Poor reporting, SPAM and inheritances

Sorry to say the archive is still not working properly – Google are still trying to fix the problem.

If you read yesterday’s post you will know I was far from happy with the Independent newspaper and their misleading and simplistic article about the 50+. I put ‘fingers to keyboard’ and sent the following letter. I will be astonished if they have the courage to put into their letter’s page.

……Editor of the Independent

I was horrified to read the article by your Social Affairs Editor titled the ‘The Woofs – a greying generation with golden spending power’. The picture this paints of the 50+ is simplistic and wrong. Yes, there are groups of the over 50s who are wealthy and able to do all of the exciting things the article describes. There is a larger group who are poor and financially ill equipped for what can be another 30 years of life.

What I found so offensive was that the research report, upon which the article was based, gave a much more balanced view of the 50+. I guess your headline of Woofs (Well Off Older Folk) made better reading than ‘The Have Nots’, another group discussed in the report.

If you are going to write about the 50+, either from a marketing or social perspective, then give the complete picture not this distorted and misleading view.

Now for something completely different - SPAM. I spend an inordinate amount of my life deleting the stuff and erecting barriers to stop it getting onto my PC. In the cause of marketing curiosity I thought it would be interesting to see how this garbage is segmented by product type. This is the breakdown of a 100 SPAM e-mails I received in a 24 hour period. Looking at this stuff was an education. I must have lived a very sheltered life.

Pharmaceutical suppliers 28%
Sex 19%
Unknown 16%
Finance 17%
Software and electronic gadgets 18%
Dubious educational degrees 1%
Dubious free gifts 1%
Betting 1%

I wonder if this mix of products is the same for all age groups or whether this is your average 50+ SPAM profile?

My final point relates to inheritances. I am writing this post on a train and just read an article in a discarded newspaper (not a masterpiece of news reporting) that relates to how older people are spending their money with little regard for their offspring. Amazingly, this is same subject I had intended to discuss - it must be that time of year. A report being published by AARP shows that in 2001,15% of baby boomers expected an inheritance from their parents, down from 27% in 1989.For the "post-boomers" (those born after 1964) the figures are even more startling; only 6% expect a bequest, down from 11%.

It seems that the assumption about the way wealth is recycled through different generations needs to be radically rethought. My post on 22 September about the way grandparents are funding their grandchildren is another perspective on the same subject. I think the bottom line is that the idea of wealth transfer to purchase capital assets (like a house) will be a thing of the past; it will all be spent on consumption.