Baby Boomers NEXT Wave...TREND ALERT

ARE YOU AWARE that 1 of every 4 entrepreneurs starting NEW businesses are between the ages of 55 and 64???  Is this a clear opportunity or what?!?  Have you been talking to people over 55 about their future plans?....you should be! ...Dennis

Forget retirement baby boomers are creating new businesses

When it comes to who's leading the charge for new businesses it's not the kids in their parent's garages, it's their mom and dad. A new report shows baby boomers are the next wave of entrepreneurs.

"I quit my job and started seeking what I really truly wanted to do," says Patricia Halverson, The Center for Living Whole, owner.

That was a few years ago, Patricia Halverson had just beat cancer when she decided to change her life and start a business. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation finds last year nearly one in four new entrepreneurs were between the ages of 55 and 64. She has been working with SCORE in Rockford. The national organization is made up of volunteers who help people start and grow their businesses.

"We see a number of people 55 and old coming to us. It's hard to put an exact percentage on it but I'd say about a third," says Vernon Wanner, SCORE, district director.

The study suggests older Americans are starting businesses when they can't find a job elsewhere. Vernon Wanner says the people he works with have a lot of different reasons for creating a start-up enterprise.

"They've had good careers, some of them have been very productive in their careers and they may be bored at home. Since 2008 some of the IRAs and 401(k)s have taken a hit so some people frankly need the money," says Wanner.

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OPTIMISM at the LOWEST Level of the Year

All you have to do is talk to people around you to find out just how true and accurate this CNN poll really is.  How simple is it for us to ask people their opinions? If they happen to fall in the MAJORITY opinion, then you have an excellent opportunity to tell them about our program!  ...Dennis

CNN Poll: After shutdown, America is less optimistic about economy

Washington (CNN) -- The number of Americans who say the economy is in good shape has dropped to the lowest level of the year, according to a new national poll.

And a CNN/ORC International survey also indicates that economic pessimism is growing in the wake of the government shutdown, with nearly six in 10 forecasting poor economic conditions a year from now.The poll's Tuesday morning release comes a few hours before the Labor Department announces the September unemployment report. The release of last month's jobless figures was delayed because of the 16-day partial government shutdown.

In the poll that was conducted this past weekend, 71% of those questioned say that economic conditions are poor right now, with only 29% saying that current conditions are good -- a drop of 4 percentage points since late September, just before the shutdown began.

"That number has not been particularly high in 2013, but throughout the year it has always been over 30%, making the current level of 29% the worst number since December of last year," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Only 40% say that the economy will be in good shape a year from now. That's down from 50% in June and represents the lowest level of optimism since October 2011. Some 59% say the economy will be in poor shape next fall.

The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International October 18-20, with 841 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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Hello Young People...We Have a PLAN.

Are you crafting your message for young adults?  They are going to be hit soon with the REALITY of rising insurance premiums!  In some cases (see article below from the Washington Examiner) premiums will jump of a SHOCKING 252%.  Can you believe it?  ...Dennis

Premiums for young healthy people will jump in 45 states under Obamacare

Young people in 45 states will see their health insurance premiums increase under Obamacare because the law relies on the money they pay into the system to offset the cost of caring for older enrollees, according to a new study.

Virginia leads the pack, as individuals aged 27 and under will see their health insurance premiums jump by 252.5 percent -- $416.55 -- according to the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.

Virginians under the age of 50 will see their premiums jump by an even greater percentage, rising from $228 to $991.03.

Such increases are not a surprise to the law's architects. “I have always said when looking at this bill, that if I were a young person, I can see elements of this bill that I wouldn't like in the short run,” Henry Aaron, vice chairman of the D.C. health exchange, told the Washington Examiner last November.

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How Bad is Inflation Today?

What Does It Cost to Raise a Child?

Here's a tough one:  How much money will that little bundle of joy cost you?  
Better sit down. ...Dennis

According to USDA’s Cost of Raising a Child report, the answer for a child born in 2012 is $241,080 for food, shelter and other necessities over the next 17 years, which translates to about $301,970 when adjusted for inflation!

For new parents or people thinking of expanding their families, our Cost of Raising a Child calculator allows you to tailor your results based on household size, income, and geographic region to get a more accurate estimate of your expected costs. The full Cost of Raising a Child report, titled Expenditures on Children by Families (2012) and calculator are available on the web at www.cnpp.usda.gov.

More LAYOFFS Last Month Than Any Other Industry...

Hospitals are cutting thousands of jobs, according to this article in USA TODAY.  This action by hospitals around the country is undercutting a sector that has always been a reliable source of job growth, even through this recession.  If someone else controls your income, they control your life! ...Dennis

A job engine sputters as hospitals cut staff

The payroll cuts are surprising because the Affordable Care Act (ACA), whose implementation took a big step forward this month, is eventually expected to provide health coverage to as many as 30 million additional Americans.

"While the rest of the U.S. economy is stabilizing or improving, health care is entering into a recession," says John Howser, assistant vice chancellor of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Health care providers announced more layoffs than any other industry last month — 8,128 — largely because of reductions by hospitals, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas. So far this year, the health care sector has announced 41,085 layoffs, the third-most behind financial and industrial companies.

Total private hospital employment is still up by 36,000 in the past 12 months, but it's down by 8,000 since April, and more staff reductions are expected into next year.

This month, Indiana University Health laid off about 900 workers as part of a move to trim its budget by $1 billion over five years. Vanderbilt plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs by the end of the year to help shave operating costs 8% a year. The Cleveland Clinic is offering buyouts to 3,000 employees as it shaves its annual operating costs by $330 million.

"This is a challenging time for the health care industry," says Jim Terwilliger, president of two of Indiana health's hospitals. "The pace of change is far greater than any time in recent history."

There are myriad reasons for the cuts, which are affecting administrative staff as well as nurses and doctors:

• Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies are all reducing reimbursement to hospitals. The federal budget cuts known as sequestration have cut Medicare reimbursement by 2%, the American Hospital Association says.

• The health care law has further reduced the Medicare payments to hospitals that provide lower-quality service or have high readmission rates.

• The National Institutes of Health reduced funding to hospitals by 5% as part of sequestration, forcing hospitals to trim research staff.

• The number of inpatient hospital days fell 4% from 2007 to 2011, in part because of the economic downturn, the hospital association says.

The new health care law was supposed to ease the burden on hospitals by expanding Medicaid coverage to more low-income Americans, who often use hospital services in emergencies, then don't pay their bills. But 26 states, including Tennessee, rejected the ACA's offer of federal funding to expand Medicaid. That decision led to about a third of the job cuts by Nashville-based Vanderbilt, Howser says.

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A Word About FEAR

The New LOST GENERATION

More demanding jobs, coupled with recession, have postponed young Americans' entry into workforce, according to a new report.  These Millenials are now being called "the new lost generation."  Our business opportunity can offer a way for them and their young connections as well...Dennis

Millennials Face Uphill Climb

James Roy, 26, has spent the past six years paying off $14,000 in student loans for two years of college by skating from job to job. Now working as a supervisor for a coffee shop in the Chicago suburb of St. Charles, Ill., Mr. Roy describes his outlook as "kind of grim."

"It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," said the Colorado native, who majored in English before dropping out. "But now, for people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal."

Most economists agree that in general, more education is a positive factor for job seekers, though rising college costs are prompting young people to take a hard look at where to go and what to study.

Through analyzing about three decades of census data—from 1980 to 2012—the study found that on average, young workers are now 30 years old when they first earn a median-wage income of about $42,000, a marker of financial independence, up from 26 years old in 1980.

About a third of adults in their early 20s work full time, a proportion that rises to about half of adults in their late 20s. The labor-force participation rate for young people last year declined to its lowest point in about 40 years, according to the report.

The decline in employment among young people mirrors a drop among the broader population. The share of U.S. adults who work peaked at nearly 65% in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and has trended downward ever since. An aging population explains part of the decline, but even workers in the prime of their professional lives are less likely to work today than a decade ago.

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CITIZEN STICKER SHOCK

How is a single mother of two, working full-time going to afford $3,000 MORE next year for her family's health care?  Sticker SHOCK is coming...and it is a perfect talking point for discussing the NECESSITY of our business.  ...Dennis

OBAMACARE FACEBOOK ERUPTS WITH CITIZEN STICKER SHOCK

On Thursday, the government's official Obamacare Facebook page was riddled with people expressing sticker shock over the government's high cost premiums after struggling for hours to wade through the technical failures vexing Obamacare exchanges all across the country.  

 

"I am so disappointed," wrote one woman. "These prices are outrageous and there are huge deductibles. No one can afford this!" The comment received 169 "likes." 

"There is NO WAY I can afford it," said one commenter after using the Kaiser Subsidy Calculator. "Heck right now I couldn't afford an extra 10$ [sic] a month...and oh apparently I make to [sic] much at 8.55/hour to get subsidies."

Another person shared a link found on the federal government's main Obamacare page listing premium estimates for small business employers:

The information is not very complete as I don't see anything about deductible or other detailed info, but it does given an actual price as to the "Premium." It is VERY SCARY!! For example, my insurance plan right now for my spouse and I costs $545 a month with 100% coverage after my $2500 deductible. We are both 32 years old. When I looked at this site for 80% coverage it says it will be $954.78 a month!!!! So compare my old Plan: 100% coverage for $545 a month To New Plan: 80% Coverage for $945 a month. This is only only an estimate but it is VERY Scary for me to see this kind of increase in rates and reduction in benefits!

A single mother of two said she is in school and working full-time while living "75% below the poverty level." She said she was shocked to learn she did not qualify for a healthcare subsidy. "Are you F'ing kidding me????" she wrote on the government's Obamacare Facebook page. "Where the HELL am I supposed to get $3,000 more a year to pay for this 'bronze' health insurance plan!?!??? And I DO NOT EVEN WANT INSURANCE to begin with!! This is frightening," she wrote.

Amid scores of comments expressing frustration with technical failures, one woman said she is "just amazed you could even get to the point of seeing pricing" and that she had been trying to access the system for three days to no avail. 

Obamacare sticker shock will not affect millions of low-income Americans; a New York Times analysis published on Wednesday found that Obamacare "will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help."

Obamacare will cost taxpayers an estimated $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.

Build A NETWORK NOW....

This WILL Have an Impact!

In a time of no jobs, low-paying jobs and rising cost of living, comes a DEVASTATING blow to the average American – yes...I'm talking about Obamacare!  Forget the politics!  I'm not falling into the false, "left vs right" paradigm here...I'm just looking at the FACTS.  This was written BY mega insurance companies, FOR mega-insurance companies, in order to eliminate their competition.  The DEVIL is in the DETAILS...and it is yet another reason that we need INDEPENDENT incomes that can rise above the average, in order to survive this takeover.  ...Dennis

SOME FACTS ABOUT OBAMACARE

The article below is the most comprehensive analysis available of “Obamacare” – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The author, a knowledgeable person who wishes to remain anonymous, explains how Obamacare works for the insurance companies but not for you.

Obamacare was formulated on the concept of health care as a commercial commodity and was cloaked in ideological slogans such as “shared responsibility,” “no free riders” and “ownership society.” These slogans dress the insurance industry’s raid on public resources in the cloak of a “free market” health care system.

You will learn how to purchase a subsidized plan at the Exchange, what will happen when income and family circumstances change during the year or from one year to the next, and other perils brought to you by Obamacare. It is one of the most important articles that will be posted on my website this year. Americans will be shocked to learn the extent to which they have been deceived. The legislation neither protects the patient nor are the plans affordable.

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The NEXT Sub-Prime CRISIS

One out of SEVEN who took out student loans are defaulting on them...of course!  They get an education, then graduate with skills in an area, and guess what?...the JOBS for their skills aren't anywhere to be found!  Now there is a TRILLION DOLLAR crisis! ...Dennis

This Is The Next Sub-Prime Crisis: Jim Rickards

The staggering cost of student loan debt is daunting -- it tops $1 trillion.

Now there is new data showing that students are increasingly faltering under the weight of this debt.

The U.S. Department of Education says figures reveal one in seven borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans. The default rate also rose to 14.7% from 13.4% the year before, the highest level since 1995 based on a related measure, according to Bloomberg News. (The report is for the three years to Sept. 30, 2012.)

In this video, Jim Rickards, senior managing director at Tangent Capital and author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis and the upcoming Death of Money, calls the student loan debt load the “next sub-prime crisis.”

Rickards makes his case based in part on the size of the debt and the nature of its underwriting.

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Innovation Secrets From Dilbert

Being OVERWORKED Can Feel Like Being POOR

A new book by a Harvard economist explains why just having money is not enough.  Unless you can have the time and the freedom to enjoy your money, you might as well be POOR. ...Dennis

Why Being Overworked Can Feel Like Being Poor

What does a single mom earning minimum wage have in common with a millionaire CEO with a calendar packed with back-to-back meetings?

They both struggle to find a basic element needed to succeed: The mom never has enough money, and the CEO is constantly running out of time.

While they have different needs, the effect of critical scarcity on their mental capacity to handle their problems is similar, according to a new book by Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir. 

In "Scarcity: Why Having So Little Means So Much," Mullainathan and Shafir use a number of experiments to explore how the struggle to find things we lack can both help and hinder us in our daily lives. 

“When you have scarcity — it could be money, food, or time — the argument is that scarcity occupies your mind and leaves you with less bandwidth for other things,” Shafir told Business Insider.

Scarcity is the reason that the time-strapped CEO might be so focused on his workload that he misses his son's baseball game or accidentally double-books a meeting with important clients. Scarcity is also the reason that the single mother might be so focused on not having enough cash to pay rent that she ignores the 300% APR on a payday loan and signs up anyway. 

Rich or poor, every human being only has a certain amount of bandwidth to tackle life's daily challenges, Shafir says. Take away part of that bandwidth, and that's where we begin to unravel.

Shafir described a study he performed that shows how distracting scarcity of money can be: "We went to a mall in New Jersey and put volunteers in front of a computer screen. We presented them with financial scenarios. For example, your car breaks down. While you're thinking about these problems, we give you a simple test to complete. Then we tell you that your car will cost $150 to fix, which for most people is manageable. The rich and poor did well on these tests.

"Then, we give them the same car but tell them now it's gonna cost $1500 to fix. For low income people $1500 is a serious challenge. We found that the poor did significantly less well than the rich on the tests in this example. These are people who perform equally well on this test when they weren’t thinking about these difficulties." 

But unlike the rich CEO in our earlier example, a poor single mother can't take care of her bandwidth limitations as easily. The CEO can hire an assistant or delegate work to others. She's on her own with limited resources to change her state.

"When you're poor, you can’t say 'Hey, let's be rich for a week! I’ll be poor the week after,'" Shafir says. "That's what makes scarcity [for the poor] so overwhelming and all-consuming. It's persistent." 

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