The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Facts and figures for the holidays 2019: Travel

A record number of Americans  – 115.6 million – will travel this holiday season. That’s an increase of 3.9 percent over last year, or 4.3 million more people taking a holiday getaway, according to AAA.

Auto

More than 104 million of those holiday travelers will drive to their destinations and delays to be the worst on Thursday, Dec. 26, INRIX, a transportation analytics company, predicts. The number of Americans driving for the holidays is up 3.9 percent or 3.9 million people compared with last year.

Gas prices steadily declined in November. AAA expects most motorists will see gas prices drop before the New Year, but gas prices will likely be slightly more expensive than last December’s national gas price average of $2.37.

Air travel

With 4.9 percent growth, air travel will see the biggest increase in travel volume during the year-end holidays, with 6.97 million Americans expected to fly – the most since 2003.

Number of retirees with mortgages increases dramatically

Retirement is different than it used to be. Many more retirees are still trying to pay off their homes.

One of four homeowners 30 years ago who were in their late 60s and 70s still had a mortgage. These days, nearly half have one. When people turned 80, mortgages used to be unusual, with just 3 percent being mortgage holders. These days, one in four of these older seniors have mortgages, according to “Housing America’s Older Adults 2019,” a report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

Seniors who have paid off their homes have more money to spend, which improves their standard of living in retirement.

Watch out for flood-damaged used vehicles in the Washington, D.C., area

With thousands of vehicles in a Monday storm, which released a month’s worth of rain in an hour, flood damaged vehicles in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area could run in the hundreds.

“While, hopefully, these vehicles will have their titles marked flood damaged and go to salvage yards, many will likely re-enter the market as used cars,” said Jack Gillis, the Consumer Federation of America’s executive director and author of “The Car Book.”

Because of the computerization, electronics, and sophisticated safety technology found in today’s vehicles, it’s critical that you avoid getting stuck with one of these lemons, Gillis said.

Carnival fined after admitting dumping garbage in the ocean, again

Princess Cruise Lines and its parent, Carnival Cruise Lines, were ordered to pay a $20 million criminal penalty Monday and will be under more supervision after admitting to violations of its probation related to dumping waste into the ocean.

Princess was convicted and sentenced in April 2017, after pleading guilty to felony charges after dumping oil-contaminated waste from one of its ships in the ocean and then covering it up. While serving five years of probation, all Carnival ships using U.S. ports were required to comply with an environmental compliance plan, including audits by an independent company and oversight by a court monitor. Many violations have been identified by the company, the outside auditor, and the court’s monitor during the first two years of probation, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Carnival admitted it was guilty of committing six violations of its probation. Two of the violations involved sending teams to ships to prepare them for inspections during probation. When the court found out about this in December 2017, a federal district court judge ordered that the practice to be stopped and additional inspections were ordered. However, a second program was started shortly after that. The purpose of the programs were to avoid adverse findings during the inspections.

How government regulations help consumers

Conservatives rail against government regulations, and the Trump administration is doing its best every day to cut government regulations that corporations hate.

However, government regulations help consumers. A report by the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards lists 10 worker, health, safety, and transportation standards that could help consumers this summer.

“Summer is supposed to be when we take time off from work to spend with family and friends, enjoy picnics, barbeques and cookouts, lay out by the pool, head to the beach, take road trips across the country or fly to far-flung places,” the report says. “But what happens if you’ve been deprived of the wages needed to take time off or travel, if road trips, flights and tour boats are potentially dangerous, if it’s way too hot to work or play outside, and there’s a good chance the food and water may be hazardous to your health? Suddenly, summertime looks less like a dreamy vacation and more like a scorching hot nightmare.”

The regulations discussed in the report are:

Baby boomers learn life skills over time

Baby boomers have learned how to navigate life through all its obstacles and challenges. Each time something happens, a new life skill is learned. Sometimes new knowledge comes from nowhere and is greatly appreciated. It’s what makes life interesting and how boomers survive and thrive.

Our baby boomer bloggers have been picking up life skill because they’ve had to involuntarily or have passed milestones that require them.

Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski of Babyboomster reports recent boomer bloggers articles are:

Pedestrians: Pay attention when crossing the street and don’t eat pizza

As a careful driver, I’m very respectful of pedestrians. I know they have the right of way in the crosswalk and can cross at any corner, even if a crosswalk isn’t painted there. I always stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.

However, I’m becoming impatient with pedestrians who stroll across the street, look at their cell phones, and eat pizza.

Yes, eat pizza. This week, a young woman began crossing the street carrying a pizza box. I was poised to make a free right turn, which is legal in Washington state, but I waited for her instead trying to beat her through the crosswalk.

I’ll be darned if she didn’t open the pizza box, take out a slice, and begin eating it as she crossed. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t honk. Next time, I’m going to lay on the horn.

Thousands of pedestrians killed each year

In 2016, 5,987 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This averages to one crash-related pedestrian death every 1.5 hours.

Delta tops airlines ratings for 2018

Delta Air Lines is No. 1, and JetBlue is No. 2, according to the 29th annual Airline Quality Rating released Monday.

Key findings show that three of the four factors tracked – involuntary denied boardings, mishandled bags, and customer complaints – improved for the airline industry in 2018. However, on-time performance slipped last year.

This year’s report also reveals the lowest rate of bumped passengers, the lowest rate of mishandled baggage, and the lowest rate of customer complaints for the industry since the Airline Quality Rating started in 1991.

Trump’s government shutdown is disrupting agencies that protect consumers, workers, health, and safety

Consumer, worker, health, and safety protection agencies throughout the federal government are being disrupted by federal worker furloughs coming from the partial government shutdown, according to a report Public Citizen released Wednesday.

“As long as the shutdown continues, essential consumer, worker, health and safety protections carried out by these agencies are on hold,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “Corporate lawbreakers are going unpunished, safety inspections are being postponed, discrimination charges are going uninvestigated, polluters are not being held in check, financial fraudsters are not being policed, consumer complaints are not being received and accident investigations have ceased.”

Many agencies are falling behind, and it could take many weeks for them to catch up, according to furloughed workers quoted in the report. More than 75 percent of workers have been furloughed at seven agencies dedicated to protecting consumers and workers, according to federal agency memos, and nearly 50,000 employees have been sent home without pay at the following agencies:

Coalition of state and local agencies will sue if Trump administration replaces plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants

The Trump administration proposed Tuesday to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, the nation’s first limits on climate change emissions from existing fossil-fuel power plants.

The plan is the result of efforts by states and cities, in cooperation with the federal government, to require cuts in the emissions of climate change pollution from fossil fuel-burning power plants under the Clean Air Act. The plan, along with a rule for new, modified, and reconstructed power plants, would control emissions by setting limits on the amount of climate change pollution that power plants can emit. The plan would eliminate as much climate change pollution as is emitted by more than 160 million cars a year – or 70 percent of the nation’s passenger cars.

“As we face another record-breaking year of punishing heat and violent storms, the Trump administration is seeking to gut crucial limits on emissions of climate change pollution from power plants – one of its largest sources,” said New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood. “Climate change is real, no matter how much this administration tries to deny it.”