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Archives
March - May 2006
"Baby Boomer Women Are in Trouble"
I don't think this is really news, but it's always worth repeating -
things may not be as rosy as they seem for independent
baby boomer women.
As baby boomer women age, their prospects for later-in-life security
become increasingly dim, reported a study released May 24 by the Harvard
Generations Policy Program and the Global Generations Policy Institute, both
based in Boston.
The authors emphasized that this cohort of women may end up worse off than
their predecessors. Baby boomer women spend more, acquire more debt and are
less likely to have traditional pensions, spousal benefits, or retiree
health coverage than the previous generation of women, the study found. It
also said policy makers have long ignored the needs of women approaching
retirement with insufficient resources.
"Baby boomer women are in trouble," writes Paul Hodge, director of the
Harvard Generations Policy Program. "Unlike any other time in our nation's
history, unless there are dramatic policy shifts, baby boomer women, most
particularly minority women, will find their elder years to be a 'never
ending' struggle. After selflessly caring for their children and aging
parents, a significant number of our country's 40 million plus boomer women
will not be able to afford to retire, will fall below the poverty line and
experience financial insecurity and poorer health in their later years with
limited aid from traditional safety nets."
May 29th, 2006
Baby Boomer Dreamers
There's a lengthy report at TheMatureMarket.com website on
baby boomer finances.
Baby boomers have a higher rate of homeownership than the national
average and one out of four own more than one property.
..."On one hand is an almost insatiable desire for real estate, with some
owning multiple properties, and on the other, many have not adequately
planned for retirement. What should not be overlooked are the discretionary
spending interests of this generation, and their appreciation of housing as
a great investment."
...In describing how they would like to retire, many boomers might be
described as "dreamers." One in 10 said they already are retired but only 26
percent said they would never want to work for pay again. One-third see
themselves as going back and forth between periods of work and leisure, 17
percent would work part time, 11 percent would start a business and 7
percent would work full time.
May 25th, 2006
Early Boomers - Twitching with Frustration
Melbourne's The Age newspaper carries
a major feature on baby boomers:
Boomers acknowledge they were lucky to be born into an era of opportunity
but are adamant that they have worked hard to take advantage of it. And, as
a result, they argue, the young people wondering when boomers might
relinquish their dominance of the workforce, politics and culture, stand to
inherit more from them than boomers did from their parents.
"Hey, we're all paying the Medicare levy and we've been paying taxes for 40
years," one boomer says.
The early boomers might twitch with frustration when asked to counter claims
that they have never had to do without ("We might have 'got it all', but we
worked bloody hard!"), but they do see themselves as occupying a fortunate
middle ground, flanked by generations that did not or will not have it so
good.
They believe that what wasn't available to their parents because of the
Depression and world wars, may also not be available to their children and
grandchildren, because of economic uncertainty, a lack of job security and
the state of the world.
May 22nd, 2006
The Seven Dwarfs of Menopause
Beverly Mahone talks about her
latest book,
"WHATEVER! A Baby Boomer's Journey Into Middle Age":
"Whenever I get a chance to talk to a 40-something year old woman about
my book, I'll ask her if the seven dwarfs of menopause have come knocking at
her door yet? If you're not sure, please allow me to make the introductions.
There's Sweaty, Bloated, Forgetful, Bitchy, Itchy, Sleepy, and All Dried Up.
They don't all show up at once, but you can rest assured they will come in,
sometimes unannounced, and definitely uninvited, and yet, they will wear out
their welcome!"
May 18th, 2006
Baby Boomers - the Surrender Generation
Professor emeritus
Henry Mark Holzer of Brooklyn Law School writes in response to Tom
Brokaw’s best seller, "The Greatest Generation":
During the last 30 years, the boomers have succeeded in destroying an
institution that for millennia constituted a bulwark against
societal/cultural anarchy: the family.
...A large number of boomer cultural authorities...claim their generation as
the real patriots. They proudly claim responsibility for pulling the United
States out of Vietnam, and now are attempting the same coup against our
effort in Iraq. This preening is contemptible.
...Finally, in perhaps the most perverse claim of all, many boomers claim
responsibility for the civil rights advances of the last three decades.
But they conveniently forget that in the early days of the civil rights
movement, most boomers couldn’t even vote.
...They are the “greater generation” only if one considers destruction of
the American family, surrender to our nation’s enemies, and fostering racial
strife to be achievements of which one can be proud.
May 8th, 2006
America's First Baby Boomer
Meet Kathy Kirschling, born one second after midnight on January 1st, 1946,
and identified as America’s first baby boomer. You can read about her
here.
May 4th, 2006
Bye Bye Baby Boomers
Uh oh. It looks like the
baby boom reign could be ending more quickly than expected. Read what
Furniture World has to say:
In 2005 luxury consumers of the GenX generation, born from 1965 to 1976,
spent 6.3 percent more buying luxuries than their affluent Baby Boomer
counterparts. GenXer households averaged $52,781 as compared with Boomers
average of $49,672. The biggest spending gap was in the home luxury goods
category, where GenXers spent 28 percent more than Boomers on average.
“While Boomers still spend lots of money on luxuries, luxury goods marketers
are going to find the younger GenXer affluent consumers a more important
part of their target market in the coming years,” says Pam Danziger,
president of Unity Marketing and author of 'Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing
Luxury to the Masses — as well as the Classes.'
“After years of catering to the Boomers’ luxury appetites, luxury goods
marketers need to tap the tremendous spending potential of GenXers. Because
they are younger and more recently affluent, they are acquiring luxuries for
the first time that Boomers already have and own. As Baby Boomers downscale
their lives, GenXers are at a more materialistic life stage and so marketers
of home luxuries, such as kitchen appliances, furniture, electronics, art
and tabletop, and personal luxuries, like fashion and fashion accessories,
jewelry and beauty products, need to become attuned to the emerging desires
and shopping habits of this younger luxury generation.”
April 24th, 2006
Cutting up the Pie into Very Small Pieces
You're a baby boomer expecting to retire on the inheritance you'll
pocket when your ageing parents die?
Think again, according to a CNBC
Special Report:
“There's just a lot more boomer kids out there, and that's cutting up the
pie into very small pieces,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.
And, thanks to improved pharmaceuticals, boomer parents are living longer.
“There's a great deal of concern in that generation about the possibility of
outliving their wealth,” said Fitzpatrick.
That means boomers are more likely to be supporting their parents than the
other way around.
April 20th, 2006
Travel, Travel, Travel, If the Eating
Disorders Don't Hit in First
Over 55 million baby boomers are getting ready to retire, reports
Travel Daily News.
When asked what they intend on doing, travel and see the world is on top
of there list. Most of the baby boomers have been to the Caribbean, Alaska
and England and Italy.
So where do they want to go? Asia, especially China Japan and India. They
also are interested in Russia and eastern Europe like Hungary and seeing
beautifully renaissance cites like Budapest.
The have cruised the Caribbean now they want to cruise the Mediterranean.
River cruises thought Europe are especially appealing. You get to see
several cites without all the packing and unpacking.
Just one problem. Baby boomer
eating
disorders are on the rise, according to the University of Georgia:
Some speculate the eating disorder increase in this group, born from 1946
until 1964, is because they've consistently considered image to be of major
importance.
Connie Crawley, a University of Georgia Cooperative Extension expert,
agrees.
"Women of all ages are very conscious of their bodies and sometimes have a
very negative opinion of their bodies," she said. "Now that the baby boomers
are aging, their body changes are really kind of hitting them harder than
probably the previous generation. So now there are women who are becoming
much more concerned about the normal changes in body fat distribution that
come with age."
April 18th, 2006
Baby Boomer Sex - You Don't Know What
You're Getting
Baby boomer sex - will they still love it when they're 64? asks the
Newswise website,
in an interview with University of Maryland "human sexuality expert" Robin
Sawyer:
Q - What's the prospect for boomers and sex in their 60s and
beyond?
Sawyer: Today's 60 is yesterday's 40. Our sexuality has not ended. In
addition, medical science (no doubt headed by boomers!) has provided "sexual
assistance" in the way of Viagra and other products to treat erectile
dysfunction. Much research is being carried out to also facilitate the
enhancement of women's sexual response, such as hormone supplements. Boomers
have an attitude that's very youthful, we are a positive generation. We ask
"Why shouldn't I?"
Q - Are there any sexual pitfalls on the horizon for boomers?
Sawyer: Yes. There is a 60 percent divorce rate, and many of those
people have been married for a long time. Now they're single without skills
to negotiate things like safe sex. The older age group has one of the
fastest growing rates of HIV. You never assume someone in this age group
would be HIV positive. Add the internet, dating sites for 50 plus, and you
don't know what you're getting. It's a brave new world.
April 14th, 2006
Sentimental Yearning for a Fuzzily
Remembered Past
How do auto manufacturers decide what kind of cars to make? It seems
they tap into baby boomer nostalgia, according to an amusing article on the
Canadian
Canoe website:
Nostalgia still plays a major role in an automobile market filled with
well-off baby boomers, Canadian auto executives say. A sentimental yearning
for a fuzzily remembered past is universal but when it comes to cars, it's
especially strong in North America.
April 3rd, 2006
Wearing the Pants in the Family
Better pensions are giving baby boomer women more power within their
families after they retire, says a
new study in Canada:
These women, the first to have participated in the labour force for the
majority of their adult lives, will retire with far higher levels of pension
coverage.
As such, husbands will increasingly have to accommodate their wives wishes
in the decision-making process.
April 1st, 2006
The Challenges of the Baby Boomer
The
biggest challenges facing baby boomers? Losing mental capacity as they
age, reliance on government programs, physical health and their retirement
plans. No real surprises in the latest survey.
March 15th, 2006
Riding the Wave
Reuters writes about "how
to ride that aging baby-boomer wave":
From time to time analysts have looked at the shares of mutual fund
companies and determined that they often do better than the mutual funds the
companies sell.
Of course, simply buying shares of fund companies will not get you the kind
of diversified portfolio you should get from holding a mutual fund.
But with the biggest generation ever entering its investment-obsessed years,
and money managers aiming at skimming a minimum of 1 percent off the top of
those portfolios, it's worth a look.
March 7th, 2006
Wise Up and Slim Down
The CommunityDispatch.com website of the US Department of Health and Human
Services has a headline that'll attract attention: "Fat
and the Baby Boomer Brain."
Here’s another reason for middle-aged people to lose weight: A study
supports the idea that people who are very overweight are more likely to
develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers found that, with more weight, there was an increase in blood
levels of proteins that form beta-amyloid plaques – substances thought to
play a big role in Alzheimer’s.
...Researcher Sam Gandy of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia says
obese baby boomers need to wise up – and slim down:
"The evidence has built over the past the five years that a number of
factors – obesity being one of them – during midlife can increase the risk
of Alzheimer’s later on. So the boomer generation is exactly what we are
aiming at."
March 4th, 2006
Never Trust a Baby Boomer. Really.
Blogcritics.org calls itself a "sinister cabal of superior bloggers on
music, books, film, popular culture, technology, and politics." Here's what
they have to say about
baby boomers:
Anyone under 30 today, however, who is foolish enough to trust anyone of
my Love generation is simply a fool. And that is not a mistake, embarrassing
as that may be for me to say. Never trust a Baby Boomer. Really, never do.
We moralizing Baby Boomers have primarily given the generation entrusted to
us the joy of victim politics and an enormous price tag for it too. We
Boomers standardized divorce, fatherless families, Ritalin, atheism,
extortionately priced higher education, inadequate public education,
government programs and the pornography net. We Boomers traded traditional
religions for armies of social workers, legions of psycho-babblers and
innumerable platoons of professionally outraged quasi-militants of all
stripes and varieties.
And there's lots more.
March 2nd, 2006
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