Soundbites
Flecks of gold in heads of gray Is it the bulge of Baby Boomer readers hitting the age of 65, or is it that business editors themselves are getting longer in the tooth? In any case, more business publications are urging employers to see older workers as assets rather than liabilities. Today’s “oldies” are in much better condition than their forbears who may have been out of date and out of shape, says The Economist, adding “If Mick Jagger and Keith Richards can go on touring into their late 60s, their contemporaries can at least be trusted with a desk and a computer.” It cites Managing the Older Worker, written by business professor Peter Capelli and former AARP head Bill Novelli, to bolster its case for more
The Marketplace July August 2011
but has far too much work ahead to even ponder R&R. “I am still gagging at the pictures of leathery old sunbathers on white shores and green links,” he writes. “For 15 years, I have thrown hundreds of senior mailings in the recycle bag unopened. Not that I am opposed to saving 79 cents on lunch at Perkins. Just don’t try to sell me heaven before I get there. There is too much hell left to fight.”
gray hair in the workplace. For starters, oldsters have decades of formal and informal knowledge that the younger set don’t have, and “more often than not they are the repositories of a company’s core values.” The Economist points to data showing that in every year since 1996, U.S. workers between 55 and 64 have started more new businesses than those 20-34. “Conscientiousness also tends to rise with age: older workers have lower levels of absenteeism than younger colleagues,” it says. Elsewhere in the press, evangelical pastor and author John Piper announces in World magazine that he, too, has crossed the threshold of 65
Greening of China In clean energy, China is busy setting themselves up as a world leader. If they meet their most ambitious targets for 2020, they’ll have the most wind, the most nuclear and
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the most hydro. But China is still playing catch-up on pollution. The air quality in Beijing does not exactly feel like London or New York. — Deborah Seligsohn of the World Resources Institute, commenting on the path China is blazing towards a low-carbon economy (Guardian Weekly)
Swizzle stick I believe in traveling as a way to get to know God’s family. God made this great creation, and it’s peopled with all sorts of interesting cultures and ways of life. When you travel, you kind of carbonate your existence. It’s like a swizzle stick for life. — Travel entrepreneur Rick Steeves in U.S. Catholic
