The Retirement Bubble

My name is Bob Adams, I am 64 years old, I am not retired, and I have no plans to retire. I have many friends who are retired and fully respect their decision to do so. I have edited a web site on “middle age” and the aging process in general at MiddleAge.org for eleven years and passed the one millionth visitor a long time ago. I have also edited another web site at RetirementWave.com for more than four years that today has some 4.300 members who are considering relocation to Panama, my new home nation, for retirement or other purposes. Both non–profit sites, much to my surprise at Retirement Wave, have attracted a wide range of age groups, but retirees are a major portion of my visitors. As a result, I have corresponded by email with at least a couple thousand retirees or folks planning their retirement and I have met and talked with at least three hundred of them here in Panama. Although I am an American citizen living abroad and many Americans visit my sites, these folks include people from more than fifty nations. That photo to the left is me today in Panama, taken by a friend. You can see the Panama Canal in the background.

I continue to be active professionally as President and CEO of New Global Initiatives, Inc. in Bethesda, Maryland in the United States and as President and CEO of Panama Wave S.A. in Panama City in the Republic of Panama.  You can see my formal photo to the left, taken some five years ago.  It is not a good picture of me now.  I do not even own a suit anymore!  If I need to dress formally, I wear a guayabera, a formal shirt worn in Latin America and much more comfortable.  Between those business responsibilities and the work that goes into my non-profit web sites, I am very busy and never have to worry about having something to do.  Starting a new web site and a blog is a serious matter, requiring considerable time and effort.  I would not do it if I did not feel it was really necessary.

For many years, I have taken an active role in global affairs and done my best to promote ideas that I hope will ease the development of this new “global community” that is forming around us. I’ve been widely interviewed and published. I have written on four occasions for Barron’s magazine, the well-respected financial journal, most recently on this topic in an article titled, “Next, the Retirement Bubble”, and republished with their permission at my Retirement Bubble web site.  In July of 2007, I was honored to be asked to prepare a brief commentary on American emigration for Boston’s well-respected Christian Science Monitor.  In addition, I was interviewed in October of 2007 by Erin Burnett on CNBC’s “Street Signs” financial program.  If you like, you can hear the interview.  Finally, I also have written at the Wall Street site, Minyanville, and a number of others and have been interviewed by Reuters television, the Voice of America, the BBC, and so forth.   Ss the photo on the left taken at the National Press Club in Washington DC indicates, I also speak publicly from time to time, both in the US and Panama.

All of that is very nice and much appreciated, but the Retirement Bubble is the most important item on my personal and professional agenda right now.  I hope I can help provoke thought and action that helps you avoid getting caught in its collapse.