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Archives
June - July 2006
Everyone Wants to Target Baby Boomers
BabyBoomerTopics.com is a
new website, and it is
seeking
submissions. Meanwhile, Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, is spending
$10 million to build an
online social network called Eons.com,
dubbed a "kind of MySpace for the 50-plus crowd."
He hopes it will one day become the online “center of gravity” for the 78
million Americans born from 1946 to 1964. “If you are over 50, please join
us ... to start living the biggest life possible,” a notice on the Web site
says.
July 31st, 2006
Baby Boomers Won't Bring on a Bust
A congressional investigation is
downplaying fears of a stock market meltdown caused by millions of
retiring baby boomers unloading their assets.
The Government Accountability Office concludes most boomers have few assets
to sell, retirees tend to spend their assets slowly, and longer life
expectancies may stretch that out even more. And, says the GAO, many will
probably continue working past their normal retirement ages.
July 29th, 2006
Heroin and Heart Attacks - the Baby
Boomer's Lot
"Heroin and tranquilisers curse the baby boomer generation," reports
The
Guardian. And
Vail
Daily says: "It's every aging baby boomer's nightmare: a physically
fit person is riding a bike or jogging when BAM! - a heart attack strikes
and tragically claims their life."
July 25th, 2006
This Great Wave Surging Toward Us
The Albany Times Union
reports:
Craig Wander, who spent 25 years working in radio, watched "this great
wave surging toward us" while serving on the board of directors of Senior
Services of Albany as chairman of its marketing committee. He responded to
this boomer wave by devising a boomer-marketing strategy....
Now, Wander has founded North of Forty Marketing so he can advise companies
on how to tap into this baby-boomer bonanza.
"These companies that aren't paying attention need to pay attention," he
says. "Seventy percent of the nation's wealth lies in the 50-plus
population. Baby boomers aren't going to retire and fade away and sit on the
porch. They're going to buy stuff, lots of stuff."
July 18th, 2006
Baby Boomer Investing
The Australian newspaper tells you how to
profit from the baby boomer boom:
Share investors wishing to benefit from the baby boomer demographic
usually look to the obvious candidates - health care, private hospital and
retirement village stocks.
But if the baby boomers are also going to be big spenders on lifestyle, a
wide range of industries should also benefit.
Read the article to learn more.
July 12th, 2006
This Isn't How My Life Was Supposed to Go
The future is bleak for many
baby boomer women:
Adeline Brown had other plans for retirement.
She never dreamed she'd lose her house and car, be forced to take odd jobs
to supplement her Social Security, and stretch her dollars by going to a
barbershop instead of a beauty salon.
But once Brown left her accounting clerk's job, her income plummeted to less
than $1,000 a month. She quickly exhausted her retirement savings when she
paid the bills from a back injury.
``This isn't how my life was supposed to go," she said.
Brown, who is 63 and lives in Oak Cliff, Texas, is one of millions of older
women who lives alone and scrambles to make ends meet.
Their median yearly income is $12,080, half of what older men receive.
Long overlooked, they have begun to gain the attention of policy analysts
and lawmakers who expect the number of poor older women to swell as 40
million baby boomer women retire.
July 3rd, 2006
Famous Americans Turn 60
For the coming 18 years one baby boomer will
turn
60 every seven seconds. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in a
lengthy report, tell us what this means.
It also names famous boomers turning 60 this year:
Bill Clinton is doing it, and so is George W. Bush. The list of famous
Americans turning 60 this year includes them, and a few others, too:
Actress Candice Bergen
First lady Laura Bush
Singer Cher
TV journalist Connie Chung
Singer Al Green
Actor Tommy Lee Jones
Actress Diane Keaton
Comedian/actor Cheech Marin
Singer Dolly Parton
Director Steven Spielberg
June 30th, 2006
Baby Boomer Religion
The conservative World Net Daily reports from the
General
Convention of the Episcopal Church:
They've already made up their mind to "live into" the homosexual
movement. "Living into" is the sort of codespeak used at the 75th General
Convention of the Episcopal Church.
Here, they dialogued on dialogue, and on diversity, inclusion, gender
neutrality, transgender neutrality. It was at the Eucharist this morning
that the first female Anglican primate-elect ever declared, "Our mother
Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are His children."
This is what my friend Dr. Peter Toon of the Prayer Book Society of the USA
has called the "New Episcopal Religion." We might just as well call it Baby
Boomer Religion.
June 23rd, 2006
Creative Space for Baby Boomers
UrbanBoomer is a new website aimed
specifically at the baby boomer generation. A
press release
explains:
The online community features an area called "Creative Space", the most
impressive aspect of UrbanBoomer, where members can upload a variety of
media from video, audio and photos to create an online gallery and business
profile. "This is what we feel to be the most exciting part of UrbanBoomer,"
[company president Bill] Hurley said. "Many of us have gone on to different
aspects of our lives and careers, with new opportunities and options.
Creative Space allows a photographer, artist, musician, writer or craftsman
to create a business profile and upload a complete gallery that can be
viewed by millions of people."
June 21st, 2006
A Very Different World from What Most
Boomers Expect
Baby boomers may find their lives taking an unexpected turn, according
to former U.S. television executive Jacqueline Marcell. The
Edmonton Sun reports on what happened to her:
It happened when both her parents contracted Alzheimer's disease and,
despite her father insisting he could manage and refusing to accept a
caregiver, they needed extensive daily care. For Marcell it finally meant
she had to move to San Francisco to live with them and take charge.
"It was all a huge shock to me, as I knew nothing about caring for the
elderly," she says. "I barely knew where to begin and was so overwhelmed
with it all."
She says she found the world of caregiving extremely stressful and difficult
and was so enraged by the lack of knowledge, information and assistance in
society and attitudes in general that it propelled her to write a book.
The result was Elder Rage, which is not only now a bestseller, but has
launched Marcell as a vocal advocate for elder care awareness and reform.
She also has a website at elderrage.com.
...She explains that with regard to Alzheimer's, medical progress has
been made with new drugs that help slow the progress of Alzheimer's and
improve the quality of life.
"But they aren't a cure. There isn't one," she says. "However, our society
has an extensive counselling and support system in place to help, support
and educate both sufferers and their families.
"It's essential people get diagnosed early and then we can help them prepare
for what's ahead."
Which could be a very different world from what most boomers expect to find
in mid and late life.
June 12th, 2006
Even Busier
Age Concern England has launched
a new
organization, Heyday, for baby boomers "entering retirement who are even
busier than when they worked full-time."
June 3rd, 2006
I'm Too Hip To Be a Grandparent
Baby boomers
don't know how to be grandparents, reports the Chicago Tribune:
But embracing their new role as grandparent bucks against another key
Baby Boomer characteristic: a desire to feel young. And many Boomers are
finding themselves unsure exactly how to morph into that grandparent role.
A chat room comment on one Web site - AgingHipsters.com - sums up the
identity crisis: "I cannot be a grandparent," the entry practically moans.
"I don't know how to make a strudel, I don't own a hairnet, and my stockings
are never rolled down to my knees. I can't crochet, play mah-jongg or speak
Yiddish. How could people as young and hip as we Boomers turn into
grandparents?"
June 3rd, 2006
Baby Boomers - Booming in Japan
An interesting report from one of Japan's leading newspapers, the
Asahi Shimbun, titled, "Brokerages
vie for baby boomer bonanza."
Securities houses are drafting a wide array of instruments to attract a
share of the 50 trillion yen in corporate retirement payouts expected over a
three-year surge of baby boomers.
According to Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, baby boomers are expected to
receive more than 15 trillion yen in one-time retirement allowances annually
beginning in fiscal 2007.
Brokerages figure standard senior citizen offerings won't do for this group
and are planning new promotions ranging from an alliance with a travel
agency to improvement of online trading systems.
An executive of a major brokerage said the sensibility of baby boomers is
different from that of current senior citizens.
June 1st, 2006
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