Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bracing for a boomer bust?

The stock market has fallen more than 100 points since breakfast. It's my fault apparently.

U.S. News & World Report's Emily Brandon recently looked at a theory that baby boomers - I'm in the 1946-born first wave - threaten Wall Street by potentially cashing in our life savings en masse.
Things are a little more complicated than that, she found. And, as others have been reporting for years now, we boomers haven't been model savers. I think there's a more immediate argument, outlined in the Journal of the American Planning Association, that we may smother real estate recovery for awhile.

Others already resent how boomers' decisions are complicating their lives, AARP found in a 2004 survey. Now discussions of aging America and boomer wars are showing up more frequently in scholarly journals and elsewhere. Skirmishing already is beginning in the currently tough job market, reports Kiplinger.com.

But there may be some new career opportunities here too - putting on seminars about resolving generational conflict.

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