Fourteen years and a funeral

The newly elected coalition governing Poland is planning to pass legislation increasing retirement age from 65 to 67. Some guy named Krzysztof Feusette, who writes for the second-largest Polish daily newspaper, is protesting against this in an op-ed Four Years and a Funeral, in which he attempts to show that Polish men will, on average, enjoy retirement for only four years. He compares this figure with its counterparts in other European countries, showing that it is generally much lower.

In order to fully appreciate how much of a goddamn idiot Mr. Feusette is, let's look at the method he uses to arrive at the average length of male retirement. Here's how he does it (make sure you're sitting down when you're reading this): he subtracts retirement age from life expectancy at birth for men. You read that right: at birth. AT BIRTH. Could we make a one-time exception in retirement law for Mr. Feusette, so that this idiot could retire right the fuck now? (Also, when I check the source he cites, I see life expectancy at birth for Polish men to equal 72.3 years and not 71 years.)

For those of you who want to know what the truth is, I'm not sure exactly, because I couldn't find life expectancy data for each age. But it sure isn't even close to four years. In 2007, life expectancy for Polish men at the age of 65 was 14.6 years.