source: USA Today

Economy compels some to move home with parents

After being laid off from her job as an events planner at an upscale resort, Jo Ann Bauer struggled financially. She worked at several lower-paying jobs, relocated to a new city and even declared bankruptcy. Then in December, she finally accepted her parents’ invitation to move into their home — at age 52. “I’m back living in the bedroom that I grew up in,” she said.

Taking shelter with parents isn’t uncommon for young people in their 20s, especially when the job market is poor. But now the slumping economy and the credit crunch are forcing some children to do so later in life — even in middle age. Financial planners report receiving many calls from parents seeking advice about taking in their grown children following divorces and layoffs.

Some of Erickson’s clients are giving as much as $50,000 at a time to their kids, many of whom have overextended themselves with big houses or lavish lifestyles. And the sliding economy might threaten their jobs.

Anna Maggiore, 27, lost her job as a publicist in Los Angeles about three years ago and moved into her parents’ house in Los Alamos, N.M. She tried to find jobs, but nothing stuck, so she enrolled full-time at the College of Santa Fe to finish her bachelor’s degree in business. She figures her parents spend about $1,000 a month on her, including a car payment, car and health insurance, school and other costs. Her father is a retired nuclear physicist and her mother, a guidance counselor, will retire this spring. Now Maggiore is looking for work so she can supplement their income.

“as you go out into the world my advice to you is… don’t go! It’s rough out there. Move back with your parents. Let them worry about it!” - Rodney Dangerfield, Back to School

A few news articles:

Many rich 80s Yuppies ’struggling’

According to a report by the Liverpool Victoria friendly society, 45% of former 1980s Yuppies claim they are struggling financially or failing to live within their means, At the same time, seven out of 10 former Yuppies, now aged between 45 and 55, say they should have saved more money earlier in their career and 32% worry about how they would cope if their regular income stopped.

The number of people splashing out on expensive dining has halved, from 20% of Yuppies in the 1980s to just 9% now, while only 13% still buy the latest gadgets, compared with 18% 20 years ago. Instead the number of former Yuppies donating money to charity has doubled to 21%, up from 9% in the 1980s, while they are also five times more likely to be concerned about the environment and eating organically. More than half of former Yuppies say saving for retirement is now one of their top financial concerns, followed by paying off the mortgage, at 40%, and repaying debts at 34%.

Nigel Snell, communications director at Liverpool Victoria, said: “Our research on Yuppies has found that yesterday’s privileged minority appears to have become part of today’s anxious majority. YouGov questioned 2,409 people during September.

Yes, it’s getting tough out there.

BBC News: New yuppies shun champagne lifestyle

The term yuppie conjures up images of the brash 1980s, when bright young things lived a loadsamoney lifestyle of flash cars, lavish lunches and power dressing. It was an era of playing hard and working hard. These days, young professionals are different. New research suggests they are more cautious about money than yesterday’s yuppies, who are struggling to maintain their once high-flying lifestyles.

Research from Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, a financial services company, suggests that pensions, getting on the property ladder and paying off debts are bigger priorities for today’s young professionals than living a champagne lifestyle. Four in 10 young urban professionals in 2007 cite paying off debts as a financial concern, compared with a third in the 1980s, according to the research based on a survey of 2,409 adults.

Almost a third say that saving for retirement is one of their top three biggest financial worries, compared with just 12% of original yuppies. With conspicuous consumption falling out of favour, today’s young yuppies spend their hard-earned cash on organic food and green fashion. But young go getters do enjoy the original yuppie love of gadgets, with 24% spending their money on technological wizardry compared with 18% in the late 1980s.

just a couple of bookies

Before John Landis made the completely-awful Beverly Hills Cop 3, he had the ability to tap into… well, something that was connected with the zeitgeist. The best example of which is probably Trading Places. Rather brilliantly written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, it deals with the eternal debate of nature vs nurture. And who better to step up the R&D on that sort of thing than philanthropists with a lot of capital? Instead of donations, however, stuffy old rich white guys Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer Duke (Don Ameche) pull a little switcheroo with a snobbish commodities trader named Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and street-wise bum Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), and it’s not because of goodwill (they bet each other a dollar). Billy Ray, previously seen begging for change in a posh Philly suburb, suddenly finds himself living in said suburb with a new job, salary, and butler (wonderfully played by Denholm Elliott). Winthorpe, previously engaged to Penelope Witherspoon (Kristin Holby - hot), is framed for drug possession, thrown out of the swank Heritage Club, and winds up having to pawn off his very expensive “Roche Vouceau” wristwatch. “This is the sports watch of the ’80s. $6,955 retail! It tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome and Gstaad!” “In Philadelphia,” says the pawnbroker, “it’s worth 50 bucks.”

Naturally, Winthorpe gets help from hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis, taking a break from horror movies). It isn’t quite enough, as he sinks into a depression, runs around at Christmastime in a Santa suit holding a gun and stealing food, and finally attempts suicide. He wakes up in his own bed, thinking it all a dream. “It was all because of this terrible awful negro” he tells butler Coleman. The snippets of overt racism in the film make its messages a bit thorny - the film suggests its existence in other, subtle ways, which would have sufficed. I would say that the movie isn’t about race at all, but class warfare (some people see them as the same; whether the movie does is up for debate). I find it hard to believe that Winthorpe is a racist (his hatred of Valentine stems at first from his “status” of being in poverty, ie: not in his own circle of elites; later, it’s the perception that Valentine has stolen his house, job, and butler). In fact, it’s relatively easy for the pair to become fast friends once they realize they have a common enemy. The Duke brothers seem to come to agreement that environment rules over genetics, so why the racist attitude towards Valentine? Maybe you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

In it to WIN It

In any case, Valentine and Winthorpe travel to Wall Street and turn the Dukes’ attempts to corner the frozen concentrated orange juice market against them. Having obtained the real orange crop report from bad guy Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason - another great performance), they slip Duke & Duke a fake report, fooling them into believing there will be a shortage. Naturally, at the market’s open, the Dukes start buying like crazy. Then Winthorpe drops the bomb: “Sell 200 April at 1.42!” After the crop report reveals no OJ shortage, they wait for the price to drop like a rock, and then start zeroing their positions. The Dukes obviously can’t satisfy their margin call, and thus wind up in the poorhouse.

Naturally, you must suspend disbelief in this scene, as safeguards would ensure such dramatic price movements never occur (’curbs in’). You also have to be comfortable with the fact that Winthorpe and Valentine are now guilty of theft and insider trading (that might explain the final scene which finds them in a tropical setting, presumably far away from the U.S.). Trading Places is a movie that is anti-elitist and yet pro-capitalist (even the hooker has her money in T-bills, earning interest). It suggests riches to those only who have been humbled - not a bad message. Like other similar comedies of the time (Easy Money, Beverly Hills Cop), it mixes high-brow with low-brow to good effect, and isn’t afraid to have classes mix it up. It throws the rich and the poor into the same blender to discover that (most of the time) all classes really do share a common humanity. Of course in this instance it’s the realization that everyone wants to be rich. A film that could only have been made in the 80s.

~Bill G

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