In 2006, the Stillwater, Minnesota school district was forced to pay over $1 million to former employees who had been discriminated against in early retirement. Apparently, the school district was reducing early retirement incentive payments for each year as employees grew older. Huh? (I had to read that a couple of times before I could really believe that statement.) Read the story from the EEOC Press.

Not only do older workers not get hired( as Jim and I talked about in previous posts), they get discriminated against in retirement benefits. I’ve also heard of workers being harassed by employers so they quit before getting their pensions, and workers who were laid off just before they were eligible for full pension benefits. Some of this stuff is blatant; other stuff is more subtle.

AARP has some good resources to check out if you think you’ve been discriminated against.  Has this happened to you?  What did you do?

Tags: AARP, age discrimination, baby boomers, NDEA

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If you feel that you have an age discrimination case you need to speak with your local Federal office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  They’ve a very good process to help you determine if you’ve a case under the law.  They’ll advise you and take action if they feel you have a good case.

People always state that you’ll never get another job in your field if you invoke the law.  If your experiencing consistent age discrimination, what have you got to loose.

If you’re out of work, you’ve plenty of time on your hands.  Get involved in government.  Learn how to push the buttons on your elected representatives and their staffs.  Older people vote in massive numbers.  Get your elected officials to make promises and then hold their feet to the fire.

Remember when WalMart tried to take the insurance settlement money from their former employee who was confined to a nursing home for the rest of her life?  WalMart had every right under the law to get that money.  However, the price they’d to pay in terrible publicity was prohibitive and they let it go.  You can do the same thing with agest companies.  You may be within the law, but that doesn’t mean people will deal with you.

On the personal side, I went back to school at 51 and became a personal programmer.  I worked for another ten years on that education.  What can you do to change your skills profile?

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Filed under: Estates

For the next couple of weeks we will be checking out some homes in the most costly zip codes in the United Says, up this day, 83353 . This zip code includes Sun Valley, Idaho, a popular resort community for hiking, skiing and other nature activities. This zip code has a median price of $1,630,000 with an appreciation rate of 266% since 1990. The area is a popular spot for second homes, especially for those on the West Coast. The area gets its fair share of celebrity attention and casino mogul Steve Wynn, John Kerry, Demi Moore and self-help guru Tony Robbins have all spent time here. Ernest Hemingway was a part time resident in the area for many years.

Today’s home has some of the rustic touches such as rough hewn logs that often mark the luxury homes in the area. This Sun Valley lodge has four bedrooms and the master bedroom/office is located on the main level. There’s a separate guest/children’s wing. This isn’t the most expensive home in the area by a long shot but it earns points for combining Western style with contemporary design (although the lady-painted water closet is a bit off-putting) It’s a lot more character than some other homes I’ve seen in the area.. This home is listed at $4,875,000.

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Continue reading Most Costly Zip Codes: 83353, Estate of the Day

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On April 28th Eureka Ranch Technology Ltd. will launch a registry site where researchers and inventors can post their ideas. The site is planeteureka.com.  The purpose of the site is to offer innovations to people and companies who can develop posted ideas into marketable products.

The reasoning is that small businesses don’t have much money for research and development, but they’re very good when it comes to bringing new ideas to market.  So, the site offers new, underdeveloped ideas to small businesses.  The site has some large name backers: Ideal Purchase, Department of  Commerce, Proctor & Gamble.

It is a good idea to try and improve the flow of ideas, reduce the friction in the market place for ideas.  The huge problem, of course, is the theft of intellectual property.  Considering my son’s college experience with ex-patriot students from Taiwan, I anticipate there is little respect for intellectual property in the 3rd world.

Often friction is a good thing.  Off hand, I wouldn’t post much information about my inventions on the web because I know it will get stolen, a la the music world.  There are safer, if more difficult, ways to market your inventions.

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If you are exhausted of the same old way tabs are shown in your Firefox browser, then Tree Style Tab is for you.

The Tree Style Tab changes the way you look at tabs in your browser by changing the position, as well as the functionality. Instead of showing it in the usual horizontal bar, the tabs are now shown in the left side of the browser. They are now viewed like a tree, the same way the folder tree in Windows Explorer is shown.

Have you ever experienced forgetting what led you to a certain webpage or what you were originally reading? When you open new tabs from links, they’re created under the current tab, creating a trail. This trail tells you how you came to the current webpage. With Tree Style Tab, you won’t look at tabs the same way again.

Tree Style Tab is an add-on for the Firefox browser. Click here to learn more about it.

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Filed under: Estates

I’ve found more than a few luxury home auctions in Florida but now the luxury home auction business model is hitting Arizona in a big way. On April 30, Eric Nelson Auctioneering, in association with the Larsen Company will auction off 14 properties from LaBlonde Homes and Sundance Housing in the Scottsdale area. Homes worth as much as $3.495 million will be auctioned off. The auction also includes several one acre homesites with an estimated value of $300,000 available at a starting bid of just $75,000. The opening bids for the million-dollar-plus homes are all just about half the estimated value of the home. Open houses are held every Saturday and Sunday from 12-4pm and the homes will also be open auction day from 12-4pm. The gallery below features the top seven most expensive homes in the auction. Happy bidding.

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