The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Obama did a better job this year of addressing consumer needs in his State of the Union speech

By Rita R. Robison

Maybe it was Occupy Wall Street or just the fact that he’s finally getting the message that consumers are suffering, but President Obama’s State of the Union address contained more for consumers this year than his 2011 speech.

Obama talked about the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its role in keeping an eye on credit card, payday loan, and mortgage companies.

He also said he will set up a unit in the Justice Department, which will work with leading state attorneys general, to investigate the business practices that led to the housing crisis. This action is long overdue, but at least it’s happening.

On income equality, Obama suggested that millionaires pay more in taxes, at least the same percentage that average Americans pay. He suggested a rate of 30 percent.

Obama also talked about creating jobs, in clean energy and through public works projects, and the importance of keeping the slowly growing economy moving in a positive direction.

While Obama received lots of applause when he talked about cutting government programs and spending, it’s not an easy task to figure out how to make government leaner and work better.

Not so positive for consumers was Obama’s support of offshore drilling for oil and his willingness to work with Congress to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits.    

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Obama appoints another chief of staff who lobbied against consumer interests

Obama, Bill Daley, and Jacob Lew

By Rita R. Robison

It was disappointing to learn that President Obama’s new chief of staff, Jacob Lew, will be the second appointment to the position with ties to Wall Street.

Lew, currently Obama’s budget director, headed the "alternative investments" division at Citigroup, a team that handled private equity investments, hedge fund bets, and massive gambles on subprime mortgages.

Lew's tenure as head of Citi's unit was disastrous, according to The Huffington Post article “Bill Daley Resigning: Obama Chief of Staff Stepping Down.” Although he personally earned $1.1 million for his efforts, the division lost $501 million in a single quarter of 2008.

As part of the 2010 Wall Street reform efforts, Obama supported legislation to ban banks such as Citi from taking part in such highly risky activities, with a regulation known as the Volcker Rule. It's part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Bill Daley was the head lobbyist for JPMorgan Chase, the nation's second-largest bank, which issued at least $30 billion in subprime mortgages during the housing frenzy that led to the Great Recession. During his work at JPMorgan, Daley lobbied against the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Daley also has ties to the pharmaceutical industry, serving as a director of Abbott Laboratories for several years after leaving the Clinton administration, where he was secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

By selecting Lew to be his new chief of staff, Obama is replaced one opponent the Dodd-Frank with another.

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, is glad to see Daley go.

“Dailey served as the Big Business conduit to the highest levels of the White House,” Public Citizen said in a statement. “He never should have been brought in...

The group wants Lew not serve as a Big Business channel to the president in the way Daley did, but to carry out policies in the consumer interest:

It’s long past time for the Obama administration to abandon its unrequited affection for Wall Street and Corporate America. We live in populist times – enormous economic, political, and ecological crises call out for populist policies that are both right on the merits and strongly favored by the public. Now’s the time for the administration finally to pursue a populist agenda.

I agree. Consumers must exercise their power in the halls of government to combat the tremendous amounts of money that the banks and business interests pour into the coffers of the nation’s lawmakers.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Obama’s recess appointment of financial bureau chief is a good step for consumers

By Rita R. Robison

Yesterday, President Obama appointed Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a recess appointment.

While Cordray isn’t Elizabeth Warren, who conservatives saw as too powerful for the job, getting him appointed to lead the new agency is important for consumers.

After the housing market collapse due to fancy footwork by the mortgage industry and Wall Street and the ensuing Great Recession, Warren saw the need for an agency that would be a watch dog for consumers in credit card, mortgage, and payday loan transactions.

Warren served as interim director of the agency and hired Cordray to be its top enforcement officer.

Previously, consumers filed complaints with a number of different federal agencies, including those regulating different kinds of banks, with varying results.

Speaking yesterday in Ohio, where Cordray served as attorney general and state treasurer, Obama said:

When Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them. I’ve got an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve. Not with so much at stake, not at this make-or-break moment for middle-class Americans. We’re not going to let that happen.

The Constitution gives the president authority to make temporary recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is in recess. The Senate has been in recess for weeks. But, in an attempt to prevent the president from exercising his authority, Republican Senators have tried to use “pro forma” sessions, sessions during which no Senate business is conducted and one or two Senators gavel in and out of session quickly. Legal experts agree that the Senate can’t use sham “pro forma” sessions to prevent the president from exercising a constitutional power.

Without a director, the agency was unable to regulate non-bank financial businesses including payday lenders, mortgage companies, and debt collection agencies.

Conservatives want to further weaken the bureau by having it run by a five-member commission and its budget approved by Congress rather than the Federal Reserve.

For more information on the new federal bureau, see “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 101: Why We Need a Consumer Watchdog.”

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

How sisters and brothers shape our lives

By Rita R. Robison

Being the youngest of three girls, sibling relations always intrigue me.

When I saw Jeffrey Kluger ’s book, “The Siblings Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us,” I wanted to learn more.

Kluger, a senior writer and editor at Time Magazine, wrote the book because he believes sibling relationships are, in many ways, the most important relationship in our lives. They’re also, he said, the last unexplored frontier of family relationships.

It was only in about 2005 that the field of sibling research began to develop. The more he read about it, the more Kluger thought that it was a field worth exploring.

This led to two cover stories he wrote for Time – one in 2006 on sibling science and one in 2007 on birth order.

Among the findings in Kluger’s book:

• Firstborns are smarter. If you’re a firstborn, chances are you’re the smartest sibling in the family, with a 3-point IQ advantage over the second born. The second born, in turn, has a 1.5-point advantage over the third. But don’t worry if you’re the last of 12: The IQ decline flattens out after three or four children.

• Men with sisters are better listeners. Men who grew up with sisters are generally rated by female dates to be better listeners than men raised only with brothers. Women who grew up with brothers, similarly, are considered by male dates to be tougher and more easygoing than women who grew up with only sisters.

• Younger siblings are more empathetic. If you’re the youngest or physically smallest in your family, you may be better than your siblings at intuiting other people’s thoughts and feelings. This kind of interpersonal antenna is what psychologists call a “low-power strategy” – a way of countering the high-power strategy of a bigger or older sibling.

• The benefits of siblings helping to raise siblings – and why some cultures benefit more than others. Older children help to co-parent their younger siblings in all cultures. But, that tradition has remained much stronger in some cultures than in others, and both older and younger siblings benefit as a result. Among native Hawaiians, for example, co-parenting siblings not only improve their academic performance and their parenting skills, but also learn primal lessons about empathy, generosity, and selflessness. Chinese Americans benefit in similar ways and have also been shown to develop less depression in their teen years than kids who have been given little or no responsibility for their younger siblings.

• Smoking, alcohol, drugs – and especially pregnancy – are contagious.  The presence of an older smoking sibling makes a younger one four times likelier to start. The same is true of drugs and alcohol. For teenage pregnancy, the problem is even worse: A younger sister is five times likelier to be a teen mom if her older sister is one already.

• Why athletes and actors follow scholars. Good students don’t necessarily skip generations, but they may skip birth-order spots in nuclear families. If a first-born is a straight-A student, a second-born may excel at something else – sports or theater, for example. This so-called de-identification is a way of being recognized for something unique to you.

• Singletons aren’t deprived. Singletons who tend to double-down on their relationships with their friends and cousins usually make up for the lack of in-house peers. Singletons also tend to develop better vocabularies and more sophisticated senses of humor since conversation and TV choices in the home are likelier to reflect the parents’ preferences. In addition, studies show that they do as well, if not better than, children with siblings by virtually any measure.

• Birth order can be dangerous to your health. Surveys show that younger siblings are less likely to be vaccinated than older ones. Kids with at least two older siblings are 50 percent likelier than other children to be taken to an emergency room with asthma-related breathing problems, probably due to infectious agents brought into the home by the older children. Second and third children also have a higher risk of diabetes than their firstborn siblings, with a 43 percent increase in cases for every five years of maternal age at birth.

• Keep up your sibling relationships – they’re the only ones that last a lifetime. As life spans get longer and more people are making it into old age – often having lost a spouse – sibling relationships are more important than ever. If your relationships with your siblings are good, keep them that way. If they’re not, work to repair them.

Copyright 2011, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling will harm consumers

By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Like many, I am relieved that Congress finally passed something to raise the debt limit. Like many, I don’t think the deal was that great.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said the compromise is bad for consumers:

The deal that has been struck is not balanced, as I would have preferred.  It does achieve the laudable goal of reducing the deficit, but does so with only cuts, even though a significant majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, favor closing loopholes for corporations and tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to make sure everyone is paying their fair share.

AARP said the organization is gratified that the President and Congress didn’t cut Social Security, Medicare, and long-term care in the first round of deficit reduction. Its CEO A. Barry Rand said:

We are concerned that a fast-track committee process will deny Americans a voice in the discussion about critical tax, health, and retirement issues. We also are concerned about the potential use of a trigger that would arbitrarily cut provider payments under Medicare, which could unfairly shift costs to seniors.

Seniors have worked their entire lives to achieve a level of health and economic security in retirement… With the compounded effect of loss of retirement savings and home equity, high unemployment, and rising health care costs, cuts to the benefits seniors have earned could undermine the standard of living of not just those with limited incomes, but middle class seniors who have median incomes of only $18,500.

All the hype and angst about raising the debt ceiling certainly has left consumers demoralized. Republicans made it clear that they favor what corporations want – smaller, weaker government – rather than what consumers need – getting Main Street back on its feet.

We’ll just have to see what happens next. Republicans seem to want to bring the workings of the country to a standstill, just because a Democrat was elected president in 2008. I sincerely hope that they won’t bring the economy to its knees again.

Copyright 2011, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

How to figure out new coupon groups such as Groupon

 

By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Since I’m interested in coupons, I signed up for Groupon. The offers it sends me look good, but I have to pay money to get them. What is Groupon anyway?

Groupon is a group buying club. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, it gets discounts for its members. Groupon serves members nationwide, some coupon groups service one or two cities.

Groupon, which recently rejected an offer from Google to buy it, is facing competition from Living Social, which is backed by Amazon.com. Facebook recently launched its own daily-deal program for five markets, and Google is trying out coupons in several test markets.

With so many choices, how do you know when you’re getting a good deal? Andrea Woroch, consumer savings specialist, offers eight ways to get the most out of your deal-of-the-day:

1. Location

While the larger group-buying companies have expanded into smaller cities, many deals are still offered only for metropolitan areas. Before selecting an offer, consider whether you'll really make that long drive before the expiration date.

2. Travel destinations

You don't always need to live near a deal location to use the coupon. Check out potential vouchers for places you'll visit on your next vacation. You can save from 50 to 70 percent by taking advantage of group offers for restaurants, spa services, entertainment, and museum admissions.

3. Combine offers

Put together your own special deal by applying coupons and discounted gift cards to those deal-of-the-day vouchers.

4. Worthwhile deals

If you're going out of your way to try a new business, check its website to see if it has any similar offers on an everyday basis. You'll also want to compare prices at businesses you prefer regularly to figure out if the deal is really worthwhile.

5. Restaurant coupon comparisons

Many coupon offers are for restaurant meals at a discount. Some require you buy two meals to receive the deal of the day. Before you click on the offer, always review the rules and restrictions for the vouchers and look for restaurant coupons on other sites to see if you can beat the offer without paying anything.

6. Figure in the tip

Group-buying deals for services don't include the amount of money you'll spend on a tip. You'll need to tip 15 to 20 percent on the full cost of the service, not the reduced amount you paid. Keep this in mind when considering purchasing the offer.

7. Plan ahead for gifts

Some offers have extended expiration dates and would make great gifts for many occasions. You'll need to match the gift to the recipient. Free spa services or dinner at a nice restaurant are gifts many people would enjoy to celebrate a special event.

8. Resale value

People sometimes sell vouchers on sites such as Lifestra to others for a profit once the deal is no longer available.

This works well if you're the one selling, but you might want to check the original price if you're the one buying.

Good luck using these new coupon clubs. Let me know in the Comment section below if you've received any hot deals.

Copyright 2011, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Elizabeth Taylor memorabilia sold at premium prices likely to decrease in value

By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Be extremely careful if you’re going to buy Elizabeth Taylor memorabilia and commemorative items following the death of American movie star icon, warns the Better Business Bureau.

For more information, see my article on AOL’s Consumer Ally “Planning to Buy Elizabeth Taylor Memorabilia? Don’t Do It for Investment.”

Copyright 2011, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Top 10 hopeful stories for 2010 for consumers and the environment

One thing that cheers me up every year is going to the Green Festival in Seattle sponsored by Green America and other organizations.

It was at my first Green Festival that I met David Korten, cofounder of the Positive Futures Network which publishes Yes! Magazine. Korten, an economist, believes decision making needs to be shifted from global corporations to local communities so everyone can experience healthy, joyful living.

The Green Festival concentrates on what’s being accomplished to heal the earth and its people. I always go home inspired rather than feeling despair, as I often do after watching TV news.

As 2010 draws to a close, Sarah Van Gelder, executive editor of Yes! Magazine, offers these stories as the most hopeful of the year:

1. Climate crisis response takes a new direction, with indigenous people, climate activists, and grassroots leaders offering a solution to the climate crisis based on a recognition of the rights of Mother Earth.

2. Wikileaks lifts the veil on U.S. government actions around the world, offering data points for a bracing, reality-based conversation on the future of war.

3. Momentum is building for the abolition of nuclear weapons with the ratification of the START Treaty.

4. Resilience is the new watchword, as familiar sources of security erode and people are rebuilding their communities to be green and resilient.

5. Health care is still in play, as a federal judge strikes down the individual mandate in the Obama health care package, some advocate the expansion of Medicare to cover more people – or everyone, and Vermont explores adopting a statewide single-payer healthcare system.

6. Corporate power is challenged, as small businesses distance themselves from the Chamber of Commerce and towns and cities declare that the rights of people and nature supersede the rights of corporations.

7. A local economy movement is taking off, as it becomes clear that the corporate economy is a net drain on the well-being of people, the environment, communities, and jobs.

8. Cooperatives are making a comeback, as new model for local, just, and green job creation is gaining national attention.

9. A turn away from homophobia is occurring with the revoking of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the widespread adoption of anti-bullying campaigns.

10. Social movements provide the best hope, as movement leaders are connecting the dots between Wall Street’s plunder, growing poverty, and the climate crisis, and setting priorities instead for people and the planet.

See "10 Most Hopeful Stories of 2010" for more information.

Copyright 2010, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Happy birthday baby boomer President Barack Obama

 

It’s president Obama’s birthday. He’s 49 today. And he's still a baby boomer, although he doesn't describe himself as a boomer.

Obama has only been president for 19 months. However, with so much opposition and screaming from the Republican Party about anything he’s tried to do, it seems like years.

What has Obama accomplished for baby boomer consumers? Modest reforms in health care and in the regulation of financial institutions. I’m disappointed the work on oil spill and energy legislation has been halted until after the congressional summer break.

So much more needs to be done to improve the position of consumers in American, especially for baby boomers who have postponed retirement, been laid off and need to find new jobs, or lost their homes.

Obama and Congress have only accomplished a few of the items on a list I compiled after President Obama’s Inauguration in early January of 2009. More action is needed on consumer issues.

Let’s hope the Republicans can put aside their business interests and do something to help consumers, too. I think it’s shocking that not much assistance has been given to homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages, but banks and the auto industry have been given billions of federal bail-out dollars.

What do you think?

Copyright 2010, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Newsman Daniel Schorr had a life many baby boomers want to emulate

Flickr Photo by Michael Foley

As a regular listener of National Public Radio, I often marveled at Daniel Schorr as he continued his news commentary into his 90s.

It’s the type of life many baby boomers want to experience as they grow older: continue making a contribution until they pass away.

Thank you, Daniel Schorr, for your wisdom and insight.

As a journalist, I appreciated Schorr’s work and professionalism.

Schorr died today at the age of 93. See “Journalism Legend Daniel Schorr Dies at 93” for an account of his life and work.

Copyright 2010, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist