Subject: Re: Selling BRK pre/post meeting?
This is true, but not relevant to Buffett. The way that survival number is calculated is by taking the number of deaths of men 94 years old and dividing it by the total population of men 94 years old, to get a rate, and doing the same thing for all higher ages, and applying those rates (in what is called a life table) to get the average survival for a 94 year old man.

Those population rates include everyone, including people who already have a known serious illness; even, in extreme cases, in terminal stage of such an illness. And such people represent a high percentage of 94 year-olds. In the subset of 94 year-olds without a known serious illness, expected survival would be much longer.

Thanks! You just explained something that has been bothering me for years, but I didn't understand. But it makes sense, someone who is pretty healthy and active at an age will statistically live longer than someone the same age who had serious health problems. So average life expectancies that don't take into account the actual health state of an individual could be really off.