>> and good evening from los angeles. this year the first wave of baby boomers begins to turn 65 and with that comes a host of issues that could be the defining domestic issue for the 21st century. tonight, a candid conversation about the plight of america's aging boomers with best-selling author and journalist susan jacoby. hurt -- the book is called "never say die: the myth and marketing of the new old age." we are glad you have joined us. our conversation with susan jacoby, coming up. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference --

>> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. >> nationwide is on your side >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- tavis: susan jacoby is a best- selling author. her latest is "never say die: the myth and marketing of the new old age." susan jacoby, a bit too heavy on this program. >> wonderful to be here.

tavis: led to heavy. tell me about the marketing of this new old age. i see these commercials all the time on television, people running through gardens. >> it is called age defying. it really is summed up by the title of the panel at the world science festival in new york city two years ago. it was called "90 is the new 50 ." your write about people dropping through gardens. every commercial for products for the old, and i used the word all proudly, because i hate these euphemisms. older than whom? my 28 year-old niece is aging. tavis: how about chronologically

gifted? >> the very word old itself, there is something wrong with it. the commercials for products for the old, one of the things that you noticed all the time is that the people in them are not old. like the by agra --viagra commercials have 40-year-old actor's, sort of the subliminal impression being at your groin to look like this if you use viagra. tavis: what is is about us that makes us want to believe that when we are 90, we will be running around and jumping out of planes and doing all the things we see certain people doing? >> there are always exceptions. people who do seem ageless. but there are couple of things. one, simply the boomer generation, to which both of us really belong, has always believed in self transformation, and that if you live right, if you do exercises, if you eat

your green vegetables, if you stay active, then everything will be all right. these things are all great at any age, they make life better. whether your help or not, that make you better able to live, but they are not a guarantee that you are not going to grow old and get the diseases that happen when people move from what demographers call young- old, into the 80's and 90's. many of us are going to live that long. 20 years from now, 8.5 million americans will be over 85. no matter what you do. there are a whole set of challenges that most people have to cope with at that age. tavis: i was at a dinner party some weeks ago and this issue came up about getting old and about dying. it just happens i was sitting at a table with all ministers, all reverence and pastors of major churches. i am just sitting there having

dinner with them, talking about a variety of things. the issue that comes up is this issue of people now believing they are going to live forever, not preparing to die, not wanting to accept that they are going to die. keep in mind, this is a bunch of preachers who have been for years used to people getting themselves ready at some point to go meet their maker. but now, rather than getting ready to go meet their maker, they want to talk to the doctor again. they want to try something else. the point he made over, that never say die, that nobody these days seems comfortable with at some point making that transition, although we know that moment is going to come and one day will come. talk to be psychologically about what it is about us that does not even want to wrestle with the fact that we are just human and one day is going to be over. >> i hear this so much. this book really is not about

death, is about something much worse than death, what do you are talking in a spiritual sense are just an earthly sense, which is that before we die, if we live in two or eight's and 90's, more than half of us are going to go through an extended period of physical or mental disability. the boomers all have this fantasy that we are not going to ever be said before we die. what is going to happen is, we are going to die of a heart attack at the age of 95 while making love or skydiving. the skydiving granny is a popular image in media. there is a commercial for a financial advisory firm that is all over the tv which shows how they showed a woman how to save enough money to live at age leslie, and at the end of the commercial she is 186. this financial advisory firm has

showed her how to save so that she does not need her social security or anything like that. it is part of a whole fantasy that you can control everything. i think whether you are religious or not, the idea that you can control everything, that just because you do everything, and we all want to do all we can to stay healthy as long as we can, that things are going to turn out perfectly right. half of people over 85 have alzheimer's disease. it is an aids-related disease for which there is no cure or effective treatment -- an age related disease. there is nothing we can do about it. these are realities we have to be thinking about. it is not just that people don't want to think about dying. they don't want to think realistically about what being old also means. tavis: your subtitle suggests that the myth and marketing of the new old age. we talked about the marketing a moment ago. who is behind the myth?

who is pushing it? >> i think all of us, actually. it goes along with heavy marketing and the realization that older people have money. but i also think there is something that -- the baby boomers have grown up in an age of medical miracles. i first memory is of standing in line to get the salk polio vaccine. we have grown up with the it is quite a different thing, antibiotics, from dealing with genetically based diseases which carried people off in old days, like alzheimer's, like cancer, diseases which can only be -- if they could be put off by helping lifestyle, because our bodies wear out at the end. i think it is mostly --

americans are not very good at long-term thinking. this shows in our society and a lot of ways, that we are not very good at long-term thinking. what i hear now, for instance, people talking about cutting entitlements. well, fine, but the fact is, that is based on the idea somehow that all people on social security and using medicare were greedy geezers, and we all as individuals ought to be able to save enough for a 30-year retirement. i am sorry, the average person in this country's median income is about $60,000 for a family of four. they really cannot say privately enough money for a 30-year retirement. that is why social security was instituted in the first place. the difference in 1935, life expectancy was 62. we did not have millions of people living into their 80's and 90's. the idea that there is an

individual solution to this problem, that only if you were good -- it is like saying if you take your work was supplements that you are going to live for ever. the idea that if you just saved harder, it is ridiculous. tavis: you started to go down this path, we see this myth impacting our public discourse regarding entitlements and the president's budget and the budget the republicans have put up. we see what is happening in wisconsin. people are concerned about their pensions, and collective bargaining. we see it happening in indiana and ohio. it is starting to grab hold of the public debate. >> you are absolutely right. that is why i say in this book that that myth that we are all going to be sexy, skydiving

centenarians, it is really a delusion that is socially harmful. if that were true, if 98 really were the new 50, well then we don't really need social security or medicare, it if every 90-year-old can just take care of themselves and go on working in shopping until they drop. but the fact is, people over 65 -- 75% live on less than 34 that thousand dollars a year, including social security. does that sound like lavish living to you? we hear of this course based on exceptional cases, of a few unions that have really s.cellent pension i >> if we don't wake up 20 years from now, when all these cute baby boomers turn 65, we are going to be 85, and the the

harder, more expensive stages. old age -- as people live longer, there is all kinds of diseases coming into play. it is even costlier. talking about raising the retirement age to 70 is a good example. i am no fan of retirement, and as long as i have my mind, and remember, 50% of people over 85 at some point do not, i will go on writing. but think about people who have worked a whole lifetime, not only fat -- not only heavy physical work like coal mining, which is obvious, but think about the woman who has made her living standing behind retail counter her whole life, standing on her feet. is it so easy for her to work until 70 or beyond? and where are the jobs coming from 40 people?

-- for old people? i know many people who lost their jobs in the crash of 2008 who are the last to be hired. so we can cut social security. tavis: lot of government to be focusing on this difficult, and what do we, the people, do about pushing back on this mess and is marketing? it is on this myth and this marketing? >> what i have found is that people either hate or love my book. the older people like it, because they are living through some of the things i am talking about. a lot of people in their 50's say i am really negative thinker. that is not going to happen to me, is the message of it. we, as a people, have to start thinking realistically about it

ourselves. we, the people, and the -- in a previous book, we are seeing unreason in this discourse now about all you have to do is just cut. it is an unrealistic vision of old age. one of the great achievements of the american 20th century was reducing poverty among old people. if we don't start wising up and thinking realistically, in terms of the fantasy of what we all like our old age to be, we are going to undo that achievement. the boomers are not going to be richer than the generation before them. i should add something else. as you know, the majority of people over 85 are women, overwhelmingly. women are poorer than men. african-americans and hispanics are poorer than whites, and the gap between rich and poor ways even more heavily on the old ban on young people, because the old don't have the resources and the

physical strength to go on making more money and doing things. this is going to be a bigger problem. when you are talking about what government could do, the things we need to be doing right now are thinking about a solution to save for medicare. i don't disagree that the cost of medicare is out of control. one of the terrible things is that president obama about to right-wing pressure and with through this little proposal for patients to have voluntary consultations with their doctor about door of one aggressive medical care if there is no hope that i can recover? my own mother took care of that and wrote it out in her will and gave my brother specific instructions. she is 90 now, and we know exactly what she wants, but many people, because of the reasons we are talking about, wanting to live together -- for ever are just not wanting to think about it, don't find out legally what they need to do and what they don't want to do at the end of life is to be hooked up to two

when you cannot recover. these are not death panels, they are life panels. there are millions of people who don't want medical care that is only prolonging dying, rather than living. that is one thing we the people can definitely do. we cannot think about this. we can draw up living wills and appoint someone to -- and also talk with our families about it so there are no doubts. also has to be written down. tavis: why should we not believe -- you said you don't like to use the phrase medical miracles. but given the rapid pace at which the field of medicine is charting these achievements, why should we not believe that science one day will allow us to push back on part of what your argument and that we are going to live longer? >> i do believe that one day

science is certainly going to find something to delay alzheimer's. but one of the reasons these things are not as easy is that these are very complicated diseases. the more research is done, the more genetic complications -- it is related to your family background. these are basic things having to do with the body as it wears out. it is not like replacing andy are hip. somewhere you and i in our heads, there could be a genetic disaster unfolding right now. that is not pessimistic, that is just a fact. a dear old friend of mine was robert butler. he died of leukemia. he was the first director of the national institute on aging. he said i am a scientist. no one believes in science more than i do. i would love to wake up tomorrow morning and see that there was a cure or even something to treat

effectively, to delay a little bit, alzheimer's. he said i hope to do that, but hope is not a plan of action. we can all have this hope. i have this hope, too. ,y partner died of alzheimer's he was 15 years older than me. if you have lived through this, there is nothing more you would want, but hope is not a plan of action. for families taking care of alzheimer's, unlike the rest of the developed world, we don't pay for any help at home. the burden that also people who have only themselves, and there is no money to hire home health care, or could put our money where our mouth is. one reason that long-term care institutions are so that is what we pay the people who staff them. a society shows its values by how it pays people for certain

jobs. we pay almost nothing to people who care for the elderly, and yet we yell about death panels, as though we were doing our job to take care of all people. tavis: there was a survey not long ago, the and the rest must report found that nearly half of all americans think that our best days are behind us. nearly half of us think that our best days as a country are behind us. i am trying to figure out how it is that we ever come to wrestle with what you are laying out in the text about what is in front of us. >> that really is the question. i read that same report. i don't know exactly what people mean by saying our best days are behind us. there is a lot behind us that it is really good to have behind

us. it is good to have slavery behind us. good to have the discrimination against women that existed when i entered the workforce. i am not so nostalgic for the best days we supposedly have behind us. but for better days to be in front of us, we have to really challenge some of our assumptions. right now, i really do not believe, and i think our politicians will find out when it comes right down to it, i don't believe when they really get down to talking about cutting social security or medicare, i don't think that grannies lying homeless in the streets is what americans really want to see. right now, we are not thinking realistically about what the real problems of old age are. this whole thing about our best days being behind us, i just don't know what people are thinking about. there is no reason that our best days in relation to this, in terms of caring for the old,

should be in front of us. my grandmother lived to be 99. she was born in 899 and died in 1998. she set to meet one of the last time i saw her -- she had a sharp mind, but her body had felt her. she said one of the worst things about living to this age is that you feel absolutely useless. my grandmother was a person who did find herself by her uselessness. if there had not been some assistance, to have some home care for her which she could not have paid for, she would not have had to be in a nursing home the last three years of her life. there is just so much more we could do. this is not a climate that makes you feel hopeful when you hear this kind of nonsense. >> you have listed a number of things that we can, should, and ought to be doing to wrestle with this demon. that is to say the demon of the

myth of this new old age. i believe that a society is judged by how victories is poor, is young, it's aged, the widowed. what does it state then, about our society? >> the late senator hubert humphrey said very poetically. society is judged by how it tech -- how to treat people in the dawn of life, the twilight of life, and the shadows of life. the twilight of life and the shadows of life is what we are talking about when we are talking about the oldest old. right now, we are just talking a good game, but we are not doing anything about it. all i am hearing right now is cut, cut, cut. i am not a financial expert. i believe the deficit is a

problem, but where are the politicians who will tell people, if your not going to kill granny with that horrible right ring slur about health reform, then we have to pay for what lies ahead. this is not only a moral issue. it is also an issue of reason. the numbers don't add up, the right wingers keep saying. one of the numbers that does not add up is, just what are we planning to do? we cannot have a consultation with our doctor about whether we want to be hooked up to tears at the end of our lives, but we don't have to pay as much as we are paying for medicare. instead, we are going to have to pay more. people are going to have to pay more taxes. it cannot deal with this without that. if you want to have a decent society for people who are going to live longer, then we are going to have to pay for it. medical research is being cut. it is one of those little non- essential things that is now

being cut. if there is any hope for finding better treatments, for things like alzheimer's, it lies in basic biomedical research, which we are cutting like crazy. the needs that? it is a frill. tavis: all these are sobering thought. >> i don't claim this is light entertainment or that it is easy to think about. i have got lots of letters from people -- older people say, you have said some of the things about what is really like to cope with getting old. zero people are thought to be aging successfully only if they don't complain. that is young people's definition of successful aging. tavis: it is sobering, unsettling, but most importantly, israel and has to be dealt with. the new book is called "never say die: the myth and marketing

of the new old age." susan jacoby, thanks for coming on to talk about it. that is our show for tonight. i will see you next time on pbs. thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: join me next time with kareem abdul-jabbar. that is next time. we will see you then. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every

answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more.