Byproducts · Longevity can save America
What else happens if this works.
The plan is about biology. The byproducts are about money. Older people are a small share of the population and a very large share of the spending, the debt keeps climbing, and almost none of the research budget goes to the thing underneath most of it. Every number below is from the deck.
01 The bill
Spend trillions on early death, or make trillions on living longer lives.
Society’s choice, as the deck puts it. The debt chart is the backdrop. The spending chart is where aging shows up in it.
Gross federal public debt, in trillions of dollars.
Sources: Fed of St. Louis, Department of the Treasury, Statista. Figures as shown in the deck.
By age group, 2021.
Hover a band. People over 65 are 18% of the population and 36% of the spending.
Share of population
Share of spending
- 65+18% pop · 36% spend
- 55–6413% pop · 19% spend
- 45–5412% pop · 13% spend
- 35–4413% pop · 10% spend
- 19–3421% pop · 12% spend
- 0–1823% pop · 9% spend
02 The business case for longevity
Peak earning years don’t have to end at 60.
Today disease arrives, then morbidity, then death, and earning tapers through all of it. Compress the sick years to the very end and the wealth accumulation phase runs decades longer.
Money earned, by age.
- Normal wealth accumulation phase
- Extended wealth accumulation phase
Source: longevity.technology, as shown in the deck.
03 Aging research is critically underfunded
The thing under nine of the ten leading causes of death gets half a percent.
Three ways to count the same gap. Sourced from the Longevity Biotech Fellowship, as shown in the deck.
0.5%
NIH allocation to aging biology
<1%
of biotech valuation
<3%
of biotech startup funding
Society’s choice
Spend trillions on early death
or
Make trillions on living longer lives.