So Baby Boomer: Life Tips

Blogging Boomer Carnival #257

Baby Boomers continue to personally evolve; setting new trends along their wake.  This carnival, the 257 of the BBC series, is just a small piece of the microcosm series that was developed to record the boomer generation's evolution. 

Come to the fair and observe interesting segments of trend-setting happenings that seek life's meaning through passionate living.   Be sure to visit SoBabyBoomer's tent at the Blogging Boomer Carnival #257 hosted this week by Katie Foster at Arabian Tales and Other Amazing Adventures. 

Is the U.S. Financial System Finally Stable?

Four years after we brushed up against "financial Armageddon," did you think you'd be reading this?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said...banks need to have more capital at hand in order to ensure the financial system is stable.  Bernanke said regulators were taking steps to force financial institutions to hold higher capital buffers...
- Reuters, April 9

It appears our financial system is still not as stable as it needs to be. But guess who relaxed the banking system's "capital buffers" in the first place?

The Fed increased the credit in the system in the 1990s by the de facto removal of reserve requirements for banks.
- Robert Prechter, Elliott Wave Theorist, November 2011

Prechter's September 2011 Theorist provides this additional insight:

In the late 1990s and mid 2000s, the loan-to-deposit ratio for U.S. banks was nearly 1.00, meaning that almost all deposits were lent out. That shortfall alone was a serious problem, because if even 5% of depositors had decided to withdraw their money, banks would have been unable to pay. Some of the banks' loans were quickly callable, but by 2006, the credit-fueled real estate boom had claimed a large percentage of outstanding loans, both inside and outside the banking system. These loans are not quickly callable. The problem was serious in 2002 and enormous in 2006. Now it has become acute, because many loans are becoming fossilized, as the market for mortgage investing has dried up while foreclosures on the "collateral" have been slowed by court actions and politics.

The specter of a banking panic has become far darker since the collateral for bank deposits -- land and buildings -- has fallen globally in value at the steepest rate since the Great Depression. One day this shortfall in collateral value will impress itself on people's minds, and there will be an unprecedented run on banks around the globe as panicked depositors try to become the first ones out the door. Banks are designed so that the first depositors to withdraw get 100%; the losers wait in a long, slow line to split the proceeds that come from selling the deeds. Yes, I know about the FDIC, but I don't believe it will be able to fulfill its promises when most banks go bust.

We believe that you should plan ahead for a run on bank deposits. Let me share with you another excerpt from that Reuters article. These are direct quotes from Bernanke (emphasis added):

Additional steps to increase the resiliency of money market funds are important for the overall stability of our financial system and warrant serious consideration...

The risk of runs ... remains a concern, particularly since some of the tools that policymakers employed to stem the runs during the crisis are no longer available...

Now is the time for you to get the names of the 100 "strongest banks" in the United States. This free list gives you the 2 "strongest banks" in each of the 50 states, based on data effective January 31, 2012.

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Find Out the Names of the 2 "Strongest Banks" in Your State Now -- FREE Read our free 10-page report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, to learn: The 5 major conditions at many banks that pose a danger to your money The top two safest banks in your state Bob Prechter's recommendations for finding a safe bank And more Download your free report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline U.S. Financial System: Is It Finally Stable?. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

 Robert R. Prechter Jr.: Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression

Let's get real about Social Security Retirement Funding

The trustees who oversee Social Security's two trust funds—one for disability benefits, the other for retirees—said reserves for the fund that pays disability benefits would be exhausted by 2016, two years earlier than projected last year.

The Social Security trust-fund balances are essentially the difference between the taxes that have been paid into the programs and the total number of benefits that have been paid out over the years. 

The Social Security retirement system still collects more than it spends. 

However, the Social Security disability program and the Medicare program, that covers hospital care, are already paying more in benefits than they collect through tax revenue.

In recent years, the Social Security disability rolls have soared, as many Americans with mental and physical health problems sought to enter the program and others with less severe issues applied because of a scarcity of work.  In 2011, Social Security paid $596.2 billion in retirement benefits to 44.8 million Americans and $128.9 billion in disability benefits to 10.6 million recipients.  By law, benefits are paid in full as long as the fund balances represent a surplus.

The government (read: your representatives in Congress) has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund to pay for other operations and now just pays interest to the program and may try to steal Social Security retirement funds once again.   For example, lawmakers could consider redirecting money meant for the retiree program to the disability fund.

It is suggested that Baby Boomers write to their representatives in Congress telling them to "keep their hands off the Social Security retirement fund."   To fund increased disability benefits, why not divert resources from today's excessive defense spending on global religious wars?

Source: The Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2012

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

 John Agno: Boomer Retirement Life Tips ($2.99)

Blogging Boomer Carnival #256

A blog carnival is a special kind of blog community.

There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on several different topics.  Blog carnivals typically collect links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic.  A blog carnival is like a special interest magazine.  It has a title, a topic that flows through its postings, editors, contributors, and an focused audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis, like every Monday.

The Blogging Boomers Carnival is a collection of like-minded blogs cooperating to expose their best stories of interest to the Baby Boomer Generation.  To our knowledge, the Blogging Boomers Carnival is the only oldest and best boomer-centric carnival.

This Earth Day week, SoBabyBoomer.com is hosting the two-hundred-fifty-six carnival of blogging boomers who write about what's happening in their world.  That means it has been almost five years since the Blogging Boomer Carnivals began to spread the word about what's happening with the Baby Boomer Generation. 

Baby Boomers are ever changing as the world turns.  Boomers continue to personally evolve; setting new trends along their wake.   Come to the fair and observe interesting segments of trend-setting happenings that seek life's meaning through passionate living:

Tom Sightings  remembers his  father, who died ten years ago at the age of 91.

Do you believe that no good deed goes unpunished?  The Accidental Locavore does, except in France. Discover why.

This week, in honor of EARTH DAY 2012, the Midlife Crisis Queen discusses the "Loss of our connection with nature."

Here are some Baby Boomer books that you might enjoy reading:

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

 John Agno: Boomer Retirement Life Tips ($2.99)

Buy an e-book of Midlife Magic at Smashwords.com 

 
Buy the life-changing book: The Retirement Detox Program: 40 days to get your retirement back on track! 
'This is a brilliantly inspiring book that will pep you up and lead you to find the confident, balanced, ordered, joyous and peaceful life that you've always wanted.' Margaret Sheridan-Wallis   

 

Stock Market Turning Points

Divorce yourself from the crowd. Independence is good.

In the play "The Secret to Freedom," Pulitzer prize writer Archibald MacLeish had a character say this:

The only thing about a man that is a man is his mind. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse.

MacLeish knew how to state the truth plainly.

And the truth is, you can use your mind in any way you wish.

When it comes to financial markets, most allow others to do their thinking for them. You've heard the phrase "the blind following the blind." Yes, they both fall into the ditch.

At Elliott Wave International, our mission is to keep our subscribers out of the ditch. To do so, we must first do our own financial thinking before offering our conclusions to subscribers.

Robert Prechter found it easier to think independently by being physically removed from Wall Street. In this excerpt from the book Prechter's Perspective, Prechter was responding to an interviewer who asked about Prechter living 60 miles north of Atlanta:

It's an advantage in my opinion to be away from the storm of mass psychology that exists in the financial centers. I have purposely distanced myself from New York to avoid the overload of superfluous information that you are exposed to there. I am an observer of crowd behavior. I think it is extremely difficult to shield yourself from the crowd's influence when you are part of it.

Now, we don't advocate contrarianism for its own sake. That would be just as big a mistake as letting the Wall Street crowd do your thinking for you.

That said, our financial analysis is born of deliberate independence.

Granted, the crowd might be right for a time, but generally not for long, and never at important turning points.

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Stock Market Turning Points: Has Wall Street Ever Warned You in Time?. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

 Robert R. Prechter Jr.: Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression

 

Here is Your Missing Kindle Fire Manual

With mobile devices growing due to decreasing prices, people will be shifting from desktop computers to eReaders, tablets and smartphones.  For example, global smart phone Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is estimated to be 24.5% during the period 2011-2015 for smartphones.

When I bought one of the first iPhones introduced in the market for about $650, I didn't receive a user manual with the product.  It took me hours hunting down on my own when I had an operational question regarding that new device.  Today, "missing manuals," the book that should have been in the box, for new mobile devices is the rule.

For example, tucked alongside the Kindle Fire and its power cord is a playing card-sized "getting to know your Kindle" guide.  It's enough to usher you onto the home screen, where you'll find a bare-bones User's Guide--the kind that covers a headline-only list of features, without telling you much about which ones are most worth your time.

To solve this "missing manual" is a book that should have come in the Kindle Fire box.  In this missing manual's pages you will learn about all the Fire's nooks and crannies.  But what's more valuable, you'll find out which apps and options work best and which items are still "works in progress."  You'll also get real-world counsel on how to beef up the Fire's still-developing talents with third-party apps.

The book is divided into five parts, each containing a handful of chapters.  Everything's arranged to help you get the most out of the Fire's key talents; from reading and watching to staying in touch and using apps.  Read the chapters in any order you like---page-specific cross references point you to related material you'll need to understand any explanation.

 Peter Meyers: Kindle Fire: The Missing Manual

Blogging Boomer Carnival #255

Baby Boomers continue to personally evolve; setting new trends along their wake.  This carnival, the 255 of the BBC series, is just a small piece of the microcosm series that was developed to record the boomer generation's evolution. 

 

Come to the fair and observe interesting segments of trend-setting happenings that seek life's meaning through passionate living.   Be sure to visit the Blogging Boomer Carnival #255 hosted this week by Nancy Mehegan at Vaboomer.com

Pick up the FREE "Books for Boomers" ebook while at the carnival.

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips

 

 

10,000 Boomers Reach Age 65 Everyday

A joint poll by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and AARP shows that U.S. employers are ramping up skills training and employee benefits aimed at closing skills gaps left when Baby Boomers retire, and at retaining and recruiting older workers. 

In 2011, the oldest of the 77 million Baby Boomers began turning age 65---the traditional retirement age.  That is why 72 percent of human resource professionals polled described the loss of talented older workers to be "a problem" or "a potential problem" for their organizations.

HR managers said that the actions their organizations have taken to prepare for the loss of talented older workers who retire include the following:

--- increased training and cross-training (45 percent);
--- developed succession planning (38 percent);
--- hired retired employees as consultants or temporary workers (30 percent);
--- offered flexible work arrangements (27 percent); and
--- designed part-time positions to attract older workers (24 percent).

The poll, which focused on strategic workforce planning, also asked human resource professionals to identify the greatest "basic skills" and "applied skills" gaps between workers age 31 and younger compared with workers age 50 and older.

--- Basic skills - more than half (51 percent) of human resource managers indicated they find older workers to have stronger writing, grammar, and spelling skills in English;
--- Applied skills - more than half (52 percent) of human resource managers said older workers exhibit stronger professionalism/work ethic.

Despite the proactive steps being taken, the SHRM-AARP poll finds that many U.S. organizations are largely unprepared for the brain drain and skills void that talented, retiring older workers will leave. Roughly 71 percent of those polled still have not conducted a strategic workforce planning assessment to analyze the impact of workers 50 and older who will leave their organizations.

 Sample for free or purchase for $2.99 this new retirement life tips ebook at: www.smashwords.com/books/view/106452

Sample or purchase Kindle Edition for $2.99

Sample or purchase Nook/iPad Edition for $2.99

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

Blogging Boomer Carnival #254

Come and visit this week's Blogging Boomer Carnival hosted by Laura Lee Carter, the Midlife Crisis Queen.  You will enjoy what you discover Baby Boomers are about today..including their life challenges!

Pick up the ebook, “Women, Know Thyself” FREE on Amazon on April 11-12 only

Amazon.com

Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge Barbara McEwen | Kindle Edition $6.99

Facebook Dating: Friends of Friends

How many single people have trolled through a friend’s photo album on Facebook, spotted someone cute and then asked for intel about his or her availability?  Poring through a trove of friends of friends can seem better than gauging whether the creep factor of a random person is low enough to warrant an in-person meeting.

The invitation from Yoke.me, a new online dating start-up, seems innocuous enough.  It suggests that you meet some of the single pals of one of your friends.  Yoke.me pulls in data from Facebook — your city, for example, and what movies you prefer — then generates matches with people from your extended social circle, based on common interests.

It may not be a problem that software can solve on its own, said Eli Finkel, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University. “Technology is not the way to figure out who is compatible and will never be,” he said. “At the end of the day, the human algorithm — neural tissue in our cranium called a brain — has evolved over a long period of time to size up people efficiently.  On a blind date, a person arrives and in that instant I can say I’m glad I did this or regret it.”

Professor Finkel, along with several other researchers, published a study this year raising doubts about the idea that a personality test or algorithm of the kind popularized on eHarmony, can help you meet a potential mate.

Sites that say algorithms can help you find your soul mate “are probably spitting in the wind,” said Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and a co-author of the algorithm paper, who has written upwards of 120 papers on online dating.

While Professors Finkel and Reis question the value of algorithms, they do say that online dating is useful because it can broaden the pool of people you come across on a regular basis.

All of this may simply mean that online dating is at an early stage. In other realms, we’re already moving toward a future when the most dazzling and successful technologies are not visible and work almost by magic.

Source: The New York Times, April 8, 2012

 John G Agno: Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.