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The Citizen, 1992-10-28, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28,1992. PAGE 5. Woopies, hang on to your hairpieces “The baby boom was twice as big as the generation that preceded it. It's like deer going through a boa constrictor. You don’t notice anything the snake ate before or after. They’re the biggest game in town and they will be until they die.’’ Washington Sociologist And we're a long way from dying, we baby boomers. As a matter of fact we're just beginning to hit the half century mark. Experts estimate that within the next three decades, the number of North Americans over the age of 50 will skyrocket by 80 per cent. Every third person you meet will be 50 or older. It's not just a North American phenomenon. The Japanese are “silvering” even faster. So are Western Europeans. But we're not just accumulating wrinkles and cellulite saddle bags, we aging baby boomers. We also, according to the experts, pack a fair amount of scratch. In fact, International Scene Perhaps TV's should come with bag of salt Unless something dramatic happens between the time I write this article and the time your entire family reads it carefully and devotes an entire evening to discussing it instead of watching T.V., I can assure you now is not the time for Canadians to go to Europe. The exchange rate of such currencies as the Swiss franc and German mark were starting to rise in relationship to the Canadian dollar; they waited until I was out of the country and then shot up so dramatically that the Swiss franc reached par with the Canadian dollar while the German mark was not far behind. The good news is that our products have become much cheaper for the buyers of these countries; we are also a good (for good, read “cheap”) country for their tourists to visit. On the bad side is the dramatic rise of the price of their goods while any ideas we have about playing the tourist over there are going to be costly ones indeed. I plan to stay home until this mess sorts itself out. All this is an object lesson in how impossible it is to live in splendid isolation oblivious to all that is going on around you. This is why we have to look carefully at free trade agreements as well as GATT negotiations but it also serves to remind us that sometimes there is very little that we can do about a situation regardless of what we may think of it. Let's take a look at this exchange rate mess. Because we continually do the vast majority of our trade with the United States, both in the field of exporting and importing, this means that our Canadian dollar is so attached to its American counterpart that it surveys show that the over-50's already have as much spending loot as all other age groups put together. Needless to say, the advertisers have sniffed out and homed in on this phenomenon like a school of piranha on a bleeding pig. The marketers have studied us, subdivided us into “age groups” . . . they've even come up with a brand new name for us. It’s kind of silly to call something that's half a century old a “baby anything, so we're not baby boomers anymore. Or Yuppies. Or teeny boppers. We're Woopies. It stands for Well-Off Older People - and if you are one, hang on to your hairpiece because you are about to be media blitzed like you've never been blitzed before. You may have noticed some of the advertising changes already. There's a clothing company out there offering “roomier” jeans - pants that don't look like they've been put on with a spray gun. That's because the jeans' manufacturers realize that our bodies . . . aren't what they once were. We don't want flaunting clothes - we want camouflage. I think the jeans will sell like hotcakes. Not that all the new marketing ideas are successful. A few are downright duds. Some American telephone companies introduced “silver pages” - listings for goods and ^lay:naymarid.Catn<in follows it regardless of which direction it goes. Right now the Americans are going through two things, a sluggish economy and a presidential election campaign. The first is guaranteed to bring interest rates down and since, these low rates do not seem to have any more effect on American consumers and businesses than our low rates are having, this means they are going to stay low for some time. Furthermore, George Bush is in enough trouble as it is without even thinking of raising interest rates one iota. Thus they are going to stay down even lower than ours, at least until after the election in November. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, the Germans are attempting to build up the eastern part of their country and are finding that this is much more expensive (surprise, surprise!) than their government had let on. Thus, there has been a rather dramatic increase in the borrowing of the German government and guess what happens. An increase in the money supply causes inflation and, since the Germans hate inflation with a vengeance, up go interest rates in order to fight it. Therefore, we have high, high rates in Germany and low, low rates in the U.S. We have had for some time total free trade in financial markets, all of which means that disposable money, billions and billions of dollars of it, will go where the interest rates are highest. Demand for German marks increases; demand for American dollars drops and guess what happens to the American dollar? It's value goes down, and in this case substantially, and it drags the Canadian dollar down with it. As far as George Bush is concerned, any jobs in the export market that can be created between now and the election in November as a result of the low American dollar will be all to the good. You can bet, therefore, that he is going to do absolutely nothing about it unless, of course, there is the arrival of a situation so bad that it is going to do him more harm than good. There is another services specifically aimed at the older section of the populace. Woopies wanted nothing to do with them. Last year, Johnson & Johnson introduced a new shampoo for “older hair”. It grew cobwebs on the shelves. Woopies don't want their oldness rubbed in their face. So Johnson & Johnson scrapped the ads and wrote some new ones that promised the shampoo would make hair “alluring at any age”. Sales took off. Seems like Woopies are very sensitive about language. They're happy to consider living in an “adults only” environment - but don't want to be caught dead in a “retirement community”. Well, I'm sensitive about language too - particularly when it's employed by pussyfooting snake oil salesmen trying to separate me from my pathetic little hoard of loonies. So, as I totter into "Woopiedom (49 and holding), a word of advice to all those honey-tongued hucksters out their in media land: Don't call me a Senior Citizen. Don't call me a Golden Ager or an Oldster. And for God's sakes don't you dare call me Chronologically Endowed. As a matter of fact - don't call me at all. I plan to be extremely busy for the rest of my days. Make whoopee. object lesson in this for Canadians; it reminds them that foreign politics, over which they have no control, are going to influence their lives in ways that they could not have imagined a few decades ago. We have not made things easier by competing with the Americans to see which country can run up the biggest budgetary deficit per capita. In a way, however, this does not seem to bother the Americans too much at the present time even though they, like Canadians, are going to have to come to grips with it sooner or later. As the Americans refinance their debt, they are going to do it at interest rates considerably lower than when the debt was incurred. All the above contributes to the laughter that I engage in whenever I sit in front of the T.V. and watch our M.P.'s pontificate for the voters back home. Keeping in mind the fact that most voters are not well versed in matters of high international finance, the same politicians can get away with any number of statements for which I would fail them in my classes. Perhaps every T.V. set should come with the proverbial bag of salt. The of it By Bonnie Gropp 1 remember when Hallowe’en was fun Gosh, I used to love Hallowe'en. My, how the times have changed. Growing up as I did in those golden times when respect for other's property took precedence over doing what you wanted to do because it makes you happy, Hallowe'en seemed to be a lot different then. Oh, I'm not going to pretend there wasn't a teeny bit of vandalism undertaken by some, but it was more in keeping with the trick or treat idea then just the senseless stupidity that seems to have become part of the event of late. Back then there was little concern for our safety, as long as we travelled in groups of at least two and only occasionally and only in the city did those horrific things happen, like razor blades in apples. For that reason we weren't limited, like my children and many others are, to going only to the homes of people we knew. And we were allowed to stay out really late! There was an unwritten rule back then too — if you were treated well you in turn moved on to the next place. However, if someone chose to make themselves scarce on Hallowe'en and not be there to dole out treats to kids who really didn't need them in the first place, their windows would be soaped. I am basically a coward at heart and while I maybe felt that people hiding from little trick-or-treaters on Hallowee'en deserved what they got, I was always reluctant to be involved. However, I remember on one occasion when a friend of mine and I came upon a darkened house. The garage was empty and the door open. Seeing it as an invitation we took our bar of soap and proceeded to smear it on the garage windows — from the inside. I wish I could have seen our faces when just seconds later the car turned into the driveway. We narrowly escaped by running out, just as it pulled into the garage. Needless to say, it was close enough that we decided to stick to treats and leave the tricks to others. The thing is that a bar of soap, while making the point and a little extra work for some people, really didn't hurt anyone. There were a few rebels who thought rotten eggs and tomatoes were fun, but for the most part, though any act of vandalism is stupid getting our kicks was certainly mundane compared to today's methods. I think the thing that irks me most is that Hallowe'en seems to have been stolen from the little tricksters. Maybe I wasn't as cute as I thought I was back then, but I'm pretty sure it's the little ones that give grownups the enjoyment on this rather foolish occasion. Now, by 8.00 the tiny ghouls are safely home because the kids old enough to know better are out tearing up the streets for no reason other than they feel like it. There are some great teenagers in our towns who want to go out and party on Hallowe'en and it's only fair they should. However, there are too many who have a good time at someone else's expense. Small communitites are often at bigger risk because these kids know the police are understaffed. I've heard the idiots starting fires and damaging property are kids who come in from other towns and not our own young people. As usual a few make it bad for the rest. I'd like to think ours have pride in the communities in which they live and would rather protect than destroy them. Otherwise to show such willful destruction of someone's home does not warrant the respect this age group suggests they deserve.