THE NEW OLD

We read a fascinating article about consumer demographics here in the USA. For starters, did you know that one out of every eight people in America is Hispanic? That means if you have seven brothers and sisters and they are all Caucasian, you must be the one!

Oh, wait, that isn’t what we wanted to write about:

We found out that the three largest (age wise) demographic groups in this country are the Boomers (people born from 1946 through 1964), Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980), and Gen Y (born between 1981 and 1995).

We boomers constitute the biggest spenders of all. Our purchasing power is about $750 Billion a year. Gen Y’ers come in second with a purchasing power of about $600 Billion. And Gen X comes in a distant third at $150 Billion.

We were wondering how it is that Gen X comes in such a distant third? Then we remembered- they all bank at the National Bank of Dad! Sure, they spend, but we Boomers are paying the bill!

Speaking of Boomers- guess what they call us? Yup, we are the NEW OLD. We suppose that is in contradistinction to the old old, the very old, the ancient, and Bubby and Zeydeh old!

Well, fellow Boomers- we may be old, but it seems we control the purse strings! Back in the 60’s there was a great series of ads that ran on WABC radio after midnight. The ad was for “Dennison Clothes, Route 22, Union, New Jersey, open 10:00am to 5:00 the next morning” and contained the following tag line: “Money talks, nobody walks…. .”

Gosh, it’s good to be the king, but being a Boomer ain’t so bad either.
(RJR)