58):
So. Which potentially creates danger
for women taking the drugs. Which is why this is even that
much more interesting to me. I'm going to really be thinking
about this. Since we're on this, yeah, there
is such a thing as a unisex table, all right, If you go to
(11:24):
the IRS. Yeah.
Right. That kills everybody off when
they look at what they have to pay every April.
But but but they love a unisex table and they have published A
unisex table which they use to do taxes.
(11:44):
To figure out how long most people will pay their taxes.
Did this table and this gets into.
No, this gets into. This too much fun.
And, and, and you can talk to, I'm sure you talk to people who
give financial. Advice.
(12:05):
Advice to others and if they're talking to, let's say, a, a, a,
a man, right, Right. And how long you need those
savings or that retirement moneyto last?
Right. And and how much of it, if
they've set up some kind of trust where some of it is going
somewhere else and somewhere andnow they're using this Luna sex
(12:26):
table, they're not really reflecting the mortality
experience of the male, right, right.
So there's all these. The IRS just wants to know about
how long are we going to be ableto tax each person?
How many years? OK, then the insurance companies
want to know, you know, how can we charge the most and pay the
(12:48):
least when these people? Kick it.
Yeah, well anyway, let me get back to how.
Serious, do actuarial conversations get when you get
together with your buddies? Do you laugh a lot or is it
usually? Serious.
(13:10):
It's, it's very serious in the sense, you know, we about deaf.
We are talking about deaf peopleand we're laughing.
We're. Talking about, we're talking
about numbers. Numbers.
We're not really numbers. We're all just a number.
Well, you're in this category. For example like this.
(13:31):
OK, so I have a question. Yeah, sure.
I'm 64 years old. What is your chart estimate?
I'm going to live. Well.
Assuming I look both ways, you know, eat, you know, we'll,
we'll just say assuming I don't do something stupid like walk
out on the street and get hit bya city bike.
OK, which has already happened. All right.
So you asked a specific questionand I'll answer the specific
(13:54):
question and then we'll talk forall the reasons why it doesn't
apply to you even though you're a female and I guess age 64 is
what I'm hearing, is that right?Yes.
Yup. OK, So what I have here for
people who are listening and. Actually, don't tell me because
(14:16):
that's kind of like I don't go to fortune tellers.
I don't want anything in my headnegative.
So forget that I, you know what people?
I no longer want to know how long I might live.
We're just skipping over. I don't go to fortune tellers
either because, you know, reading my horoscope in the
newspaper is about as far as I want to go into somebody
predicting my future. OK, let's look in generalities.
(14:38):
OK, I, I just want to get back to the point that really when
you have a table like this, yeah, it really doesn't tell you
how long you're going to live. And that's the.
So, you know, if you ask what? Does it tell you?
What information does it give you as a professional?
OK, so this particular table. Yeah.
(15:00):
Says it's and it's put out by the Social Security
Administration and the Social Security Administration has
records on everybody under Social Security.
So they periodically, this is a period life table dated 2022
(15:21):
where they're assuming now that the person is looking at this
maybe many years later. But it's a set of numbers that
were he basically calculated on the Social Security records in
(15:48):
that calendar year for that period of time.
And it's not a projection really.
It's a static table. And any mortality table is a
hypothetical, right? It's it's, it's hypothetical.
But hold on, in the world of finance, which is really what
Social Security falls under, OK,it's, you know, it's one of the
(16:10):
biggest financial structures, you know, within the within the
United States. Now sometime around 62, I think,
I got my first notice from the secure Social Security
Administration that said, you know, if you start taking money
at this age, you could take thismuch out.
If you start taking the money atthis much, oh, you get more, you
(16:34):
know, So I'm sure people walk around all day long, not
counting the fact that you can'town earn over a certain amount
or you're not going to get any of it, you know, but clearly a
lot of actuarial. Well.
Accounting and mathematics go into the Social Security
Administration saying, well, if you start taking money at 63,
(16:54):
you get this lower amount because we're going to have to
pay you off this long even though you already chipped into
it. But if you take it at 67 or 7.
And that's all based on their records.
Whatever they have, they have detailed records and they're
keeping track of that. And that's I guess constantly in
flux because you could have war break out which would throw off
(17:16):
certain numbers if. You know, people were, yeah.
Would it, would it be of interest to you and to maybe the
people who are listening to talkabout this, this vague concept
of life expectancy? Definitely in in in aggregate,
even on a unisex basis. I love that topic.
(17:36):
OK, I'm going to look for a chart.
Yep. OK of life expectancy on a
unisex basis of the United States of America, OK from 1860.
Oh. Right.
Are we living longer? Are we living less?
(17:56):
Oh yes, let's find this. All right, so let me.
OK. This is just one of remember,
all of this is once again what I'm saying when I say it's
hypothetical. Yeah, right.
Like you have the tendency to say like as you did how long,
what is the? What does the table say?
Of course, I realize it's hypothetical, but I am curious,
(18:19):
you know, to have all the supposedly we're eating
healthier, we're doing things better, we go to more doctors,
which could make it a double edged sword.
Are we living longer? Less.
And what does that life look like?
OK, here we go. We're looking at a chart.
(18:41):
Hold on. I'm going to try.
I don't know if we can see this chart or not, but I'm going to
try to. Or maybe I'll show it after.
Yeah. OK, So what does that chart tell
you? OK.
Because I can't read it. It's what you're looking at, it
says on the bottom, on the bottom of this chart, I have
(19:03):
years starting with the year 1860, OK, and it goes, this
chart goes to 2020. OK.
OK. But I know the numbers beyond
2020. Yeah, OK.
And it's an upward trend, exceptthere are 3 periods of time when
(19:31):
it went down. OK, the first time life
expectancy went down was at the very beginning of this table,
the war. Yeah.
The Civil War makes sense. There's a There was a drop.
Yeah, OK. After the war stabilized and
(19:52):
life expectancy in the United States increased significantly,
the next big drop World War One yes, World War One, because
World War One was a. Humongous casualties.
And there was a gigantic pandemic, the Spanish flu,
(20:13):
right, is what it was. Called.
So that period of time, boom, life expectancy went the other
way. But afterwards it regrouped
again and continued to improve and it was improves every year
and then it starts leveling off the next drop.
(20:35):
All right. First drop civil war, basically.
Second drop Spanish flu, First World War one.
Korean War or World War 2 now? Interesting.
Vietnam No. Sadly, recently 2015 in 2015,
(20:57):
life expectancy in the United States dropped minutely
slightly. Now it had been going up
slightly, but it dropped. I could say I could, I could
actually see that. And my prediction on that would
be in 2008, 2009, the financial crisis.
(21:17):
And I don't think a lot of people felt like they recovered
in 2015. I think it was probably around
2017 that I finally felt like mybusinesses were coming out of.
That all right? Well.
Interesting. OK, so when's the next step,
Phil? Well, the 2015 dip was really
(21:42):
very slight. I mean you could almost say just
was level. And there was no dip in like
1985. No.
Interesting. No, because I was thinking.
Of the AIDS epidemic. It was leveling off and in the
aggregate was leveling off, right.
And then it's part of what I call the 2015 dip.
(22:06):
It sort of came back, but then we had COVID, Yeah, All right.
So the period of time between 2015 and currently really in, in
the COVID one now is a real dip.It's a real dip in this chart.
(22:27):
I, I couldn't find one, But I mean, I, I was looking at the
numbers, you know, life expectancy dropped, Needless to
say, because of, of, of, of COVID.
So in like in 2019 life expectancy, this unisex had it
(22:51):
at age 78.792000 and 20 instead of 78.79, we're now 76.98.
So a drop again, right, Right. Not unexpected.
I mean, given the fact that we had something like COVID.
(23:15):
But this whole pattern of leveling off in 2015 is, I don't
know if I don't know the reason for that.
I mean, you were speculating. I mean it's.
Why? Why?
Maybe it's leveled off because the bottom line is humans just
(23:37):
don't live that long. And we, you know, and maybe
we're actually realizing there is an average finite date.
I don't know. Yeah.
But that that date has been moving.
It's been. It's been.
So was that a higher point Now you're saying it's dropped down?
From that right, right. The fact that it's leveling off
(24:01):
right in this particular countryin the United States at this
time is a reflection of something and I don't know what
it is. And I, even though this topic is
of general interest to me, I mean, I haven't investigated.
I love this other other, other other countries and I I could be
(24:24):
doing that, but I, I, I put a lot of this on the side after I
retired. All right.
Well, well, we're going to talk about writing a book too, but we
still got to stick to this topica bit.
I have a question for. You.
I I recently read someplace, I don't remember where it was, and
(24:44):
it said if by age 65. So I'm wondering if you know of
charts on this. They say if by age 65 you
haven't had a major health issueyour life, expect you're on the
higher side of the life expectancy.
Now again, obviously that assumes you're not, you're
looking both ways and you're notdriving without, you know, Yeah,
(25:05):
you're not drinking and driving,you know, stupid shit, stupid
stuff, stupid poop. You know the are there charts on
that that say based on? Yeah, I I'm, I guess.
(25:26):
There's probably charts on everything.
If you were working for, let's say that even the Social
Security Administration in this particular area, right, the
chief actuary, we have a new chief actuary.
Her name is Karen and I'm going to butcher the last time I go.
(25:50):
OK, so, but so there was a new the Social Security
Administration. I had a chief actuary guy who
was in place for like 20 some years.
He's an authority on on all of this.
And Congress has always been coming to him because he keeps
saying to them Social Security is going to go.
(26:12):
Bankrupt. Yeah, Yeah.
For the last few years, income is not equivalent to the
expenditures. And therefore we're headed
toward the day or the year, and I think the current year
somewhere 2033. So it's like 8 years away
approximately, maybe 7 years away that they're going to have
(26:35):
to be broken. Yeah, they're going to have to
cut benefits. And it's been a big topic with
the politicians and so on and soforth.
So how did I get off on this topic here?
I just lost my train of thought.That's OK.
Because we're talking about Social Security government, that
(26:56):
the time frames of how long people are live will live.
You know how that system how strong it is or not?
Yes, yeah. And, and it's like like, So
what, what, what, what is going to happen?
What are we supposed to do? What are we going to do?
We've been talking about this for a long time.
I mean, the prior chief actuaries has been hammering
(27:16):
away at this for a long particular period of time.
Has anything happened? Oh well.
Well, I'm just curious when whenyou saw the the Doge
announcements of when they went through Social Security and they
found out all the people that were getting Social Security
that were not even alive, did you have any thoughts on that
(27:40):
one way or another? I mean, and that's not getting
political. I'm just trying to like, it's
like, wow, really? So the Social Security
Administration makes all those charts, but was paying out
people that had, you know, someone who had been 300 years
old. Like how the heck did that
happen? No, there's there's something
wrong there. Yeah, yeah, I.
(28:01):
And you're telling me only one person in the whole world lived
to be 120? Well, on that chart there, I
mean, we've been paying out for how many years?
Like there were a few 100 peoplethat were in the 150 year range.
Is, is, is, is all that true? Well, I guess who knows, We can
look at all kinds of conspiracies today.
(28:24):
And this is, this is the great difficulty with people who like
actuaries, right? Fellows of the Society of
Actuaries, they're interested inthis stuff.
They take it seriously. They spend hours on it and they
know how difficult it is. And then all of a sudden, out of
(28:47):
the blue, somebody's saying thisand somebody else is saying this
and somebody else is saying this.
What are things you calculate? Obviously anytime I've, you
know, I have life insurance policies and, you know, they
say, you know, do you jump out of airplanes?
Do you, you know, drive your caron a racetrack?
(29:09):
You know what are kind of thingsthat you're trying to calculate
into your numbers? When, when you're doing a a
population mortality study, you're not concerned about what
people are dying of. I mean the tables that I'm
(29:32):
referring to that the Social Security Administration puts
out, right? They don't care how you die.
It's just like when. Yeah, they are calculating and,
and it's for a, you know, a specific period of time.
They don't even attempt to adjust it, you know, so it's a,
(29:52):
it's a hypothetical table at a certain moment in time for a
given population. But it, so it, it's all
hypothetical, but it does conveyinformation.
And looking at a chart like thisover the years, you can see that
(30:12):
life expectancy was definitely increasing significantly for
most of the time that this country was around.
If you think about it, if you were going to.
Take a guess, yeah? We won't talk about why it's not
now or why it's now stagnated ordipped a bit.
What do you think were the factors?
(30:33):
Just out of curiosity, would yousay sanitation, you know?
I I, I I I mean I. Really don't have to do with
sanitation and refrigeration. I'd.
You know, Yeah, Well, the peoplewho put this chart out, they
were starting to say negative trends in society.
(30:57):
Negative trends in society. Well, OK, give me an example.
Such as unbalanced diets. All right, lifestyles, they're
too. Extreme.
No, no, Two people are relaxing too much.
(31:21):
You know, they're they're not exercise leisure.
They're leisurely. Yeah.
They're, you know, they're not exercising.
They're not, they're not paying attention.
Right. So their lifestyle is.
Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah.
Well, higher medical cost, yeah,right.
(31:45):
Some people. Well, I should probably go to
the doctor, but you know, it's. Going to cost too much so I'll
skip it or I'll delay it. I'll delay it, yeah.
So I guess all these increasing rates of suicide, Yes, well, I
mean, that is obviously in life expectancy.
(32:06):
Yeah, but why are there increasing rates of suicide?
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, life tables are
hypothetical and, and what I find them interesting and
(32:28):
especially the Social Security one where I can look at let's
say the death expectancy of males versus the death
expectancy of females, right, age by age, I and I'm able to
look at that. And then if I wanted to do a
(32:52):
study, OK, if I wanted to do a study of a particular group of
people, I could then get that list of people.
It will be. I'll make it very specific
because I've done a couple of these.
(33:13):
OK. And I you're just triggered a
question. OK, so one of the studies I did
after I retired, just because I do this, I was doing this this
kind of stuff for fun at the time.
We all have different things, ways we get our kicks.
Right, so I, I said, and what triggered this is I was reading
(33:41):
an article about how terrible Hollywood was that actors were
dying. And there was even at that time
that there was a video which I looked at and they and they
started off how terrible it is. And they went to James Dean.
(34:07):
Yeah. Right.
The young guy who plowed into a right, right in the 1950s.
And and then there was Natalie Wood, right.
The boating accident. Yeah.
Yeah. And Sal Mineo killed himself or?
Exactly. Right And then there was Nick
Adams, who was another character.
(34:27):
So this and so they went throughall these horrible deaths of
stars, Hollywood actors and actresses, and I said well, OK,
so. What's the variable?
Do they really die faster or earlier?
(34:47):
Or what? Right.
So I said I need a list of Hollywood actors and actresses,
and behold, there is such a list.
Yeah, right. Ephraim and Nolan, it it, it,
it, it's a book on Hollywood. It's not only Hollywood actors
(35:09):
and actresses, but it's all of Hollywood there.
There's information about directors, there's a costume
designers, etcetera. But in that book you can look
up, and I did. I looked up their life.
Spans. I, I the, the actors and
(35:30):
actresses, their movies are listed there.
Their date of birth is there, assuming that the book is
correct, right? I, I can.
So I took all the Hollywood actors and actresses that were
in Ephraim and Nolan's book, andI did a study.
(35:54):
And what does this study mean? I said when did these people
become actors or actresses? Because it was at that point
then that they became in into the study, correct?
I'm not. I'm following you, right?
So all that is critical information.
(36:15):
Very much so. Right.
And you have to display this on a chart.
You know what? Would you conclude?
Oh well. The people in Hollywood actually
die earlier than other people. Or no.
OK. No, because I'm comparing it
against, once again, what is thebase.
It's the Social Security numbers.
(36:36):
Social Security is the entire population, right.
OK. In that in that population, you
have, let's say, people who don't have finances, who don't,
right. Yeah.
Now, generally, you would think that known Hollywood actors and
actresses probably. Had a little more money had.
(36:57):
A little bit more money, right So if they have more money,
they're probably taking care of themselves a little bit better.
So I so I'm I'm matched, right. You do a comparison year by
year. Let me just yeah, this is
(37:23):
mortality experiences of. As a matter of fact, there's a
picture of I guess James Dean and Natalie Wood from the movie
which triggered all of this. So I do a comparison, OK.
And there is a a little bit I was a little bit surprised at
(37:48):
this because for example, I did 100 year observation period,
right. So the 100 years I just started
in 1915 and went to 2014. All right, so and I did it in
you can once you have the data, you can put it in in all
(38:08):
different ways. But if I have an observation
period 1915 to 1924 etcetera, etcetera, and I'm looking at now
at actresses, not actors, I'll go back to the actors in just a
moment. But when I get to the period of
time 1965 to 1974, Hollywood actresses had worse mortality
(38:36):
than the general population. The next decade also the 1975 to
1984 worse mortality than the population, 1985 to 1994 worst
mortality. That doesn't happen on the male
side. It happens.
And it happens only during those3 observation periods.
(38:56):
So what was going on in Hollywood during this particular
time period of time? Tranquilizers, the birth control
pill, abortion. I mean, I think there were
probably some significant thingsthat women were impacted by guy
that men weren't. I I have, but I mean that jumps
(39:17):
off the page. Yeah, that jumps off the page.
So you you discover things here and that's why this.
So you get the information and then it needs interpretation.
Yes, I'm we're we're very good at producing numbers, but then
(39:38):
trying to explain those numbers that's.
Yeah. Yeah, so.
So whenever I do a mortality study, I present what I did, how
I did it, and here it is. Here's my observations.
You figure it out, you tell me what it means.
(40:02):
But I've got a question for you,OK?
You said that in the most recentSocial Security.
Chart that women are living a little more than five years
longer than men. Yes, yes, I never is.
There a crossover point in the in the age 40s or age 50s or age
(40:22):
60s where women start to get that year edge over men?
Or is it just plain shows up sometime between 74 and 80?
OK. Like where there's got to be a
crossover point where sudden no.Really.
No. That's crazy.
(40:42):
You. Think like, you know, in your
50s, you know, men start to die a little sooner or in your 60s,
like it like it just happens. Like at the Deathspan, the Death
Star swoops in and just seems totake more men, sometime around
age 74 on average. OK, let's let's try to envision
(41:06):
what I would call now a survivorcurve.
OK. A survivor curve.
Yeah. All right.
So I have an X axis now. Yeah.
And my ages now are now at the bottom.
Yeah, on the X axis, running from zero to 120.
OK, OK. And at the top now, I start with
(41:29):
my, let's say my 100,000 male male babies.
And then over here I have my 100,000 female babies, right?
So there's a drop, right? Some babies just die between
(41:50):
zero and one. Some die, but very, very few.
If you think of the survivor curve it, it's dropping very,
very slowly, right? Very, very slowly.
Very, very slowly. So now I'm going to zero to 10
to 20 to 30. Yeah, there are debts, but it's
(42:12):
on both male and female side. But it's very, very, very slow.
Uh huh. Very slow.
It doesn't. Where does the?
That's. What I'm trying to figure out
where's the acceleration curve? When do you know you're going
down the hill? OK, 60s. 60s.
(42:33):
Yeah, the 60s is when it starts.Definitely for the men.
Wow. Definitely for the men.
I mean, if if you have this picture of this curve for for
males, you would see that's it'snow.
Yeah, the roller coaster. This is like the this is the
(42:55):
drop. It's and it's bad news.
Yeah, it's bad news for the ladies.
It's happening a little bit later, a touch later.
But it's also both those survivor curves are.
Significantly stopped down mid 60s early 60s.
(43:18):
No I'm just curious. My father had a heart attack at
62. Yeah.
So I'm always curious, you know?Yeah, but his parents and my
mother's parents lived all till late 90s.
So you've got all those things. So I just I'm curious things
that. Change.
Yeah, like what causes all this?I mean, how much is it ready
(43:40):
into it? How much is it really?
You know, I, I. See, I kind of look at life when
your number's up, your number's up.
So that's probably also why I get very into my mother used to
say that to me, you know, I've had three, four plane crashes.
So it's like, you know, and I'm still sitting here.
(44:00):
So explain that one. When your number's up, your
number's up if it. Was my four plane.
I did you know I'd really screw up an actuarial table, no.
I mean. Oh, that's a topic for another
pocket. But yes, four and an incident
and worse, a really bad boating crash that I would say was worse
(44:23):
than all the four plane crashes.OK, Yeah.
So, you know, so that's why I'm a believer of your numbers up,
you know, when there's so many things that could happen and why
don't they happen or why do theyhappen?
So that's a whole other topic, but I was curious if there was
any point where it's interestingyou say by your 60s, that's when
(44:45):
you're. Oh yeah, the survivor curve is
it really starts. 60s. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I mean your survivor curve both for males and females
are are there. But once again, for the ladies,
(45:07):
it starts a little bit later, like.
Interesting. Starts a little bit later, but
it's the same slope then, so to speak.
It's, you know, it's parallel slopes.
Well, that's why they say you'redownhill.
Now we've given a whole new visual to that expression
downhill. Yeah, yeah.
(45:27):
Hold on, we could really keep talking about this, but I do
want to talk about your book a minute because you have a book
called Unwavering Love. Yes, unwavering love.
And in this book, you cover a lot of things.
You bring in your actuarial experience, yes.
And you tell a story. Yes, tell.
(45:49):
Us a little bit about this because I want to make sure we
get that in. OK, no, thank you for mentoring,
mentioning this book. I was not a writer.
As a matter of fact, when I was a young man, I was told I would
never be a writer, literally. But you were good at math.
Oh, yeah. You know, you know how how a lot
(46:17):
of mathematics teachers sometimes say, well, it's
obvious. I don't know if you've ever
heard that, but I mean, that's athat was a common criticism of
mathematical teachers. And I think they realized that,
so they stopped saying that. But no, I just got this.
Anyone in this class have a question besides Diane Grisell?
(46:38):
Well, anyway, yeah. So yeah, I was definitely a
mathematics person. But what happened, you know,
after I did a couple of these studies, besides Hollywood
actors, I also did Major League Baseball players, Major League
football players. Major League Baseball players do
(46:59):
a better mortality than than thefootball players, but the
football players still are much better than the population.
Wow. Yes, yeah.
And this. I bet a lot of people wouldn't
believe that. I know and so.
Major League football players dobetter than the general topic.
Of course. Well, that's very interesting.
(47:20):
Goes to show you that you can get your head banged around a
lot, but at least if you keep your heart pumping and you keep
working on your physical well-being and you're
exercising. Interesting.
Oh, I never would have guessed that one, Phil.
Well, I did a mortality study onthis because back in the day, I
believe it was Dick Butkis. Yeah, Dick Butkis, right.
(47:44):
Chicago Bears. I know exactly who you're
talking to. They were in negotiations with
the union or something, and Butkus and company were claiming
that there are mortality experience was worse than the
general population. And I said this cannot be true.
So I looked at the statistics. It's not true.
(48:07):
Interesting. Yeah.
It's not true when when you havethe general population, it's
everybody. I mean, Social Security, that's
everybody. You've got a lot of really
people who are really ill and, and, and they're, they're not
(48:29):
getting the right care or they're whatever the reason.
I mean, why has in the United States now, why for the last 10
years are we not really improvedmortality like like we were
improving it for so many years? I don't know the answer to that,
but I mean, it's irrefutable. If you do these studies and are
(48:51):
conscientious, something is going on.
You're not improving mortality rates or that you just that's
where it caps out. Yeah, but it, it is improving
very slowly, right? It's improving very, very
slowly. And I, and you can see that it's
(49:14):
it every year there are more andmore people making it to 100.
Every year there are more and more people making it to 110.
There's very few of them, right?There's a lot of documentation,
especially on the ladies, right?Because as I said, the the the
(49:38):
well documented case in France where she was 122.
No, nobody has made it beyond 120 except this one lady 1997.
But there are ladies making it to 119 and 300 days or something
like that. I think that's in second place
(49:58):
some lady in Japan. So ladies throughout the world
are pushing it up, up slowly. And also the men.
I mean, right now I think there's a guy in Brazil who's at
age 112. So he's pushing it up.
So there there is. There is improvement, Yeah.
(50:20):
But it's so slow and so minute when you're only talking a
handful of people, given the fact that there's millions of
people out there. Right?
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I don't want this to
end, but our time is up. Oh, OK.
Yeah, but the book is interesting.
But the book. Is interesting and we're going
to look for this. Thank you, Diane.
(50:40):
Thank you for. Thank you so much.
I mean, I enjoyed this tremendously because you trigger
so many thoughts and we're goingto have to talk about this again
because I still have a lot more questions.
OK? I know I'm going to be
percolating this conversation for a long time.
Right. And I, yeah, just remember that
(51:02):
these, and it's difficult to saythey're hypothetical.
They're hypothetical, but they do reveal something.
And that that's like all statistics.
You have to figure. You get a number, you get a, you
get a conclusion. What does it mean?
Yeah. And I guess that interpretation
is up for interpretation. Well, thank you.
(51:28):
Well. Thank you, thank you, Thank you
for having me. And I, I, what else can I say?
Thank you very much. Well, I've been talking with
Phil Le Palmer and we're going to have information about he and
his book in the info below. And just definitely check out
his book because it's a good oneAnd I'm Diane Gorsell.
(51:49):
This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast we're recording in Manhattan Center.
Super cool place and I'm very lucky to be here and grateful.
So and I'm also grateful for youfor watching this podcast and
sharing it and making it as big as it's getting, which is
getting Uber cool. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Phil. I appreciate it.
(52:10):
Thank you. Take care.
Hold on. Wait a second.
We have to do one more thing. Got any good cemetery jokes?
Only kidding. You'll have to read in the
comments below. Goodbye.
Thanks. Hit Subscribe.
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