A Business Opportunity

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY..GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

Boomers and Social Media

More and more boomers are moving online and loving it. Check out this story from Podcasting News:

Market Research firm The NPD Group reports that online activities once mainly popular with teens and young adults are now getting active participation by baby boomers, too:

* 61 percent of baby boomer Internet users (age 44 to 61) had visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video (e.g., YouTube and TV network Web sites
* 41 percent had visited social networks (e.g., Linked-In, Facebook, and MySpace)
* Although young Web users (13- to 34-year-olds) are significantly more likely to visit social networking sites, baby boomers who visited social networking Web sites did so an average of 8 times over the previous three months.
* Baby boomers who engage in activities, like social networking or video streaming, are also more likely to buy DVDs, CDs and go out to the movies.
* Baby boomers who stream video are also 15 percent more likely than their non-streaming counterparts to buy a CD, DVD, or movie tickets.

This matches up with my perceptions. How about you? I spend a lot of time in visiting social networks and using Web 2.0 tools. Too much fun, youwhatImean?

What a Drag It Is Getting Old

The New York Times reports on how medical personnel are learning what it's like to be old and infirmed by age.

Mrs. Ramirez is only 33, but on a recent morning she was taking part in a three-hour training program called Xtreme Aging, designed to simulate the diminished abilities associated with old age.

Along with 15 colleagues and a reporter, Mrs. Ramirez, a social worker at the facility, put on distorting glasses to blur her vision; stuffed cotton balls in her ears to reduce her hearing, and in her nose to dampen her sense of smell; and put on latex gloves with adhesive bands around the knuckles to impede her manual dexterity. Everyone put kernels of corn in their shoes to approximate the aches that come from losing fatty tissue.

They had become, in other words, virtual members of the 5.3 million Americans age 85 and older, the nation’s fastest-growing age group — the people the staff at the facility work with every day.

What a drag it is getting old, even if it’s just make-believe.

As my hairline recedes and more young people call me "sir," I have to say the prospect of this future can creep me out. However, my dad is 87 and he is the most positive example of facing adversity with grace and style in spite of post-polio syndrome and being a cancer survivor. It's darn difficult to be him and I really admire how he (and my mom) live on their own so successfully.

Ray, Jerry Lee, Fats, Ron and on and on

A fabulous bunch of legends rockin' in the Netherlands a long time ago.

Seth Godin gets it about Boomers

Seth Godin is a brilliant marketer and author. I read his first book, "Permission Marketing," years ago and then heard him speak. Few people back then really understood the potential of marketing on the web the way that Seth did (and still does).

In this post, he points out how the attitudes of boomers, and not old-fashioned demographic information, are the keys to speaking and marketing to us.

clipped from sethgodin.typepad.com Marketing to seniors (open and closed) Open people are seeking out things that they believe will make their lives better. Experiences and products and styles that will open doors, cause growth, save time and money and increase status. All of these things are 'go up' events. Find people who are open and you find people you can talk to. Closed people are trying to maintain the status quo. They are very focused on keeping things from getting worse, but they're not particularly concerned about joining the in crowd or starting something. For a long time, the easy way out was to believe that 18 to 34 year olds were open and seniors were closed. Web surfers are open, National Enquirer readers are closed. etc. etc. Then the baby boom happened. Baby boomers have been open their whole lives. And now they are seniors. So all the conventional wisdom goes out the window.

Baby Boomer Real Estate Bust?

A great commentary from the blog Generation X Finance about an article from the Boston Globe on how boomers are going to get caught without buyers as they get older. This may be a caution to many of us. As I'm a condo dweller, this isn't going to be an issue but some friends might want to take heed.

clipped from genxfinance.com Typical Baby Boomer Real Estate Cycle: Start out with a modest first home to raise a family As the kids grow old and begin to move out, upgrade to a new and/or larger house As retirement nears, relocate or move into a smaller home The problem is that our younger generation doesn’t want their McMansions or large homes. Our generation is waiting longer to get married, having fewer kids and focusing on building careers. We don’t have a need for larger homes nor can we afford what our parents are asking for them. The boomers are left holding the bag, and I’m not sure how this will ultimately play out. I encourage you to read the article over at the Boston Globe as it touches on many additional issues that I did not. It is a very interesting read.

Buckley's Boomsday

Interesting idea to have boomers break the country; another reactionary hear from. Here's an interesting review from The Tronto Star.

clipped from www.thestar.com The career of Christopher Buckley has long since passed the point where reference to his being the son of conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. is obligatory. As the author of 11 books laced with satire, including the bestseller Thank You for Smoking, and a comic essayist frequently appearing in the pages of The New Yorker, Christopher Buckley has made his bones. Prior to Boomsday, his latest, I had never read a Buckley novel. This seemed a good place to start. I am a Baby Boomer myself, naturally interested in the novel's plot. That plot is set in the United States three or four years hence, when the first wave of Baby Boomer retirement signals the onset of a "perfect economic storm." The novel's heroine, Cassandra Devine, broods on the reality of "mountainous debt, a deflating economy, and seventy-seven million people retiring." Who is going to pay to get the country out of this storm? Her generation, the under-30s, that's who.