A Shocking Look At What The Elderly Are Now Doing Just To Survive

On the heels of the IMF downgrading their global growth forecast, below is a shocking look at what the elderly are already doing just to survive.

Here is a portion of today’s note from Art Cashin: Grandpa Goes To Jail – Willingly – The incredibly sharp-eyed Grant Williams found a disturbing new trend in Japan, which was described in an article in the FT. Here’s how the article began:

Japan’s prison system is being driven to budgetary crisis by demographics, a welfare shortfall and a new, pernicious breed of villain: the recidivist retiree. And the silver-haired crooks, say academics, are desperate to be behind bars.

Crime figures show that about 35 percent of shoplifting offences are committed by people over 60. Within that age bracket, 40 per cent of repeat offenders have committed the same crime more than six times.

There is good reason, concludes a report, to suspect that the shoplifting crime wave in particular represents an attempt by those convicted to end up in prison — an institution that offers free food, accommodation and healthcare.

The mathematics of recidivism are gloomily compelling for the would-be convict. Even with a frugal diet and dirt-cheap accommodation, a single Japanese retiree with minimal savings has living costs more than 25 per cent higher than the meagre basic state pension of Y780,000 ($6,900) a year, according to a study on the economics of elderly crime by Michael Newman of Tokyo-based research house Custom Products Research.

Even the theft of a Y200 sandwich can earn a two-year prison sentence, say academics, at an Y8.4m cost to the state…..More Here

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A Shocking Look At What The Elderly Are Now Doing Just To Survive