Posted on 11/13/2005 5:45:33 PM PST by RWR8189
SAN DIEGO -- People are busy talking about what this country is going to look like in a few years when a cohort of 78 million Americans acquire a title they never wanted: senior citizen. Hippies who turned into yuppies are about to turn into golden oldies. Just what I wanted to hear: more about the baby boomers.
USA Today recently wrapped up a series on aging in America that touched on everything from life expectancy to saving for retirement to long-term health care issues.
The newspaper insists that by the year 2046 -- when those Americans who were born from 1946 to 1964 are between 82 and 100 years old -- it'll be a boomer's world. As far as boomers are concerned, the future promises to be, well, to use one of their words, groovy.
The way the article paints it: ``Thanks to lifestyle habits and medical advances, they probably will be the healthiest group of elderly in history. Thanks to extended employment spans, they will be the wealthiest. Thanks to their huge voting bloc, they will be the most powerful.'' So basically the boomers will have their health, plenty of cash, and lots of political clout to get their way.
And the point is? That's how it is now. Americans can't make it through a presidential election without rehashing the Vietnam War. The phenomenon began when the nation's first boomer president, Bill Clinton, was accused by some of dodging the draft to avoid going to Vietnam. The phenomenon reached ridiculous new heights in the 2004 election with the emphasis on Swift boat veterans and George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.
And when Bush started talking up the need to reform Social Security, he framed the issue as a system in crisis because the program wouldn't be there for boomers when they retire. He also tried to head off any criticism from boomers by assuring them that any changes wouldn't affect those who were 55 and older.
Nobody seemed to care much about the financial burden that will almost certainly befall the two generations that follow the boomers -- Generation X (now in its 30s and early 40s) and Generation Y (in its 20s and teens) -- just to keep Social Security afloat. Certainly not the boomers. What they care about is what the future holds for them. And why should that surprise us?
This generation has never been plagued with low self-esteem or the sense that the world didn't revolve around them. This is, after all, the generation that helped deliver on the promise of civil rights for blacks and Hispanics and equal rights for women, that fought and helped end the war in Vietnam, and that helped drive a corrupt president from office. You could stop there, and already have enough to say grace over. Not boomers.
Listen to how Newsweek put it in a cover story this week on the boomers turning 60: ``They and their siblings invented not just the epiphenomena of youth culture -- blue jeans and rock music, sexual permissiveness and political alienation -- but the very idea of youth as a separate realm of experience and knowledge.''
That's a heck of thing to have on your resume, or to break the ice at cocktail parties. ``That's Fred over there. He's a baby boomer. He invented youth. Good for you, Fred!''
But even the egotistical baby boomers can't escape Father Time. And so, the latest product being pitched is retirement planning. Financial services companies are running commercials that rely on lava lamps and images from the 1960s to convince boomers that they really are getting older and approaching retirement age, and that it's time to plan their exit from the work force.
Good luck with that. Boomers don't seem to be in any hurry to leave. This is the generation that doesn't think the rules apply to them, and that includes rules about getting old and retiring. The Newsweek article mentions a retirement survey conducted by Merrill Lynch that found that 81 percent of boomers plan to work past the age of 65.
Expect many boomers to work from home, perhaps log shorter days and weeks, but to keep on working as long as their minds and bodies hold up.
These folks aren't going anywhere. But you knew that.
© 2005, The San Diego Union-Tribune
So they stay productive and that's bad....how?
"OLD POWER" --- YEAAAAHHH!!!
And one of the reasons while seemingly every other television commercial these days is for a drug product -- impotence, high cholesterol, heart disease, depression, you name it. .....and the last 30 seconds of these commericals is dedicated to listing all the (usually very nasty) possible side effects at lightning speed...
My local DVD rental place has a sign advertising senior rates ... so I asked about them. Senior begins at 85 years.
I was born in June '45. I just missed being a boomer. Maybe I am a pre boomer.
Nah, I'm just an old fart.
If I had a resturant I would have senior discounts but you would have to be 100 years old and prove it. Just like they let kids under 2 eat free I would let 100 year olds eat free. After all they probably eat about as much as a 2 year old.
Boomers who retire may be going somewhere. According to this article, 650,000 boomers are predicted to leave Massachusetts when they retire:
http://wbz1030.com/massnews/MA--BoomerRetirement-gn/resources_news_html
It's either Boomers or ship em in from Mexico or India.....and furthermore....the older you are, the more conservative you USUALLY are....
Don't forget that the boomers have been the prime promoters of euthansia. And they want it for themselves. This was first announced by the Who, in the song "my generation", with the lyrics "I hope I die before I get old."
Maybe we need to call on doctor kevorkian to help the boomers fulfill their wish....eh?
This is, after all, the generation that helped deliver on the promise of civil rights for blacks and Hispanics and equal rights for women, that fought and helped end the war in Vietnam, and that helped drive a corrupt president from office.>>>
Wow! FIVE lies before you hit a period! This is the generation that watched the civil rights struggle on television, cared nothing at all about hispanics, butchered its own offspring (while wondering where the workers are to keep SS going), refused to preserve the people of Southeast Asia from genocide, and that hounded a just man from office and replaced him with a mushy wimp who almost surrendered to Soviet aggression.
I would disenfranchise every single Boomer in the country who didn't have combat experience in Nam or later.
Better the boomers who voted for REPUBLICANS and made our economy more DYNAMIC than the generation who came before them. However, the boomers better look out as us GenXers aint going to let them leach off of us.
Sheesh.
Shi'ite! I thought this was about nuclear submarines!
No, it began when DEMOCRATS back in 1988 accused Dan Quayle of dodging the draft.
The retirement years of Boomers isn't likely to be nearly as rosey as that,particularly the cash part.
The Reagan Generation are coming to power, at least politically.
"Thanks to lifestyle habits and medical advances, they probably will be the healthiest group of elderly in history. Thanks to extended employment spans, they will be the wealthiest. Thanks to their huge voting bloc, they will be the most powerful."
When the exodus of younger voters does happen, of the people who will be paying for these entitlements, I wonder where most will wind up going? I'm hoping Australia.
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