Boomer Bust The Boomers And Their Future

“A lucid and vivid account of the combined flawed social policies and ingrained corporate attitudes that have brought the US economy to its knees.” —Dr. Ronald Manheimer, former executive director, North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement Baby Boomer Bust? examines and analyzes the meltdown of 2008/2009 from economic, political, and social perspectives and illuminates how the meltdown has directly impacted Baby Boomers—once known as the generation of promise, but now the generation of panic. It examines the downturn’s impact on Boomers’ lifestyles, dreams, aspirations, and future plans. Baby Boomer Bust? raises some provocative questions regarding the generations ability to survive the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression “A revealing insight into the effects of the recent economic downturn on the very generation that helped to create one of the world’s most powerful and influential economies. Mr. Chiocchi’s examination brings into sharp relief some of the more salient, and subtle, social-consequences of one of the greatest economic disasters in the history of Western civilization.” —Michael J. Formica, MS, MA, EdM, psychotherapist, social scientist “A sobering view of the underside of the economic meltdown.” —Jerry Shereshewsky, CEO, Grandparents.com

Seventy-six million Baby Boomers are careening toward retirement in the United States. Demographic shifts toward aging populations are taking place around the Western world, as a variety of factors—biological, technological, medical, and sociocultural—are extending life spans. Meanwhile, birth rates are declining. The scaremongers argue that this generational shift is going to be disastrous: It will result in skyrocketing tax rates, lower retirement and health benefits, higher inflation, increased unemployment and poverty, political instability, and a host of other societal ills. But will it? In Boomer Bust?, Robert Hudson assembles leading authors from fields such as economics, political science, and finance to separate fact from fiction, highlight the terms of debate, and showcase innovative policies that will prevent disaster from occurring. From topics like Social Security to older people rejoining the workforce to the elderly as a political lobby, this two-volume set covers the gamut of economic, political, financial, and business issues related to aging. The Boomer generation will leave one of the largest footprints the world has yet seen. In retirement, as in all else, this generation is blazing a path affecting succeeding generations profoundly. Boomer Bust? charts a path through the thicket of personal and public policy choices facing not just Baby Boomers but all of society.

"Seventy-six million Baby Boomers are careening toward retirement in the U.S. Demographic shifts toward aging populations are taking place around the Western world, as a variety of factors--biological, technological, medical, and socio-cultural--are extending life spans. Meanwhile, birth rates are declining. The scaremongers argue that this generational shift is going to be disastrous: It will result in skyrocketing tax rates, lower retirement and health benefits, higher inflation, increased unemployment and poverty, political instability, and a host of other societal ills. But will it? In Boomer Bust?, Robert Hudson assembles leading authors from fields such as economics, political science, and finance to separate fact from fiction, highlight the terms of debate, and showcase innovative policies that will prevent disaster from occurring.

Lots of marketers paint a rosy picture of the lifestyle of baby boomers as they enter the retirement years. But authors Moschis and Mathur, basing their findings on 20 years of surveys among baby boomers and their parents, tell it like it is. Many baby boomers have saved little money for retirement; their health is worse than that of their parents; and while both generations say travel is in their futures, many will not have money enough to rent a budget motel a few miles from home. But the picture is not all bleak. Moschis and Mathur use their findings to discuss how people can live longer, more satisfying lives. In addition, they apply those findings to marketing and advertising, advising businesses how to use the attitudes and mindsets of mature consumers to create products and services for them as well as to make those products and services more appealing to older customers.

The baby boom of 1945-65 produced the biggest, richest generation that Britain has ever known. Today, at the peak of their power and wealth, baby boomers now run the country; by virtue of their sheer demographic power, they have fashioned the world around them in a way that meets all of their housing, healthcare, and financial needs. In this original and provocative book, David Willetts shows how the baby boomer generation has attained this position at the expense of their children. Social, cultural, and economic provision has been made for the reigning section of society, whilst the needs of the next generation have taken a back seat. Willetts argues that if our political, economic, and cultural leaders do not begin to discharge their obligations to the future, the young people of today will be taxed more, work longer hours for less money, have lower social mobility, and live in a degraded environment in order to pay for their parents' quality of life. Baby boomers, worried about the kind of world they are passing on to their children, are beginning to take note. However, whilst the imbalance in the quality of life between the generations is becoming more obvious, what is less certain is whether the older generation will be willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a more equal distribution. The Pinch is a landmark account of intergenerational relations in Britain. It is essential reading for parents and policymakers alike.

“Philip Bump helps us understand that no matter the troubles of our days, the future of this nation rests with what we do now. And that means all of us—not just Baby Boomers.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, Princeton University A popular Washington Post columnist takes a deep dive into what the end of the baby boom means for American politics and economics. Philip Bump, a reporter as adept with a graph as with a paragraph, is popular for his ability to distill vast amounts of data into accessible stories. THE AFTERMATH is a sweeping assessment of how the baby boom created modern America, and where power, wealth, and politics will shift as the boom ends. How much longer than we'd expected will Boomers control wealth? Will millennials get shortchanged for jobs and capital as Gen Z rises? What kind of pressure will Boomers exert on the health care system? How do generations and parties overlap? When will regional identity trump age or ethnic or racial identity? Who will the future GOP voter be, and how does that affect Democratic strategies? What does the Census get right, and terribly wrong? The questions are myriad, and Bump is here to fight speculation with fact Writing with a light hand and deft humor, Bump helps us navigate the flood of data in which our sense of the country now drowns. He fits numbers into a narrative about who we are (including what "we" really means), how we vote, where we live, what we buy—and what predictions we can make with any confidence. We know what will happen eventually to the baby boomers. What we don't know is how the boomer legacies might reshape the country one final time. The answers in this book will help us manage the historic disruption of the American state we are now experiencing.

Generation Ageless—an authoritative and eye-opening look at the past, present, and future of Baby Boomers Think Baby Boomers are all alike? Think again. This dynamic generation is nearing the traditional age of retirement, but is in no mood to slow down. Learn how to market, sell to, do business with, or just understand this remarkable generation, from Yankelovich, Inc., the organization that knows them better than anyone else. Yankelovich actually coined the term "Baby Boomer" back in the late 1960s, when they first started collecting data on this influential generation. Now, more than thirty years later, they have the most complete information on Boomers ever assembled. And they have put it all together in this groundbreaking look at America's largest and most powerful generation. In Generation Ageless, Yankelovich president J. Walker Smith, Ph.D., and senior partner Ann Clurman, Boomers themselves, dig deep into what makes this generation tick. With fresh, original data and a wide-ranging look at everything about Boomers, they dissect Boomers into six major segments—Straight Arrows, Due Diligents, Maximizers, Sideliners, Diss/Contenteds, and Re-Activists—to provide new insights into the world's most talked-about generation. The results show key imperatives invaluable to anyone selling a product, service, or idea to this 78-million strong group. Boomers are the dominant generation in America. Their values and aspirations set the tone for everyone. Advances in medicine and health mean that this youth-obsessed generation is now focused on an everlasting prime of life. They are literally middle age–less: holding onto their position at the top of the pyramid for as long as possible, and not fading away to their golden years. Today's fifty- and sixty-year-old Boomers are not eagerly anticipating lives of disengaged retirement. Instead, middle age–less Boomers expect another twenty or thirty years of impact and influence—albeit in a variety of ways reflective of a surfeit of agendas and ambitions they have yet to fulfill.

A Wall Street Journal columnist delivers a brilliant narrative of the mugging of the millennial generation-- how the Baby Boomers have stolen the millennials' future in order to ensure themselves a comfortable present The Theft of a Decade is a contrarian, revelatory analysis of how one generation pulled the rug out from under another, and the myriad consequences that has set in store for all of us. The millennial generation was the unfortunate victim of several generations of economic theories that made life harder for them than it was for their grandparents. Then came the crash of 2008, and the Boomer generation's reaction to it was brutal: politicians and policy makers made deliberate decisions that favored the interests of the Boomer generation over their heirs, the most egregious being over the use of monetary policy, fiscal policy and regulation. For the first time in recent history, policy makers gave up on investing for the future and instead mortgaged that future to pay for the ugly economic sins of the present. This book describes a new economic crisis, a sinister tectonic shift that is stealing a generation's future.