work
18 Jan 2012
Back To Work? It Never Gets Old!
Australia needs baby boomers to stay at work to boost productivity. We should stop age discrimination in the workplace and learn from Europe's failures to fund its ageing population, writes Malcolm King
This is the story of why we need to keep employing and retaining older workers as the boomers transition to retirement.
The authors of the Third Intergenerational Report (2010) argued that if the workforce participation rate of 55-64 year olds could be increased from its current level of about 60 per cent to 67 per cent by 2049-50, then GDP would be 2.4 per cent higher by that date.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, male early retirement — retiring before the pension eligibility age — became increasingly common. The participation rates of mature age men, particularly 55-64 year olds, steadily declined. At the same time, women’s employment rates steadily rose.
In the last 20 years the early retirement trend among males has reversed, which means the nation will probably reach its target of 67 per cent of older worker employment by 2050 — although a lot can happen in that time.
There are currently 2.6 million people aged over 45 working full-time and according to the ABS about 41 per cent of those said they will downsize to part-time work before they retire.
Employers such as Woolworths, Bunnings, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and Allianz have realised that older workers bring not only experience but also good peer-to-peer customer service skills. Their age is a marketable commodity.
However, there are still high levels of age discrimination in both the public and private sectors against older job-seekers. Thousands of people 45 and over are either under employed or unemployed and struggling to get a job simply because of their age. Australia would do well to address this issue head on.
As long as this rate of retaining work by the post-war generation continues — and there are greater efforts to end age discrimination as well as a provision for older people with a disability to work — Australia will probably escape having to raise taxes on younger generations to pay for the gap between Government revenue and expenditure on age pensions and healthcare.
There are three important caveats here. Australia will avoid a major fiscal gap if we continue to retain and hire older workers, create flexible employee workplaces and hire younger workers. It is pointless leaving young people out of the equation just because they have little or no work experience. Young people get experience by being hired on merit.
The fiscal gap will be reduced as long as the economy keeps growing steadily. Employers are most reluctant to hire anyone when risk runs riot over the balance sheets.
The last caveat is that productivity is measured in net hours worked. While mature age workers who work longer will ameliorate the fiscal gap, we don’t know how much longer they will work and as many will work part-time, there will still be a net fall in hours worked. This means productivity will slow and certainly not rise by an additional 2.4 per cent as predicted.
What we don’t know as yet is how new infrastructure projects such as the new broadband network will boost productivity and the productive boost due to skilled immigration. Work is a key driver of economic growth and productivity. While productivity isn’t everything, in the long run, it is — as US economist Paul Krugman said — almost everything.
While Australia may be able to fund its ageing population, the combination of government debt and rising numbers of aged persons in countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, has reached a tipping point. The cumulative debt and the compounding interest payments on that debt, has spiralled out of control, much like feedback from an amplifier. Ireland’s gross domestic debt is the equivalent of 105 per cent of its GDP, Greece’s is 129.2 and Portugal’s is 92.9 of GDP. Italy’s debt is 132.7 per cent of GDP and Japan’s is 204.3 percent of GDP. The ageing population is not the cause of Europe’s current debt woes, but it is adding to the problem.
In 2011 gross Australian government debt as a proportion of GDP was 25.9 per cent. This is very low and on current economic projections, Government debt should be zeroed by 2018.
We have to go back to the 1950s (when there was war debt in play) and before that, to the 1930s to see debt levels in Europe as high as these. The last time debt burdens were this high, not a single country in the world had a median age higher than 36. Today, half of Europe has a median age over 40. The median age in Japan is 45, Italy and Germany 44, Greece 42.
According to Eurostat, in Western and Central Europe, the size of the working age population (about 325 million) will start to decline after the year 2015 reaching 302 million in 2025 and 261 million in 2050.
The number of younger Europeans entering the labour market in the 15-24 age cohort is shrinking and will decline over the next 40 years by about 25 per cent. The 55-65 age group is likely to grow until the year 2030 when the largest cohorts of the baby boom have reached today’s retirement age, a concept which is becoming increasingly tenuous. In Australia there is no mandated retirement age.
On the other hand, as a result of increasing life expectancy and the ageing of the baby boom generation, the age group 65+ will grow to 107 million in 2025 and to 133 million in 2050. There will be many more people over 80 years of age. We know that people 75 years and older draw down considerable government monies for healthcare.
These nations have ageing populations like Australia. But they have not implemented strategies such as compulsory superannuation or incentives to hire and retain mature age workers.
Those countries that have borrowed to service debt can expect massive tax hikes and dramatic spending cuts. How will they ever be able to fund the pensions and healthcare demands of there ageing populations? They can’t.
In Europe, those who will be really punished are those born now. They will be born debtors and that is no myth.
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Posted Thursday, 19 January 12 at 4:26PM
Agree that this may address labour market shortages, but we shouldn’t encourage too much labour supply. proposals that increase labour supply are just what capitalists love to hear because having a huge hungry labour force supresses wages and encourages employers to treat workers badly and not train and develop existing workers.
Also, the problem with baby boomers in the workplace is that they want to continue doing things the old way. they tend to believe in hierarchical, top-down, non-consultative management styles. this can extremely frustrating for gen-Ys and Gen-Xs, as it stifles innovation and best practice, resulting in poor morale.
Posted Sunday, 22 January 12 at 5:33PM
@andrew26
Much as I hate to disagree with someone giving me a nostalgia hit with all that Leftie language from my 20s, I have to spoil the ideology party with a fact or three.
Increasing the labour supply in a mature economy like ours always increases real wages over time. Just look at how much better everyone in Oz is paid today than they were when I was a twenty-something and the participation rate of married women was half what it is today. Look at how much better they are treated in terms of working conditions, and how much more widespread and sophisticated on-the-job training is.
What frustrated the GenXers I used to employ was not so much my hierarchical, top-down, non-consultative management style, but my pleading requests that they stop standing around yacking and actually do the job they were being paid to do, and my occasional insistence they do their job to roughly the standard of my worst baby-boomer worker, rather than the amateurish effort they insisted should be good enough.
Of course they were well-informed on how industrial law worked to protect them. They couldn’t be sacked for not doing their job — that would be unfair.
Posted Monday, 23 January 12 at 3:21PM
It surprises me that there have been few posts on this topic, it feels to me that NM readership is in the 50+ bracket and mostly male, so I would have thought more people would respond and have an opinion.
The age discrimination ahs always confused me. It seems illogical to not have mature experienced workers in your workforce. By late 50s most people’s family responsibilities are not as crowded like those with young children, they have valuable experience that can’t be lreant in books and they relate better with clients/customers or consumers of similar age groups - so I’ve never understood the sense in excluding older workers from the workforce.
aussiegreg - I’m wondering if women and skilled migrants entering the workforce would affect any figures about labour supply - perhaps not allowing realistic statistics/correlations about populations and labour supply and wage levels?
Being a genX - I finished my 4 years at uni to be hit by “the recession we had to have” and Jeff Kennett’s slashing of the education sys in Vic., which in my opinion was all a product of babyboomers - which caused a long stretch of unemployment, demoralisation, depression and inexperience for my life.
The issue of our population having a much larger group in the 80yrs+ range will be an interesting phenomenon to witness playing out in social, political and economic terms. For one thing, this group will be a powerful political force which our politicians will no doubt pander to (could lead to a reversal with youth issues being discriminated against instead?). Also this larger group will impact on the types of businesses, products and services that will develop, grow and change over time - perhaps this will increase employment markets/opportunities in some areas - retirement villages, nursing homes, health services, drugs…many new possibilities for markets to adapt to (such as we have seen with changing technology).
Posted Monday, 23 January 12 at 11:43PM
@fightmumma
It’s possible, although it’s a paradox, given that women and migrants tend to be paid less, so a greater proportion of the workforce being female and/or ESL should mean average wages being reduced, not increased.
But I think it is all about productivity, about generating more wealth — a wealthier country can afford to pay higher wages and in practice it does. In my experience, and my workforce was majority female (even the truck drivers) and majority migrant, women and migrants tend to be better workers, more productive, and thus often the difference between profit and loss (or survival and bankruptcy).
I very nearly went broke, taking 70 employees and who knows how many suppliers etc with me, during “the recession we had to have”, and my company’s Victorian operations were badly affected during the Cain government’s attempt to bankrupt Victoria. (Can’t hear about Greece without a sense of déjà vu.) I dislike Kennett personally, and I think a lot of his budgeting was driven by ideology rather than economics, but I thought it would take at least a decade to restore Victoria to its pre-Cain economic health so I have to give Jeff credit for doing it in less than half that. A lot of unemployed people got jobs a lot sooner because of him, and a lot of employed people got better wages and salaries too.
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 1:18AM
aussiegreg - yes that’s all interesting. Although, from my reading to date, many statistics can be manipulated which almost requires a Degree in research to understand, support or refute! I’ve spent some time reading about employment and wage patterns for sociology and it feels that the “underclass”, our unemployed people, get left out of statistics and I wonder why they are not included because wouldn’t this give a truer reflection of wages, labour supply/demand, age brackets, discrimination etc? If the “wageless” were included then would wage levels have truly increased?
Obviously this isn’t my area of expertise but I find it interesting. Sociology digs into statistics from economics frequently, I’m amazed we don’t actually have to study some level of economics in order to understand many of the subjects that sociologists debate.
One graph in a soc. text book had figures comparing types of employment between men and women - I asked how the figures could be accurate when they included a time frame expanding the 2 world wars where surely men would not be in work such as farming to the same degree as outside this time - and generally statistics on anything to do with women besides births, deaths and marriages was not considered a serious undertaking until arguably the 1960s, so figures on what women would be doing at the turn of last century - doesn’t seem sensible that they would be accurate (and would be categorised according to men’s values/beliefs and men would be the ones doing any research and analysis).
I have to agree with you about Kennett on everything you said. It was heart breaking to do 4 years at uni and have no realistic, close-to-home employment opportunities - but anyone could see that he didn’t really inherit a very healthy system from previous government, so I spose he had few options.
Anyway - its late and I’m now rambling!! Cheers.
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 11:24AM
@fightmumma
One of the consequences of the rising level of participation in the workforce, that is the growing proportion of people of working age in work or looking for work — and this is mostly about sociological changes for women — is that the proportion of “wageless” people over the cycle has been falling for decades. So no, include the wageless and the average income actually rises more with an expanded worforce, not less. And the rise is not solely a function of more generous unemployment benefits, although that has shifted up the level of full employment (NAIRU) from the one or two percent of my youth to the four+ per cent of today, the difference being an increase in those not really looking for work but preferring to live on the dole.
I did study a couple of units of economics, and I agree with you about Sociology, but the same could be said for Political Science and even Psychology. It’s a long time since Paul Keating made his crack about the parrot in the barber shop!
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 12:17PM
aussiegreg - yes and there are a lot of low-paying jobs out there that are basically unlivable amounts, so Centrelink payments supplement these wages as well, which I suppose puches up income avergaes.
I think we’ll probably disagree over welfare payments though!! I thought that there has been lots of evidence that payments have never kept inline with rises in the cost of living? I wouldn’t like to solely depend on my pension as it isn’t livable. I don’t understand how some people DO just want to live on the dole and not want to work - it isn’t enough money to have any sort of active, socially participatory life! This leads to an underclass that completely reject mainstream society and irons-in already ground-in social problems in our society.
Some circles of society are very anti-welfare, but as I read recently, welfare payments can actually support business leaders and capitalism because bosses/companies can pay low wages, thus reaping profits, and those with decent incomes benefit from cheaper prices on goods and services, while “the tax payer” picks up the difference in welfare payments.
And then they all hate the centrelink recipient!! Once governments abondoned full-employment as a goal, we were always bound to have higher unemployment - our leaders believed that the benefits to society as a whole would outweigh the negative of unemployment - where welfare benefits would pick up the cost of their policies…now the victims of these policies are cast as the villian by the same people!
This goes on for generations now and is a huge waste of life, potential and a burden on many services especially health care, mental health services and the education system…not to mention youth issues…
God I’m full of it today, … I’ve got off topic sorry - shouldn’t stay up late watching the tennis!
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 7:19PM
@fightmumma
Ah, you GenXers, with your odd ideas about poverty! We BabyBoomers remember when being on the dole meant kids going to school half-starved, the phone and the power and the gas cut off at home, the car and the TV seized by the Repo man, the fridge and the washing machine under “For Sale” in the classifieds etc etc. Not only is today’s dole vastly higher than back in the ’50s and ’60s but it goes up every year by at least the cost of living as measured by the CPI (it’s in the Act) and often by more.
Back in the ’70s I wrote a piece called “How to Live Well on the Dole”, based on my observations of a share house occupied by six unemployed people. The house could better be described as a city farm, the building covered on all sides by fruiting vines (grapes, passionfruit etc), the front yard by exotic shrubs and trees like almonds, pomegranates, pineapple guavas (fejoias) and cherries, and the backyard by common fruit trees like apples, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, figs etc.
Under those trees ran chickens and ducks, and behind them were a number of raised beds of vegetables of every kind.
Some of the surplus produce they sold in a local cooperative, some they bartered for the other things they needed (including, I think, for rent) leaving their dole money to buy them the very best in appliances and hi-fi and electronics and bikes. And they had the time, even after all that farm labouring, to live an active, socially participatory life engaged in political activism.
And when I was employing for my business I saw plenty of candidates, sent around by Centrelink as a condition of their continuing to get the dole, who clearly were doing everything they could to deter me from hiring them! Talk about the great unwashed!! (And yes I mean them and not just their clothes!)
The wages I was paying were high enough to almost bankrupt me (unemployment for businesspeople). Had I gone broke, would the welfare lobby have campaigned for my poverty to be removed by a transfer from the public purse?
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 8:46PM
aussiegreg - hehe! You write so well, very easy to visualise all that!! I really like the idea of a stronger collectivist feel to our society (I bartered an old pine bed and good mattress for something just yesterday cos I didn’t have cash!!), seriously, - but I also know people who claim to shun mainstream society but who still don’t mind unemployment benefits!! This is a cop out!
I am interested in your perspective though. I have no experience with your side of life ie business ownership, being an employer etc, and each aspect has realistic needs, interests, responsibilities and rights, doesn’t it?! I think you all get lumped in the same basket as the evil “ruling class” and this isn’t so sensible for understanding the diversity of our society.
BTW - which generation was the one living all that freelove, make love not war, daisies, tie-dye, pot, etc etc etc? Was that your lot or some inbetweener that none of us admit to, but who we sometimes still see around the traps stuck in a time warp with their ponytails, “yeah man”s, and love child in tow?
Whoops - I think I might just be someone’s love child!
Chill man!!
Posted Wednesday, 25 January 12 at 10:57PM
@fightmumma
Now, now, flattery will get you everywhere!
I, too, like the idea of a more collectivist society, so long as it emerges organically and not by the brute force of the state. I was a real communist for a decade or so, the kind that lives on a commune, but I chose it freely — the idea of compulsory cooperation seems to me to be a contradiction in heart as well as in terms. And I never took the dole.
And yes, my generation is the tie-dyed one, but you know what they say: if you can remember the sixties you weren’t really there!
As for the evil “ruling class”, my fellow businessmen and women would say that term describes the professional politicians and their academic svengalis, all power and no responsibility, absconding with the wealth we create to hand around gratis to the members of their intellectual tribe. Mind you, my fellow businessmen and women would swiftly decide I was one of the enemy if I was to let them know I think capitalism, a system based on greed, is destined to be replaced by something else, I just don’t know what.
As for being someone’s love child, your mother wasn’t on a Vietnam Moratorium march in Sydney in 1972, was she?
Posted Thursday, 26 January 12 at 10:28AM
aussiegreg -you crack me up!! No she was a blonde farm girl from near Geelong!!
Yeah - the more I read, the more I think that it is possible to still have a free market (along with the best that it offers) and yet have a collectivist nature to it too (which would eliminate its social negatives) - not laisse faire (or however you spell that stupid word!!). I’m not keen to see authoratarian rule either (did you know even some anarchists philosophers tend to be authoritarian - sort of a contradiction too I reckon)
Can you run your businesses , now, with any values/beliefs that support community spirit or would this undermine your competitiveness in the market?
I read a book called “Small is Beautiful” and the author mentioned a business in Britain (I think) that transformed itself into communal ownership and management. And I suppose social democratic countries, of which there are still a few, are continuing to be competitive and successful at present. (I wonder how they have coped with the GFC? Or how to find out about that?)
I had a thought that it would be possible to run a social services business (really it is public money - but don’t get me started on that one!) by grassroots, bottom up approach. The savings in money terms (as to equal wages and balanced work loads) would fund more services and therefore have a better effect in the community.
My grandfather was a communist (though not into equality seeing as he used to beat up my grandmother). He had friends on the wharves in Geelong and they would smuggle-in socialist publications, he’d hide them under his house until someoone else picked them up for distribution!! (This was when…was it Menzies??…tried to ban the Communist party)
As to the ruling class bit - so it seems almost all of us are pawns for the gov’t then?!! There’s definitely a ruling political and economic elite pulling all the strings in Oz, isn’t there! It is amazing that this is able to happen with all our laws, democracy ‘n all that! We need an overhaul that’s for sure - and the bureaucrats should go first - replaced by everyady people, everyone should have to have a day-job, like our CFA, army reservists etc - and running the country should be a more modest, truly representative affair OR a fully participatory affair.
Anyway - my soap box needs a polish!
BTW - I’ve always wanted to learn how to drive a truck!
Posted Thursday, 26 January 12 at 4:20PM
@fightmumma
My father was also a Communist, senior enough to have seen the coded telegrams from the Kremlin, so he would probably have known your grandfather (and yes it was Menzies who tried to ban the Party, his legislation ruled unconstitutional by the High Court and on appeal by the Privy Council in London, and his referendum to change the constitution voted down).
Can you run your businesses , now, with any values/beliefs that support community spirit or would this undermine your competitiveness in the market?
Sure you can, just look at Fletcher Jones and Staff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_Jones) or at the Littlehampton-based business I think you mean, The Body Shop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Shop). On the other hand look at ACTU-Bourkes, ACTU-Solo and ACTU New World Travel, three profitable businesses when Hawke got his hands on them, all bankrupted despite being subsidised with union funds.
A lot of big corporations have token programs to give employees a stake in the business or to show social responsibility in how they operate, but these are largely just PR scams, collectivism as a marketing tool. (Some would say that was/is true of The Body Shop — see the bottom of the Wikipedia article.)
As for social democratic countries, we are back with state power and collectivism created by brute force. Matters of principle aside, the laissez-faire capitalists have been proven wrong about the longevity of European social democracy. Witness how well many SD poster children have survived the GFC compared to the pin-ups for economic “rationalism” like Ireland — or indeed America, as in this summary of multiple Wikipedia entries dating from 2010:
Let’s just take the most successful Democratic Socialist countries.
Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Finland
then compare that to the USA.
Public debt
Denmark: 38.1%
Finland: 46.6%
Netherlands: 62.2%
Norway: 60.2%
Sweden: 43.2%
USA: 52.9%
Government Budget
Denmark: +$14,400,000,000
Finland: +$11,500,000,000
Netherlands: +$9,700,000,000
Norway: +$86,700,000,000
Sweden: +$11,900,000,000
USA: -$455,000,000,000
External debt
*Note: Many of these countries debts are mostly due to rebuilding from WW2, and mismanagement of economy before economic reforms in 1990’s*
Denmark: 242.30%
Finland: 143.95%
Netherlands: 62.3%
Norway: 190.23%
Sweden: 176.72%
USA: 94%
Trade Account Balance
Denmark: +1.70%
Finland: +6.08%
Netherlands: +7.96%
Norway: +25.73%
Sweden: +11.35%
USA: -5.33%
Tax Revenue
Denmark: 50.0%
Finland: 43.6%
Netherlands: 39.5%
Norway: 43.6%
Sweden: 49.7%
USA: 28.2%
Ease of Business
*Rank only*
Denmark: #6
Finland: #16
Netherlands: #30
Norway: #10
Sweden: #18
USA: #4
Global Competetiveness
Higher = Better
Denmark: 5.46
Finland: 5.43
Netherlands: 5.32
Norway: 5.17
Sweden: 5.51
USA: 5.59
Human Poverty Index
Denmark: 8.2%
Finland: 8.1%
Netherlands: 8.1%
Norway: 6.8%
Sweden: 6.3%
USA: 15.4%
Unemployment Rate
Denmark: 4.2% - Mar. 2010
Finland: 8.5% - Nov. 2009
Netherlands: 3.6% - Sep. 2009
Norway: 3.3% - Sep. 2009
Sweden: 8.0% - Nov. 2009
USA: 9.7% - Jan. 2010
Employment Rate
Denmark: 77%
Finland: 70%
Netherlands: 75%
Norway: 78%
Sweden: 76%
USA: 72%
Income Inequality
0 = Absolutely equal, 100 = All wealth belongs to one person
Denmark: 24.7
Finland: 26.9
Netherlands: 30.9
Norway: 25.8
Sweden: 25.0
USA: 40.8
[From http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread559297/pg1]
Of course Greece was Social Democratic as well, but it’s hard to disentangle the role its welfare state (especially, in the context of this article, extremely low retirement ages) and high levels of regulation played in its demise, especially in the context of taxes being effectively voluntary and regulation being avoidable at the right price.
And so was Spain, the developed economy with the highest unemployment in the world post GFC.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/unemployment-rate
As for your policy speech, you’ll have my vote!
Now I’d better let you get back to polishing your box.
BTW, learning to drive a truck is easy, so long as you can already drive a manual car reasonably well — I “upgraded” a number of my crew. Not so easy to go up the next step to a prime mover, though — I never did get my own license, and my semi-trailer drivers were all male. The pick of the female drivers actually came from a family who ran a trucking business, but wouldn’t let her drive!!
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 10:45AM
hi aussiegreg - thanks for all that information.
Being a humanist - the figures on social issues were particularly impressive!! It still baffles my mind how USA can be such an imperialist force with figures like the poverty index and income inequlaity statistic…very sad for people in their own country, and there seems no intention for them to address this does there!
It was very interesting to read about the sites you offered! I might get that book about Fletcher Jones’ life, it would be an eye-opener I’m sure, especially for someone like me who has no idea about business!! I think I might have been to that Fletcher Jones place in Warrnambool (long time ago though).
And I’ll also resarch that “social audit” thing discussed in The Body Shop as I think that is what I’d be interested in for my uni studies. One of my other pet interests is human rights in overseas factories, it seems to have ethical issues if we buy cheap products in Oz that are made under work conditions that we do not accept in Oz…
As for my policy speech - I have to admit - not really living in realityland there!!
I don’t know if you know - (you obviously know a hell of a lot more than I do) but for your generation, did “box” also have a rude meaning to do with a particular female body part? It could be just a GenXY thing, not sure? SO me saying I’ll polish my SOAPbox has a whole other meaning than you saying I’ll polish my box!! Sorry for being crude - but if you work with truckies, I’m sure you can handle it!!
I think I’d get along fine with your best female truck driver then - I wasn’t allowed to do boxing with the males in my family and I’m the one who became a professional fighter!! If you DON’T want your kid doing something definitely DON’T tell them NOT to do it!!
I have to say, you ought to write a book or something I reckon!! It is an unusual mix in a person to have the abilities that you obviously do (not that you need me tellling you that) have you ever thought of that?
I’d still like to know how a communist ends up wanting to run a business and dance with the devil though! Anyhoo - what a pity this online thing doesn’t allow for getting together for a bevvy at the local pub hey!! I’d like to reserve the right to ask you future questions and pick your brain too - but I don’t want to be a pain in the proverbial!!
Thanks so much, :-)
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 1:49PM
@fightmumma
Boy, more flattery! Perhaps I could make a book out of my collected posts! I’m pretty sure elsewhere on NM (or perhaps on an ABC site) I’ve told the story of how I proved Marx’s maxim that the life of a farmer bred into him counter-revolutionary instincts, that I went from being a grower to processing the farm’s produce to wholesaling and distributing those processed goods.
The point about a finely-crafted line like my one about polishing is that the double entendre is deniable — I can now in mock indignation take offence at the very suggestion a gentleman of the old school like me would say such a thing, especially to someone young enough to be my daughter …
As for the pleasant thought we might get together for a drink — I think your local would be a long way from mine! (Feel free to pick away at this ageing brain, though, if only to prove Malcolm King’s thesis.)
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 3:33PM
aussiegreg - ok Mr Smartypants, I’m laughing to much to think of a comeback to that one (re your double entendre)!! Well…the only things I could come up with are rude and inappropriate (that damn line I’m not supposed to cross…)
My old boxing trainer was in his late 70s and he hardly ever swore when I was in the gym, every now and then he would let one fly and I would tease the hell out of him! Something like… “Raymond…that’s an insult to my innocent ears!”
OK I’m off, take care old-brainy one! And be prepared for the next question…it might have something to do with Malcolm King…
Posted Friday, 27 January 12 at 11:11PM
@fightmumma
Promises, promises . . .