Boomer Woman Blog

14 October 2008

Encore vs Ex-Retired Careers

"Ex-Retired" (or ex-retiree or ex-retirement) at its most neutral just means a person retired and then returned to work. "Encore" carries extra meaning: a person transitioned to a more fulfilling career (sometimes without actually retiring).

As baby boomers plan for the future, more and more of them are expecting to push off retirement or, if they have retired early, to now seek employment. The current financial crisis is a powerful motivator. Perhaps the nest egg has cracked. Or perhaps the housing crunch threatens a planned home sale. Or maybe a recession/depression of unknown length is too great a risk in light of retirement of unknown length.

Comments I've heard from boomers in the past few days reflecting on these issues:

If I can back into industry, I could work for a couple of years and sock away the salary to replace what I've lost in the last 3 weeks. (Age 62)
I don't have a retirement year in my mind and that's good. (Age 63)
If I have to go job-hunting it's going to be for a job, not a career. (Age 62)

Maybe the mood of the country doesn't allow for optimistic planning for encore careers, or maybe the encore concept belongs to people with resources to support that choice. I wonder if we'll gravitate to a division of the vocabulary, where Ex-Retired will take on the connotation of being forced to return to employment in order to make ends meet.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

13 October 2008

Financial Crisis: Looking for the Bullet List

Boomers don't have a memory of a world without the World Bank (WB) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Those institutions grew out of post-WW2 United Nations planning. Currently, they are meeting about the global economic crisis, along with the G7, hoping to bring stability primarily through coordinating individual nations' strategies and by encouraging inter-bank lending.

Here's a short-hand profile of each:

WB is known for long-term development projects, often with humanitarian reputation. WB really is a bank, funded by its member nations, and guided by "directors" based on "shares." While the bulk of directors are selected by several countries to serve as their representatives, 5 nations have their own directors: US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. See the blue graphic at bottom of this entry; these 5 are in the inner circle of the WB, the G7, and the IMF.

IMF is also a bank serving member nations. See graphic at top; all that green reflects nearly every country in the world having joined the IMF. The reputation of the organization is not as warm and fuzzy as the WB. Think of the IMF as the uncles you don't want to have to ask for money when your farm suffers a drought. These are the relatives who will help you out but with strings attached—they'll dictate conditions for the use of the money. Sometimes called a Lender of Last Resort and associated with countries in crisis, the IMF influences the global economy. Votes are cast according to percentage of shares held. My list of 9 countries (see graphic at bottom) just lops off the top percentages, starting at close to 3%. What's pertinent is the US percentage at more than 16%. Next are Japan and Germany at about 6% each.

G7 (AKA Group of 7) is not the G8. We hear more about G8 because it brings together heads of state for an annual summit. The G7 meets more frequently and is formed by the finance ministers of the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Italy.

The G7 is the least official of the groups but it is emerging as the leader in calling for strong and fast action by all nations. It has released a five-point action plan that brings focus to priorities, such as recapitalizing banks. The action plan may not be followed completely by all nations but it appears to be the bullet list for discussion.

12 October 2008

Boomer Logic: Cheap Gas!

I really like my brother-in-law, especially when he says things like, "Yeah, I'm driving as much as possible so that I can enjoy buying more gas at these prices."

For those of us who work hard at not noticing the cost of gasoline, the falling prices are not fully appreciated. But the people who do appreciate are commuters, delivery and service workers, and law enforcement officers. Yep. Law enforcement.

In a June 2008 NPR interview, a sheriff in Washington state reported that the department's budget was based on $2.70/gallon so he felt more than just a pinch when prices went above $4. A Georgia police chief put his officers on a new schedule: step out of the patrol car for 10 minutes every hour and walk. Fuel is saved and the community enjoys another style of patrol. For the full audio interview, log into NPR.

On a personal note: The Prius is holding its gas mileage at 52.6 mpg. Cooler temps (meaning I'm not using the air conditioner) are helping with that. ~ Lida

11 October 2008

Flu Shot at the Minute Clinic

CVS came through for me. The pharmacy's walk-in clinic not only saw me after a 2-minute wait, it also took my Blue Cross insurance. That means my flu shot cost $0 out of pocket.

I cannot report on other clinics appearing in neighborhood pharmacies, but if they are half as good as the CVS Minute Clinic I visited today, I'll be happy to use them.

Walk-in clinics typically invite criticism as costly and potentially harmful to our health. Yet they continue to get our business. (They're open more hours than most doctor's offices. They're faster. And, frankly, they're friendlier.) Having had my share of minor ailments, I feel confident that if I can walk in and state my symptoms, I can probably walk out no worse for wear.

That said, I asked the responsible question of the Nurse Practitioner in the Minute Clinic: "How many people do you refer to a doctor or hospital?" She had an immediate answer, "Two or three a day. The most common reason is age. We don't treat babies."

I was also curious about the work load (not in a negative sense as this is the age of moonlighting in many professions). The N.P. smiled broadly, "This is my only practice. I love it. Weekends are busiest but we open another room. But I like every day." I couldn't resist asking, "No occasional shift at a hospital?" And she got serious, "This is where I belong."

The clinic is small but fully stocked. Patients sign-in on an electronic pad and enter basic information "typing" with a stylus on a touch-screen. The waiting list is published (no last names) and the mood is calm and quiet. Visits appear to be naturally short. Maybe the N.P. is timing everything (a feature at my doctor's office, to be sure), but it's not obvious or off-putting. Record-keeping is computerized and whatever database the Clinic is using, it checked my insurance coverage in about 20 seconds and produced a billing screen. (That's the $0 part of my story.) I declined the offer of an email about online health records because I'm just not ready for an electronic PHR (personal health record). But I suspect that's the direction we're heading across all health facilities.

10 October 2008

Personal Tehcnology: GPS Supports to Memory

I never see young people wandering parking lots looking for their cars. But I see a lot of boomers doing just that. We typically insist that this is our only display of failing memory.

You know where this is going. After all, it's my day to write about personal technology.

Garmin Locate isn't as catchy a title as Where Am I? but both are the features of recent Garmin GPS units that can help boomers with navigation. Locate is the one for parking lots: remove the GPS unit from the car (which you just about have to do anyway to thwart theft) and it remembers from whence it came. After shopping, you consult the unit to lead you back to the car. Where Am I? sounds ridiculous but someday you will care.

3G iPhone users can add an app for free or 99¢ to find their cars. G-Park PosiMotion offers two directive icons carrying text of Park Me! and Where Did I Park? Other choices are the more literal Take Me To My Car and Car Finder, and the slightly vague BackTrack (which requires that you keep walking for the app to work).

iTunes has a wide assortment of navigation apps, including transit maps and schedules for major cities. Here's my wish: an app that I can use on public transportation to confirm that I'm on the right subway, train, or bus. This summer I spent a long afternoon making multiple train connections to work my way through New York and New Jersey. On the last leg, I asked three bystanders on a crowded platform if I were on the right track and none could confirm it for me. I dragged my bags onto the train anyway, SRO that put me literally in the open doorway of the train for however long this ride might be. After we left the station I was able to ask an employee if the train were going to Princeton Junction. His single word response was "Eventually."

(I don't just want the schedule; I want the message that says, "You are standing on the correct side of the track to get on the train to X" and then, "Get on this one.")

09 October 2008

Financial Crisis: Time to Generate Income from Existing Customers

I'm not competing with the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) but I am interested in these signals that I've received in the last two weeks:

1 - Call from a medical specialist's office - Last summer, a specialist advised me about how many units of vitamin D he recommends for women my age. He said that he could request a test to establish my current levels but it would not be a good use of tests or money. Good conversation. I made notes. Last week, a receptionist from that office called to ask if I had followed up on that "D" test with my family physician or if I would like to return to the specialist's office for it.

2 - Letter from a diagnostic test clinic - Last summer, a radiologist advised me that my scans were great and that my family physician's concern was unfounded. She pointed out that I should re-adjust my schedule of annual exam and wait a full 12 months for the next one. Last week, a letter from the clinic arrived suggesting that I make an appointment.

3 - Call from an airline company - A rep offered to change an upcoming flight from one-stop to non-stop for a charge of $49. The schedule change works in my favor and I accepted the offer. (Had I selected the non-stop flight back when I made the reservation, the cost would have been more than $49.)

Today I went to my local Wal-Mart to see if, indeed, Christmas is popping up in retail. Yep, the shelves are being stocked. My interpretation is that as we wonder about consumer confidence, business managers are already acting on something they are confident of: that consumers will soon stop spending. The time to generate income is now, hence the personal contacts to existing customers.

08 October 2008

Examples of Unplanned Encore Employment

Over the past 3 weeks, I have been told (directly) about these jobs that "leading edge" boomers are taking:

1 - A colleague's 58-year-old husband was bored after one month of early retirement. He is now in year 2 of nursing school.
2 - A former business partner and her husband have applied for work as poll workers; they hope for early voting assignments but they will take Election Day posts, at the least.
3 - A cusp boomer (born late 1945) has begun training as an online instructor for a university.

The range of encore careers is great. For some, a whole new career beckons. For others, occasional or part-time work will suffice. For all of them, change is a feature. Serial careers may not be a new concept but it was not predicted for the leading boomers (born between 1946 and 1954). Trailing boomers and Gen Xers were expected to have multiple careers, as many as 5 to 6 across their working years. For those cohorts, education has had a plan: increase offerings for adult learners who will return to school or training every 5 to 10 years.

Cusp and leading boomers will not demand as much specialty training for their encore careers in large part because they are surprised that they are starting or even extending careers. But they may require some services such as employment matching. With the current economic downturn, more near-retirement boomers are likely to need those services.

07 October 2008

Researching & Comparing Health Insurance

NCQA. The non-profit National Committee for Quality Assurance reviews the quality of health care in the U.S. and publishes a series of NCQA Report Cards. The top two are described below.

Health Plan Report Card. Updated every month, this report describes services and ratings of health plans that are NCQA-Accredited. Don't be put off by the "look" of the opening Search page. The text boxes look like the sort of form that requests YOUR name, but this is not the case here. The text box for "Name" is for the name of an insurance company; you can leave the line blank. The fastest approach is to search by State, selecting your interest in commercial, Medicaid, and/or Medicare plans. When a list appears, you can then checkmark some or all the plans and click on "Compare Selected" for a table of ratings and pertinent facts. On the Ratings page, click on the ? icons for definitions (sometimes via links to the Glossary). These definitions are concise and clear.

America's Best Health Plans. NCQA works with U.S. News & World Report to rank the country's top 50 commercial plans and the top 25 Medicaid/Medicare plans. In about month, the results for 2008 will be released: on the U.S. News Web Site on November 7 and in the print magazine's November 17 issues (available starting on November 10). The data from 2007 are available at the magazine's web site currently.

Cost comparisons: Consumers still must do their own research to compare health plan costs.

06 October 2008

Employment in Retirement: YourEncore

YourEncore...accelerating innovation through proven experience...is an employment site focused on retired scientists and engineers.

The strength of this "matching service" between retirees (the Experts) and companies (the Clients) is the membership model of the Clients. The founding Client Companies were Proctor & Gamble and Eli Lilly. Since 2003, the group has grown to more than 30. So, when HR folks review the Experts' resumes, they come to the task with interest in finding a match from this defined pool. (The concept is similar to one I described in an earlier blog about IBM's partnership with the U.S. Treasury Department under auspices of the non-profit Partnership for Public Service. Their joint effort is to capture retiring IBM employees for a needed government workforce.)

Experts—the scientists and engineers interested in short-term or part-time employment—enter a profile online and can keep it updated. When a Client taps the Expert for employment, YourEncore facilitates the paperwork. The Client dictates whether the Expert will be an employee or an independent contractor.

05 October 2008

Boomer Health: Flu Shots

Flu vaccine via nasal spray (Flu-Mist) or traditional needle is widely available now. The CDC's official campaign is still a couple of months away but for many of us October is the well-formed habit. Get the vaccine early while it's easy to find. Too, it may take two weeks to become effective so an October inoculation puts you well ahead of the first outbreak.

I'm shopping around for the first time in years, having lost Tom Bold's corporate gift (free shots for employees and spouses) and my campus connection ($20 in the years that I didn't get to Tom's workplace in a timely manner). What I barely noticed at grocery stores in the past—"flu clinic in our pharmacy today"—now looms quite large. And improved. At many groceries and drugstores, the occasional flu vaccine clinic has turned into more frequent and even daily access.

Nearly all the states permit pharmacists to administer the vaccine, now, and so scheduling becomes a matter of making sure the appropriate pharmacist is on duty the day you want the shot. In addition, some pharmacies now have medical clinics on site, typically staffed by Nurse Practitioners. Flu shots, immunizations, strep throat tests, etc., are available on a walk-in basis. Most will file Medicare for you and some will take other insurance, too.

Here's my quick list of flu shot outlets around my town in Texas:

CVS Pharmacy - $30 (Some stores also offer medical services through Minute Clinic, staffed by Nurse Practitioners)

Tom Thumb - $28 with a discount for 10% off other purchases, too

Walgreens - $25 - $30 (with Take Care Health Clinics in many cities but not in my area)

Wal-Mart (Some stores also have walk-in Clinic at Wal-Mart and also RediClinic, staffed by Nurse Practitioners)

Denton and Tarrant County Public Health Departments - $20 (waived for seniors)

These online locators may save a little time in researching vaccine availability in your area:

American Lung Association Flu Clinic Locator
Flu Shot Locator by Maxim Health Systems

On a personal note: I'm opting for a Minute Clinic in a CVS. Just because I want to preview the place as a potential source of walk-in health care. ~ Lida

04 October 2008

Financial Crisis: Retailers Will Help Us

In their best interest. Retailers will help us in the hard times, knowing full well that special promotions and discounts will help us feel safer in spending in their establishments. Even as most Americans slow their spending, they won't forego shopping altogether and retailers will garner the sales they can.

Recurring specials. A weekly special (such as a grocery chain's $5 family-sized dinner item every Friday) appeals to our desire for a predictable event, especially when other prices are unpredictable. "Affordable" counts, too, of course.

Dollar menus. Watch for more low-cost single items at fast food restaurants. Keeping us accustomed to the drive-though is important for business.

Comfort food. Soup has always been a low-cost staple in the pantry and in rough economic times, it serves as a comfort food, besides.

Stocking for the holidays. Christmas retail displays are already launching. Consumers will act earlier than usual to "protect the holidays" because of fear of not having money a few months from now. If the current financial crisis were not so obviously associated with banks, we might even see a resurgence of Christmas Clubs (savings accounts timed for holiday withdrawals). More likely, consumers will deal directly with retailers either in making early purchases or starting lay-away plans.

On a personal note. I have my own Christmas lay-away memory. Following a lay-off 20 years ago, our family moved from Florida to Texas one very hot summer. While Tom was coming to a job (and we knew enough about the semiconductor industry to be grateful for that), we were definitely wary about spending money. In house-hunting, we looked only at foreclosed properties (and bought one). In selecting a local bank, we intentionally chose the one that had just been taken over by a larger bank six months before. And I went to the new Hypermart (some boomers will recognize that name) and placed all Christmas gifts on lay-away. I made a modest weekly payment from August to December and felt comfort in having provided for the holidays. I probably spent less than usual simply because of my early and deliberate shopping. But the real purpose (and result) was the systematic payment toward a goal—just in case there was another lay-off. An ironic twist: a month into the job, Tom's new employer announced that all managers would take a 25% pay cut for four months (September through December) in order to avoid lay-offs among the workforce. We were already in cautious mode, so we weathered the pay cut but the budgeting was strict that year. The memory makes us appreciate the difficulty young families may face in the coming recession.

03 October 2008

Personal Technology: There Is No iBrother

You are welcome to laugh at me.

Event #1: I managed to take our Tree Man's iPhone to Starbucks. (Fill in the how with details of your choosing.) When I pushed the on button I was confused by the Monet wallpaper. "How pretty. Maybe Apple downloaded that last night." But then I thought, no, Apple and AT&T wouldn't do that. So, I assumed that I had Tom Bold's iPhone even though the backside of the machine matched my 3G, not Tom's non-3G. (What is the first iPhone called, anyway?) And then I spent several minutes not making sense of the Favorites of Mom and Dad and Jackie because I was pretty sure that if I had picked up Tom Bold's iPhone, it wouldn't have provided links to his 90-something parents (or Jackie). Needless to say, the Tree Man figured all of this out a lot faster than I did.

Event #2: I went to see Eagle Eye. Of course, any boomer already knows about HAL but the movie is entertaining, nevertheless. (This generation's AI star is ARIA.)

Event #3: I woke up to a dropped call. That is, I heard the phone (no, not the Tree Man's) but there was no response when I picked it up. After a couple of minutes, I decided to be responsible and check on who had tried to call. When I punched the on button, a screen appeared with this message:

"Maps" would like to use your current location

Horrors! Of course, I clicked the Do Not Allow option. And I had that momentary who is google-earthing me dread, which surely was the first time I (or perhaps anyone) had ever made a verb of google-earth. So, maybe a little too much HAL and ARIA in my life?

(A proper googling of the "Maps" would like... phrase produced explanation of the entirely internal geotagging process by which my iPhone checks out locations by first establishing my current location. I don't know why it was doing it at 8am. Maybe it was a glitch. Or maybe I accessed an unintended screen when I turned on the phone. I do that a lot.)

02 October 2008

Boomers on a Budget: Transportation

Get rid of excess vehicles. The obvious starting point. So, we have a For Sale sign on the little white truck. It's our least fuel efficient vehicle at about 20 mpg. For now, we're keeping the Mazda Tribute (Tom insists he gets high 20s) and the Toyota Prius (currently at 51.2 mpg). How far into retirement does a couple go before dropping to one car? We had the briefest of conversations about this; we both said, almost simultaneously, that our separate vacations make this impossible.

Reduce the commute. Well, Tom and I certainly accomplished that in 2008. My work for clients is primarily through telecommute. (I save on gasoline, dry cleaning, and lunches. The savings are appreciable.) If you are not ready for that drastic a change, working from home just one day a week will make a healthy dent in transportation costs. Pitch the idea to your boss by suggesting that everyone go on a 4-day week; the office will look very green in the annual report. If you are the boss, declare a trial period to test for changes in productivity, loyalty, and absenteeism.

Relax the commute. If there's no way reduce work days, try to flex the schedule. Gas mileage goes up after rush hour.

Carpool, etc. Texas is not known for its carpools. But here's a good etc.—a boomer woman colleague bought a scooter last year to travel between home and campus. She brags about her $4/month gasoline cost.

Eco-drive. Boost gas mileage with tips from Ford's eco-driving web page. The company's sponsored research demonstrates 15% and higher improvement in typical drivers' fuel efficiency. Conscious choices make 25% improvement likely. (Hypermiling fans claim much higher improvement of 50% but also invite charges of using unsafe and unlawful strategies, such as turning off the ignition when the car is in motion.)

My favorite eco-driving techniques. I cannot say what improvement these measures produce but I did notice higher mpg after I adopted them:

When I'm the only car on the city street, drop speed to 20 - 25 miles per hour.
When I'm the only car on the highway, drop speed to 50 - 55 miles per hour.
When I'm the only car on a hill, "coast" up the hill as I approach the crest. (This takes some practice and it's hard to give direction but the basic idea is to reduce the work of the engine in the last few seconds of the climb.)
When I'm the only car approaching a yellow or red light, take my foot off the accelerator and coast to the intersection.
When cars are behind me in the same situation, drop my speed to the lowest socially acceptable level. This means taking into account the possibility that someone behind me is armed and short-tempered.
Plan trips around the hours of my favorite radio shows to help me tolerate the slower pace of my travels. Yep, and also around the hours that I am least likely to have cars behind me.

01 October 2008

Boomers on a Budget: Communication

If you are already using Internet: and I assume you are, because you are reading this blog online, it may be time to give up the landline. That's your home-based telephone. The one that's tethered to your land. The one you pay monthly charges for...and maybe even extra charges.

Internet phone calls via VoIP: VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. SKYPE and other web services allow you to call other computers and also landline telephones at no cost. Almost all services allow multiple callers. (Scope out a number of VoIP providers; many are completely free. Try out those before you subscribe to one that charges a fee.) Signing up for such a service feels overwhelming only because we are not accustomed to the idea. The actual sign-up is very easy. You will need a headset; the cost range is $10 - $30. (No need to pay more.) Even if your computer has a built-in microphone, invest in a cheap headset. Sooner or later, you'll be on a call with screeching feedback and you'll want a headset.

Video phone: Yep, SKYPE video. I have another favorite: ooVoo. More and more laptops are coming with built-in cameras, but you can find adequate webcams for $10 to $30. You may want to purchase webcam and headset together for the best deal.

Web conferencing: My clients have wonderful, expensive conferencing software. And increasingly colleges are purchasing high-end conferencing systems for synchronous online classrooms. But for my use, personal as well as professional, I rely on the free products from Elluminate (vRoom) and Adobe Connect. Number of "seats" is limited and so is the functionality, but there are plenty of bells and whistles beyond the basics we all need: video of speakers, audio for multiple people, shared screen for document display, and whiteboard.

On a personal note: Seven years ago—yikes, almost eight—we moved and never ordered phone service for the house. We were already using cell phones and we knew we would continue to have broadband Internet. A landline would offer nothing extra, and the savings was $37/month. I noticed a period of adjustment: it took about four months to stop anticipating "catching messages" when I got home every night. There was no longer an answering machine. ~ Lida

30 September 2008

Boomers on a Budget: Household Measures

There's nothing like a Wall Street meltdown to put the family budget in perspective. While a Boomer Budget could easily center on investment strategy, I'm going to assume that you are already losing enough sleep over that. I'm going to cover more mundane aspects of the household budget.

1 - Buy my large DietCoke with extra ice at Sonic only between 2pm and 4pm, when drinks are half price and therefore less than $1. I continue to tip with whatever coins are in my car (50¢ - $1, usually).

2 - Attend movies only during early-bird hours, worth a $2 discount in my town. When I go to Harkins, I carry in my "loyalty cup," through which a purchase of soda is a mere $1. (I have found myself staring at the Senior Discount lately. I'm shy a few years.)

3 - Learn to love whatever's on sale at the grocery store. Today, Kix cereal was on sale for $1.88 (as opposed to $3-something), so that was my choice instead of Rice Chex. (When I was a child, Kix was a rare treat. I expect to feel young while eating the cereal over the next several weeks.)

4 - Reduce reliance on brand names. In our household, this means letting Tom Bold do most of the shopping for staples. He moves through the grocery store quickly, focused on low prices and blind to advertising.

5 - Resist the urge to pay off the mortgage. (Well, keep making payments, please; we're all counting on that.) I'm referring to the boomer tendency to pay off the house as quickly as possible for psychological comfort. Our last mortage was by choice a 15-year commitment, and pay-off is running ahead of schedule. But the budget-conscious choice for the next couple of years is to slow payment to the actual amount due. That will make the most use of the tax deduction that the mortgage interest permits.

29 September 2008

Boomers on a Budget: Lowering Expectations

Unrealistic expectation. Boomers of any age , but especially those on the leading edge*, have some adjustments to make in the coming lean years. That's because we thought we had already given up one luxury: retirement at age 55. Regardless of the statistics that assure that not so many people actually retire at age 55, boomers grew up with that thought in mind. People could retire at 55. It was within the realm of possibility.

But it wasn't: For most Americans, very early retirement was not a possibility. Even if a neighbor was in that happy number, we saw that person (almost always a man) "double-dipping" in a second career while drawing retirement from the military or some other "lifer" commitment; clearly, he still wasn't retired. Most Americans could not really retire at 55. We accepted that. But the damage was done: we were exposed to an idea that now makes delayed retirement in our 60s a very unhappy prospect. Whatever we expected to happen in the next 5 to 10 years is probably now not possible. The financial crisis promises lean years ahead, and that's the optimistic view.

Lowering expectations: Boomers will be budgeting and probably delaying retirement—or some aspect of it. For example, the year to sell the family home and use the proceeds for a retirement community may need to be selected very carefully. Most retirees will need to wait for the market to recover before attempting a sale. Even then, the house may not bring the profit once anticipated. Can you start imagining a different retirement?

Live like a New Yorker: I'm thinking about Manhattan, where people routinely pare belongings to the minimum in order to fit into small and shared housing. Where public transportation is the norm and private car is the anomaly. Where high costs of everything drive ingenuity and resourcefulness. Well, that's where the rest of America will turn: budgeting with ingenuity and resourcefulness.

On a personal note: The irony is not lost on me: just a few months ago, Tom and I made the decision to not move to New York due to the housing market and the many trade-offs we would have to make. We were not prepared to live like New Yorkers. Now, we're getting prepared...but we'll be living it in Texas. — Lida

*Boomers on the leading edge versus trailing edge:
Leading Edge = birth years 1946 to 1954
Trailing edge = birth years 1955 to 1964

28 September 2008

Financial Crisis: Seeking More Views

When I seek extra views beyond the most convenient NYTimes arriving in my email daily, I usually surf The Guardian (UK newspaper) online. Old tradition there: in the earliest years of our marriage, Tom Bold and I actually subscribed to the print version, along with the Christian Science Monitor. (No, neither of us exhibits that religion, and neither does the newspaper.)

For the current news story—the U.S. financial crisis—I surfed to another source: The Telegraph (UK). If The Guardian is liberal-centre (as the Brits would spell it), then The Telegraph is the mirror, conservative-centre. The centrist position is the modern trend but the paper's roots are in conservatism.

To share here, I settled on a commentary by Edmund Conway, the economics editor. The title is compelling, Financial Crisis: The next decade could be our very own Great Depression. Sometimes, it's easier to take in our own news with the perspective of global partners who face the same challenges. Conway self-identifies as a free-market guy, so that makes his commentary all the more interesting.

I am following two aspects of our U.S. crisis:

1) The American public predicts that a bail-out will continue (polls say 2/3 of Americans) but there's a backlash to the bail-out by a vocal minority complaining to members of Congress. The majority who expect and support a bail-out are also complaining, of course, and anyone up for re-election must deal with that.

2) Americans have a hard time imagining the future economic landscape, with or without a bail-out. We lack experience (limited to some 1980s pain), we recall the Great Depression as a remote family story, and we tend to imagine only our own immediate situation.

27 September 2008

Finding Humor in Current Events

Every news organization knows the pull of a good story line but the goal must be to make audiences invest time in the story. Once introduced to the details, an audience returns for more not necessarily because there's any more news but because of the initial investment of time. If we go to the bother of learning names and factoids, we will then follow the story line to its bitter end. (That's probably what drove much of the coverage of the first O.J. Simpson trial.) The initial investment of time and attention cannot be predicted; some stories "take off" and others don't.

Current news stories (finance and politics, chiefly) dominating all channels have a strong story line called Our Future. We also find plenty of names and factoids to cement our investment in daily news updates. There are special challenges, though: try constructing a good story when you have to stop to define terms like derivatives. The greater challenge, on both sides of the news story, is to maintain calm and confidence.

My personal strategy is Humor ROI by Remote Control. That means:

Humor = I am placing a premium on humorous accounts of both finances and politics.

ROI = I seek a return (sanity) on my investment (time spent watching television).

Remote Control = I use the remote to flip across channels. Stewart, Colbert, and Letterman are my anchors. Their commentaries are augmented by the cable news shows, with care taken not to watch a news show in its entirety. Channel switching permits an entertaining sweep across the political spectrum.

This weekend will be a test in the power of our current lead story of the financial crisis. Almost always, the weekend provides respite from breaking news. Maybe not in this season.

26 September 2008

Personal Technology: The Chair

Anyone keeping up with ergonomic research already knows that choice of chair ranks right up there with keyboard placement. I use 3 different chair styles for computing but the one pictured here is the best looking. And it's an award winner. It is the Cachet by Steelcase. It comes in various colors and has choice of wheels or none.

I discovered the chair in a Stanford classroom (during a conference). The speaker explained that the new high tech classrooms were outfitted with Cachet chairs, which proved popular with students. Another handy classroom feature was the ultra lightweight table that hung on the wall (with legs collapsed) when not in use. The most handy feature was the data projection software that allowed students on laptops to "push" their displays up to the main screen for everyone in the room to view.

I couldn't reproduce all those features back at my home institution, but I could start buying Cachet chairs for use by grad students in my office. I found sales via mail order, and I purchased 5 chairs over a year's time—only when the price dipped to $250. I bought the wheeled variety for the carpeted office. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the chump using personal dollars in the workplace but when I retired I brought them home with me. And that's when I found out the most fun aspect of the Cachet: on a hard surface (see cork floor in photo), these chairs fly. Maybe that was the real source of their popularity with the students at Stanford.

25 September 2008

Boomer Memory of Unemployment

There's a reason we're struggling with understanding the nation's need for an economic bail-out: it's been a long time since Americans experienced the type of extreme conditions that warrant such action. (It's been 75 years since the U.S. felt unemployment at 25%.)

Boomers have known inflation, stagflation, recession, boom, and bust. But for the most part, we don't understand the pressures currently on Wall Street and the economy. See chart above for the unemployment percentages boomers have known first-hand and those they've only heard about.

There is actually greater intelligence among us on the subject: some boomers in certain states remember unemployment percentages in the 1980s reaching the teens, higher than the national averages displayed above for the early '80s. But the typical boomer memory is limited to unemployment that wasn't much higher than today's. We don't share our parents' and grandparents' experience with sharp increases in joblessness.

On a personal note. I have seen a change in my investments and I have had to make an employment decision on the basis of housing costs. Daily, I am aware of the increases in gas and food costs. But I am certain I do not grasp the complexity of our financial crisis. Impending doom is still hard to get my hands around.