Baby Boomers and Retirement. In a recent press release on "The New Retirement Survey"- James P. Gorman, president of Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group relayed a couple of interesting finding on baby boomers and their impending retirement.

Mr. Gordon said, "Baby boomers fundamentally will reinvent retirement. With boomers living longer and remaining engaged and employed beyond age 65, many of the traditional financial assumptions regarding retirement need to be re-examined".

Interesting points that emerged from the survey were:

The unpredictable cost of illness and healthcare is by far the biggest fear. Baby boomers are three times more worried about major illness (48), winding up in a nursing home (48).

Due to increased longevity, baby boomers will create a whole new life stage. Since the "normal" retirement age was established way back the average life expectancy of a retiree has increased by 7 years.

Since most baby boomers should be past the seven year itch phase I wonder what we could call these 7 years. Hopefully they won't be the 7 lean years.

To most people retirement always appears as a distant responsibility and many people are caught with lack of sufficient funds to retire financially secure.

I've always found it tragic that our seniors end up on the outskirts of society, their accumulated wisdom going to waste, outcasts of a society that worships the beautiful and fresh.

I do however have a lot of faith in the ingenuity of baby boomers, it has definitely been one of the most relevant and vibrant generations, it will be interesting to see how we handle and improve retirement.

One thing that is becoming apparent is that many baby boomers are planning to continue working and being productive during their retirement years, with technology becoming more widely used, the Internet a whole new business arena is evolving and becoming available to baby boomers.

Judging from some of the online business opportunities out there, there are numerous very effective and proven paint by numbers business plans which could easily be operated from home or your favorite coffee shop, with tremendous income potential.

In the USA alone a new millionaire is made everyday in the direct selling, network marketing industry. We are seeing a steady influx of baby boomers into these arenas, learning from the technology savvy younger generations and complimenting it with their vast knowledge and experience.

I'm positive that harnessing technology and future advancements baby boomers will effectively overcome all the challenges facing them as they embrace this new chapter of their lives.