912 Super Seniors
  April 18, 2011 
In This Issue
Healthcare Simplified
Spread Your Wealth
Paul Ryan, Superhero
Quick Links
Greetings!

Technology is our friend but the friendship is not always easy.

 

We appreciate the emails from Super Seniors who took the time to inform us the link in the previous newsletter was not working.

 

Click here for the correct link to the Healthcare Pamphlet for the Senior Pamphleteers project.  

 

The link to this and future pamphlets can always be found on the homepage at www.912SuperSeniors.org 

  

Some of you also told us your plans to share the pamphlet and spread the information to others.  The pamphlets will deliver information:

 

- In a country club locker room  

- On senior community's bulletin boards

- At a Sunday School group

- In a Republican Club's newsletter

- On a community laundry room bulletin board

- At a card club luncheon

 

The goal of reaching thousands of Seniors and their families with information about the ongoing changes to our healthcare is off to a strong start.

 

If each Senior will print ten of the one page pamphlets, which are meant to be cut in half to make 20 pamphlets, thousands of Seniors will be alerted.

 

If each one tells two and they tell two more, etc. Super Seniors will have accomplished a daunting task.  We will reach hundreds of thousands of Americans with the reality of our new healthcare law and encourage them to contact their representatives, vote for preservation of our good healthcare and join with us 912 Super Seniors.

 

 So with your pamphlets folded into a pocket or tucked in a purse, your routine of doctor's, dentist's and hospital waiting rooms, visits to friends and family, and clubs and church groups  are all places to inform and educate.

 

Like the pamphleteers of the Revolutionary War we will place our information where we know it will be read.  So our fellow Seniors looking for an alternative to the usual waiting room magazines may welcome a message critical to their future and that of every American. 

Straight talk at Mom's Kitchen Table 
Have you shared these straight and simple facts about America's healthcare
 

The healthcare law repeal is still being debated with scare tactics intended to distract us.  If we stay focused on the utter impossibility of massive Medicare cuts added to 36 million more covered added to 77 million Baby Boomers needing increasing care, we will not be convinced. 

 

Quality and availability of our good care can be here for our children and grandchildren with a reform plan based on tort reform, portability of insurance, competition and increased consumer choice.

 

Come to Mom's kitchen table to hear some facts about Obamacare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdx_remjGc

 

  
Spread Your Wealth
By Petefl1

 

Our liberal friends want those of us who have earned and saved to share our monetary assets with those who lived to the max most of their lives.  I took a marketing course at Cornell University and one of our labs was to observe motivation and buying habits of customers.  We had a bushel of fresh apples and separated them into two groups.  When the store opened for the day a lady saw us working and asked the difference since one group was priced more than the other.  I said,  " Well, this group costs more".  She asked if there was any other difference and when I assured her that was the only difference she proceeded to bag a dozen of the more expensive apples.

                Campbells Soup Co would run specials as follows.  A single can was priced at $0.38 and  two cans cost $0.79.  Yep that's right, the special sold faster than single can purchase.  Why do people pay more for gas at a station when at the no name station across the street it's cheaper.  It's called marketing.  The no name station takes advantage of the "spot market price" and at times purchases surplus gas at reduced prices.  As long as they buy more loads cheaper they win and sell the same gas at a lower price.

Now we get back to customer motivation.  Did you realize that a product packaged in a red colored container is more attractive than any other color?  Have you noticed that Publix practices vertical display where the same products in different sizes are displayed vertically with medium sizes usually at eye level and large sizes at the bottom of the case?  About 35 years ago we hired a market research firm to create a new design for our dairy products and then advise us about how to show our customers to take advantage of the research.  That's right, red color on your main item, whole milk in our case, displayed vertically.

We invited several large volume buyers to come to a school and learn about the research.  One chain started it within two weeks and experienced a growth in sales.  OK, now why am I going on about marketing? The newsletter last month mentioned all of us getting in a rut (routine).  My father in law used to call this living like we had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Stop and think of the volume of information you have stored between your two ears.  A few of us remember Pearl Harbor but entering College Freshmen haven't a clue about the Vietnam War.  We complain about people not knowing about the constitution but that was over two centuries ago and most of us learned about it in school. 

Take the time to look up the NEA (National Education Association) recommended reading list for new teachers but hold on to your chair very tightly.  The following is one of the "Oughta Read" books.

Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: the book used to train radical activists how to overthrow a government.

What's the answer?  Get off our butt, attend a 912 or Tea Party meeting, meet some great people and share your "mental" wealth.

 

 
Paul Ryan, Superhero
Finally some traction toward cutting the spending
  
Paul Ryan's clean cut looks resembles the young Clark Kent of our old Superman TV series.  Although there remain few phone booths for Superheroes to transform their appearance, Paul Ryan looks perfect as is to millions of Americans. 

 

Ryan's proposal to cut 6 trillion from spending over the next decade is music to the ears of Americans mired in high taxes, lower returns on savings and endless job cuts by employers loathe to expand in this economic climate.

 

Ryan's proposals sailed through the House but now come up against a Democrat controlled Senate and Whitehouse. Paul Ryan may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he has set the bar higher than anyone else and the deficit weary citizens of  Gotham City are responding with enthusiasm which should shape the election debates.


Please repeat after me, "Technology is my friend." "I love computers."  "Computers are my friends."

 

We meet via the internet at this moment and yet to us Seniors technology often moves a lot faster than we would like. When our grandchildren definitely need the latest and newest iPhone, iPad, Wii, or Kindle, we wonder what was wrong with the old one.

 

All of us are able to access vast amounts of information about people, places, diseases, medications, history, current events, etc. from myriad sources in one internet search.  What is nowhere to be found by any search engine is maturity and good judgement.

 

Through their computers our grandchildren can visit any country in the world, read any speech or book, and find references by the thousands, but the ability to use that information comes as it always has, from experience, from trial and error and from listening to those who teach.

 

With so many distractions and so much information vying for their attention children can look to us to help them set priorities.

 

The values, attitude, habits and even the activities of our own parents and grandparents were noted and considered by us as children.  What was important to them became an issue with us. Did we agree, disagree, question, or just listen?   Would we accept their choices as our own or choose another way?

 

As we grew in experience, judgement and maturity the lessons from our adult mentors replayed in our minds as constant touchstones.

 

Right now the children we so love are often looking for guidance.  When everything is available, if only on a computer screen, nothing is special. By sharing our stories of decisions made, disappointments endured and successes achieved we give them context to inform their choices and choose their path.

 

Their options may have a different look or texture, but will involve the same choices of faith, virtue and character made by us, our parents and our grandparents. We could never "put old heads on young shoulders" as my sister-in-law often observes and we wouldn't want to.  But when the children in our lives make their own choices and find their own way, we Seniors can  know we have influenced them by sharing the stories of our own lives. 

 

 

  

It is an honor to join with you in this endeavor!

 


Barbara Samuells
Co-Founder

912 SUPER SENIORS