The Boomer Tsunami and the Generation Wars

In our last post ("The Impending Generation War"), we alluded to the rising crescendo of Boomer bashing, replete with generational stereotypes of Boomers as selfish and self-absorbed creatures of 1960s hedonism who sold out their counter-culture ideals, became a generation addicted to mass consumption, and spent, borrowed, and defaulted the U.S. economy into its economic predicament.

That argument is purely anecdotal. There is no question that American consumers in general spent too much and saved too little, but I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that Boomers were any more profligate than any other generation -- in particular, that they were any more profligate than the younger generations from whom most charges of Boomer bounderism emanate. The charges may prove to be true -- I just haven't seen them substantiated.

True or not, we expect to see a ratcheting up of intergenerational rhetoric as the United States hits the wall in its ability to borrow its way out of the entitlements crisis. Politics is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there is a loser. When there's not enough money to fulfill all the promises, either Boomer retirees have their lifelong expectations dashed, or younger generations of workers see their payroll taxes increase.

In that context, I find it interesting to read a recent blog post by Boomerologist Carol Orsborn with VibrantNation.com. The word "entitlements," she contends, has negative connotations. But is it helpful to characterize Boomer expectations about their retirement benefits that way? Writes Orsborn:

We concede to let the government withhold a substantial portion of the money we have earned from every single paycheck in exchange for benefits to be paid to us down the road.

I remember the very first time I received a paycheck, when I was in my early 20's. I'd been counting on every penny of my slim salary for living expenses. What a shock to see how much had been taken out for this then too-remote-to-even-conceptualize notion of "retirement." I must admit that on some levels, the amount taken out for Social Security, taxes, healthcare, 401(k)s and God knows what else, has never lost its shock value.

But here's the thing: I may have disliked the chunk of income that went missing from my paycheck every other week. But I never thought to question that grandma and grandpa and later mom and dad weren't deserving of their Social Security benefits. Society acknowledging the reality of physical and mental diminishments that come with age, and taking care of the elderly was the reality within which our generation was raised.

As a Boomer, I'm well aware that the age wave will do to the American social safety net what the Sumatra tsunami did to the coast of Thailand. But Boomers didn't set up the system, and we didn't resist tooth and nail efforts to reform it. Furthermore, we've been paying into the system our entire working lives -- we're not getting the same free ride that the early generations of beneficiaries did. Are Boomer expectations so unreasonable?

The only thing unreasonable about Boomer expectations is that they fly in the face of the irrefutable reality that Uncle Sam can't afford to keep the promises made by an earlier generation of politicians. Something has to give. As part of any entitlement overhaul, Boomers will have to work longer, have benefits curtailed and/or pay more into the system. I think they'll be willing to make those sacrifices. But it sure would help if the Boomer bashers dialed back their rhetoric. Demonizing a single generation won't get us any closer to reform.

Update: Regarding my assertion above that Boomers were no more profligate than any other generation, the McKinsey Global Institute's 2008 study, "Talkin' 'bout My Generation," does say that Boomers spent more of their income at comparable stages of the life cycle than the Silent Generation did. This is undoubtedly true. But McKinsey is silent on the issue of Gen X and the Millennials, whom, I would suggest, were as derelict in salting away savings as the Boomers were.

The Impending Generation War

If you thought America’s culture wars, foreign policy debates and presidential campaigns generated heated rhetoric, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The looming conflict between the generations over entitlements for the graying population could shape up as the most bruising domestic issue since the Civil Rights movement.

Indeed the generation gap – or, rather, the gap between the entitlements we think we deserve and those we can afford -- could soon supplant race, class and gender as the most divisive force in American politics. Won’t that be fun?

The issue is simple: Our government spends much more money than it collects. The Bush administration brought us half trillion-dollar deficits. The Obama administration is giving us our first trillion-dollar deficit. Meanwhile, we still have the massive entitlements obligations of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to deal with – obligations that would run up the federal deficit to $4 trillion to $5 trillion a year in a $14.5 billion-a-year economy if Uncle Sam used Generally Accepted Accounting Principles like the private sector does.

For decades, the issue of deficit spending and unfunded entitlements seemed worrisome but remote. Disaster seemed so far away. Now, we can see it: The first Boomers are retiring, and the generation that would “never grow old” – and happens to be almost twice as large as the once that precedes it – soon will be drawing retirement benefits rather than paying payroll taxes. Add to that the worst recession since 1981. Seemingly overnight, everyone’s sensibilities have been sharpened to the mess we’ve made for ourselves.

At the Boomer Project, we track media articles and blog chatter, and we’ve seen a marked uptick in the number of commentators who put our current splurge of deficit spending in the context of a looming demographic and fiscal disaster. Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson gloomily prognosticated that the Age of Obama could become the era in which generational conflict, or even “generational war,” could break out.

Read the rest of the column. (It gets more up-beat than what you see here!)

(Image credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch.)

The New Lingo of "Retirement"

Baby Boomers will reinvent retirement like they've reinvented every other institution they've touched on during their passage of life. And the ever-adaptable English language is birthing new phrases to describe new social phenomena that are just now surfacing.

Carol Perry, with AWA Wealth Management in Nevada, has compiled a number of those neologisms for the Nevada Appeal.

Boomerang entrepreneur: Someone who retires from their career job to start up that business they've always dreamed of owning. (Sounds reminiscent of "boomerang" children who move out of the house to go to college, only to end up back at home after graduating.)

Jhobbie: Something created when a Boomer turns his/her hobby into a job. The jhobbie brings in some supplementary income and gives the Boomer an excuse to follow his bliss.

Playcheck: What you get when a Boomer takes on part-time employment or temporary work to generate enough extra income to fund travel and expensive hobbies without raiding their 401s(ks)s.

Phased retirement: What comes when employers confront the skills shortage resulting from the mass exodus of Baby Boomers from traditional jobs by enticing them back with flexible terms and that all-important health care insurance.

69.8 -- the New 65

Forty may be the new 30, but the braniacs in charge of the U.S. Social Security and Medicare programs haven't figured out what to do about it. As life expectancies lengthen, so do taxpayer liabilities for pensions and health care with the consequence that, sooner or later, both will default on their obligations to the public.

Warren Sanderson and Sergei Scherbov may have part of the answer. Instead of basing pensions and other benefits upon peoples' chronological age (how long they've been alive), we should consider peoples' "prospective" age (how long they're expected to live.)

The conventional definition says "old age" starts at age 65. But Sanderson, an economics professor at Stony Brook University, and Scherbov, a researcher at the Vienna Institute of Demography, question the relevance of that definition as life spans lengthen. Consider: In 1952 the average 30-year-old French woman had an average life expectancy of 44.7 more years. By 2005, the average 40-year-old French woman had an average life expectancy of.... 44.7 more years. Chronologically, the 40-year-old woman was a decade older. But was she truly "older"? (As you ponder that question, consider that the photo above captures French actress Catherine Deneuve at age 40 in the movie, "The Hunger.")

In their paper, "Rethinking Age and Aging," in Population Bulletin, the demographic duo define "old age" as the age at which, based on the average life expectancy of a given society, a person has 15 years left to live. In the United States, that age is 69.8 -- nearly five years chronologically older than the standard retirement age today. By the year 2045, "old age" is forecast to commence at 72.8.

Think what would happen if "old age" benefits (Social Security, Medicare, pensions) were geared to life expectancy rather than chronological age. Americans would have to work longer before collecting the gold watch and planning for that cruise around the world. But they'd still have a social safety net to cover them when they became frail and infirm. On the flip side, society could far better afford the social safety net. Instead of an "age dependency ratio" of 37.1 "old" people supported by 100 in the working-age population by the year 2045, the ratio would be only 21 per 100.

Sanderson and Scherbov don't go quite that far. On the one hand, they argue that basing pensions on a fixed chronological age provides a windfall for old guys who paid into the system for a fixed number of years then collect benefits over ever-lengthening periods of retirement. On the other, basing pensions on a fixed prospective age would be unfair to older generations. "As life expectancies increase," they write, "they would have to pay into the system for more and more years, only to receive benefits over a fixed average period."

One solution, they suggest, would be to build payments and benefits around the average of chronological and prospective ages.

As Baby Boomers, we'd like to start raking in benefits by 65 just as much as the next guy. On the other hand, we'd like there to be a social safety net when we need it. Social Security might conceivably survive in its current form, but Medicare is a goner. It seems like Sanderson and Scherbov have provided a rational and objective criteria for recalibrating social expections and salvaging our "old age" protections.

(Photo credit: Fluffiest Blog in the West.)

The Retirement/Unretirement Line Gets Even Blurrier

It's helpful when someone does the research to demonstrate the truth of what you think you already know. That seems to be the case with a study just published by a research team led by Angela Curl, a professor of social work at Case Western University.

Tapping into the National Institute of Aging's longitudinal study, the Health and Retirement Survey, Curl gathered information about how 1,118 married, two-income couples handled retirement. The conclusions won't shock anyone who's been paying the slightest attention: The line dividing retirement from "unretirement" (as Sun Life Financial calls it) is blurring.

Curl and her research team found 41 different retirement patterns for men and 49 for women. Said Curl: "People can go in and out of retirement, and women may leave the workforce at an earlier age than men for a variety of reasons, including caring for a sick family member."

Not much new there. But it doesn't hurt to have a reality check.

We did find this nugget of interest: About 40 percent of the individuals tracked had the same retirement pattern as their spouse. Reports the article, published in the Journal of Workplace Behaviorial Health: "What became evident is that retirement is a couple-level event."

Retirement Bliss for Boomer Lefties: Nicaragua

Baby Boomers discovered Mexico as a retirement destination, and then they uncovered the rain forest paradise of Costa Rica. As retirement-related development took off in those two countries and real estate prices soared, Boomers stumbled onto the former U.S. protectorate, Panama. Now, those peripatetic seekers of tropical bliss are moving on to Nicaragua.

If the bloggers at Blog the Rockies can be believed, someone (it's not clear who) estimates that 8 million of the nation's 78 million Boomers plan to move abroad in the next five years. I find that number rather extraordinary, if for no other reason than it flies in the face of the stated intention of a large majority of Boomers to continue working in some capacity after they turn 65 -- and the prospect of mixing Margaritas or changing sheets at the local Club Med is probably not what they have in mind.

But let us concede that a large number of Boomers intend to head south of the border. Nicaragua apparently now ranks No. 5 among foreign retirement destinations. Blog the Rockies quotes Sam Stewart, a real estate broker in San Juan del Sur, on the country's Pacific coast: "The country now ranks as the safest and most affordable nation in Latin America, and apparently the word is out because business is booming."

Nicaragua should have tremendous appeal to lefty Boomers who marched against the Vietnam war, agitated over Watergate, and protested the Iran-Contra affair. Those whose memories extend as far back as the Reagan administration may recall that the "Contra" part of the Iran-Contra affair involved the smuggling of weapons to the Contras who opposed the dictatorial proclivities of the Sandinistas led by a certain Daniel Ortega. At the time, Nicaragua followed a close No. 2 to Cuba as a vacation destination for affluent lefties whose idea of fun consisted of showing revolutionary solidarity with Third World peasants and cutting sugar cane.

The Sandinistas lost their grip on power in 1990. Ortega, who abandoned his Marxist rhetoric in favor of a blander democratic socialism, was re-elected president in 2006. Under his presidency, Nicaragua is trolling more aggressively than ever before for U.S. tourists and real estate developers. Ortega still consorts, however, with anti-U.S. leaders like Ahmadinejad of Iran, Correa of Ecuador and Chavez of Venezuela, and Nicaragua was one of the few nations in the world to applaud the Russian invasion of Georgia.

In Nicaragua, old Boomer lefties can re-connect with the revolutionary fervor of the good ol' days --but without the discomfort of sleeping in hammocks and relieving themselves in outhouses. They can build comfortable places to live, using cheap Third World peasant labor, with no fear of having their property expropriated. What bliss.

(Image credit: Morgan's Rock.)

Retirement Expectations in Britain: Long Walks, Watching the Telly

While evidence piles up that American Baby Boomers are contemplating a future of "unretirement," in which work continues to play a major role in their lives, the sea-change in thinking about retirement is far from universal in global Boomerdom.

Speaking about Boomers in Great Britain, Dr. Rebecca Leach, of Keele University and King's College, London, says there is limited evidence that "first wave boomers are developing new third-age lifestyles."

Leach led an ambitious study that focuses mainly on anticipated in lifestyles and consumption patterns. From what I can tell from the best summary of the report I could find, in PhysOrg.com, the study did not ask whether British Boomers plan to defer retirement or work longer, as U.S. Boomers expect to do. But it appears to be an unstated assumption that no such reappraisal is going on.

Like their American counterparts, British Boomers told researchers they feel younger than their actual age, and they identify with young people more than their elders. But the main finding of the study is how utterly conventional their retirement aspirations are by the standards of previous generations. States the PhysOrg article:

Most have fairly modest aspirations, hoping at best to maintain current lifestyles and activities provided health and finances permit them to do so. The range of lifestyles is greater than would have been the case with previous generations but there is little evidence of 'alternative' models of consumption.

While some plan substantial projects, particularly in relation to travel or using second homes, most people's ideas for spending time after retirement retain a traditional pattern – watching television and films, playing records or going for long walks.

European societies are facing the same "age wave" challenges as the U.S., particularly how to finance expensive medical and retirement benefits for the Baby Boomer cohort. Indeed, the birth dearth in many European countries will create an even greater imbalance between workers and retirees. A cultural shift in which millions of Boomers voluntarily defer retirement could offer post-industrial societies a way out of the dilemma. Such a shift appears to be taking place in the U.S. We'll keep our eyes peeled for evidence, or lack of it, in other countries.

(For what it's worth, Britain's most famous Baby Boomer, Prince Charles, appears to be an exception to the norm. At 60 years of age, he's still waiting to be king. It looks like a working retirement for him!)

Update: Here is an even better summary of the study.

(Photo credit Prince Charles: Allposters.com.)

Delayed Retirement for Boomers? Depends on What You Mean by "Retirement"

As the mortgage-driven financial meltdown incinerates hundreds of billions of dollars of housing equity and stock market valuations, millions of Baby Boomers are realizing they haven’t set aside enough savings to retire early. They probably didn’t have enough to retire early in the first place – they just didn’t know it. Now they know it.

Further, according to an article in the Sept. 22, 2008, Wall Street Journal, “Baby Boomers Delay Retirement,” they’re resigning themselves to working longer. Writes Kelly Greene:

We'll see more and more people postpone” their retirement dates, says Helga Cuthbert, a certified financial planner in Decatur, Ga., who spent a good part of last week fielding telephone calls from nervous investors. “Their expectations about the future and the kinds of returns they would get [on their savings] were simply unrealistic.”

While the article makes an important point (it's one of our favorite themes), it misses a critical change in sentiment: For a majority of Boomers, “retirement” isn’t the finish line. It’s just another phase of life – a slower-paced phase, perhaps -- in which Boomers make a different trade-off between “work” and “leisure.” The changes induced by the panic on Wall Street may not be as traumatic as the Journal implies.

To be sure, by the traditional standards of financial planners, Boomers are terribly unprepared for retirement. Only 23 percent of workers age 55 and older have savings and investments totaling $250,000 or more, according to an April study published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Three out of five have nest eggs smaller than $100,000.

Financial planners urge people to consider delaying their retirement a few years so they can accumulate more assets and shorten the time frame they’ll have to live off their savings. As it happens, that’s what many Boomers are planning anyway.

According to research we’ve conducted at the Boomer Project, about one third of Boomers say they have no idea when they’ll retire, and another one third say they’ll continue working when they retire – whenever that is. In other words, for a majority of Boomers, “retirement” is not the major life event it was for the GI generation and the Silent generation.

For many, “retirement” represents a chance to drop out of the rat race and do something more fulfilling, whether it’s working for a not-for-profit or converting a hobby into a small business. “Retirement” provides an opportunity to recalibrate the needle in the work-life balance to a setting that affords more time for leisure and travel – but still entails some work. In the back of their minds, many Boomers see themselves as continuing to work, earning a paycheck to supplement their pension and savings, for a good portion of their retirement.

Bottom line: As Baby Boomers plan their golden years, their mental calculus is likely to be far more nuanced than the Wall Street Journal article gives them credit for.

A Boomer "Bucket List" for Ages 50-64

The folks at a newish Web site for Boomers ages 50 to 64, PreRetirementLife.com, have released a pretty good list of things Boomers should be doing now to get ready for life after work.

You can read the list here.

Not surprisingly, it starts with health related things to do. In our work with marketers and organizations trying to figure out what will drive Boomer behavior over the next 10, 20, even 30 years, we tell them it starts and stops with maintaining health. Because without it, Boomers won't be able to do all the other things they want to do -- travel, volunteer, spend time with family, etc.

The PreRetirement Web site is still officially in beta, so we haven't been compelled to comment on it publicly. However, since they are now issuing press releases, we'll offer up an assessment.

To be honest, we can't figure out the site's purpose. Sure, it says it is a "trusted resource for adults 50 plus" but that has no meaning without context. The first line of the site says

"You've found the premier guide to making your 50+ "PreRetirement" years the most rewarding stage of your life! You'll find advice, activities, and the most useful online resources to help you plan your future and maximize the present."

So it's a filter through which one can find things online relevant to them at age 50-64? A "guide?" It feels like that, especially when you select one of the 14 options, and then get a chance to "explore useful Web sites." But that promise of being a guide and trusted resource isn't explained well on the Home page, or even within the site itself. As outsiders clicking in for the first time, we were confused and unsure of the site's purpose.

We spoke with Andy Garvin, founder, and shared our observations. Garvin said the goal is to be a guide -- they have a staff reviewing sites and adding them to the resource lists daily. We think Boomers are pretty sophisticated Web surfers and will need to know exactly what the benefit is to them to use PreRetirementLife.com. Right now, it isn't clear enough, in our opinion.

What makes it confusing is that three of the six main navigation options appear to link to ads, product pitches or some sort of sponsored content -- in other words, PreRetirementLife.com exists to sell those 50-64 something. Not be a "trusted" guide. The site doesn't have any banner ads, and there has to be a revenue stream from somewhere, so this isn't surprising. But it is confusing.

We'll watch and see how it develops as it comes out of beta.

Yesterday's New Research on Retirement

This study was done for a coalition called "Americans for Secure Retirement" and funded by Ernst & Young. The Washington Post and others reported on it yesterday.

The key finding, as reported in their press release, is that middle class Americans don't have enough money saved for retirement. And, according to the study:

"Middle-income Americans entering retirement now will have to reduce their standard of living by an average of 24 percent to minimize the likelihood of outliving their financial assets."

We guess these same middle class Boomers didn't read the McKinsey study that said if they put off retirement by a few years, the "outliving your assets" problem shrinks, if not disappears.

Probably not, because that isn't the solution offered. Instead, this coalition wants Congress to give anyone who buys an annuity a tax break on the income paid out by that annuity.

We're not sure what to make of this study and report. Not new news, as we've said before. And not a broad enough solution being offered. What middle class Boomer can afford to buy an annuity?

The public radio show Marketplace reported on this story and the reporter's last line, meant as a throw-away was "Well, I guess we could all sell the country home... [to fund retirement.]"

We don't know about you, but few middle class Boomers have "country homes." Ugh.

New Retirement Research (No, This isn't a Repeat)

This time the study is across all generations, sponsored by Charles Schwab, the financial giant, and conducted by Ken Dychtwald's Age Wave and Harris Interactive.

Called "Rethinking Retirement," it provides a comprehensive look at how all four generations -- Silent, Boomers, Generation X and Gen Y -- think and feel about "retirement."

The Web site and information in the report are very well presented and informative. But at first glance, it feels like more of the same (even if it isn't).

Over the last few years we've been telling financial services clients that consumers of all ages no longer view "retirement" as an event of short duration (10-15 years), funded by others (company pensions and Social Security). Instead, consumers today see "retirement" as a life stage lasting 25-30 years and primarily funded out of their own savings (or continuing income).

To us, then, this "rethinking retirement" isn't news at all. But there is some news in their findings. For example, the Schwab study reports that most people think "old age" begins at age 75. That ground has been covered elsewhere. But interestingly, the study asks at what age one should be able to start getting money from Social Security, and consumers say that age is much, much younger than "old age" -- it is 63. The conclusion, mentioned almost in passing, is that today consumers think the "old age" benefit of Social Security is an entitlement due 12 years before you get to "old age."

That's a key finding to us. In fact, we suspect it will be the lead in most stories about the study, if reporters are on their game. One would think that such a finding might empower politicians to address Social Security. We wish Schwab had come down hard on this particular point. It's an opportunity to get action, and it's been underplayed so far.

One aspect of the Schwab study and the Web site that we like: They are trying to move beyond reporting on research to focus now on what to do.

Chuck Schwab and daughter Carrie Schwab Pomerantz have a section on the site where they comment on the study, and the need to provide more financial literacy education in schools, as well as change the financial services industry.

These are good steps, and we encourage Schwab to keep pushing for more steps.

Our belief is that research is only good if it leads to action. Let's hope this study generates some.

The Crowded Boomer Financial Services Market

Let it be known that July 9, 2008 was the day that two large financial services firms, both starting with the letter "P," launched new tools for consumers and financial advisors related to Boomers and retirement.

Prudential launched their Retirement Workbook, "a newly designed personalized enrollment guide that delivers simplified, reader-friendly content for participants in defined contribution plans who are transitioning to Prudential Retirement or for new hires joining existing plans."

Principal Financial Group launched Retirement Readiness Reviews, a guide that helps financial professionals walk their clients through retirement planning.

The products are different, but that's hard for the average reader to discern. It just goes to show that the financial services industry has a long way to go before it is less complicated and confusing. At the very least, perhaps the next firm developing a Boomer retirement-oriented product will peer out of their window to see what the consumer sees and try to differentiate more. Please.

Retire? Forget About It.

Ah, the problems with reporting on a generation that numbers more than the population of Canada, Chile and Cuba combined.

First, there's a five-part series on retiring Boomers this week in USATODAY.

Then, there's Robert Powell's piece at MarketWatch advising Boomers to plan on two or three careers, putting retirement off for decades.

And now there's a new initiative by the Federal Government and IBM to recruit retired Boomers into the federal workforce (to solve the problem of retiring Boomers).

This back-and-forth reporting isn't wrong -- it just isn't quite right either.

The point for any organization interested in understanding today's Boomer Consumer is that it isn't one group, with one mind-set and one plan. Boomers are many different groups and segments, with millions of mind-sets and about a trillion plans.

Focus on your customers/clients/consumers who are Boomers and understand what is important to them. Don't paint them all with the same brush.

Such a monochrome view will doom you.

The New Language of Boomers and Retirement

We'll make a bet with you. You aren't going to retire at age 65.

We're not the only ones who know it. Here's what the government predicts:

Reflecting the rising age of the boomers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that by the year 2014 the number of people in the labor force ages 55 to 64 will increase by seven million. The number of people in the labor force age 65 and older will increase seven times as fast as the total labor force due, in part, to workers postponing retirement.

Given that stat, why then do companies try to scare Boomers into retirement planning use language like this in their marketing materials:

For today's boomers who are fast approaching retirement...

Boomers may be approaching retirement age, but they aren't approaching retirement. And they aren't doing it quickly -- the median aged Boomer is only 51. Heck, this sentence makes it sound like "retirement" isn't an optional step in life.

The question to the room is this: how can the government know it and businesses not?

Helping Those Boomers Who Can't Help Themselves

Article today in The New York Times about a new educational advertising campaign targeting Baby Boomers from FINRA, the non-profit Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The campaign, from the description, is apparently for all those Boomers (about a third) who haven't saved dime one for "retirement."

One small beef with the press release about the new campaign -- it starts with two false presumptions in one paragraph:

With 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day over the next quarter century, FINRA believes it is crucial to reach out to baby boomers now, as they approach retirement. Recent FINRA Investor Education Foundation-sponsored research showed that seniors are targeted more frequently by investment fraudsters than younger investors.

Here's what is wrong. There's no way 10,000 boomers will be retiring every day over the next 25 years. First, that math doesn't even work -- there aren't 91 million Boomers, only 78 million. And second, Boomers aren't going to "retire" the day they reach age 62 or 65. If they had said "With 10,000 boomers reaching retirement age every day for the next 20 years," we might have let it go without a comment.

Maybe it's a nit, but we're big believers in knowing your audience.

The other presumption is that Boomers will be like previous generations of older citizens and get swindled by "fraudsters." That's annoying because it smacks of agesim -- that is, apparently when you get old you also get stupid. Boomers have been stupid about money and saving for a long, long time.

A more accurate assessment of Boomers and their money is that the greatest threat to a Boomer's retirement nest egg isn't a swindler, but a Boomer himself or herself. The number of Boomers who have drained their 401(k) accounts to buy a boat, RV or vacation home is staggering.

Hey, we're not saying educating Boomers about money is a bad thing. We want all Boomers to know what they are doing with their money. We just wish FINRA or their ad agency had asked for a little help in getting their own messaging on target with today's Boomer Consumer. We're available.