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Baby Boomers A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom. The term “baby boomer” is sometimes used in a cultural context, and sometimes used to describe someone who was born during the post-WWII baby boom. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even within a given territory. Different groups, organizations, individuals, and scholars may have widely varying opinions on what constitutes a baby boomer, both technically and culturally. Ascribing universal attributes to a broad generation is difficult, and some observers believe that it is inherently impossible. Nonetheless, many people have attempted to determine the broad cultural similarities and historical impact of the generation, and thus the term has gained widespread popular usage.
In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence. As a group, they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.
One of the unique features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about. This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon.
The baby boom has been described variously as a “shockwave” and as “the pig in the python.” By the sheer force of its numbers, the boomers were a demographic bulge which remodeled society as it passed through it.
The term Generation Jones has been used by Jonathan Pontell to distinguish those born from 1954 onward from the earlier Baby Boomers. (Wikipedia Jan 2010)
Stagflation watch
By John Schroy, on March 20th, 2010 | 
The lack of fiscal restraint of President Obama on the healthcare issue, the ’stimulus bill’, and other ‘progressive’ legislation in the pipeline, combined with the jobs-firsts-inflation-last attitude of Fed Chairman Bernanke — leave little room to doubt that sooner or later the United States is likely to enter the realm of double-digit inflation.
Inflation is likely be the final and deadliest blow to the retirement dreams of many Baby Boomers. When the stock market crashes, one can hope for a recovery some day. With inflation, the losses are permanent and final.
As goes January?
By John Schroy, on February 26th, 2010 | 
Foreign investors and mutual fund shareholders were the primary buyers behind the Bear Market Recovery of 2009. Stock buybacks had disappeared, a significant modification in investor/issuer behavior that had been seen since 1982 and SEC Rule 10b-18.
The rally hit a peak in January 2010, reminding many of the saying, “As goes January, so goes the year”.
A suckers rally?
By John Schroy, on May 9th, 2009 | 
How long will the rally in US stocks that started in early 2009 last? Remember the ’suckers rally’ of 1932-1933 that signaled the end to the Great Depression too early.
There are three major barriers to a prolonged recovery in stock prices: a trillion dollars or so of executive stock options; the cost of TARP repayments; and the investment needs of retiring Baby Boomers.
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