I hate to say it, but the answer is "have more sex"

A while ago, the government commissioned a report on pensions, to work out whether the state will be able to afford retirement pensions in the future. Now the report is nearing publication and Gordon Brown has already let it be known that he won't agree with its conclusions. Why not?

Because the report will say that we need to keep working for longer in order to pay taxes that will come back to us in the form of our pensions. And Gordon Brown, that sly old dog, knows that if he's going to have a hope in hell of being a successful Prime Minister, he needs to keep the workers happy and continue to let them clock off at 60 or 65.

That's all well and good. I'm sure that if my career depended on people wanting to vote for me, I'd say just about anything too. But the long and short of it is, sadly, that our government can't afford to pay for us to retire at 60 or 65 any more.

Remember, the population here is ageing. Rather quickly. We're not breeding enough to ensure a large, healthy workforce that will take over from us and generate all that tax revenue that'll keep us in zip-up boots and tartan shopping trolleys when our time comes.

But that wasn't supposed to matter. Remember all those future-gazing articles and TV programmes that would promise us a future of push-button indolence and transistorised luxury? We were told that there's be nothing for us to do, that a generation of robots and processors would take care of the nasty stuff, like work, washing-up and taking out the rubbish.

Well, all that thinking outside the box was clearly a bunch of hooey. But in any case, we all got ready for it. We stopped having quite so many kids, we indulged ourselves early, and now we're being told that our lives are so expensive that the state can't support us when we become too doddery to grind up our own pine nuts for the pesto sauce.

I'm marginally closer to 65 than I am to 18, so I'm looking around me and wondering if *this* is what I want to keep doing for the next 25-odd years. Not only that, but I'm thinking "where has all that money gone?". The thousands of pounds I've paid in taxes and national insurance, the private pension plan, the savings (ha!)... suddenly, it's all just a mirage.

And if you care to wander into the City, you'll find an entire generation of kids earning telephone number salaries for buying and selling paper, who will never have to worry about their retirement because they'll have bought and sold more companies and countries than we've had hot dinners. Now *these* people we could stand to tax a little more, don't you think? But no, high taxation is a turn-off. Apparently it discourages investment and drives the young and talented abroad. Not to mention it makes anyone who proposes it totally unelectable.

At the moment, 21.2% of the population in the UK is over 60. In 2050 it will be 29.4%. In the US, the current percentage is just 16.7%, and it will be 26.4% in 2050. But spare a thought for Italy (41.3% in 2050), Korea (41.2%) and Japan (41.7%). And South America! Only 11% of their population is over 60 at the moment, and in 2050 it'll be just 8%! What *are* they doing? Actually, don't tell me.

So it seems perfectly clear to me. If we're going stand any chance of having a comfortable retirement, we need to ensure that there are enough youngsters in the workforce by the time we get there. And that means having sex. Lots of it. Starting now.