Baby

Boomers and Retirement.

In

a recent press release on "The New Retirement Survey"- James

P. Gorman, president of Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group relayed

a couple of interesting finding on baby boomers and their impending

retirement.

Mr. Gordon said,

"Baby boomers fundamentally will reinvent retirement. With boomers

living longer and remaining engaged and employed beyond age 65, many

of the traditional financial assumptions regarding retirement need to

be re-examined".

Interesting points

that emerged from the survey were:

The unpredictable

cost of illness and healthcare is by far the biggest fear. Baby boomers

are three times more worried about major illness (48), winding up in a nursing home (48).

Due to increased

longevity, baby boomers will create a whole new life stage. Since the

"normal" retirement age was established way back the average

life expectancy of a retiree has increased by 7 years.

Since most baby

boomers should be past the seven year itch phase I wonder what we could

call these 7 years. Hopefully they won't be the 7 lean years.

To most people retirement

always appears as a distant responsibility and many people are caught

with lack of sufficient funds to retire financially secure.

I've always found

it tragic that our seniors end up on the outskirts of society, their

accumulated wisdom going to waste, outcasts of a society that worships

the beautiful and fresh.

I do however have

a lot of faith in the ingenuity of baby boomers, it has definitely been

one of the most relevant and vibrant generations, it will be interesting

to see how we handle and improve retirement.

One thing that is

becoming apparent is that many baby boomers are planning to continue

working and being productive during their retirement years, with technology

becoming more widely used, the Internet a whole new business arena is

evolving and becoming available to baby boomers.

Judging from some

of the online business opportunities out there, there are numerous very

effective and proven paint by numbers business plans which could easily

be operated from home or your favorite coffee shop, with tremendous

income potential.

In the USA alone

a new millionaire is made everyday in the direct selling, network marketing

industry. We are seeing a steady influx of baby boomers into these arenas,

learning from the technology savvy younger generations and complimenting

it with their vast knowledge and experience.

I'm positive that

harnessing technology and future advancements baby boomers will effectively

overcome all the challenges facing them as they embrace this new chapter

of their lives.