Boomers

The federal government Friday called for all baby boomers to be tested for hepatitis C, which kills more Americans each year than AIDS and is the leading reason for liver transplants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the recommendation to find hundreds of thousands of people who don't realize that they have the infection, which greatly increases their chances of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus is transmitted by blood, usually through intravenous drug use or transfusions.

In the first few years of the last decade, a lot of assumptions were made about aging baby boomers, their parents, their children, and their housing needs. Boomers would begin downsizing as soon as the children flew the coop, starting at about 55. Boomers would move to communities filled with their own kind. Elderly parents would be accommodated in a casita — a part of the house — until they needed continuing care. The casita would then be converted to a crafts room.

The housing market's continuing struggles have upset the retirement plans of millions of Americans, keeping more of them in their current homes, waiting for diminished equity to reappear. Others plan to move, but they appear to be demanding something much different from what they wanted before the real estate boom turned to bust: smaller, less expensive retirement houses they can afford with their reduced means. At the start of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, economists weren't anticipating that the long-term trend toward retirement living would be derailed.

DEAR ABBY: "Searching for ‘Me' in Texas" is not alone! A wave of 78 million baby boomers will soon leave 30-plus-year careers and are looking forward to an estimated 20 more years of life. A vast majority of them are looking for meaningful opportunities for the second half of their lives. "Searching" should seek out a nonprofit organization for a cause she's passionate about and offer her skilled services. If "Searching" doesn't need an income, she can volunteer. Finally, instead of seeking a graduate degree, she could look at her local community college and find noncredit classes that interest her and participate without the pressure of credited course work.

Jen Lancaster is up on her high horse again. Fans of the witty memoirist are delighted to see her back in the saddle. Her just-published book, Jeneration X (NAL, $25.95) is a plea for her contemporaries to stand apart from the willfully infantile generations that bracket them -- the boomers and the millenials -- by acting like adults. "We're differentiating ourselves by becoming the only grownups in the room," says Lancaster. "We're tired of seeing all these baby boomers running around talking about their feelings and these Gen Y kids that you have to constantly coddle or they'll have a meltdown.

Sixty years ago, when World War II ended, veterans were welcomed home with open arms by their parents and grandparents. In the early 1950s, the nation began the serious business of building homes, schools, roads, and water and sewer systems to serve them and their young families. The baby boomers, the children of the veterans, were the beneficiaries of their investments in the future. Yet 50 years later, we, the boomers, seem unwilling to continue their commitment to a better tomorrow.

WASHINGTON - Feel like the office geezer? Age may be an asset at work, or no issue at all, according to an AP-LifeGoesStrong.com poll. Nearly half of those born between 1946 and 1964 now work for a younger boss, and most report that they are older than most colleagues. But 61 percent of the baby boomers surveyed said that their age is not an issue at work, while 25 percent called it an asset. Only 14 percent classified getting older as a workplace liability. In fact, most of those who have reached age 50 noted that co-workers seek their counsel more now than when they were younger.

We respond to "Baby-boom retirement crisis feared" (April 11) by John McGregor of The Inquirer's Washington Bureau. In the year 2025, when half of the baby boomers have retired, the children of these 60-year-olds will be members of the Supreme Court. Keep in mind now that these justices will have grown up in an era when abortion was acceptable for financial reasons, or simply because it is a free choice. We are sure that one of those fine justices will declare euthanasia constitutional.

After the 1984 election, it became a cliche among political experts to say that baby boomers - Americans who are now 23 to 41 years old - were conservative on economic issues and liberal on social issues. Thus both parties would face the challenge of appealing to a large group of voters who were not receptive to the traditional liberalism of the Democrats or the conservatism of the Republicans. More recently, a revisionist view has arisen. Many political observers say that the boomers aren't so different after all and that they don't seem to be voting as a bloc or gravitating to a particular candidate.

There it was, in the New York Times, a photograph to bring a shiver to the bravest of the brave. Assembled for some do of the rich and worthless were Sean Ono Lennon, looking geeky; his mother, the dread Yoko; Jann Wenner, terrible-tempered publisher of Rolling Stone, the irrelevant but very profitable magazine; and Tina Brown, editor of the New Yorker and friend to Eurotrash and American Eurotrash wannabes. It was illustrating a think piece about baby boomers' reactions to the news that a baby boomer had been elected president.

In the first few years of the last decade, a lot of assumptions were made about aging baby boomers, their parents, their children, and their housing needs. Boomers would begin downsizing as soon as the children flew the coop, starting at about 55. Boomers would move to communities filled with their own kind. Elderly parents would be accommodated in a casita — a part of the house — until they needed continuing care. The casita would then be converted to a crafts room.

The federal government Friday called for all baby boomers to be tested for hepatitis C, which kills more Americans each year than AIDS and is the leading reason for liver transplants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the recommendation to find hundreds of thousands of people who don't realize that they have the infection, which greatly increases their chances of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus is transmitted by blood, usually through intravenous drug use or transfusions.

DEAR ABBY: "Searching for ‘Me' in Texas" is not alone! A wave of 78 million baby boomers will soon leave 30-plus-year careers and are looking forward to an estimated 20 more years of life. A vast majority of them are looking for meaningful opportunities for the second half of their lives. "Searching" should seek out a nonprofit organization for a cause she's passionate about and offer her skilled services. If "Searching" doesn't need an income, she can volunteer. Finally, instead of seeking a graduate degree, she could look at her local community college and find noncredit classes that interest her and participate without the pressure of credited course work.

Jen Lancaster is up on her high horse again. Fans of the witty memoirist are delighted to see her back in the saddle. Her just-published book, Jeneration X (NAL, $25.95) is a plea for her contemporaries to stand apart from the willfully infantile generations that bracket them -- the boomers and the millenials -- by acting like adults. "We're differentiating ourselves by becoming the only grownups in the room," says Lancaster. "We're tired of seeing all these baby boomers running around talking about their feelings and these Gen Y kids that you have to constantly coddle or they'll have a meltdown.

Baby boomer women might not want to wear their daughters' jeans and men may refuse to don muscle shirts, but the generation that brought us tie-dye still wants to remain fashionable and hip well into middle age. How to monetize that desire is both a marketer's conundrum and dream. "Even with mature figures, boomers want to have fashionable options," says Roseanne Morrison, fashion director for the Doneger Group, an industry consultant. "That doesn't stop just because you hit a certain age. " The problem is, designers and retailers often don't know how to reach a demographic that is varied, numerous, and affluent.

Nicole Gelinas is a City Journal contributing editor and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute Aging members of America's middle class worry about retirement, and for good reason. When the TV talking heads aren't reminding us about plummeting house prices, they're speculating about not whether but by how much politicians will cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. And the financial and economic crises of the last several years have left the country 10 percent poorer, obliterating $6.1 trillion in wealth, a healthy chunk of which was in retirement savings.

Baby boomers fully embraced the stock market by riding its ups and downs throughout their peak income years. But now that the oldest boomers are turning 65, their focus has turned toward ensuring a steady income from their investments. And they're likely to find the answer is to put money in bonds rather than stocks, as recent market volatility shows. Broadly diversified bond mutual funds have provided investors an average annualized return of nearly 5.6 percent over the last five years.

In the Region A.C. casino revenue falls yet again For the 38th consecutive month in October, Atlantic City's casinos brought in less gambling winnings than they did a year earlier. The city's 11 casinos saw their winnings in gambling slip to $262 million last month from $284 million in October 2010, a 7.9 percent slide. Only the Borgata and Resorts Casino Hotel had better results than a year earlier. Trump Plaza and the Golden Nugget - which was known as Trump Marina until May - were the biggest losers at 30 and 28 percent, respectively.

Facing diminished job opportunities and heavy student-loan debt, today's 20-somethings may be more downwardly mobile than their parents. That's the grim news from a new study, "The Economic State of Young America," released Wednesday by a progressive think tank called Demos, and a youth-advocacy organization known as the Young Invincibles. Making things worse for young people is the recession and its dismal aftermath. "The Great Recession has intensified the impact of 30 years of negative economic trends across young Americans' lives," the Demos report says, adding, "Almost all young people make less than the previous generation at the same age. " The report also includes the results of a national poll of young people showing that 48 percent of the millennial generation (born between 1977 and 1993)