Longevity & Aging

No doubt about it: at some point we’re neither semi-retired, findependent or fully retired. We’re out there in a retirement community or retirement home, and maybe for a few years near the end of this incarnation, some time to reflect on it all in a nursing home. Our Longevity & Aging category features our own unique blog posts, as well as blog feeds from Mark Venning’s ChangeRangers.com and other experts.

Ageing rates vary widely — and so may age of traditional retirement

beauty concept skin aging. anti-aging procedures, rejuvenation, lifting, tightening of facial skin, restoration of youthful skin anti-wrinkleThe BBC is reporting today on a study that shows Ageing rates vary widely. According to the report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, even people born within a year of each other experienced a huge gulf in the speed at which their bodies age.

I was particularly struck by the finding that some 38-year olds were ageing so badly that their biological age was “on the cusp of retirement.” The study subjects were 954 people from New Zealand born between 1972 and 1973. 18 ageing-related traits were examined as the members of the group turned 26, 32 and 38. So in the case of the 38-year-old cohort, the “biological age” ranged from the late 20s to “nearly 60” — hence the “cusp of retirement” verbiage.

In some cases, the subjects appeared to virtually stop ageing while they found that others gained almost three years of biological age for every 12 months that passed. Those with older biological ages were found to perform worse in tests of brain function, and also tended to have a weaker grip.

Issues of fairness and egalitarianism

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An Aging Workforce is a Competitive Advantage

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Lisa Taylor

By Lisa Taylor, Challenge Factory

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The dramatic impact of longevity on organizations was predicted decades ago. Indeed, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy put a formal structure in place to ensure that Congress would be attentive to the opportunities and challenges increased life expectancy presented to existing programs and policies. Since science had added years to our lives, Kennedy’s vision was to ensure added life to our years.

Longer life expectancy implies longer workspan

One corollary: increased life expectancy means longer work-life too. Continue Reading…

Financial planners and eldercare professionals targeting aging Boomers

Real-estate agent giving house keys to senior couple

Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which it titled Is your advisor retirement ready? It came out of a conference I attended in Niagara Falls last week: the National Elder Planning Issues Conference.  I had delivered the keynote address on why Longevity changes everything — a theme you’ll often see in the Hub’s Longevity & Aging section — but also sat in on a couple of sessions on which this blog is based. As you’ll see it’s also quite relevant to our Decumulation & Downsizing section.

For archival and one-stop shopping purposes, here’s the blog below, with a few photos and subheadings added: Continue Reading…

The Ageless Generation

Jane Fonda at the Jane Fonda Hand And Foot Print Ceremony as part of the 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival, TCL Chinese Theater, Hollywood, CA 04-27-13
Jane Fonda in 2013

Are the Baby Boomers part of the Ageless Generation?

Many of us seem to act as if that were the case but there’s little doubt most of us feel younger than we appear. To me, the poster child for this ageless generation is Jane Fonda, whose famous workout videos appear to have held her in good stead in her personal twilight career.

(Technically, since she was born in 1937, Jane Fonda is not a post-war baby boomer but her spirit certainly seems to epitomize the zeitgeist of the generation that came soon after her).

If you get Netflix check out the recently released series Grace & Frankie, where  Fonda plays a 70-year old recent divorcee: even though she herself is actually 77! Equally vibrant are her aging costars: Lilly Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston (best known as the prosecutor on Law & Order). Tomlin is 75 and the two male co-stars are 74.

Medical advances will transform the global economy

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Amazon.com

The Ageless Generation also happens to be the title of a recent (2013) book by Dr. Alex Zhavornonkov, director of the Biogerontology Research Foundation and founder of the International Aging Research Portfolio. It’s one of about a dozen books I read in recent months in preparation for a talk on Longevity that I gave on Monday to the National Elder Planning Issues Conference in Niagara Falls.

The book’s subtitle summarizes the gist of it: How advances in biomedicine will transform the global economy. Since the focus is on the United States, it will come as no surprise that  Zhavornonkov believes breakthroughs in extending Longevity can only make a shaky Social Security and Medicare system that much more fragile in the United States, and by extension their equivalent programs in other advanced nations.

Pressure on Social Security & Medicare

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Weekly wrap: Eternal Money Truths; millionaire bloggers; perils of early retirement

Young business woman is saving money for the company

On Wednesday, the Financial Post ran the first of seven articles by me that we’re calling The 7 Eternal Truths of Personal Finance: Eternal Truth #1: Live Within Your Means.

The second instalment ran today (Saturday): Eternal Truth # 2: Pay Yourself First.

Some of the background and rationale for the series ran earlier this week here at the Hub. I believe the series will run online and in the paper once or twice a week over the summer. Each episode is accompanied by a one-minute video.

Note that this is being housed under the Post’s “Young Money” category, which makes sense because the need to live within your means is especially apt for millennials and younger folk.

Meanwhile, on a related topic, the Globe & Mail Friday ran on update on a national strategy for financial literacy unveiled this week, titled Count Me In, Canada. The piece is titled To Bridge the Knowledge Gap, Financial LIeracy is a Two-Way Street.

Watch out, Economist warns

The cover story on the latest issue of The Economist, out mid Thursday, warns readers to Watch Out: The World is Not Ready for the Next Recession. But its briefing on the American economy in the same issue is more upbeat: Better Than It Looks.

Millionaire bloggers

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