Europe -- Are You Kidding?

     Sometimes I hear people make the argument that we here in the United States should do something because so many other developed countries, especially in Europe, are doing it. Social welfare programs. Universal health care programs. Higher minimum wages; stronger unions; longer vacations; more civil political discourse; certain attitudes about sex, drugs, education, homosexuality, military power, immigration.

     I believe the United States does need to reform many of its systems and develop more civil discourse. And I think everyone should have access to a good public education and at least a basic level of medical care . . . and a decent job and decent housing and decent everything else, for that matter.

Europe then

     But, with apologies to my European friends . . . come on, we should never do anything just because the Europeans are doing it. After all, most of our ancestors left Europe, and not because it was a great place to live, with equal opportunity for all. They left because there was little or no economic opportunity, and very little ability to move up in a stratified, petrified class system. Governments were dysfunctional, religions were intolerant; armies were threatening -- and the place was generally a rotten place to live.

     My own grandparents, on my father's side, left the Austra-Hungarian Empire back in the late 1800s. No one knows for sure, but family rumor has it that my grandfather sneaked away just as he was about to be conscripted into an army he wanted no part of. On my mother's side, my ancestors left Ireland, circa 1850, because they had no land, no crops, no job, no prospects -- and they were starving to death.

     And then what happened? Europe brought us World War I, thousands of people dying every day at Verdun and the Marne and a lot of other places. Then the Europeans brought us World War II, costing roughly 60 million lives. Then there was the Cold War, and Northern Ireland, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. And whenever the Europeans weren't arguing, squabbling and fighting amongst themselves, they were setting sail to the Americas or Africa or Asia to bully any other people they could possibly take advantage of.

     We Americans feel a collected guilt about slavery and the slave trade. But who were the biggest slave traders? Not the Americans. It was in this order: The Portuguese, then the British, French, Spanish and Dutch.

     I remember my first trip to Europe, as a college student in 1969, bumming around with a friend of mine. Yes, the trains were good. Everyone says the trains are good in Europe, and they are right. But the bathrooms were totally antiquated. It was hard to get hot water. And do you know what they used for toilet paper over there? Stiff brown paper that was about the same texture as a paper bag from a grocery store. I really don't know what they use now; but I was back to Europe in the 1980s and again in the 1990s, and the toilet paper wasn't much better.

Europe now

     Okay, you say. But the Berlin Wall came down, and the Europeans are so sophisticated, and socially progressive, and we hear that the education system in Finland is so effective and forward-leaning.

     Maybe. But remember, a lot of those countries still have royalty -- kings and queens and princes and such -- including those so-called progressive Scandinavian countries of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. And as for the socially progressive economies that reward employees with so much vacation time? Some of that is true. But first you have to get a job. The unemployment rate in France is 10%. In Ireland it's 12%. In Italy it's 13%; in Spain it's 24%; and in Greece it's 26%!

     As for the educational system in Finland? The population of Finland is 5.4 million people. That's smaller than the state of Wisconsin. Smaller than Maryland or Missouri. How can you compare a system that works for a population of 5.4 million fairly homogenous people with a system that has to process 60 times that many people of all different races, creeds and colors?

     There are a lot of things we could do to improve our public education system, starting with more early education and including longer school days, longer school years, and more emphasis on academics and less emphasis on sports.

     But the idea that we can look to Europe as a model is ridiculous. I'm not saying Europe is bad; I'm saying it is no better than the U.S., and for all its social programs, it is in many ways a backward, conservative place, full of people who are every bit as self-interested and self-centered as we are.

     Europe is a great place to visit. Lots of museums and tourist spots. But I wouldn't want to live there. And I certainly wouldn't recommend using Europe as a model on which to build our own political, educational or social system.

The One Thing I'm Thankful For

     I'm not a big fan of Thanksgiving. I don't like watching football on TV. It's usually too cold to do anything outside. And there's something that strikes me as a little weird about a holiday focused entirely on stuffing as much food into our mouths as humanly possible. Plus, I try at all costs to avoid traveling around the Thanksgiving holiday, when flying or driving bring on not just the usual anxieties but outright, full-fledged panic.

     But there's nothing wrong with taking a day to count our blessings, to be thankful for what we have, rather than complaining about what we don't have, or feeling envy for what others might have. And after spending the last year and a half volunteering to help kids at our local community college, I can wrap up all my thank-yous into one big package:  I am thankful that I was born into the American middle class.

     Saturday Night Live and satirists of all stripes have a field day making fun of the middle class -- how bland we are, how boring, how conformist, how white and pasty we are, how earnest we are in our ticky-tacky houses, etc.

     But I volunteer at our local community college, helping mostly underprivileged kids learn how to read and write and analyze and organize and think about things. A few of the students I see are middle-class kids who typically exhibit some kind of mild learning disability. But most of the kids are people of color who live in the poorer sections of our county, and who come from the American underclass. Many originally came from another country, and English is their second language. Some were born here; but their parents speak Spanish or something else at home.

     A few of the students are women in their late 30s or early 40s, who have come back to school to get their degree. They are grandmothers. They live with their daughters and their grandchildren. One of my favorite students is Mary, who writes children's stories for her creative writing class. Her command of grammar is very basic and extremely flawed. Yet she comes up with simple but charming, and often very imaginative, stories based on the exploits of her own grandchildren.

     What strikes me about these students -- whether they're black or white or something in between -- is that they all grew up under challenging circumstances. Probably some of them have suffered discrimination. But the real common denominator is that their parents are poor, or near poor. They were not read to as little children. They did not go to enriching nursery schools. They grew up in apartments, and their backyards were the streets. They went to marginal public schools, and their attendance was sometimes interrupted for one reason for another.

     In short, these students, who range in age from 18 up to about 45, did not benefit from a middle-class upbringing, with good local schools, private music lessons, soccer camp and SAT preparation courses. And yet, their clear ambition is to struggle their way to get a better education, which will lead to a better job, which will eventually help them achieve the much-ridiculed, but also much-sought-after middle-class lifestyle . . . aka the American Dream.

     Maybe there are some "welfare cheats" and "welfare moms" out there who play the system and plan to live on the dole for the rest of their lives. But not these kids. I have enormous respect for my students -- especially (as I remember my own unsuccessful attempts to learn a foreign language) those for whom English is a second, or sometimes third or fourth language. But all these students have hope; they have ambition; and they also have a road ahead of them that I don't think I could have successfully struggled through when I was a young man.

     All of these people are trying hard. Some of them will go on to four-year colleges and careers in business or computers or social services. Some will be disappointed. But all of them deserve our respect, our support and our encouragement. 

     On this Thanksgiving, I give thanks that my road was an easier one, that I was lucky enough to be born into the middle class, and not the underclass. And so, especially now, I wish them the very best.

    

What Boomers Worry About

     The transition from the working life to the retired life can be difficult and disrupting, so it should come as no surprise that anxieties have blossomed among Baby Boomers concerned about the financial, social and physical challenges of growing older. Those anxieties begin to bud when middle managers realize their gray hair is no longer a mark of distinction, but a liability for the next job interview. And they grow as people suffer diminished physical capability, loss of control over their lives, and perhaps feelings of invisibility and irrelevance.

     Boomers were born during a time of post-war national prosperity. But the fact that there are so many of us has created a competitive world -- a battle for resources that we have waged throughout our lives, from college admissions to landing a job to buying a home, and now to the struggle for resources in retirement as we begin to put financial pressure on Social Security and Medicare.

     Recent surveys by the Center for Secure Retirement, AARP, and other organizations suggest some of the issues that worry middle class Baby Boomers.

     High Anxiety. According to a poll by AARP Baby Boomers are more worried than any other age group about retirement security. Over 70% of Boomers expect that they will have to delay retirement, and half of us fear we will never be able to give up the 9-to-5. The organization used a number of economic factors, from inflation to affordability of health care, to create an anxiety index. People between ages 50 and 64 topped 70% on the index, while younger people (too young and stupid to worry about it?) scored 50% and the 65-plus crowd (who are covered by Social Security and Medicare, and grandfathered into pensions) came in at a relatively contented 46%.

     Young at Any Age. Ironically, most Baby Boomers do not worry too much about how long they're going to live. Surveys suggest that Boomers feel as much as 15 years younger than people the same age a generation ago. Boomers peg "old age" somewhere around 78 or 80, and most Boomers without major health problems assume they're going to live to about 86. And that's a reasonable assumption. The life expectancy of a current 60 year old, according to government statistics, has reached a record 84 years.

     Health Care. Boomers believe that their health is pretty much out of their control. According to the Center for Secure Retirement, 65% of middle-age Americans think their health is mostly determined by their genes, as opposed to 46% who say it's largely controlled by diet and 44% who credit exercise as the key to health. However, we Boomers still do worry about declining health in our advancing years. Nearly four times as many Boomers worry about health more than they worry about finances or outliving their money. Most of us are concerned about escalating health care costs -- at the very time when we are beginning to have increased needs for medical services and costly prescription drugs.

     Money Matters. Yet, Boomers have very mixed emotions about their finances. Despite our worries, few of us have calculated the actual amount of income we will need in retirement, and fewer still have figured out how much savings we need to produce that income. But many Boomers say they already have downsized their lifestyle and curtailed spending so they will have enough money in their sunset years. Many have also come to terms with the prospect of delayed retirement, and say they are willing to either stay in their current jobs longer, or work at least part time in retirement in order to make ends meet.

     Message Delivered. Boomers in general cite a desire for a simpler, less expensive lifestyle. That dovetails nicely with the fact that many do not have enough savings to support their current spending in retirement. The Boomer desire to continue working in some way during retirement also helps. Still, with the mobility of modern life and the fraying of American families, many Boomers wonder who will take care of them when they eventually become old and incapacitated.

     Meanwhile, some 70% of current retirees rely on Social Security for at least half of their income. Yet almost 80% of Boomers worry that the future of Social Security is in jeopardy, and a third believe that in 20 years Social Security as we know it will be a thing of the past.

     So what are you worried about? To me, it seems that among all the different anxieties, one message rings out loud and clear:  Protect Social Security and Medicare . . . on behalf of all of us.

$185 Worth of Medical Advice

     I had my annual physical the other day. I decided to go to my primary care physician (which my medical group told me would cost $185) rather than a physician's assistant (which would have been free of charge), for two reasons. I went to this doctor last year for the first time, and there were a few little issues that came up, and so I wanted to follow up on them with the same doctor. The other reason? Well, to be blunt, I figured a doctor would know more medicine, and give me a more authoritative checkup.

     The long and short of it is ... I'm fine. I have no idea if the doctor gave me any better service than a PA would have done. Still, I like the idea of developing a relationship with my doctor, however slight, so he knows my body and my history, and therefore is more likely to sense if and when something is "off." I had that kind of relationship with my old doctor, who I'd been seeing for about 20 years. Unfortunately -- and tragically -- my old doctor, who was the same age as me, got an aggressive form of cancer a little less than two years ago and he died within six months.

     So last year I found a new doctor in the same medical group. He's in his early 40s, and looks very young to me, but I have to believe he knows what he's doing.

     Anyway, I'll pass on a couple of insights from my visit (at no charge!). First, I went in looking for a shingles shot. My sister has been pushing this on me for a while. She got the shingles vaccine a couple of years ago. "You know, Dad got shingles before he died," she reminded me. "So I got a shingles shot, and you should get one too." (In case you're wondering, she's my older sister, and so has no reservations about trying to boss me around.)

     But instead, I came out of the doctor's office with a shot for pneumonia. My doctor said I could get the shingles shot, and yes, he did recommend it for people my age. But his enthusiasm for the shingles shot seemed somewhat measured, while he thought the pneumonia shot was more of a must-have. Honestly, he thought my risk profile for either disease is very low. Nevertheless, he said, if you get shingles, it can be painful. But pneumonia can kill you.

     I could have had both vaccines at the same time. But I decided to get the pneumonia shot now (it's a one-time vaccination); and do the shingles shot next year.

     The other thing he told me is that the scholarly literature has suggested that annual physicals do not, in the aggregate, extend our life expectancy. There are two theories. The annual physical approach is based on early detection. The doctor catches something early, and therefore is more likely to be able to cure it, or at least manage it. The problem is that there are many false positives, resulting in a lot of unnecessary medical tests and treatments, which (again in the aggregate) can often cause more harm than good.

     The other theory says you wait until something goes wrong. Then medicine runs it down, and in most cases is able to treat it successfully.

     All that may be true. But here's my story. I had my first colonoscopy at age 51, and the doctor found a precancerous polyp. He removed it, and I went on with my life. If it hadn't been detected, and was left to develop into cancer, I'd probably be dead by now. So I am firmly in the camp of early detection.
   
     The other advice the doctor had for me? He said that all we know about improving and extending our lives can essentially be boiled down to one paragraph. Eat a good diet with plenty of fluids, fruits and vegetables, and get a decent amount of exercise on a regular basis.

     And so with that ... I'm heading to the gym.

A Slice of Boomer Life

     What are you gonna do . . . we all get older. This serving of the Best of Baby Boomer blogs offers a generous helping of advice about how to cope with the perils and pitfalls of aging -- and the opportunities that go with them.

     Aging can be a bummer (do you have trouble driving at night?), but Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting prefers to concentrate on the positive aspects of life at a mature age, such as being able to go on vacation whenever you want. Check out her post A Retiree’s Life to get all the details -- which (if I'm interpreting her correctly) allows us to eat all the chocolate cake we want, whenever we want.

     Could that possibly be right?

     On a more realistic note, record numbers of Baby Boomers are retiring, and Rita R. Robison, blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, realizes that many Boomers are business owners who plan to cash out and use the proceeds to fund their retirement. But she says:  Not so fast! More than 80 percent of business owners have no formal transition plan, and, in the end, only about 25 percent of businesses up for sale actually do sell.

     Those odds are likely to become worse as millions of Baby Boomers attempt to sell their businesses over the next decade in what she terms an "exit bubble." Combine the lack of readiness with the historically low success rate for selling a business, and you could be looking at a perfect storm for business owners. So in an attempt to help them out, she enlisted guest author Tensie Homan, a CPA, to offer Five Tips for Selling Your Business.

     

     Next we move on to smaller, more compact matters. According to Amy Blitchok at Modern Senior the recent release of AARP’s tablet, the RealPad, was a bit of a bust. So in her post Great Deals on Tablets for Seniors she offers some recommendations for the best affordable tablets that are perfect for seniors -- and people of any age or skill level -- who want to use a tablet to communicate with their families, share photos and check email.

     Laura Lee, aka the Midlife Crisis Queen, poses more philosophical questions. First of all, in How We Boomers Have Changed with Our Culture and the Music, she contrasts the "pathetically optimistic" tunes of our childhood with the grittier lyrics of more recent times, and wonders if our taste in music has evolved with our worldly wisdom.

     Then (to add insult to injury), she recently walked into a restaurant. The server immediately assumed she was there for the Senior Special, which left a bad taste in her mouth, and made her ponder Do I Really Look Like a Senior Now?

     Finally, on a more serious note, Kathy, at Smart Living, reveals that she is a former smoker in Why I'm a Grateful Quitter. "No I won’t pretend it was ever smart or healthy," she says, "but back when I was a smoker we didn’t think much about it." Yet she admits that every time she coughed she suspected there would be a price to pay.

     Kathy quit over 25 years ago. But her mom wasn't as lucky, and she paid for it with her life. That’s why today Kathy is a strong supporter of the Great American Smokeout and its theme “Quit Together. Win Together.” The smokeout event occurs every year on the third Thursday of November, which this year falls on November 20. As Kathy concludes, "I don’t regret much in my life but I do regret not being able to help my mother quit so we could both have won against this addiction together."