Intergenerational DisengagementDoes it matter if older people and young people don't communicate with each other? The International Longevity Centre got funding for a survey on intergenerational relations and found that 55% of respondents of all ages think different generations find it difficult to communicate with each other.
Researcher James Lloyd also notes that:
Large numbers of people, including older people themselves, appear to regard social disengagement among older people with younger people as a natural part of ageing, as opposed to the result of social context and environment.
The report was launched last night, but with the new minister for work and pensions in the room, the discussion was nearly overwhelmed by calls around pensions and retirement age.
There was surprisingly little reflection on the neighbourhood as a primary context for intergenerational interaction - no mention, for instance, of the potential of street parties, nor any thinking about how the recession might affect household size and increase the extent to which we occupy our neighbourhoods to mutual benefit. Neighbourliness is of profound significance for older people and interaction with the younger people who live around them should be a natural part of that.
Nor among the necessary generalisations was there any recognition of the 'two youths' phenomenon - where as I've mentioned a few times we seem to have one category of young people more socialised, respectful, courteous and comfortable in the company of people from different backgrounds than any were when I worra lad; and another category more disenfranchised, bitter, and profoundly care-less than is healthy for any society. (I think this is known across la manche as les deux jeunesses. I know I will be corrected if I have that wrong).
James Lloyd rightly tries to stir up some policy thinking about intergenerational relations, but it seems to be hard going. We have an established body of practice, thanks to the Beth Johnson Foundation; and some belated recognition coming through in cohesion policy, with officials now earnestly acknowledging that cohesion is 'not just about race and faith...'
Next, I expect, we may see some recognition in policy of the most structural, visible options for promoting intergenerational interaction, such as breaking up housing segregation, and making it easier for older people to contribute to learning in schools.
But the last area to get attention, as always, will be informal interaction in the public realm, because it's so much less obvious how we do it.
One way to create a culture in which older people do not feel threatened by groups of kids hanging out, is if they happen to have spent time in each others' company occasionally and had the chance to identify some common ground or interests. A culture which increases the differences and denies opportunities to discover the commonalities is storing up problems.
Posted by Kevin Harris on October 10, 2008 Permalink
Asia Rethinks American Investments Amid Market Upheaval
09/19/08 HONG KONG — Tremors from Wall Street are rattling Asian confidence, leading many investors to question the wisdom of being invested in the United States to the tune of trillions of dollars.
Asian investors were starting to show hesitation even before the financial earthquake of the last week. Now, a wariness toward the United States is setting in that is unprecedented in recent memory, reaching from central banks to industrial corporations, from hedge funds to the individuals who lined up here to withdraw money from the American International Group on Wednesday.
Asia’s savings have, in essence, bankrolled American spending for decades, and an Asian loss of confidence in American financial institutions and assets would have dire consequences for both the United States government and American taxpayers.
The potential for panic is stoked by Asian news organizations, which tend to focus more on business and economics than on politics, which can be touchy here. Their coverage has been obsessive and unrelentingly negative about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch’s rush to find a buyer and the turmoil at A.I.G.
The nonstop deluge of bad publicity for American investments seems to be seeping into the consciousnesses of the rich and middle class across Asia.
“I do not believe in U.S. financial institutions anymore; I don’t think any U.S. bank is safe anymore,” said Wang Xiao-ning, a Hong Kong homemaker. Even after the Federal Reserve had taken control of A.I.G., she waited in line with dozens of other anxious policyholders at one of the insurer’s customer service centers for the chance to close her investment account.
The asset management operations of American banks have steered many Asian investors into American securities for years. But Thomas Lam, the senior treasury economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore, said many of these investors had not fully understood what they were buying. They became more curious and more concerned when, for example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed in conservatorship.
“All these top executives, Indonesians and others, started asking, ‘What do they really do?’ ” Mr. Lam said. “They bought because the next company did.”
Some experts say that with Asia’s phenomenal economic growth, savings are piling up so quickly that those funds will inevitably start flowing again to the United States at a fast clip. (The Chinese economy grew 23 percent in dollar terms last year.)
“The interest for the moment is depressed, but the trend is, we have a lot of savings in Asia and this is a bargain time” for assets in the United States, said Paul Tang, the chief economist at the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong.
For now, though, Asian interest in American assets is wilting, a trend that seems to have started over the summer.
Little-noticed data released by the Treasury Department on Tuesday showed that a sharp shift in international capital movements began in July. Private investors pulled a net $92.9 billion out of the United States, after putting $46.8 billion into American securities in June.
Many investors in Asia think that Asian economies will bounce back from the current global economic downturn faster than the American economy, said Henry Lee, the managing director of the Hendale Group, a well-known Hong Kong investment advisory firm. So they are putting their money in Asian companies.
“When the dust settles, I think Asia will come out ahead of the U.S.,” he said.
Central banks, mainly Asian, did continue buying American securities in July. But they did so at a slower pace than usual. They made net purchases of $18.2 billion, compared with an average monthly purchase of $22.3 billion in the first half of this year, according to the latest Treasury data.
The central banks also changed the allocation of their purchases. They bought short-term Treasury bills while slowing their purchases of longer term Treasury bonds and American corporate bonds. And they abruptly switched from being large buyers of bonds from government-sponsored enterprises, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to becoming net sellers — one of many factors that contributed to the Bush administration’s decision to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship.
If cash is king during the current global financial crisis, then Asian governments and financial institutions are emperors. China’s central bank alone has $1.8 trillion in foreign reserves. Those reserves grew $280.6 billion in the first half of this year — a pace of $64 million an hour.
Americans have a huge stake in what China does with that money. Foreign cash coming into the United States to buy American assets holds down interest rates by making plenty of money available for the federal government to borrow to cover its budget deficit, and for consumers to borrow so that they can afford imported cars, DVD players and other goods.
Commerce Department data released on Wednesday showed that the nation’s current-account deficit, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, had a deficit of $183.1 billion in the second quarter.
Changing Asian sentiments have not yet eroded the value of the dollar — although market reaction to the A.I.G. bailout seemed to be doing that Wednesday. Asian skittishness has coincided with heavy selling by Americans of their holdings of stocks and bonds in foreign markets.
“It’s almost a case of everyone bringing money back home,” Americans and Asians, said Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist in the Hong Kong office of Royal Bank of Scotland.
But the withdrawal of money from the United States in July was the largest since August of last year, when the subprime housing crisis and resulting credit squeeze first started to seize global markets. Back then, private investors pulled out $140 billion from the United States and central banks withdrew $22 billion.
Mr. Simpfendorfer and other economists cautioned that if the July pattern endured, it could quickly become a problem for the United States. Surprisingly, so far, China’s central bank has actually emerged as a big winner from the American turmoil. Its bond holdings of government-sponsored enterprises, estimated by credit rating agencies at $340 billion, rose in value by billions of dollars in a single day when the Bush administration made explicit the government guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, causing their interest rate spreads compared with Treasury bonds to narrow by 5 to 35 basis points within hours.
The exact amount of China’s gain cannot be calculated without knowing the maturity and composition of its holdings of these bonds, which Chinese officials have not released, according to specialists in fixed-income securities.
Beijing officials regulate international capital flows so tightly that the central bank dominates China’s overseas investments. It holds more than 90 percent of all Chinese-owned bonds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for example.
“The average person on the street in China has no channel to invest in the U.S.,” said Jing Ulrich, the chairwoman of China equities at JPMorgan.
But most private investors elsewhere in the region have considerably more freedom to park their assets in whatever country they please, Mr. Lee, of the Hendale Group, said, and they are very interested these days in assets in Asia.
Senior Transportation A Growing Concern
December 3, 2007 - As boomers age, their focus shifts from finding rides for parents to getting around in their own later yearsGoing home for the holidays may bring cheer and joy to many but a harsh reality for others: Their parents are too old to drive.
As the oldest of the nation's 79 million baby boomers turn 61 this year, the specter of aging and its consequences loom large. Boomers may be worrying about their parents now but know they may experience similar challenges someday.
"They're getting to see it face to face," says Sandy Markwood, chief executive of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, who says the holidays reunite families who have communicated strictly by telephone or e-mail throughout the year. "They realize Mom and Dad are slipping and shouldn't be driving."
Concern over how the bulging population of seniors will get around in a sprawling nation heavily dependent on the automobile is paramount among advocates for the elderly -- so much so that Markwood's group is making transportation the centerpiece of its annual "Home for the Holidays" campaign.
"Half of American households don't have access to adequate transportation options other than cars," Markwood says. "Rural America and suburbs don't have public transportation available."
Options are fewer for the elderly because 21% of Americans older than 65 don't drive, she says. More than 600,000 people age 70 and older stop driving each year, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
Through the Eldercare Locator program the association administers nationwide, the group is encouraging adult children visiting their aging parents to take appropriate steps to connect Mom and Dad with a way to get to the doctor, the pharmacy, the beauty shop or the grocery store. The group is getting the word out -- through brochures that will be distributed by local agencies for the aging -- that many areas provide free transportation to the elderly.
What some communities are doing:
*In Olathe, Kan., Johnson County's Area Agency on Aging has 100 volunteers -- many of them retirees -- who provide 880 rides a month.
"They drive their own cars, drive to people's houses, pick them up and take them to appointments, wait for them and bring them home," says Barbara Gerhard, coordinator of Catch-a-Ride.
"A lot of elderly are very isolated, but they get to know their drivers and they ask for a driver," she says. "It gets to be a friendship and a network."
*The Lower Savannah Council of Governments, a regional transportation agency that represents six counties in the southern half of South Carolina, has one person assigned to handle calls from people who need rides. The agency has worked to create a shared-ride program.
"As they call in or relatives call, we can hook them up with transportation providers," says Rhonda Mitchell, who's in the newly created position of mobility management specialist.
*In and around Harrisburg, Pa., the Dauphin County Public-Private Senior Transportation Groups has nine volunteer organizations providing rides in their townships.
"They take phone call requests and they do dispatching and scheduling," says Eileen Carson, deputy administrator. "They're responsible for maintaining the vehicles and for fundraising."
Fourteen vans provide 40,000 one-way trips a year with the help of 45,000 volunteer hours.
Transportation services vary from place to place. Eldercare Locator brochures that will be distributed by local aging agencies give a primer on various free programs and include questions to ask. (It's available at 800-677-1116 or www.eldercare.gov.)
"Family gatherings during the holidays often offer great opportunities for conversations about an older loved one's well-being," Markwood says. "Raise questions and raise issues between adult children and elder parents before there is a crisis."
Kay Mayberry, 80, of Johnson County, Kan., never learned to drive.
"I'm from Brooklyn, N.Y.," she says. "I came home from my senior prom on the subway."
When she and her husband retired in Kansas, he did the driving. Then, "he had the nerve to die," Mayberry says. "All of a sudden, I thought, 'Oh my God, you can't get to a doctor, you can't do anything.' I am really up a creek here without my daughter to drive me weekends."
She discovered Catch-a-Ride, which she calls "the greatest invention ever made."
Mayberry now volunteers to help recruit drivers for the program through fliers sent to churches. She also volunteers at a hospital once a week. A driver picks her up to take her home.
"That means I don't have to beg," she says. "It's embarrassing to have to ask for a ride."
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Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Drinking and Alcoholism Among the Elderly
Between 1.1 and 2.3 million senior citizens use alcohol to deal with grief and loneliness. What has been called the "hidden population" is now being discovered and measured. Most people tend to reduce their alcohol intake as they get older, perhaps as a response to poor health or a change in social activities.
However, society has begun to recognize that the incidence of alcoholism among older persons is on the rise. And while it is difficult to find hard statistics on today's elderly alcoholics, as much as 10% to 15% of health problems in this population may be linked to alcoholism.
One fact is clear: alcohol-related problems among the elderly are much larger than perceived even a decade ago. It also is clear that the response remains devoted to treating their symptoms briefly and directly, rather than getting to the core of the drinking behavior and treating the alcoholism.
Studies indicate that there are three categories of elderly drinkers:
EARLY-ONSET drinkers are those who have a continuing problem with alcohol that began earlier in life.
LATE-ONSET or Reactors, begin drinking to excess in response to traumatic life events, such as loss of a loved one or difficulties in adjusting to retirement.
INTERMITTENT or Binge drinkers use alcohol irregularly but to excess.
Both Late-Onset and Intermittent drinkers have a higher chance of managing their dependency when they receive counseling and family support.
A family physician is often the first line of defense in determining whether or not an older patient is drinking too much. But all too often the problem goes undiagnosed or is underestimated. Perhaps the patient is in denial, or family members are too embarrassed to report alcohol problems to the patient's doctor. The diagnostic process is further complicated because alcohol abuse can be obscured by other health problems.
Many symptoms of alcoholism are problems usually related to aging: insomnia, depression and poor concentration. Some warning signs to look for are:
Confusion over simple things (date, surroundings)
Drinking small amounts of alcohol daily
Drinking at home alone instead of in social settings
Self-neglect or letting the home environment deteriorate
A pattern of falls and accidents at home
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How can you talk to an older person you suspect may have a problem with alcohol?
Don't bring up the subject when he or she is drinking. Be gentle and loving but be direct. Avoid words like "alcoholic" that are loaded with blame. Be specific by calling attention to a particular behavior (such as "I notice you drink nearly a whole bottle of wine each evening," instead of saying, "You are always drunk."). Let the person know you are worried about their drinking, how it may react with their prescription medications, and that you are willing to help them find treatment. Together, compile a list of all the prescribed and over-the-counter medications they take so their physician or counselor can fully evaluate the problem.
Tolerance to alcohol is significantly lowered as a person ages. It is important to know that many of the problems associated with drinking and the elderly are adverse side effects resulting from medication interactions with alcohol. Eighty-three percent of people over 65 take some prescription. More than half of all prescriptions for elders contain a sedative. Alcohol is a sedative that depresses brain function, as well as how medications are metabolized in the body. The action of some drugs is exaggerated, while other medications can actually increase the effects of alcohol. Alcohol taken together with antidepressants can worsen the depression.
How do you know if a person's drinking is alcoholism? "
Anytime drinking alcohol affects your health, then alcohol is a problem," says a professor of nursing. "Elderly alcoholics are more common than people realize or want to believe. "The good news is that seniors have a higher rate of recovery from substance abuse than many young adults. It is never too late to turn a life around.
Where to Seek Help -
AA for the Older Alcoholic: Never Too Late. Pamphlet published by Alcoholics Anonymous. Go to: www.aa.org or call your local A.A. office listed in telephone directory.