INDIA : Senior Citizens to benefit from 'Celebrating Age' EXPO

Countdown begins for India’s biggest ever active-ageing carnival, the ultimate Retirement Lifestyle Expo 'Celebrating Age' is presented by MetLife India Insurance Company Limited, Associate Sponsor: State Bank Of India (Reverse Mortgage), in association with  International Longevity Centre India ILC-I India’s premier Institute in ageing as Patrons and produced by Vision India, a niche consulting and market analytic firm specializing in show management.  The event will be staged across 8 cites in India for two days each to propagate products, services   opportunities and activities that the elderly can participate to enrich their retirement lives.

“Celebrating Age”! Retirement Expo an active ageing series is being organized from Sept 1 to 21 Oct 2012 (two days in each city) at Bangalore ,Pune, Mumbai, Ahemedabad,  Goa, Chennai, Hyderabad , Delhi. It will be perfect platform for the industry to flourish, to enhance the retirement lifestyle of senior citizens. The challenge is to ensure that the elderly are able to lead a healthy & dignified life ahead. They should have every opportunity to pursue the activities of their choice and be treated with respect and dignity. The elderly form a rich repository of knowledge and experience. 

'Celebrating Age', an active ageing retirement expo is being organised by Vision India in association with the International Longevity Centre India Chapter and supported by the International Federation on Ageing (IFA), the Silver Inning Foundation (SIF) and the Association of Senior Living India (ASLI).

Event Composition includes Grand Inauguration followed by workshop on Qualitative and Healthy Ageing by panel of experts. Two day Exhibition featuring Banking, Insurance and Housing companies. Recruitment Desks. Health & Wellness Counters. Activity Zone, fun and frolic like Tambola, musical chair, live performances, Jaaz Band, Magic, Yoga, and Aerobics. Closing Celebrations on second day.

“Celebrating Age”! India Expo 2012, an active ageing series on Retirement is crafted with an objective of setting the tone where the 21st century ageing populations make useful networks. Profile includes assemblage of lifestyle products and services for those who are looking forward to enjoy the years of retirement in full style and grandeur. The newest products and services will be on showcase for discerning buyers.2012 Retirement expo will be perfect platform for the industry to flourish, to enhance the retirement lifestyle of senior citizens.

Focus: Worldwide ageing populations are recognizing that active ageing marks the emergence of new markets, requires adherence to innovation and inclusive practices. It is expected that the Private sectors and Governments would play an increasingly specific and supportive role to encourage qualitative ageing & productive human talent.

An opportunity exists to tap into the imagination of this potentially significant market given that the 55 + aged may spend 25 to 30 years in retirement. A burst of innovation is expected. Serving this market profitably may require fresh ideas, inclusive approach and new ways of doing business.

The senior community in India presents a tremendous opportunity to service providers and entrepreneurs to innovate on their housing needs and addressing their various lifestyle service and product needs. Seniors are evolving as a mature and serious consumer segment that have needs and wants, which are specific. A significant section of seniors today are independent, financially stable, well-travelled, socially connected, and as a result have well developed thoughts of how they want to spend time after retirement. There is, today, a larger percentage of educated seniors than ever before in India. This demographic, dubbed the active ageing 50+ generation has more wealth to spend and a greater desire for new experiences. 

The challenge is to ensure that the elderly are able to lead a healthy & dignified life ahead. They should have every opportunity to pursue the activities of their choice and be treated with respect and dignity. The elderly form a rich repository of knowledge and experience. 

Unique showcase of an unexplored market poised for growth, addressing trends and tipping points that are accelerating change in consumer attitudes of those aged 50 Plus. This market segment has only touched the tip of the iceberg. 

This Mega event is a pioneering initiative on qualitative ageing and productive human talent. This joint initiative aims to unfold the way forward and take retirement to the next level, thereby setting the tone for the forum, where emerging trends and challenges of the 21st century could reach out through an international network of exhibitions, conferences & entertainment .

You can Join 'Celebrating Age' at  Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/CelebratingAge

You can Follow 'Celebrating Age' at Twitter :

https://twitter.com/CelebratingAge

About : Vision India

Vision India is a fifteen year old organization founded by Janaki Raman. A niche consulting and market analytic firm, with an excellent track record of  designing and developing many National and International projects of high impact to match the needs of technocrats and policy makers on socially relevant subjects. Vision India specializes in educationally focused Trade Fairs and Conferences and creating live forums.

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

CHINA: Secom to build luxury nursing homes for elderly in China

OSAKA, Japan / The Daily Yomiuri / Business / April 19, 2012

Jiji Press

Major Japanese security company Secom Co. said Wednesday it will launch a luxury nursing home business in China in partnership with a local real estate developer.

Secom Medical System Co., a Secom subsidiary, will set up a joint venture with Shanghai Lujiazui Finance & Trade Zone Development Co. The business will operate from 2015 in Shanghai, which has a large population of elderly people.

It will be the first elderly care facility operated by Secom in China.

Secom intends to create similar facilities in 18 Chinese cities, including Beijing and Guangzhou, where the company operates a security business for corporate clients.

The new company will be established with capital ranging from 100 million yen to 2 billion yen, of which at least 70 percent will be shouldered by Secom Medical System and the rest by the Shanghai-based partner.

© The Yomiuri Shimbun.
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Why More Seniors Are Starting Companies

WASHINGTON / The Atlantic / Business / December 17, 2011

MARC FREEDMAN - Marc Freedman is founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, a San Francisco think tank on baby boomers, and the author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.


Old Dogs, New Tricks: Why More Seniors Are Starting Companies

In the "Indian Summer" of their lives, more Americans between 50 and 75 are working well into years that used to be exclusively for the retired. Should we cheer them?

Reuters

Marion Jackson's airy, light-filled studio is filled with Brazilian art and sculpture. It sits on the third floor of a five-story, 100,000-square-foot industrial building in downtown Detroit that opened in 1927 to house the service department for Pontiac. The Corvette was later designed there. But that was before the U.S. auto industry declined, and the neighborhood became a wasteland of abandoned buildings.

Not anymore. Today, 250 start-up companies inhabit the renovated building, which is the centerpiece of a business incubator called TechTown. Jackson's venture, Con/Vida--in Spanish, "with life"--sells indigenous art from Latin America and curates exhibitions for galleries and museums. Jackson, 70, retired as an art-history professor at Detroit's Wayne State University last year and applied her knowledge of northeastern Brazil to the pursuit of a second career as Con/Vida's codirector.

This new chapter in Jackson's work life, much like the building the studio inhabits, amounts to a kind of adaptive reuse--of skills instead of space. In this, she has company. TechTown is run by Randal Charlton, a 71-year-old former jazz impresario and serial entrepreneur, whose human-tissue company was the resurrected building's first tenant. TechTown, an independent nonprofit, was launched a decade ago by Wayne State--which recently hired 77-year-old Allan Gilmour, a former Ford Motor chief financial officer, as its president.

By the prevailing definitions, all three of them are in old age--often portrayed as a wasteland of its own. We're set to become "a planet that's a whole lot more crowded--with old people," Phillip Longman, a senior research fellow on health policy at the New America Foundation, lamented in the September/October issue of Foreign Policy. He and other scholars who predict the "hyper-aging" of the developed world--when walkers will outnumber strollers--worry about too few working-age adults having to support too many children and retirees.

But economists such as Stanford University's John Shoven find these gloomy forecasts "deeply flawed" because, he has written, of "the misleading way in which we measure age" as longevity becomes reality for more and more Americans. Our notions of old age are themselves old-fashioned, reflecting a time when the typical 60-something was physically worn out from laboring in an auto plant or some other factory. In recent years, scholars in a range of academic disciplines report seeing signs of a new stage of life between the prime working years and full retirement. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a Harvard education professor, calls this phase the "third chapter," after childhood and younger adulthood, defining it as "the generative space" between 50 and 75 years old. Cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson--Margaret Mead's daughter--labels the period "Adulthood II."

The creation of a new stage of life may seem counterintuitive. However, phases of life aren't natural phenomena, like the seasons of the year, but rather social constructions. Consider adolescence. The concept didn't exist until 1904, when G. Stanley Hall, a 60-year-old psychologist emerging from his own midlife crisis, wrote a book of more than 1,000 pages titled Adolescence. He was describing an extended period between childhood and adulthood free from grown-up responsibilities. The concept had a romantic tinge, but it grew out of fears that in a period of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, these minors would be running wild--anxieties that inspired laws requiring high school attendance and banning child labor. Adolescents began to be called "teenagers" after Seventeen magazine began publishing in 1944.

Hall, as it happens, also introduced the idea of a new stage on the other side of midlife. In a book published in 1922, he described an "Indian summer" between the middle years and old age. Humans, he reflected, "rarely come to anything like a masterly grip til the shadows begin to slant eastward." The book's title, Senescence, may help explain why the concept didn't catch on.

But will it now? That's hard to say. Before the Great Recession struck, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted a more than fivefold gain in labor-force participation by Americans over 55, compared with younger age groups. The economic downturn has intensified this pressure to extend working lives, while in other ways it has hurt. The unemployment rate for Americans age 55 and older was only 6.4 percent in November. But those who do lose their jobs tend to be unemployed far longer than younger workers. Fewer than a quarter of workers over 50 who lost their jobs from mid-2008 through 2009, the Urban Institute reported, found work within a year.

Even so, older Americans appear to be trying to fashion a working life beyond the middle years--and often succeeding. Entrepreneurship, for one thing, is rising. For 11 of the 15 years from 1996 to 2010, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity of any age group, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Twice as many founders of U.S. technology companies were over age 50 as were under 25.

Across the socioeconomic spectrum, 9 percent of Americans ages 44 to 70 have launched "encore" careers, according to a 2011 study by Penn Schoen Berland. Their paying jobs, part- or full-time, are often in the public sector--as teachers, nurses, home health aides, and the like--or with nonprofit groups.

The practical idealism of these late careers may reflect a shift in values as people mature and focus more on activities meant to contribute to society's greater good. Such late-stage jobs fit nicely within the socially beneficial lines of work that Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone has predicted will need more labor: education, health care, nonprofit community groups, religious organizations, and government.

An encore career may entail some preparation. The number of over-50 Americans entering divinity school has doubled since 1990. A Catholic seminary near Milwaukee, the Sacred Heart School of Theology, specializes in training second-career priests--widowers, mainly. This past fall, high-tech billionaire Steve Poizner and former Hollywood studio executive Sherry Lansing announced a $15 million partnership with the University of California (Los Angeles) to launch the Encore Career Institute, a program of continuing education aimed at baby boomers. The American Association of Community Colleges has started an initiative to accommodate the growth of the over-50 student population, which increased by 17 percent from 2007 to 2009.

These things are happening without much of a push from Washington. After World War II, the GI Bill helped ex-soldiers gain an education and thrive. Nowadays, the federal Troops to Teachers initiative helps military personnel, many of them retired, earn a degree in education. But aspiring encore careerists can't look to the government for much more help. A 2009 law promoting national service established Encore Fellowships for adults who want to move into nonprofit or public-sector employment, but Congress hasn't appropriated a cent to fund them.

Unless Washington summons up the desire--and money--to urge this transition along, the future of encore careers will depend on the private sector. And on a generation's entrenched culture. As baby boomers live longer and wrestle with retirement, they won't accede easily. The willful generation that Time magazine named as its Man of the Year--"25 and Under," in 1966--never has.

COPYRIGHT © 2011 BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY GROUP.

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

KOREA: Huge Numbers of Older People Open Small Businesses

SEOUL, Korea / The Chosun Ilbo / Business / November 25, 2011

T

The number of self-employed people over 50 reached a record 3.1 million in October, as baby boomers who have just started retiring opened their own small business to make a living. The number crossed the 3 million mark for the first time in May this year.

After a temporary decline, the total number of self-employed people in all age groups bounced back, and the proportion of people over 50 is increasing. The total number of self-employed people stood at 6 million in 2007. It fell to 5.6 million in 2010 in the wake of the global financial crisis but rose to 5.73 million by the end of October this year.

Self-employed over-50s mostly work in the wholesale/retail, transport and hospitality business. In other words they have small shops, restaurants and motels or drive taxis. The number of people in their 50s who opened new restaurants or motels increased by about 2,000 to 6,000 on-year in the last few months.

Since April, the number of over-50s in wholesale and retail also rose by 30,000 to 40,000 on-year. The figure for those over 60 has grown by about 10,000 since the second half of this year.

The problem is that these attempts have a very low success rate. Many older people fail in business when they jump on certain bandwagons like coffee shops or convenience stores without making proper preparations.

According to a recent report by KB Research, Korea's coffee shop market is worth W2.8 trillion (US$1=W1,141) this year, more than double what it was in 2006, but the number of coffee shops nationwide increased six-fold from 1,500 to 9,400 over the period, diminishing returns for all but the most competitive.

According to 2009 data from Statistics Korea's, small-scale businesses with fewer than four staff accounted for a whopping 90 percent of all wholesale/retail, transport, restaurant, and hospitality businesses, which many people feel they can get into without much difficulty. But this huge proportion of mom-and-pop operations means it is difficult to improve the country's overall competitiveness, especially when so many older people are trying to feed themselves by opening a corner shop.

"The ratio of self-employment to GDP stood at 25.8 percent in Korea as of 2008, which is vastly more than in the U.S. (5.8 percent) and Japan (9.8 percent)," said Hwang Soo-kyung of the Korea Development Institute. "We need to find more fundamental ways to create a business environment where older people can stay in their jobs."

Copyright © 2009 Chosun.com
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA:Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs transformed computers and culture

LOS ANGELES, California / The Los Angeles Times / Business / October 5, 2011

Steve Jobs dies
His legacy of blockbuster products includes the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Meanwhile, Jobs' other firm, Pixar, revolutionized computer animation.

Steve Jobs speaks at a 2010 Apple Special Event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

By David Sarno and Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times
October 5, 2011, 5:00 p.m.

Steven P. Jobs, the charismatic technology pioneer who co-founded Apple Inc. and transformed one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies, has died. He was 56.

Apple announced the death of Jobs — whose legacy included the Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple said. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

He had resigned as chief executive of Apple in August, after struggling with illness for nearly a decade, including a bout with pancreatic cancer in 2003 and a liver transplant six years later.

Continue reading

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

UK: Billionaire Richard Branson On Being A Rock Star Businessman

NEW YORK, NY / Forbes.com / September 19, 2011

The Beat Report
By Zack O'Malley Greenburg, Forbes Staff

INVESTING
 

Sir Richard Branson’s extracurricular résumé doesn’t necessarily scream “businessman.” The 61-year-old chairman of Virgin Group has hosted his own reality television show, appeared on Baywatch, and launched all manner of aeronautical escapades including an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon.

It’s all part of the package. Branson, whose personal fortune stands at $4.2 billion by FORBES’ latest estimate, is perhaps equal parts rock star and businessman. And in an age where every entertainer seems to be launching a clothing line or vodka brand, he has achieved a certain confluence of fame and moguldom, arriving from the opposite angle.

“There are a lot of rock stars who become businessmen,” he explains over hors d’oeuvres at an event hosted by watchmaker Bulova in New York. “But I think being a sort of rock star businessman is not something which is that common. I’ve ended up being that. It’s not what I planned to be, but through my ballooning and my boating adventures and outer space, I suppose that is what I have become.”

Richard Branson’s corporate résumé may be even more extensive than his list of adventures. After founding Virgin Records in 1972—and helping to launch the careers of bands including the Sex Pistols—the Britain-born billionaire moved on to start Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984 (which, at last week’s event, he said may be on the verge of a major alliance agreement), as well as Virgin Mobile in 1999 and a host of other ventures, including commercial space travel outfit Virgin Galactic.


Though Branson’s business ventures have been notable in their own right, there’s no doubt that his aerial exploits have drawn considerable attention to his companies. In his opinion, that’s something other executives could stand to do a bit more often.

“Too many businessmen, too many chair people, do not project themselves,” says Branson. “I do think it’s in the interests of their companies to get out on CNN, to become figureheads, to become ambassadors for their companies. And then if you do want to do good, you can do that on the back of it as well.”

To that end, Branson supports an array of causes through Virgin Unite, his non-profit foundation. He says he also gives about 30 speeches per year, raising $10 million for charity through that venue alone.

Interestingly, that translates to about $300,000 per appearance—about what a successful rock act might expect to take home as compensation for an arena show.

Branson’s association with Bulova follows a wristful of agreements between watchmakers and entertainers.

Rapper Jay-Z teamed up with Audemars Piguet years ago, and basketball star Dwyane Wade later became brand ambassador to Hublot, a watch recently shouted out by Jay-Z in his latest album. (“He came to Necker Island once,” says Branson of the rapper. “He’s great. He’s bright, intelligent … very pleasant.”)

All three instances represent a luxury goods provider aiming to add sizzle via celebrity sheen. The difference with Branson’s situation is that he became famous by being rich; the others got rich by being famous. As such, he’s got more money to spread around—the proceeds from his Bulova deal will go to charitable causes.

“Having become a global figure, you have a responsibility to not waste it,” he explains. “It means I can set up organizations like the Ocean Elders or the Carbon War Room or the CDC in Africa using my entrepreneurial skills and financial resources to do so … If you put your celebrity status to good use, you can make a big difference.”

Though Branson’s companies control hundreds of radio stations around the world and the annual Virgin-backed V Festival is among Europe’s biggest music events, he doesn’t regret leaving the record business years ago.

“As it turns out, that was quite a good move,” he says. “The music industry is really struggling. Live music is going great, radio stations will always continue to do well, those are the territories we think will continue to have a future.”

Will it possible for anybody to make money on recorded music going forward?

“Oof,” says Branson. “You’d have to be a better man than myself.”

FORBES photos. Click here for captions of these photos and for the full photo gallery.

2011 Forbes.com LLC™
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

CANADA: Business jumps on the aging boomer bandwagon

VANCOUVER / The Vancouver Sun / Life / September 17, 2011

By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun

Granny nannies, home-moving companies and scooter sellers are seeing business boom as a result of British Columbia's rapidly aging population. Illustrative photo by courtesy of Ben Forsberg_

Companies like Home2Home, Changing Places and Daybreak Home Transition for Seniors specialize in transitional services for seniors getting rid of treasured mementoes and leaving social networks as they move to smaller quarters, often in other communities.

Nurse Next Door Professional Home Healthcare Services does everything from making meals and taking seniors for walks to 24-hour and palliative care.

Transportation company Driving Miss Daisy takes seniors to medical appointments, on grocery or personal shopping trips, and to programs and dialysis appointments.

"There's a lot more demand for choice now," said Arif Abdulla, marketing manager for Nurse Next Door. "As people age they want to be at home."

Seniors, home care and related consumer services have consistently ranked in the Top 5 fastest-growing franchise sectors, according to the Canadian Franchise Association.

Seniors and home care - along with education and tutoring and "fast-casual" healthy quick-serve restaurants - are among the fastest-growing areas within franchising, said Perry Maisonneuve, founder and principal of Northern Lights Consultants in Mississauga, Ont.

"The highest-growth area in franchising is service-based businesses . and anything to do with the aging demographic," Maisonneuve said.

Other businesses jumping on the bandwagon include those providing cleaning services, lawn-cutting or massage therapy.

Grocery deliveries and shopping online are also popular among seniors, said Holly Tuokko, of the University of Victoria's Centre on Aging. "These are the kinds of things businesses need to be thinking about."

ksinoski@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Eliminating midlife workers has become a tacit business practice

WASHINGTON, DC / The Atlantic / Life / September 6, 2011

Losing the American Dream of Progress: Getting Fired at Midlife


By Margaret Morganroth Gullette
 
Even though it is illegal, eliminating midlife workers has become a tacit business practice, putting the middle-aged in a difficult position

What is being under-reported in the official unemployment numbers is that being "too old" is a disastrous trend, extending over decades but worsened by the ongoing economic crisis. Losing midlife people from the workforce has dire consequences, and not only for them. It ruins the expectations of the young. It shreds the American dream of making progress over the life course.

Eliminating midlife workers, although illegal, has become a tacit business practice. According to one typical case that went to trial, an employer says, "We need young blood"; then employees over forty get fired (PDF). It's not just affecting the bluest of blue-collar workers, but also professionals and managers. Younger people are not only cheaper, but also less likely to remember what decent hours and wages and security were like. The number of age discrimination cases has risen almost every year since 1997, from under 16,000 people to 24,600 in 2008, according to the government's own data. An AARP litigator, Laurie McCann, believes the numbers represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Congress starves the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, leaving understaffed investigators unable to do their jobs.
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Margaret Morganroth Gullette is a cultural critic and nonfiction writer, an internationally known age critic, an essayist, feminist, and activist. Her latest book is Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America
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Two years ago I got a distressing email from a friend who had learned computer skills in her fifties to start a second career. She couldn't find a job.

"I was interviewed only twice. Friends say my age is a main factor. What 36-year-old director of anything wants an assistant who is as old as her own mother? This has been truly depressing. Every application is an act of hope but I have been deflated so often, my pride bruised and my student loan still looms. I had not anticipated this problem. That was naive...."

She's still looking.

Many people have no idea how likely they are to lose out because of age -- which means they blame themselves rather than American middle ageism.

Among the unemployed over 45, half have been out of work "long term" -- more than six months. After 54, it gets worse. In February 2010, only 23.3 percent of youths had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer compared with 39.4 percent of "older" workers.

People who lose jobs at midlife typically earn much less afterward. Boomers -- so often touted as privileged -- have a ten percent poverty rate between the ages of 40 and 50, when they should be approximating their peak wage.

People who are long unemployed can lose homes. Sex life ends. Families disintegrate. Parents fear becoming dependent on adult offspring in old age. Some midlife adults move in with their elderly parents.

Health suffers. Of the 46 million people without health insurance, almost a fifth are Boomers between the ages of 45 and 64. They can't afford insurance. Many postpone tests and medical care. Not all make it to Medicare. Between the ages of 55 and 64, nearly 11 percent die, more than any other uninsured age group (PDF). Women and women between the ages of 45 and 54 have a rising suicide rate (PDF).

None of this is new. I call this pattern "middle ageism," because, at 40 and up, the victims should have long productive lives ahead. "Encore careers," indeed.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) has not worked as a deterrent to illegal behavior. Its enforcement arm, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), finds for plaintiffs only three to four percent of the time. It sues on behalf of a worker even less, in under .005 percent of cases, according to Laurie Mcann of AARP. So meager a number of firings "for cause" suggests that it is "engaged in discovering where discrimination does not exist rather than where it does," in the words of Raymond Gregory, a lawyer and expert on these issues. Gregory's book, Age Discrimination in the Workplace: Old at a Young Age, explains in detail how the system turned into what it is today.

The Supreme Court, in Gross vs. FBL Financial Services (2009), made it almost impossible to win an age suit. Congress starves the EEOC, leaving understaffed investigators unable to do their jobs.

How could the destructive conditions of middle ageism be fought better?

In states with better civil-rights laws and remedies that can work around the federal system, it makes sense to ignore the EEOC and sue locally. Congress could better fund the Commission. It could over-rule Gross, giving age equal status to race and gender on the grounds of "disparate effects."

A single-payer insurance plan that did not penalize midlife workers with premiums two to four times higher than the young would prove that we value growing older.

Now, despite our boasted longevity, many Americans suffer from a viciously truncated working-life course. Younger people learn the value of the life course by observing their elders; What many are learning now is that they have less of a future than they thought.

The United States should be proactive in undoing this capitalist catastrophe. "Progress" in life could again mean gains in respect, ability to help adult children, and the assumption that experience matters. Seniority, broadly defined. The life course ought to be a story of progress that children can look forward to, workers can appreciate, and elders can look back on with pride.

Image: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton.

Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Gene Juarez enjoying his retirement

SEATTLE, Washington / The Seattle Times / Business-Technology / August 15, 2011

Gene Juarez spent 35 years growing the company he founded before becoming jealous of retired friends who vacationed in Palm Springs, Fla., and deciding to "be a part of that crowd."

Juarez opened his first salon in Seattle in 1971. He said he was terrified when he got a small-business loan of $25,000. "That was a whole lot of money to me at the time," said the 68-year-old, who now spends his days perfecting his golf game. "I was still very young and hopeful, and it worked out. It was never about money; it was about elevating the craft, the art. How can we do this better than what's being done?" The risk he took worked in his favor.

Photo courtesy: Bellevue Scene/Chad Coleman

"I was able to move forward with it, and the salons kept multiplying because we had a unique product," Juarez said.

Since retiring, he says he misses "his people" at the salons, but he sold the company to "enjoy the last part of life."

Juarez makes sure to get to Palm Springs occasionally, and he serves on the board of Plaza Bank, a bank dedicated to helping the underserved, particularly women and minorities.

He also bought a stake in a Granite Falls rock quarry.

"A good friend of mine was a partner in it, and I watched it for years. My friend's other partner wanted out, and so I just decided to step in. It's a great business opportunity."

Copyright ©2011 The Seattle Times Company
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

MEXICO: Carlos Slim, 71, world's richest man, loses over $6 billion in stockmarket rout

MELBOURNE, Victoria / The Age / Executive Style / August 7, 2011

Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, lost around $US6.7 billion ($6.63 billion) last week.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Slim’s stock portfolio has fallen 9.5 per cent since July 29 when measured in US dollars, and was valued at $US64.4 billion at the end of the week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 7.2 per cent during that time.

Slim, 71, has taken a hit as Mexico’s benchmark IPC index dropped 6.4 per cent and the peso slid 2.3 per cent against the dollar on concerns that the flagging US economy will hurt demand for assets in its southern neighbour.

The removal of three of Slim’s companies from the IPC index has made matters worse for the billionaire.

Leon Cabrera, a trader at Mexico City-based Vanguardia Casa de Bolsa, told Bloomberg that Slim was ‘‘particularly hurt’’ by the companies that were removed from the IPC.

When Slim’s holding are measured in Mexican pesos, the drop in value was somewhere around 7.3 per cent.

Forbes named Slim the world’s richest man, and put him at the top of its annual World Billionaires’ list, for the second year in a row this year. In March, the magazine put Slim’s net worth at $US74 billion, and said it had grown by $US20.5 billion in the previous year, on the strength of the Mexican stock market, a stronger peso, and ‘‘successful mining and real estate spinoffs from conglomerate Grupo Carso.’’

According to Bloomberg, Slim’s fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have fared slightly better during the recent market turmoil.

Gates’s Microsoft. dropped 6.3 per cent last week, while Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway fell 3.9 per cent.

Wall Street experienced its worst week since September 2008 last week, and Reuters reports that global stocks lost $US2.5 trillion in value.

Guardian

Copyright © 2011 Fairfax Media
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Businesses that cater to senior citizens arriving in area

WAUSAU, Wisconsin / Wausau Daily Herald / July 31, 2011

Central Wisconsin Business

Sue McCabe breaks down a box Wednesday as she helps a client move into 

an apartment complex in Weston. / Dan Young/Wausau Daily Herald

By Jake Miller, Wausau Daily Herald

A number of businesses are beginning to crop up to cater to senior citizens' needs, as the population continues to age at an unprecedented level.

In the Wausau area, a handful of small, locally owned businesses have opened in recent years, offering services that include helping seniors downsize, complete estate sales and move into assisted living centers.

James Flaherty, a Wisconsin spokesman for AARP, said as boomers age, there will be an increased need for such services, meaning fruitful business opportunities will continue to develop.

By 2030, 72 million Americans will be 65 years of age or older, more than twice the number in 2000, according to the federal Administration on Aging. And the National Association of Senior Move Managers has seen its membership increase from 60 businesses five years ago to 600 this year.

"There is going to be a business opportunity for the marketplace to fill that need, getting folks from point A to point B," Flaherty said. "The whole idea is if the private sector can take care of that as the need grows, that's wonderful, and if not, it's up to the community to fill that void."

Sue McCabe, a registered nurse with 25 years of experience, launched her business, Room By Room, in 2009. For her, the expected job security wasn't the driving factor, but it is reassuring, she said.

McCabe helps people move from their homes to smaller living quarters, often an assisted living center. She will go to a home, help a person decide what to take and what to sell or give away, pack their stuff and unpack it when it's delivered. She also coordinates the move.

Her service takes the stress off family members who otherwise would have to handle what can be a difficult time. Also, family members sometimes live in other states and can't return to the area to help with the move.

"It's a very rapidly increasing service," she said.

Annette Krautkramer of Marathon launched a similar business in June, when she opened a franchise, Caring Transitions, that helps with moving and estate sales.
"I can see a lot of growth in this area as far as working with the seniors, as the assisted living (becomes) more and more accepted," she said.

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