Generation squeeze revisited

In the 1980s, the typical senior not Boomer, was four times wealthier than the average 20-something. Today’s seniors are now on average nine times richer than their Millennial grandchildren. In fact, many of the trends and policies that have worked in favour of seniors have come at the expense of younger generations

Seniors have seen their wealth quadruple since 1984, according to a Bank of Montreal study released last month, far outpacing the growth of wealth among younger Canadians. The stunning transformation of the balance sheets of the elderly is thanks to a combination of financial discipline, public policy, and good timing.

Many of today’s seniors were the babies born in the aftermath of the Great Depression who learned to abhor debt and save aggressively. (The average Canadian senior has a debt load equal to just five per cent of their total wealth, compared to a 99 per cent debt-to-wealth ratio for their Boomer children.)

Many benefited from decades of economic growth while being spared the brunt of the 2008 meltdown because they had already shifted their savings into low-risk investments when they retired

Forget fears about a retirement crisis in Canada—the one where cash-strapped seniors will outlive their savings and suck the government coffers dry. Seniors may eventually become the only thing that drives the economy.

Canadians age 75 and older make up less than seven per cent of the population, but control more than a third of all financial assets in the country—roughly $1 trillion worth of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and cash. That figure does not even include the money locked inside their homes, which have more than quadrupled in value since the 1980s. Far from running out of money, many seniors actually continue to save well into their golden years.

One of Canada’s foremost experts on retirement has estimated that senior couples save or give away an average of 18 per cent of their incomes—rising to 30 per cent for the wealthiest families.

That certainly makes them generous. However, considering the wealth they have does it mean they should continue to get seniors-only discounts or qualify for government benefits like CPP and OAS?

Despite their affluence, seniors remain disproportionately the beneficiaries of government subsidies and tax breaks. German think tank Bertelsmann Foundation has called Canada among the “least intergenerationally just” countries in the world, with a troubling large gap between the poverty rates of seniors and children and a strong “elderly bias” among government programs and tax systems. It found we spend nearly four times as much on support for seniors as we do on children and have roughly $250,000 worth of government debt for every child, an indication that future generations will be paying for the excesses of previous ones.

It is easy to blame seniors for stacking the deck in favour of their own generation. However, in many ways it is actually younger Canadians who are to blame for the lack of public support for their issues. Turnout among younger voters is notoriously low, so politicians naturally target their campaigns to the seniors who actually show up on Election Day.

Many young Canadians also seem to support the idea of boosting spending on seniors—even at the expense of their own generation. Generation Squeeze advocates have polled Canadians, both young and old, asking them which age group should be the top priority for government.

Not surprisingly, 70 per cent of seniors said politicians should focus on them. However, they found that younger Canadians were just as likely to say governments should prioritize seniors, as they were to say they should help their own generation. Younger Canadians, like older Canadians, believe the stories about who is most vulnerable still in society.

These stories are increasingly outdated because they’re based on the big policy challenges of the past and a failure to recognize that the situation has really changed. So should government reduce spending on seniors, I suggest not. 

Boomers are already starting to retire and they do not have the same wealth as the seniors of a generation ago. Boomers have a high debt to asset ratio, their savings were impacted by the 2008 meltdown and they do not control the same amount of wealth their parents do today. We need to, as a society, continue to focus on the needs of the Boomers but we also need to recognize that younger Canadians need more help and we should start to shift our resources to meet their needs as well.  Lets rebalance some of the spending so it is more equal.

However, politicians will not spend money on the younger generation, unless younger Canadians get out to vote and that is not happening. 75% of Canadians aged 65-74 voted in the 2011 federal election. Compare that to less than 39 % of those aged 18-24. This is a trend that goes back at least a decade.

Some would argue that this trend implies that the downward spiral that is structural, that younger Canadians won’t “grow into” voting; instead, they will never bother voting at all. As older Canadians disappear into that great voting booth in the sky, new voters will not replace them. Unless something changes, a crisis of electoral legitimacy may be on its way.Until politicians see that younger Canadians vote, they will not pay them any attention, and that is a shame.

Building Creativity

Do you think you are not a creative person?  You actually might think you are creative and really not be at all. If you want to live out your passions and make them a reality then you need to be creative.  There are many ways you will need to creatively tackle barriers and make things happen.  The more creative you are the more successful you will be in your life.  Here are a few ways you can build creativity in your life.

Make creativity a game in everything you do.  When you come upon a circumstance you should give yourself the rules.  Think about the objectives and any obstacles or strategic constraints that might be a problem.  The more creative you are with these answers the better you are. 

When you are creative you also have to set goals.  Goals go with deadlines and you need to set a deadline with activities.  When you attach a deadline with tasks it actually makes them more exciting.  You also won’t procrastinate as much either.

Self expression is a very important aspect also.  You need to find every opportunity to express yourself that you can in a creative fashion.  Not only in a creative fashion but every opportunity.  When you look for opportunities to express yourself you are being creative in the process. 

Expressing yourself can be in the way you display dinner on the plate.  You might choose to dress up the meal with cranberries and garnishes.  You may change the way you do a presentation at work and completely changing the style from the way your work does it.  View every activity as a way to express yourself and be creative. 

Allow more focus in your life.  The best things you can do for yourself is eliminating distractions and noise when you focus on an activity.  When you focus on an activity really hard you will see opportunities and qualities about it.  If you really cannot pay attention to something then it really is boring.  Again, find ways to make it exciting. 

When you are working on activities that seem like they are boring then you should view them as smaller pieces of a bigger picture.  You need to see the big picture of things and every aspect of an activity.

Walk around your home

If you are having a hard time figuring out what your true passion is it may be sitting right in front of you.  You may have collections of items like figurines, magazines, hobbies you like to do on the weekends and more. Take a look around your home and see if some of the decorations are a clue to what your true passion is.  You might be surprised you have surrounded yourself with items and not even realized it.

Developing Curiosity to find your passion

If you consider yourself to be curious but you are in a routine of the same thing everyday and basically bored with life you are not really curious.  You may in fact be moving toward being boring.  You can develop curiosity to help you become a more exciting person and see the life you can have.  Once you become curious and you really want to know what your life will be like when you take your passions and make them happen you will be more likely to make them happen.

Keeping an open mind is the best thing you can do when you are developing your curiosity.  You have to be an open minded person.  If you are set in your ways most of the time this may be the most difficult task.  Work on seeing things from a different point of view.  Think about different versions of things and how they could end up. 

Another thing you need to do when you are developing your curiosity is to never take things for granted.  Many people accept things for how they are.  They never dig deeper and they lose they entire curiosity and excitement. 

Many things are a really big deal and although it may seem simple to you it is important.  Your child may want to do something that seems so ridiculous.  It is about the time spent and you should never take these things for granted because they may not be available to you later.  These also include wasting time in your life watching television when you could be working toward your passions.

Constantly ask questions.  As you are developing your curiosity, it is important to ask questions.  Who cares what people think about you?  You are working on you and you need to be curios.   This will allow you to get beneath the surface of things. Ask about how things work and why people are friends of each other. 

Find out as much as you can about everything.  Not only are you working your brain but you are learning new things and developing an understanding also.  You are learning about why people do the things they do.  Although you might do something one way people may choose to do it another.  This is the opening of your mind you need to do.

Never label something as boring. If you are asked to do something with someone else and you think it sounds drab you need to get up and tackle it as if it is a lot of fun.  Being bored is an internal state of mind. Things are only boring wehn you think they are boring.  Labeling an activity or chore as boring completely closes the doors to something that might be your passion.  In addition, you can think of ways to take that boring activity and make it fun.

Look at learning as something fun.  There are many things about your passion you might need to learn.  You might have put off your passion because it will require you to take a few courses.  It is very common for people to think they are too old to learn new things and they don’t follow a passion because of this.  You are never too old to learn new things.  The best thing you can do is continue your learning by reading as much as you can and learning new things. 

You should never put a passion off because of learning.  What you need to do is tackle the learning as a fun experience that is going to help you achieve a goal in the long run.  Being curious is learning.  You are in a lifelong class and learning new things every single day.  So if you have to take a class or read a book to learn something new, tackle it with a new attitude of excitement and fun.  You will learn much more than you would if you thought the learning was a burden.

Reading new things is another way to feed your curiosity and develop it.  You might like to focus on just one thing but you should be open to as many different topics and things as possible when it comes to reading.  This can help you build your curiosity even further.  If you do find you like to focus on just one thing then you might have found your passion.