The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Best wishes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Over the years, I’ve written more than a dozen articles for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They included his most famous quotes, how a day to celebrate King was finally approved, and how it’s a day of service, not a day off.

But one of ones I liked the best was on King’s commitment to eliminating poverty. I found it when I did research on what were King’s thoughts about consumers. In his last book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” written in 1967, King said programs to improve housing and education and to offer counseling to families were sporadically funded and uncoordinated. And, in addition, he said such programs are indirect. Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else.

King supported a guaranteed income for all Americans in his book.

Baby boomers enjoying the New Year and making plans for 2020

Last week, I was fortunate to be able to attend a conference in San Diego on women’s history. Sponsored by the National Women’s History Alliance, an organization that promotes women’s history, the conference featured discussions on how to plan activities to celebrate the 100^th anniversary this year of women getting the vote in 1920.

The Washington delegation offered a presentation on “From Bloomers to Short Shorts: A Brief History of the Right to Wear Pants.” I portrayed Fay Fuller, who, in 1890, was the first known woman to climb Mount Rainier.

Boomer bloggers in the Best of Boomer Blogs are also writing about what’s up for 2020:

Tom at Sightings Over Sixty came across several new state rankings for retirement in 2020. So this week he puts them all together and gives us the highlights and the low lights about retirement meccas from Hawaii to Florida to Vermont. Check out "Best States to Retire In – 2020" to see if your state made the Top Ten Best List, or Top Ten Worst list.

For the New Year, Jennifer Koshak of Unfold and Begin writes about trying new things. Whether it’s eating at a new restaurant, starting a new job, or buying a new pair of shoes, we’ve all tried new things in our lives. It’s part of life and it’s part of growing up. But sometimes, when we're about to start something new, we become unsure and let fear creep in. Koshak discusses why it's important to try new things in “When Was the Last Time You Tried Something New.”

Carol Cassara of A Healing Spirit has a tip if learning is on your list of 2020 resolutions. Cassara was relieved to know that yoga can be practiced without having to contort one's body in unnatural (or natural) poses. She tells us we don't have to use our body at all to be a yogi in “How Can You Practice Karma Yoga.”

Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting began the New Year by traveling once again. Baer spent a lot of time on the road the past two weeks not driving, or rather not necessarily moving along. Her trip began with a bit of a problem at the airport, as she recounts in this week’s post, "Winter Brea(down – Almost)."

For the New Year, Rebecca Olkowski with BabyBoomster.com has updated her best online exercise programs for women over 50 as she’s found some new and exciting programs you can enjoy from the comfort of your home. 

Laurie Stone of Musings, Rants & Scribbles, on the other hand, tell us about an activity that she admits to liking throughout the year. She eavesdrops sometimes. She tries not to, but can’t help it. And her favorite place for eavesdropping is her local java joint. She's there for lunch an embarrassing amount of time. (O.K., almost every day). She brings her laptop and works. But here’s the interesting thing. Fascinating insights can be gleaned by “accidentally” listening into the following groups…

This is the Best of Boomer Blogs #632. Click on the links to read these great articles. And, be sure to join in the conversations. Boomer bloggers love to hear from readers.

Copyright 2020, Rita R. Robison, Consumer and Personal Finance Journalist

Pharmaceutical companies raise the prices of more than 250 drugs as of Jan. 1

Big pharmaceutical corporations, including Gilead, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline, have hiked the prices of more than 250 prescription drugs as of Jan. 1. Annual and biannual price increases on existing medicines have become a standard practice of brand-name pharma corporations, said Steven Knievel, access to medicines advocate for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

It’s a new decade, but it’s business as usual for prescription drug corporations, Knievel said.

“Tweets and half-baked proposals from President Donald Trump are not stopping Big Pharma from price gouging consumers,” he said.

Top consumer stories for 2019

As usual, most of the end-of-the-year, round-up articles are about national issues or corporations. If consumers are mentioned, it’s usually about how they’re responding to some corporation.

For the most part, it’s been a grim year for consumers. With the Trump administration that is so probusiness and anti-consumer, the not much is happening for consumers that's positive.

1. President Donald Trump is impeached.

We have a president who puts his personal interests above the public interest. He tried to bribe the Ukrainian president to get him to investigate a political rival. As a result, he’s been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. This is incredible.

How a percentage of the American can support Trump is a great mystery to me. He and his administration announce anti-consumer proposals almost daily.

In addition, we have a president who lies. Since he was elected, Trump has told more than 15,000 false or misleading claims. In 2019, he’s said that the U.S. economy today is the best in history, he passed the biggest tax cut in history, the U.S. has lost money on trade deficits, article II of the Constitution lets him do whatever he wants, windmills cause cancer, and toilet flushes are up. All are untrue.

2. Consumer rights and programs are under continual attack from President Trump and his administration.

The Republican conservatives want to reduce the size of government and give corporations more power. Almost daily, we read about how the Trump administration has done it or is planning to do it. Some examples include:

• The Trump administration’s decision to roll back light bulb standards will cost consumers billions.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rule speeding up pork lines and reducing inspectors endangers the lives and safety of consumers and workers. 
• Corporations keep breaking the law due to declining federal prosecutions.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and seven states launch an “innovation network” that will approve new, risky financial products and protect them from enforcement.
• The CFPB fails consumers by not carrying out the payday lending rule.
• Fewer children’s products were recalled in 2018.
• Under Trump, enforcement of consumer financial laws drops sharply, especially in areas with the highest complaints.

The list goes on and on. Government regulations and programs help consumers. Reducing the size of government and slashing consumer regulations just helps corporations make more profits at the expense of consumers.

President Trump is impeached

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I’m not a fan of the Trump administration. As it works to dismantle our government institutions and slash consumer and environmental protections, consumers are put in a worse position every day.

In my opinion, it’s a good thing that the U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump. The House centered it’s investigation on the Ukraine travesty of bribery and obstruction of Congress for withholding documents and witnesses during the investigations.

To me there could have been many more items on which Trump could be impeached. Abuses of power and putting personal interest above the public interest occur regularly in the Trump administration.

TV junk food advertising aimed at kids continues to increase, study shows

An analysis of 72 hours of children’s television programming in 2018 found that junk-food marketing hasn’t decreased since 2012, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. Almost all the food and beverage advertisements reviewed during CSPI's analysis were for unhealthy products, as defined by nutrition standards developed by a federal interagency task force. The lack of progress comes despite the adoption in 2013 of uniform nutrition standards by an industry self-regulatory group.

In 2018, CSPI researchers recorded six hours of children’s television programming on each of the 12 biggest channels that offer it. Twenty-three percent of all the ads during the six hours were for foods or beverages, up from 14 percent in 2012. Restaurants were the top category of food and drink advertised to kids, 35 percent; followed by candy, 22 percent; breakfast cereals, 12 percent; beverages, 10 percent; and snack foods, 6 percent.

Ninety-nine percent of the food and beverage ads – 362 out of 364 – were for items that wouldn’t have met the nutrition standards developed by the Obama administration’s Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Kids, whose voluntary recommendations were abandoned due to intense industry lobbying.

Be sure to vote today

It’s Election Day throughout the nation in most places, and states are having important local elections. Be sure to research carefully who to vote for in these races. The people who run your city, county, and schools are important to your life and the lives of your family.

In addition, governors will be elected in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. State legislative elections also will be held in Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi as well as for the General Assembly, the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature. Special elections are also being held to fill state legislative seats vacated due to retirement, death, resignation, or election to another office.

On ballot measures, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, voters will consider a ballot initiative to change how seats in the legislature are apportioned. In Washington state, voters will decide on Referendum 88, a measure that would allow affirmative action policies in public education, employment, and contracting, and Initiative 976, which would reduce car tabs to $30. In Pennsylvania, voters will consider a constitutional amendment to adopt Marsy’s Law protections for crime victims.

Baby boomers offer practical tips and talk friendship and politics

It’s so cold here in the Seattle area that I’m wearing my winter coat again. And, it’s Election Day Tuesday, another indication that November is here.

As we move toward Thanksgiving, baby boomers are writing about:

• How to reignite your passion for things that you love doing.
• What people can do when they feel overwhelmed.
• The benefits of organic food.
• How to create a blog for business purposes.
• A discussion of politics in a New Jersey.
• A visit from a friend in a dream.

Laurie Stone of Musings, Rants & Scribbles describes these articles on the Best of Boomer Blogs #621. Click here to get the links to the articles. In addition, please join the conversations. Boomer bloggers love to hear from readers.

Copyright 2019, Rita R. Robison, Consumer and Personal Finance Journalist

How the meat industry pressures federal regulators for less inspection, which compromises the safety of the food supply – Part 3

This is the third article in a three-part series on meat inspection. Part 1 reports on tours I took of two beef facilities, a slaughterhouse and a meat processing plant. Part 2 includes interviews with those who favor and oppose new USDA inspection procedures and proposals that reduce the amount of inspection from federal meat inspectors. The articles were written when I was a consumer food columnist for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. The articles were rejected by newspaper editors and never published.

It was a huge surprise this spring when I read articles that the Trump administration was proposing rules for pig slaughter that would speed up production lines, giving less time to spot contamination, and permit pork processing plants to operate with fewer federal inspectors, putting more of the responsibility to ensure food safety on the companies themselves.

These were among proposals made under the Reagan administration in 1984 to cut costs that I wrote about.

How the meat industry pressures federal regulators for less inspection, which compromises the safety of the food supply – Part 2

This is the second article in a three-part series on meat inspection. The article was written in 1984 and submitted to The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, where I worked as a consumer food columnist, but it was never published. I’m posting the article on my blog to show that the meat industry has been pressuring federal regulators for decades to reduce inspection by government inspectors.

Article 1 in the series, “How the Meat Industry Pressures Federal Regulators for Less Inspection, Which Compromises the Safety of the Food Supply – Part 1,” describes my tours of Washington Beef’s slaughterhouse in Toppenish and processing plant in Union Gap.

Article 2 includes interviews with those who favor and oppose the new USDA inspection procedures.