20090321

Today's Economy - What's It Doing To Retiring Boomers?

SOAPBOX SATURDAY
Bringing Baby Boomers Out of the Old Fogey Closet
A Meme for the Young Minded Over Fifty Crowd
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TODAY'S ECONOMY AND THE RETIRING (?) BOOMERS

First, I would like to toot my own horn and a little and show off a post that Eileen over at Feisty Side of Fifty wrote about my branding and design work for her website and new online store, Colorful is Her Middle Name. I had a great time designing and branding Eileen's site, she was super to work with and her sixties style and feisty attitude were a great theme to design for! If you're a Feisty Boomer check out her online store here - Feisty Boomer Boutique. And if you are building your online business and need help with your image and graphics branding, please contact me at BrandingSolutions@PopArtDiva.com.

Now, on to the topic at hand, the economy and it's effect on the Baby Boom Generation's plans for retirement.

This past week the big news was AIG and their use of bail out money for executive bonuses. It seems the whole country is in an uproar and rightly so. I got so mad I posted about it - twice - on the Brat in The Hat. The first post, More of Our Money Down the Bloated Exec Drain, was my initial anger and the second post, Thirteen Ways To Get Your Poached Pennies Back from the Bail Out Monies, was kind of a snarky humor post about how to get our money back from the banks that are abusing the intent of the bail out.

But despite the humor of the second post I am NOT AMUSED at this disgusting trend of the institutions that created a lot of this economic mess grabbing their bag-o-money from Uncle Sam then running home to continue "business as usual". From the uproar on the internet and on television I gather no one else is amused either, especially those of us over 50 and sliding down the money hill towards retirement!

Those of us who are hoping to retire have already seen our Social Security become more insecure than a juicy peace of bacon in front of a hungry dog. We are watching in helplessness as our investments and our homes lose all the value we've built up over the years, we are seeing our children and their families coming back home because they are out of work, we are watching in horror as neighbors, friends and family are sent packing when their homes are foreclosed on by those same institutions that are now having parties and handing out bonuses!

What I want to know is when will this stop or will it stop at all? Is there a solution to this? Does our current administration have the answer or are they floundering in a quagmire of status quo? Are we all going to have to change the way we live permanently or is this temporary and, if it's temporary, will it be over before we end up having to start over again at an age when it's the most difficult to find work, build our nest eggs back up and be secure and safe when we will need it the most?

What do you think? Do you have a solution? Let's see if we can put our senior moment heads together and pull this country out of the danger zone! Add your comments, post your answers in the blogs and come back and link them here - let's get all those 74+ million boomers thinking and creating economic security!

Now, one of my solutions: Go out and spend fifty dollars today on something you were too afraid to buy. I believe that fear is our biggest enemy in this fight for solvency so let's toss that fear aside today. In fact, let's try tossing it aside for a week or so - maybe have a "Spend In for Economic Security" - what do you think?

PREVIOUS SOAPBOX POSTS:
Are We Wasting The Resources of Our Elders?
Reinventing Boomers - New Life After 50
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