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For the Your How To Source: Issues of Value, Ethics, Human Needs and Deeds Edited by Heinz Dinter, PhD February 2006 |
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A study of homeowners 55 and older says they look forward to active lifestyles in a community with water views, nearby fitness centers and fine dining. ■ Using the car's remote control Here’s a tip for those of you who have a car that can be unlocked by that remote button on your key ring. The online greeting card industry is starting to make some noise again. Just ask the screaming banshee. Twenty things that may surprise you. ■ Boomers may lose their inheritance Boomers may lose their inheritance due to the new budget bill. Thirty states now have laws, too, saying you are responsible for your parents — half with criminal penalties. Here’s news for parents and grandparents. Teenagers and cats are exactly alike. There are times when I ask, “What time is it where you are?” ■ What the courts say about blogging The mayor of Smyrna, Delaware has identified the author of Internet writings at the center of a defamation suit that led to a recent state court ruling protecting the anonymity of Internet authors. One day a rich man went to buy an expensive sport’s car from a car dealership. Most financial websites will tell you when to buy a mutual fund and what kind. Very few will tell you when to sell. The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. ■ Getaways galore — small in size, tailor-made to please Great getaways undoubtedly bring the big name hotels to mind.
For home builders, they are among the weightiest questions for the next 20 years: Where will the baby boomers really want to move, when and if they sell the homes where they’ve raised their families? Will they opt for the stereotypical post-retirement golf course communities so popular in the 1980s and ’90s? Will they head for new beach and ski resort real estate developments? Or will they downsize and move to a center city condo to maximize use of cultural attractions and avoid long commutes? With more than 70 million boomers heading down the demographic conveyor belt toward retirement — and the oldest of them hitting 60 this year — no wonder these questions were prominent at the National Association of Home Builders’ annual conference in Orlando, Florida January 11-14. Though consumer survey research consistently has shown for decades that homeowners in their 40s and 50s often have no detailed plans to downsize or sell their houses, a major new statistical study unveiled at the convention suggests that the boomers might have different ideas. In the boomer study, more than 50% of all homeowners 45 to 54, and nearly 60% of homeowners 55 to 64, rated themselves either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a vacation, investment or new primary home sometime in the next five years. Roughly 49% of owners 55 and older say they are likely to move into some form of “active adult” community. One of five boomer households say they are thinking about moving to an age-restricted adult community — a figure more than double what a similar study found just five years ago. The new research, conducted by ProMatura Group, an Oxford, Missippi-based consulting group, comprised a statistical sample of 2,309 boomers polled November 28-30. The study was limited to households with Internet connections and has a 1.8 percent margin of error. Different attitudes Margaret Wylde, president and CEO of ProMatura and a longtime expert on behavioral dynamics of aging, told the builders that boomers are seriously willing to consider moving to planned communities that emphasize active lifestyles, fitness and social interactions. But boomers’ desires for physical pursuits aren’t necessarily what real estate developers might assume. For example, though golf-related second home and active adult communities were all the rage in recent decades, boomers may not be willing to sink their retirement housing capital into golf links. Just 1.7% of homeowners 55 years and older said they were likely to purchase a home on a golf course and just 5% said they wanted a view of a golf course. Contrast that with 25.5% of the same group that said they want to end up living on or with a view of a fresh waterfront of some sort, such as a lake or river. Boomers also may not be as eager as some developers assume to buy property on or close to salt water — perhaps in part because of concerns about potential future storm damage. Just 1.7% consider themselves highly likely to buy oceanfront, and just 6.8% want to buy property with a salt waterfront view. Contrast those numbers with the biggest draw among boomers when it comes to views: non-golf-related green space, such as parklands or common area green strips built into many modern planned communities. Active boomers put a high emphasis on the presence of well-equipped fitness centers nearby. Nearly one-quarter of all boomer homeowners 55 and older want to live within walking distance of a fitness center or health club — a priority that is more than double the level of interest of homeowners in general. With all this high energy, boomers apparently plan to load up on fuel through fine dining. Whereas just 3.2 percent of homeowners of all ages want to live within walking distance of fine restaurants, more than four times as many boomers 55 and older consider that a key feature of their ideal environment. Three bedrooms Boomers are emphatic about bedrooms — the magic number is three — but don’t seem to mind if their total living space, whether in condo or detached single-family form, is smaller than their longtime family homes. Sixty-two percent say they’d be happy with less square footage, as long as everything is top quality in the new place. The boomers are loaded with real estate equity, and they apparently want to sail into retirement with high-end kitchens, bathrooms, spas, entertainment centers and you name it. And boomers, as everybody knows, are used to getting what they want.
Using the car's remote control
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, here’s your answer to the problem. If some one has access to the spare remote at your home, call them on your mobile phone (or borrow one if the cell phone is locked in the car too.) Hold your (or anyone’s) cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the other person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other “remote” for your car, you can unlock the doors, or the trunk, or have the horn signal go off, or whatever.
The highly freaked-out woman, known by millions from an animated Halloween e-card from Hallmark.com, is back, this time in a Valentine's Day revival of her hair-raising neuroses. The character’s return helps punctuate the quiet resurgence of the e-card category, which was an icon of the dot-com boom and a quick — and for some, deserving — victim of the bust. Companies are designing more heavily animated cards to circulate among high-speed Internet users, and despite the costs of creating and distributing these cards, businesses are generating profits, thanks to a healthy online ad market and a willingness among millions of consumers to pay for the cards. Not that anyone will have to pay to hear the banshee scream. Hallmark, the behemoth of the greeting card industry, uses her as an Internet rainmaker of sorts. The company distributes all of its e-cards free, in exchange for the right to show short in-house commercials to senders and recipients. But Hallmark gains enough business from its cards that they are worth giving away. The company, which is privately held, does not disclose how much more money e-card senders and recipients spend with Hallmark, both online and off. Hallmark’s e-card operation has also turned out to be an ad hoc business incubator. The company’s e-card team dreamed up Hoops & YoYo, a pair of talking dogs whose quick popularity prompted Hallmark to create T-shirts, dolls and a Christmas CD around the characters. The same can be true for the e-card unit of AmericanGreetings.com. The business earlier this month announced it had reached 2.5 million subscribers, who pay $14 annually to send an unlimited number of cards, after stagnating at about 2.1 million for nearly two years. The company expects to deliver three million e-cards this Valentine’s Day, the peak day of the year. Of the e-cards available on the site, 80% are animated, compared to 50% last year. By midyear, nearly 90% will be animated. American Greetings gives away a small number of those as kind of a sampling model. In addition to revenues gleaned from subscriptions, the company earns money from advertisements it sells on the site and on the e-cards when they play. That is a good thing for American Greetings — the greeting card industry in general is in a bit of a slump, as consumers have migrated to cheaper cards sold by Wal-Mart and other mass market retailers in recent years. One of the company’s signature cards of last year, featuring a Thanksgiving turkey singing “I Will Survive,” was sent to more than 30 million people. The advent of paid subscriptions for e-cards may actually be a good thing for the market in that the cards now receive more attention than when they were free. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the online greeting card market is that the most popular site is not Hallmark or American Greetings, but a five-person company in Britain, JacquieLawson.com. According to the Internet consulting firm Nielsen/NetRatings, JacquieLawson.com had 22.7 million visitors in December, more than twice its closest competitor, AmericanGreetings.com. The business started on a whim when Ms. Lawson, an artist working for a website developer, created a Christmas card in 2000 and sent it to a dozen friends while she was on vacation. Ms. Lawson returned from vacation to 1,600 e-mail messages from people who had seen the card, and a company was born. Now, JacquieLawson.com has 527,000 subscribers who pay about $8 annually to choose from among about 60 cards Ms. Lawson and a colleague have created. JacquieLawson.com thrived in part because her cards had more sophisticated animation than others on the market. A popular Fourth of July card, for instance, features marine creatures gathering into a patriotic mosaic, bracketed by the phrase “From sea to shining sea.” Two or three years ago, Jacquie said she wanted to raise the quality of e-cards. Was she realistic? Looking back, the quality has improved. She’d say that’s because of her, and she’s probably right.
· The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickles the company once had. · Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself. · The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. · The dot over the letter ‘i' is called a “tittle”. · A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. · Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller. · A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why. · 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. · Every person has a unique tongue print. · 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled. · The ‘spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino. · On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. · During the chariot scene in Ben Hur a small red passenger automobile can be seen in the distance. · Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister. · Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog. · Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. · Most lipstick contains fish scales. · Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants. · Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
Boomers may lose their inheritance
Baby Boomers probably paid little attention to the final passage of the budget reduction bill on February 1 — it reduces federal spending over the next 10 years by $99.3 billion with half of this coming out of Medicare and Medicaid. Middle aged Americans don't identify much with these social programs for the poor and the elderly. They may be in for a surprise, however, as the feds, and even the states, are moving to force the financial support for these aging parents back on their children. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which narrowly passed by a vote of 216-214 in the House, after passing by one vote in the Senate, is now on its way to President Bush for his promised signature. One of the most controversial provisions in this budget bill imposes punitive new restrictions on the ability of the elderly to transfer assets before qualifying for Medicaid coverage of nursing home care. This means many boomers, expecting to inherit a home and other assets from their parents, may see these assets used to pay for nursing home care. Essentially, the new law attempts to save the Medicaid program money by shifting more of the cost of long-term care to families and nursing homes. ElderLawAnswers.com, and associate of SeniorJournal.com, has kept a close watch on this legislation and much of what we report on this is from their website. The controversial asset transfer legislation will extend Medicaid's “look back” period for all asset transfers from three to five years. In other words, under current law, the government can check to see if an elderly person has transferred major assets within the last three years to lower their net-worth to the level required to receive Medicaid assistance. The new law extends this to five years. It also will change the start of the penalty period for transferred assets from the date of transfer to the date when the individual transferring the assets enters a nursing home and would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid coverage. In other words, the penalty period does not begin until the nursing home resident is out of funds, meaning he or she cannot afford to pay the nursing home. Because the change in the penalty period start date will likely leave nursing homes on the hook for the care of residents waiting out extended penalty periods, ElderLawAnswers.com has dubbed the bill “The Nursing Home Bankruptcy Act of 2005.” Nursing homes will likely be flooded with residents who need care but have no way to pay for it. These nursing homes, however, are finding help at getting money from the residents’ children through “filial responsibility laws,” which have been passed in many states. These rarely-enforced laws, which are on the books in 30 states, hold adult children responsible for financial support of indigent parents and, in some cases, medical and nursing home costs. Pennsylvania, for example, recently re-enacted its law making children liable for the financial support of their indigent parents. And, it is not just civil actions these boomer children may face — 15 states impose criminal penalties for filial nonsupport. The bill also will make any individual with home equity above $500,000 ineligible for Medicaid nursing home care, although states may raise this threshold as high as $750,000. The legislation also: • Establishes new rules for the treatment of annuities, including a requirement that the state be named as the remainder beneficiary. • Allows Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) to require residents to spend down their declared resources before applying for medical assistance. • Sets forth rules under which an individual’s CCRC entrance fee is considered an available resource. • Requires all states to apply the so-called “income-first” rule to community spouses who appeal for an increased resource allowance based on their need for more funds invested to meet their minimum income requirements. • Extends long-term care partnership programs to any state. In addition, the legislation incorporates provisions in the original budget bill passed by the Senate closing certain asset transfer “loopholes,” among them: • The purchase of a life estate will be included in the definition of “assets” unless the purchaser resides in the home for at least one year after the date of purchase. • Funds to purchase a promissory note, loan or mortgage will be included among assets unless the repayment terms are actuarially sound, provide for equal payments and prohibit the cancellation of the balance upon the death of the lender. • States will be barred from “rounding down” fractional periods of ineligibility when determining ineligibility periods resulting from asset transfers. • States will be permitted to treat multiple transfers of assets as a single transfer and begin any penalty period on the earliest date that would apply to such transfers. While the federal law applies to all transfers made on or after February 1, it also gives the states time to come into compliance. This gives many people in most states a little time to plan. The deadline for states to enact their own laws varies from state to state, but generally is the first day of the first calendar quarter beginning after the end of the next full legislative session. ElderLawAnswers recommends that parents and their adult children should not hesitate before discussing their long-term care situation with an attorney. The website is primarily supported by qualified elder law attorneys and is a good place to start.
· Neither teenagers nor cats turn their heads when you call them by name. · No matter what you do for them, it is not enough. Indeed, all humane efforts are barely adequate to compensate for the privilege of waiting on them hand and foot. · You rarely see a cat walking outside of the house with an adult human being, and it can be safely said that no teenager in his or her right mind wants to be seen in public with his or her parents. · Even if you tell jokes as well as Jay Leno, neither your cat nor your teen will ever crack a smile. · No cat or teenager shares your taste in music. · Cats and teenagers can lie on the living-room sofa for hours on end without moving, barely breathing. · Cats have nine lives. Teenagers carry on as if they did. · Cats and teenagers yawn in exactly the same manner, communicating that ultimate human ecstasy: a sense of complete and utter boredom. · Cats and teenagers do not improve anyone's furniture. · Cats that are free to roam outside sometimes have been known to return in the middle of the night to deposit a dead animal in your bedroom. Teenagers are not above that sort of behavior.
Thus, if you must raise teenagers, the best sources of advice are not other parents, but veterinarians. It is also a good idea to keep a guidebook on cats at hand at all times. And remember, above all else, put out the food and do not make any sudden moves in their direction. When they make up their minds, they will finally come to you for some affection and comfort, and it will be a triumphant moment for all concerned. Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this. And teenagers — we hypothesize — are exactly like cats.
Aren’t you, too, at times in a quandary and hesitate to make that call to someone in a distant place because you don’t want the ringing of the telephone awaken the party at the other end in the wee hours. Here’s the solution. Visit the website www.timeticker.com and you will learn with a simple push and click of your mouse what the exact local time is anywhere in the world. It's an easy-to-use website and a wonderful red-face saver.
What the courts say about blogging
The mayor, Mark Schaeffer, said Thursday that a stepdaughter, Cristina Rawley, who lives with him and his wife, was the author of the writings. The writings attacked a town councilman, Patrick Cahill, and his wife and prompted Mr. Cahill to sue Mr. Schaeffer for defamation and ask the court to force the Internet service provider to disclose the identity of the author. A Delaware Superior Court granted the request, but in October, the Delaware Supreme Court overruled the order, saying that the author could remain anonymous. Chief Justice Myron Steele compared anonymous Internet speech to anonymous political pamphleteering, a practice the United States Supreme Court characterized in 1995 as “an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent.” Robert Katzenstein, a lawyer for Mr. Cahill, said that his client would proceed with the defamation suit. Mr. Schaeffer said he would ask the court to dismiss him as a defendant in the suit, which would leave his 25-year-old stepdaughter as the sole defendant. Mr. Schaeffer and Mr. Cahill, who are neighbors, have been involved in legal disputes for several years.
The price of the car was $80,000 and the man had only $79,998 to pay with. The sales associate insisted that the price is firm and it has to be $80,000. The man came out of the show room, looked around, and saw a poor man begging for help. He went toward him and introduced himself and asked if he would be kind enough to lend him $2. The poor man asked the rich man the reason, and the rich man replied that he needed the money to buy a car. The poor man thought for a moment. Then he gave the rich man $4 and said, “Please buy one for me, too.”
FundAlarm does just that. It monitors different mutual funds. The site lists tables that show which funds consistently underachieve and which do well. It also tracks who manages the mutual funds. Often managers are fired without you knowing about it. Now you will. There’s also a discussion board where you can ask questions, complain or commiserate. Here’s how FundAlarm describes its services: FundAlarm is a free, non-commercial website. Our view of the mutual fund industry is slightly off-center. We help you decide when it’s time to sell a fund, instead of when it’s time to buy. The mutual fund industry is full of broken promises, arrogance, greed, hypocrisy — the list goes on. We try to shine a light in the darker corners, and poke holes in balloons that could use some poking. To visit this site, go to www.fundalarm.com.
What do you get at the end of it? A death. What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. · You should die first; get it out of the way. Then you live in an old-age home. · You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. · You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. · You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. · You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities. · You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating … you finish off as an orgasm. It’s perfect!
Getaways galore — small in size, tailor-made to please By Heinz Dinter, PhD, Editor
Let me steer you in the direction of the small luxury hotels, inns, guesthouses, lodges, bed & breakfasts, spa resorts and other hospitality establishments that cater to your whim and pleasure — and do so with tailor-made élan and expertise. What if you feel like being a cowboy or cowgirl for a week and ride the range? The Silver Spur Guest Ranch in Bandera, Texas is the perfect place to trade in the tie for a red bandana, a skirt for blue jeans, and every day worries for the peace of riding into the Western sunset. Should you be inclined to top off scuba diving, deep sea fishing, and a visit to the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium with visits to the John Steinbeck Center and neighborhood wineries, the Lone Oak Lodge in Monterey, California is an excellent choice for lodging. And there are so many more small hospitality offerings at your beck and call. Our research discovered some 20,000 in the USA and 6,000 in Canada that invite you via their own website. But how can you find the one that will satisfy your craving? A Google search, for example, is a good beginning. And then there are the online directories that help you zero in on matching your requirements. Visit www.SmallElegantHotels.com, www.SmallandElegantHotels.com, and www.bed-and-breakfast-inns.com. They are good sources.
What are your thoughts? Please share them with me and Grand Lifestyle’s readers at HDinter@GrandLifestyle.com.
SOURCES AARP www.aarp.org • ABC News www.ABCnews.com • About.com www.about.com • The Baltimore Sun www.baltimoresun.com • Dresdner Bank Luxembourg S. A. www.dresdner-bank.lu; www.dresdner-florida.de • Folks on Line www.folksonline.com • Fresh Guides Miami www.freshguides.com • Gateway www.gateway.com • Generations on Line www.generationsonline.com • German American Business Chamber of Florida, Inc., Southeast Chapter www.gabcfl.org • Get Inspired Now www.theinterviewwithgod.com/presentation.html • Grove Isle Club & Resort www.groveisle.com • Kim Komando Show www.komando.com • Knowledge News www.knowledgenews.net • Lincoln Road Magazine www.lincolnroadmagazine.com • Los Angeles Times www.latimes.com • The Miami Herald www.herald.com • Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety www.stresscenter.com • The New York Times www.nytimes.com • SeniorJournal www.SeniorJournal.com • SeniorNet www.seniornet.org • Social Security Administration www.seniors.gov • The United States Administration on Aging www.aoa.dhhs.gov • USA Today www.usatoday.com • The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com • The Week www.theweekmagazine.com • Yahoo www.Yahoo.com
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A study of homeowners 55 and older says they look forward
to active lifestyles in a community with water views, nearby fitness
centers and fine dining.
Here’s a tip for those of you who have a car that can be
unlocked by that remote button on your key ring.
The online greeting card industry is starting to make some
noise again. Just ask the screaming banshee.
·
Boomers may lose their inheritance due to the new budget
bill. Thirty states now have laws, too, saying you are responsible for
your parents — half with criminal penalties
There are times when I ask, “What time is it where you
are?”
The mayor of Smyrna, Delaware has identified the author of
Internet writings at the center of a defamation suit that led to a recent
state court ruling protecting the anonymity of Internet authors.
One day a rich man went to buy an expensive sport’s car
from a car dealership.
Most financial websites will tell you when to buy a mutual fund and what
kind. Very few will tell you when to sell.
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I
mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time.
