Over-50

Economists, Financial Planners - Stop Bullying Us Who Are Over-65

Somehow we made it through multiple economic downturns, including the whopper of 2008.

We did what it took to accommodate a workplace gone tech.

Many of us came from under debt.

Yet, some economists and many financial planners have been labeling us "Brand Dumb."

Come 65, announces the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, 40% of us who are middle class will tumble into poverty. Read all about it in MarketWatch. 

That assumes we're relying primarily on Social Security. After we receive our 2.8% boost in the monthly payment, the average benefit will be $1,461.

Annually, that will total $17,532. Well, the supposed experts concede, that puts us way over the official government threshold of $12,060 for poverty.

However, the experts reply with this: Even at $17,532, many of us will be living in poverty.

But, will we? Or, more to the point, are we?

There are plenty of those in America 65 and over whom I coached who are living a fulfilling middle class life on their Social Security. They are doing that because they made it their personal finance business to adjust and keep adjusting to cost of living realities. 

For example, they knew to sell the family home when the real estate market was near the top. No, many of them haven't been caught in what could be another housing bust, especially in the northeast.

They shed a few tears about leaving all they knew but did the deed: They relocated from high priced locales to much lower priced ones such as Sierra Vista, Arizona, and Youngstown, Ohio. Renting isn't cheap but they know how to shop around in Landlord Nation. 

That's reality number-one.

Reality number-two is that not too many of us are winging it on Social Security, alone.

As The New York Times reports, more than half of us plan to or are already working beyond 65. Some have no intention of retiring at all.

In fact, the two age groups - 65 to 74 and 75 and older - have the fastest rate of growth in the U.S. labor market. That's why I have been a busy career coach for those over-50 who are determined to continue to earn income from work. The aging recognize that full retirement was their dad's and mom's game. A career path may end at age 65. Working rarely does in the current time.

No, we're not dumb. 

And, collectively, we should send this collective message to the economists and financial planners: We won't be bullied into assuming we played it all wrong during our peak working years.

Then and now there were problems. Often big ones, such as the collapse of our industry or medical bills.

But, we have emerged as The Scrambling Generation. Here is my guide, free to download, on how to make a buck, no matter what  Download Outwitting ageism.

And here is my e-book, also free to download, on how to keep finding the exit out of our comfort zone. 

Coaching and Thought Leadership Ghostwriting about Issues Associated with Aging.

Complimentary consultation, sliding scale fees. Please contact Jane Genova at janegenova374@gamil.com.

Not Too Late to Go Rogue

History does have some useful success lessons.

The founding fathers of America were rule-breakers.

That's why they were misfits in the old world. Because they had to put together a way to survive economically and have some kind of social life, they risked it all, boarded a boat, and came to the new land.

In an ironic book "The Hypomanic Edge" John D. Gartner documents the link between the little bit of craziness among the early settlers and big-time success. Yeah, on that oddball platform they created one of most powerful economies in the world.

Today, that model still plays out. It is the iconoclast type in the supposedly precedent-bound legal sector who thrive.

Example? They are the folks at plaintiff law firm Motley Rice who conjured up applying the traditional concept of public nuisance to product liability. Along the way, they undid former lead paint manufacturer/marketer Sherwin-Williams and white shoe law firm Jones Day. Also taking direct hits are the energy industry and pharma.

Yet, there are still folks like Conor P. Williams who grouse in The Guardian about not being able to afford to buy a home (aka The America Dream) despite being a rule-follower. 

Smirk smirk.

The cruel joke is on those who follow all the earnest guidelines which are embedded in the official system. Those are really the directions for barely making it in capitalism.

That's well documented in Eric Barker's new book "Barking Up the Wrong Tree." Its message is that most of what we have been told about success is off.

Take getting good grades. Barker updates the adage that the C students in college become the bosses of the A students. Millionaires and billionaires had an average GPA of about 2.9. 

"Barking Up the Wrong Tree" is 9,087 on Amazon (here it can be ordered) but the odds are that the front lines of the system will still preach the platitudes of top grades et al. Colleagues who are adjunct professors in Manhattan universities roll their eyes about how iGens are obsessed with A grades. 

Success comes from investing one's resources - time, energy, youth, money - in trying things out. Not slavishly conforming following the rules others have made. 

The trick, of course, is to manage to stay out of prison and the mental hospital while doing A/B testing. 

Too many of my clients have been former lawyers who didn't understand what rules they could break. After release from prison and losing their license they are having me reconfigure job search materials for them. 

In addition, it's possible to become undone in reimaging the elements of success.

Actually, and this is totally anecdotal, the earlier in life the emotional breakdown, the greater the probability for success.

Instead of hanging on so tight, those family members, former classmates, and co-workers I visited in psychiatric wards had tap danced on the edges of respectability. If only there was a way to learn to stay enough in the box to not lose the emotional footing. Eventually they did make it big. But, losing one's mind is extreme suffering. 

My regret is not thumbing my nose at the rules earlier in life.

When I was 14, the homeroom teacher in a high school based in the hood in Jersey City, New Jersey told me and the rest of the class (who could have wound up on death row or murdered) all about the rules we had to follow. At the top of the list were, of course, outstanding grades, dressing neatly, and being polite. 

At age 33, when I was down and out in a small town in Pennsylvania, I went rogue. Finally. That was by using a talent I didn't know I had - writing - to provoke. Along the way I made, lost, and re-made a ton of money. 

When iGens ask me for an unpaid internship for my communication businesses I tell them: Stop listening to the rules. Go find paid work doing whatever. You will become more marketable walking dogs or manning the fast food drive-in than proofreading content for me.

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

A Very Different Time - We Baby Boomers Were So Sure We Understood What "Courage" Was

Are those female law firm partners, ranging from Kerrie Campbell to Dawn Knepper, courageous for suing BigLaw for alleged gender discrimination?

Or, are they simply piggybacking on third-wave feminism which, in turn, has become a platform for #MeToo?

Or, horrors, are they reckless" 

In these unusual times it's a struggle to get our heads around what is "courage."

On Twitter, public affairs thought leader Richard Levick praised an instance of courage.

In coaching a 40-year-old woman in her personal essay for law school I am having her dig deep to describe how her unique version of courage listened, looked, walked, and talked.

And, among those in a recovery group in central Connecticut there had been an undertow of criticism that a lawyer shot himself in the head instead of having the "courage" to embrace the consequences of his third DUI.

There, of course, is no shortage of templates of courage.

President John Kennedy published his book "Profiles in Courage."

Mr. Smith went to Washington.

And, in "Stuart: A Life Backwards," there is the real life character alcoholic who chooses to live his life on the streets. 

There are also templates of downright stupidity.

The classic example is the teacher in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" who encourages little girls to become political heroes. 

In between, there are so many questions. Unfortunately, most of the answers have been filled with 20th-century platitudes. 

Where can we find insight to help sort out even some of this?

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

October 30, 2018 - GE Changed Forever Concept of Retirement

Retirees in general, those who had retired from GE, and those who were planning to retire from GE but can't afford to got the rug pulled from under them - the financial one.

To rebuild its balance sheet, GE slashed its more than century old quarterly dividend. It had been 12-cents a share. It will be a mere penny. That, reports CNN, will save the company about $3.9 billion annually.

Although Wall Street had been expecting GE to re-think the dividend few anticipated this kind of downsizing. 

This is yet another brutal example of the surprises which can undo even the most conservative retirement planning. To apply that crude saying: No retiree can ever assume he or she is sitting pretty in terms of funding the next 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years.

Already, found the Federal Reserve Board, about one third of retirees have already returned to the workforce.  With inflation back, there will probably be more.

But even before inflation returned, in what might be thought of as Retirement Paradise - southwestern Arizona - those who had been living the easy life scrambled to figure out how to get back in the labor market. I coached some of them in 2014, including creating the new kinds of resumes and cover letters. Both those had to shift from a laundry list of credentials to: Here is what I can do for you.

Also, many of them had that raw moment of clarity that they had to erase their dream of international travel and perhaps buying a second home in Mexico or Belize. 

The survival measure GE took could represent just the beginning of jolts for those in the retirement or pre-retirement box. Meanwhile, other cruel developments had bit them in their golden age dreams.

For example, with GE relocating from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston, employees and other aging professionals are discovering that they cannot sell their houses in CT. They are stuck with their property at a time when the population movement is out of high-tax CT. 

The old-line concept of retirement - never doing paid work again - may have died today with GE's announcement of the extreme dividend cut.

From the get-go, aging professionals have to wrap their heads around to embrace the earning power they have now, not what they used to have. And, must number-two is: No one wants to hear them grousing about it. The new ethos is to be realistic about the kind of work that can be gotten. 

The marketing communications experts who used to bill at $50 an hour may have to be grateful to pick up $19 hourly doing telecommuting assignments. No one might hire them if they show up in person. Major metro areas have become corridors of doors shut against the aging.

Yes, age bias is real. It happens to even big Brandnames in professional life. 

Here is my recent book on financial survival measures for those who start bouncing up against that kind of discrimination  Download Outwitting ageism.

Takeaway: The aging have to depend on themselves and their own wits to make ends meet. Not a supposed great corporation. Not a financial planner. Not a track record from the past. Not that gold-plated network. The latter will ditch them as soon as they displays signs of reduced marketability.

Career coaching and preparation of job search and small business promotional materials. Complimentary consultation. Sliding scale fees. You owe yourself the best shot at finding, holding, and moving on to better work. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

We Were a Book Gen - How Much Did Words Correlate with Our Actual Behavior?

Smart media and business guidance could have kept social network Gab in the safe-content box.

However, the newbie, launched in 2016, allowed its posters to stray too far out of the box with rhetoric that was assessed to encourage violence.

Now, reports TechCrunch, Gab is over. At least for now. Its domain provider GoDaddy told it to find another registrar. Since then, Gab is offline. 

Part of this GoDaddy action is in response to the worldwide news that alleged mass murderer Robert Bowers posted hate speech on Gab. But even before that, alt-right Gab got on the wrong side of the tech community. For example, Apple and Google banned it from its App stores. 

More recently, though, PayPal and Stripe suspended its payment accounts. And cloud hosting service Joyent parted ways. 

Underlying this push-back against a social network which is perceived to be extremist is the age-old issue: Can there be a direct correlation between words and action? 

In short, how much influence and power does language really have? Is the pen really more mighty than the sword?

In the era when the medium of published books dominated, academics frequently raised the question if language products such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" helped end slavery.

Further back in history, did the satire on religion Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" prompt Roman Catholics to push for reform? 

Although we are in a post-book time, there are still those questions on applications for content assignments or even jobs about what books changed one's thinking or had a great influence on us.

Not long ago, for instance, I applied to research and create equities analysis for Motley Fool again. Years ago, more than 140 of my writeups had been published on Yahoo Finance under the umbrella of Motley Fool.

On the application was that question about books. My answer was that Scott Galloway's "The Four" had reinforced my questioning about the power of branding. The system of brand management had been invented by P&G in the 1930s. In my current purchasing patterns, I am post-branding. 

Will it be up to the lawyers to duke out if social network language can be held accountable for behavior?

Meanwhile, those socializing youth should explain how misleading the nursery tune can be: Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. On an emotional level, for many of us the damage has been profound. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

How Many of Us Baby Boomers Have Gone Back Mute?

Social network Gab, its leadership contends, prevents violence through free speech. 

Maybe.

However, Gab now has to deal with the reality that one of its posters - Robert Bowers - allegedly fatally gunned down 11 and injured six in a Jewish house of worship. 

But even before that carnage in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, the tech world was pushing back on that alt-right platform. Some call its rhetoric and content "extremist." After the massacre, more tech enterprises parted ways with Gab.

For example, as Fortune reports, payment processors Stripe and PayPal suspended Gab's account. So did cloud hosting company Joyent. Apple and Google won't let Gab into their app stores. And Microsoft also isolated Gab.

Will these actions eventually shut down Gab?

No one knows.

It could also fundraise from wealthy alt-right players to continue to operate. And, it's possible it could exist financially via advertising. 

Meanwhile, the legal sector can anticipate more lawsuits about what is protected speech, both personal and commercial.

Do ordinary citizens, for example, have a perfect legal right to praise Nazi ideology? 

As a scriptwriter, I am fully aware of Hitler's rhetorical talents. He both wrote his own speeches and delivered them in a way that mesmerized audiences. That's documented in Thomas Childers' 2017 book "The Third Reich." Here it can ordered from Amazon.

But, come on, we can't come to praise Hitler. We have to come to bury everything he represented, including what public speakers might be able to learn from his mode of presentation.

The best socialization for getting the hang of being circumspect in politically charged times is to bunk in the Midwest. Instinctively, as soon as I blew into eastern Ohio I knew to listen, not speak.

The neighbors and I get along just fine.

That hasn't been the situation since I had fled the Hudson County, New Jersey Frank Hague Machine and began to connect the dots about the system - out-loud.

Now, I restrict my opining to digital platforms. No one here reads mine. It seems they assume I write cute little articles for newspapers on their last leg. I don't discourage that.

In person, I am mute, just as I was my first 18 years of life navigating the Jersey City, NJ version of the Hague Machine. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Your Version of The Journey

Her mother's death in 2014 was a life-changer. 

After that, successful lawyer in Texas Lisa Jacobs quit her job. 

Her interim step before taking the really big leap was founding a green interior design company.

Then, in 2017, she took that leap. At the time it was not as a solo woman. There was a boyfriend in the picture. She bought a van for $15k. Together they reconverted it into cozy convenient living space. 

Then they hit the road. However, the relationship derailed. Living together in the small quarters of van and being challenged by the uncertainties of always traveling brought out the worst.

To regroup emotionally Jacobs returned to TX.

Then in March 2018, she restarted life on the road, this time as a solo act. She brings that act to the subscription based "Yes Monday" on the Vacay Vans YouTube Channel. Here are more details from Daily Mail. 

Of course, from the get-go of quitting her law job, Jacobs has been living out the fantasy of Everyman/SomeWomen (traveling solo in a van is not usual for females) to exit the conformity, stress, and need to win of professional life in the second decade of the 21st century.

As many might recall from those courses in western civilization, the journey has been an archetype since Biblical and ancient Greek times. It represented a test of human nature and, if passed, a growth experience.

In the Old Testament the Jews left all they knew in Egypt for their Promised Land. It was not easy.

Greek author Homer created the "Odyssey" to chronicle the ordeals a war hero must endure to reach the next level.

More recently, there is Jacobs' "Yes Monday." She survived. She has learned how to thrive. And she shares her experiences with her subscribers.

Other professionals yearning for another kind of lifestyle can use this as a template for putting together their own kind of journey out of X and toward whatever. Change is possible. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

We Baby Boomers Have Been Through This Before

The Internet has failed to live up to the early promise that it would create a level playing field in just about everything.

Instead, the Barbarians are at gate.

That everything the internet was suppose to usher in ranged from universal access to media attention to being able to succeed in business without a huge budget or even a gold-plated network. 

Like the leaders of the emerging counterculture in the late 1960s, the front lines of the internet - the Netizens - were positioned and packaged as spiritually, socially, and intellectually evolved. 

And, the obstacles of class, gender, language, and geography in connecting with other human beings would no longer exist. 

Little of that has come to pass.

In Vanity Fair, Maya Kosoff documents the failure.

Sure, all voices can be heard. But the loudest ones on the internet tend to promote hate or seek to confuse.

Businesses using supposedly low-cost Facebook advertising are now suing Facebook for allegedly inflating, up to 900%, the user metrics associated with video. The higher the metrics, the more Facebook billed. And, how many lawyers have been badly burned by web con artists? 

As in Orwell's  "Animal Farm," many of the Netizens considered themselves more equal that other Netizens.

Some of those more equal than others seem to have the darkness and myopia of human nature of William Shakespeare's classic characters like King Lear. 

Yeah, as the counterculture movement hardened it seemed to mutate into propaganda endorsing sex-on-demand, drug-taking, cult thinking, violence, and throwing away a career. 

The impediments to connecting seem to be increasing, not melting away like the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz."

Who hasn't been flamed on the internet because they were different from those who had figured out how to attract, hold, and grow followers?

The gang of earnest freelancers at Mediabistro.com put me under attack for two days.

The fans of Gawker explicitly tormented me for about four years. Included were weekly executions in which the decision would be made if I would be granted clemency. 

Unfortunately, being on the internet, both web and mobile, is a necessary evil. The snail mail mode of developing business is dead. Attending conferences in-person to network and job hunt has become too expensive at this time of stagnant wages and fees.

Yes, google has become the resume for individuals. That's what Richard Bolles hammers in the 2019 edition of "What Color Is Your Parachute?"

Google also has become the homepage for businesses. It overrides websites. And in his book "The Four," Scott Galloway predicts it will eliminate the concept of branding. Instead of sticking with brand choice Planet Fitness when we move to Ohio, we know to key in on google "fitness centers - Eastern OH." A lower-cost fit might pop up on the first page of google. 

Here's an analogy to the wonderous potential of the internet: baby boomers' access to a college education.

That seemed like the exit from being regulated to low-status, low-earning work.

Then, soon enough, it became obvious that not all school credentials were equal. That is exactly what the current trial "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard" is about.

The stink that stuck on our realization that the game was still rigged hasn't diminished. But, we tell our grandchildren that they must go to college - and beyond in higher education. 

Likewise, we are locked into the internet. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

No, Baby Boomers, Words Aren't Dead

Initially, "LLE ONE, et al. v. Facebook" had been filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California in 2015.

On Tuesday, plaintiffs Crowd Siren, an ad firm, and Jonathan Murdough, who had purchased video ads, amended the complaint based on what they had learned during discovery. They are seeking damages and class action status.  Here is the coverage from the LA Times.

At the heart of the lawsuit is the allegation that Facebook misrepresented the amount of time users were spending viewing a video on the social platform. Originally it was believed that that figures were inflated 60% to 80%. The longer the user was supposedly viewing the video the more Facebook could charge advertisers.

Funny business was allegedly going on such as not counting in any video on which the user spent little time. 

Now, the plaintiffs contend the misrepresentation ranged from 150% to 900%. During that time period Facebook was telling advertisers to "pivot to video." Many advertisers did just that. As a result, many jobs were lost in textual communications. Now Facebook has backed off pushing the "pivot to video." 

Overall, in the communications industry, we content providers were hammered with the same message: Everything was going video. That shift didn't happen.

Sure, there is more video currently than there had been before. But there is also growing demand for textual material such as white papers, reports, print books, e-books, long-form articles, blogs, manuals, resumes, and cover letters. To get, hold, and grow attention, all organizations have to put more and more material out there. 

Question: What will it take for Facebook to regain its credibility? Alleged fraud aside, does it really know what engages? My hunch is that it won't be able to shake the stink.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Remembering When We Felt We Had Power

It's a very dark day for Sherwin-Williams.

And its stock price reflects that. The shorts could move in.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Sherwin-Williams' conviction in the Santa Clara, California public nuisance class action lead paint trial.

That leaves the conviction intact. And that means that the paint company which once manufactured and marketed lead paint is wide open territory for copycat lawsuits - both throughout CA and the rest of the nation.

Those lead paint lawsuits, at the state level, could be, if won, a windfall for government. Both the plaintiff bar and defense lawyers could enjoy a rush of new business. Plaintiff law firms such as Motley Rice can be hired by the prosecution on contingency to assist with the litigation against those sophisticated lawyers from white shoe large law firms such as Jones Day. 

In Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports:

"The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from Sherwin-Williams [Sherwin-Williams v. California)  and Conagra Brands Inc., leaving intact a ruling that requires them to pay more than $400 million for lead-paint remediation in California."

The carnage extends beyond lead paint. Now so many other industries could be perceived as sitting ducks for public nuisance lawsuits. They include BigPharma for how it marketed opioids. A grim book about that is "Dopesick" by Beth Macy. It is 1,311 on Amazon. Here it can be ordered.

In Ohio, where the opioid epidemic can't be contained, the attorney general had already filed a public nuisance lawsuit about pharmaceutical companies. It's being settled. More states may also take that legal step.

Other industries targeted for public nuisance litigation range from energy (blamed for climate change) to firearms (the theory that guns are primary cause of violence). 

It's interesting to note that business trade associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had been busy bees in composing and submitting amicus briefs. They huffed and they puffed and they couldn't blow public nuisance away.

That says a lot about the power of public nuisance. Even the top court of the land rules not to intervene in a conviction against two major corporations. In addition, it bears witness to the reality that they have to change how they lobby. 

Earlier, the CA appeals court upheld the conviction. And the CA Supreme Court refused to even review it. 

America, despite the intense conservative movement, could be returning to the era of consumer and worker protection. That was when litigation against tobacco and asbestos thrived. At the level of the individual, Ralph Nader mobilized not only the courts but the grassroots through his Nader Raiders. New versions of Naderism can sweep the land, mobilizing Everyman and Everywoman. 

To resurrect the counterculture meme: Power to the People. 

Full Disclosure: I had blogged the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance class action litigation (2005-2006). Then and now I question the effectiveness of the public relations agencies officially in the loop. Are they operating in the 20th century?

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com