So Baby Boomer: Life Tips

Boomers Paid Well

Over the past five years, full-time workers 55 and older have seen healthy pay gains after adjustment for inflation, while those under 55 have suffered losses.

The pay increases for those 65 and older help explain why seniors' labor force participation is rising.  In the past 12 months, more than 30% of people 65 to 69 were either working or actively looking for jobs, up from 25% five years earlier.  In the world of labor force stats, that's a big change.  Participation rates were roughly flat for 25-to-54-year-olds and fell more than 3 percentage points for those 16 to 24.

Much of the hiring of older workers is coming from industries at risk for mass retirements--electric utilities, oil companies and aerospace and defense contractors, for instance.  Such sectors are the "canaries in the coal mine," says human capital researcher Eric Lesser, an associate partner at IBM's Institute for Business Value, who predicts the demand for older workers is likely to spread across the economy.

Source: BusinessWeek, July 2, 2007

Unintended Consequences of Free Love

Did 50-something Baby Boomers really march in all those peace rallies, groove to all those heavy rock concerts, smoke all that far-out dope and have all that wild "free love"? 

Probably not.

A British study has discovered that Baby Boomers grossly embellish their flower-power experiences.  Nine per cent said they'd claimed to have attended a "love-in" when, in fact, only one per cent admitted this was the truth.  However, science today is proving that free love has unintended consequences.  As genetic testing becomes more common, an uncomfortable side effect emerges: paternity surprises.

Genetics students, reports Steve Olsen, are commonly taught that 5% to 15% of the men on birth certificates aren't the biological parents of their children.  Men pass their Y chromosome to their sons intact, so it is possible to trace fatherhood back many generations.  As more people opt to have DNA tests to check for genetic diseases or to explore family history, the more geneticists are discovering false paternity assumptions.

"Any project that has more than 20 to 30 people in it is likely to have an 'oops' in it," says Bennett Greenspan, whose company, Family Tree DNA, traces ancestral links.  The rate of nonpaternity can vary from community to community.  Mr. Olsen reports that an unpublished study of blood groups in a British town found that around 30% of the town's husbands weren't the fathers of their children.

Such revelations are likely to increase as medical advances and cheaper technology allow doctors to determine patients' susceptibility to certain diseases through a scan of their DNA.  Genetic counselors, who work with parents of children with birth defects, generally inform the couple of the DNA results.  In such cases, most counselors tell the mother, but not the father--a practice a vocal minority within the trade disputes.

Sources: THE ATLANTIC, July/August and The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2007

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Women's Summer Underwear

As hot weather nudges boomer women to shun constricting clothing, the season's body-conscious styles often make them wish for undergarments that will shape their figures a little.

Sara Blakely, founder and owner of Spanx, gets around the issue by seeking out shapewear made of lightweight, stretchy fabrics that smooth her out without being too compressing.  Synthetic blends with a high Spandex content (at least 15%) make garments stretchier and thus more comfortable.

Under skirts and dresses, she wears bodyshapers that end midthigh so that there aren't visible ridges at the pantyline.  With pants, she wears footless pantyhose (with some control support) that end below the knee, allowing her to bare her toes in summer shoes.

To beat the heat, Ms. Blakely sometimes puts on shapewear pieces that can be worn in lieu of other undergarments.  She often seeks out pieces that are made of fabrics designed to wick moisture away from the skin, making them feel less constricting.  These fabrics--which are usually identified on the tag--include CoolMax.

When choosing body-shaping underwear, she makes sure to try on the piece and take a close look at how it fits in the mirror.  "Turn to the side--you want to see whether it really flattens out your tummy but also whether it flattens out an area that shouldn't be flattened," says Ms. Blakely.

Source: Tricks of the Trade, The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2007

Come to the Carnival!

The first Baby Boomer, A New Jersey mother and grandmother turned 61 on New Year's Day, 2007 and she has the distinction of being the very first Baby Boomer.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, of Cherry Hill, N.J., was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946. During this era, an American baby was born every eight seconds.

Visit the Blogging Boomer Carnival #26 and join other boomers in taking the rides of their life.

Foreclosure Sharks

With the housing bust in full force and millions of Baby Boomer homeowners facing foreclosure, the sharks within the real estate industry are being spotted.

Although there are legitimate, mostly nonprofit, operations that help distressed homeowners, there's also a growing army of deceptive outfits that prey on and profit from this troubled group.  While statistics on these schemes are hard to come by, law enforcement authorities confirm that foreclosure scams are rising sharply.  Ten states have recently enacted laws aimed at protecting homeowners.

In most states, it's not illegal for one person to persuade another to sign his or her home over.  And proving it was done through deceptive means can be tricky if the promises to help the owner were made verbally, as is often the case.   So many victims have little recourse except through civil proceedings.  But with the number of foreclosures estimated to soar to more than 2 million over the next couple of years, more policymakers are scrambling to keep the situation from turning into an epidemic by enacting tougher penalties for such practices.

While the schemes vary in their mechanics, all follow a similar pattern. 

An individual or group, in the guise of helping a homeowner avoid losing his or her house, persuades the owner to transfer the title to the rescuer or another designated buyer.  Most commonly, the rescuers present what they say is a refinancing through a designated investor, or they arrange a deed transfer with a rent-to-own plan that will supposedly allow the owners to buy back their homes down the road.  But usually buried within the stack of closing documents is a so-called quit claim, or deed of gift, in which the homeowners effectively sign their houses over to the investor.   At that point, the rescuers charge the former owners rent high enough to ensure they can evict them and pocket the equity built up in the property.

Boomer homeowners in distress should remind themselves, "If the refinancing plan sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't."

Source: BusinessWeek, June 25, 2007

Retirement's Shadow

With life expectancy rising, Baby Boomers are worrying about retirement money.

When Baby Boomers were in midcareer and eager to build nest eggs, the mutual fund, banking and brokerage industries swooped in and took advantage.  Now the insurance industry is eyeing that huge pile of money, hoping to build a global business soothing anxiety over whether those nest eggs will last as boomers retire and live longer.

The result is a world-wide race to sell variable annuities that typically offer regular payments for life--no matter how long a customer lives.

The pool of potential assets and customers is enormous.  In the U.S. alone, more than $12 trillion sits in investment and insurance accounts earmarked for retirement, according to Swiss Reinsurance Co.  In other countries, there are trillions of dollars more.  In the U.S., consumers have more than $1.35 trillion invested in variable-annuity accounts, up more than 50% from five years ago, according to the National Association of Variable Annuities, a trade group.

Stock-market declines earlier this decade shocked Baby Boomers who had come to count on double-digit annual returns from stocks, setting the table for the variable-annuity pitch.  In a simple annuity contract, the customer pays upfront, and the insurance company makes regular income payments, usually for life.  A variable annuity gives the customer a bunch of additional choices.  In the U.S., his upfront payments go into a tax-deferred investment account, earmarked for retirement.  In retirement, the customer can stick with the account, drawing out money to live on, and eventually get a death-benefit for his heirs.  Or he can swap the account for guaranteed retirement income for life, although that typically means losing the death benefits.

For consumers, the risk lies in the complexity of figuring out when the costs exceed the benefits.  Customers usually pay commissions, plus separate charges to withdraw money early.  Annual fees average nearly 2.5%....about one percentage point higher than the average U.S. stock mutual fund, although the latter offers no guaranteed-income or death benefit options.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2007

Protect Yourself Against Infection

Nearly two million people catch bacterial infections in U.S. hospitals every year and 90,000 of them die---seven times as high as a decade ago as germs become immune to almost every antibiotic developed during the past 60 years.

The most common is the Staphylococcus bacteria.  Worldwide, some two billion people carry these bacteria; up to 53 million people are thought to harbor antibiotic-resistant forms.  On average, people who contract Staph infections stay in the hospital three times as long and face five times the risk of dying.

But these infections are becoming more prevalent outside hospitals.  Antibiotic-resistant Staph infections increased almost sevenfold from 2001 to 2005, researchers reported last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  Contagions such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and bubonic plague also are becoming immune to the drugs that once kept them at bay.

The life-and-death struggle inside the patient is driven by the same evolutionary forces of natural selection and adaptation that are causing a pandemic of drug-resistant diseases worldwide.  The emergence of such immunity among infectious diseases is one of the most well-documented problems in modern public health.  The speed of natural selection in fostering antibiotic resistance is exceptionally fast.

Source: Science Journal, The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2007

The Appointment is a brief video illustrating the importance of doctor-patient communication.   

Blogging Boomer Carnival #25

Come explore what the carnival offers: learn to dance the cha cha cha, sample good summer food, dream sweet dreams of your inheritance, visit the dating game tent, grow stronger with weight-training tips, discover your future, journey back to the 1970s and then dig deeper into the ancient past that reveals secrets for your future happiness!  It's all at the fair!

Tired of Yoga, and find Pilates is getting old?  Then why not shake up those boomer bones with a new exercise craze that will have you cha cha-ing to the gym?  Visit Cafe Glam to review Salsa aerobics.

Sample Thai-curried seafood soup and a Malaysian shrimp omelette that make great summer meals.  Here are the recipes.

Are you expecting an inheritance to help pay for your retirement?  Think again warns the Boomer Chronicles.

Ignore Dating Rule #1 at Your Peril, says LifeTwo.

How to be successful at growing stronger at Contempary Retirement.

About 30% of boomers will be working into their late 60s according to recent research.  Gen Plus sheds some light on how that may affect their future.

Explore a phased retirement at So Baby Boomer.

Remember when George Lucas was still flying high in 1977 from the success of 1973's American Graffiti?  Universal pictures turned down his latest idea: a science-fiction tale that had lots of cowboys and Indians, so to speak, and that might offend purists but would appeal to the masses.

The Secret or the law of attraction has attracted a huge following, with 3.75 million books in print and 1.5 million DVDs sold as people discover what has been known for thousands of years.  At the guest leadership blogger CoachingTip.com tent, view the mysterious Emerald Tablet and dig out the ancient roots of The Secret to move toward divine consciousness.