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
These threads are rather hilarious....a whole group of people praising RR but NOT practising what he preached.
Oh, really? You can try taking my vote from me, punk, but you'd better be armed with something more than your mouth.>>
Here. Try this. It's a 'sarcasm detector.' You clearly need one. Consider it a gift.
How many are really depending on Social Secrity? Pensions, Real Property, 401K's inheritances are proably more doable to retire with than a Social Security check you will get from the government...
Although I sure pay a great amount to good ol'FICA...
Children. Let's go forth and fight the terrorists, shall we? Not each other?
I feel a little reciprocity is in order here. I'll email you a gift certificate for an IQ supplement.
Commies did that, specifically Gramsci. Hippies just happened to be there when it started to come to fruition.
Thank you; I'll pass it on to someone who actually needs it.
You youngsters just keep working your behinds off 'cause ol' Lancey expects to get every last dime of Sosh Security and Medi-care I got coming to me. The politicians have bent me over for decades to pay for other people who I don't even know, and now it's YOUR turn for the politicians to have their way with YOU. Take the advice of that crazy judge who once said, "You may as well just try to enjoy it."
you're kidding, right ? The boomer generation is considered through 1964. How would someone born, let's say 1954 and later be a Vietnam combat vet ?
There it is.
A little faulty reasoning here. Just which generation is responsible for the "entitlement" mentality? I'll give you a clue - politicians born before the Boomer generation.
However, even though they have more money than they will reasonably spend in their remaining lifetimes, they share the Boomer notion that they are "owed" free drugs, etc.
That's pretty weird. My Dad is also a WWII vet and doesn't believe the gubmint owes him anything.
I'll do whatever it takes to take care of MY parents when/if the need arises: YOUR parents are YOUR problem.
If you read my previous posts, you would notice that I helped take care of the elderly in my family even as a little child. My mother died in our home. My grandparents died in our home. We cared for them all, night and day.
greedy geezer crowd
Again I say, beware of generalizations. "Your" children (metaphorically speaking) are watching and will treat you the same way you treat the Boomers. Ever see the movie, "Logan's Run"? You might, just for kicks...
No....
I'm just hoping that he doesn't run up the debt for my children.
He's a selfish b@$tard; quit a good job because he was "tired of the rat race", now working only for subsistence. No kids - doesn't want any and never did. Etc. etc. Always whining about the government doesn't give them this or that for whatever reason. Beotching that SocSec won't pay them hardly squat when they get old enough. A real libtard.
(from My Science Project)
Some say we will become a nation of narcissists, and spend all our money on our last hoorah and beyond, scarfing down buckets of anti-aging props, pills and shakes while salivating marketers cater to our ever-selfish whims. They predict we'll spend our days consuming pricey treats and our nights pounding our fists at the unfairness of it all; we really are over 30, dammit, and on top of that, mortal, with one foot already firmly planted in that final Davy Crockett fort in the sky.
At stake, says Dr. William H. Thomas, is quality of the final Boomer years. A maverick geriatrician, Thomas is at the hub of a movement to replace nursing homes with communal habitats of like-minded people, plants, pets, music and genuinely good old-folk vibes.
Yes, I have served. I continue to serve my community as a reserve police officer.
However, service for a few years in combat 5 DECADES ago, doesn't mean that you can sit back on easy street and let today's wage earners pay your way.
Your post brought a tear to my eye for the simple wisdom you present. Alas, it is not politically correct to hate Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics, Women, etc., etc. so another "group" must be found.
Ah-ha! But there IS a group we can all hate that fits beautifully with sneaky Liberal tactics...BOOMERS!!!!
We'll cut their benefits, cause the younger generation to hate them, and slip state-sanctioned euthanasia in as a reasonable solution.
As we’ve been reporting, baby boomers are clearly going to change the way retirement looks. Our kind of older living won’t be our parents’ kind of retirement. Amber McCracken, a spokeswoman for the Alliance for Aging Research, points out, “Because the boomers don’t want to think of themselves as aging, they don’t want to think of themselves as retiring. They want to think of themselves as continuing the fun journey they’ve had.” Hear, hear! Gone will be the retirement communities “designed around a far more docile and proletarian generation”.
For instance, rather than cafeteria style comfort-food lunch rooms, boomers will expect an unprecedented array of food choices, ranging from organic arugula and endive to ethnic dishes. And, rather than Kiwanis, Elks, and Mason type fraternal civic groups, younger retires will want clubs like a Macintosh Users Group or support groups dedicated to topics like “Friends of Lesbians and Gays” and “New Age Spiritualism”. With our focus on health and keeping active, we’ll want, maybe in addition to the ubiquitous golfing, state-of-the-art fitness centers, personal trainers and classes on yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi. Rather than traditional chapels, there will be more interfaith meditation centers.
In the article, the author describes a specific clash that is happening in Rossmoor, a 9000-member retirement community in the Bay Area, between the incoming baby boomers (age 55+) and the already established population of 70 and 80+ year olds. There is a cultural and generational division being played out there, just as in the greater population. It has to do with the older population’s tendency to be more civic-minded and quite complacent. One Rossmoor boomer describes, “An awful lot of people here are very conventional, very middle-class. Especially the older people. I call it the burgher mentality, where they just want to be good burghers, good neighbors. I went through the 60’s, you know, Vietnam and stuff. I’ve got a different perspective; I’ve got a different outlook on the whole thing. You know, raise hell, and if you don’t like something, change it”.
From:
http://whatretirement.typepad.com/what_retirement/
I wear my wrinkles proudly.
So THERE!
[not that I can do anything about them other than look like Nancy Pelosi which I will NOT do as I need ALL MY MONEY for dog food don'tchaknow? ;) ]
Speaking of Muslims....KFI had something on their news that CNN is saying that there's a terrorist threat against American's in China. Now.
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