Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Destitute Ivy Leaguer - Will Work For Change: Introduction

   
by Dr. Ellen Brandt

Our markets, our country, and our world are at a crossroads. We can continue to careen into disaster, or we can work together to stop the Evil and create something much better.

This new blog, my first in three years, is born of necessity, but focused on hope and transformation.

My life, like that of so many Baby Boomers, is a complete shambles, one small step away from total disaster. But we are a proud generation, the best-educated, most sophisticated, and most politically and economically aware cohort in US history.

Those of us most at risk - and this includes many of my fellow Ivy Leaguers - have been too afraid and too ashamed to ask for help, struggling in isolation against forces which seem bent on destroying not only our livelihoods, but our very lives.

I intend to bare all about my own precarious situation, as an example - and if all goes well, as an inspiration - to others.
I want and need help - but I want it for all at-risk Boomers. I am going to posit ideas and scenarios I'd like groups of us to work on together.

Some of these constructs will be geared towards Boomer entrepreneurs and venture capital. Others will be media-related. Still others will call for collective political action.

I'm going to start disseminating this series to my large and prestigious Linked In network, as well as to the greater Penn community, including the Board of Trustees and Alumni activists.
I will put my embarrassment aside and talk about my own current situation.

But I will quickly move past it and place my own plight within the context of what has happened to an entire generation, 1/3 of all Americans - especially affecting those of us who, at most other points in recent American history, would have been counted proudly among the Best and Brightest, but now find ourselves cast among the Struggling and Discarded.

The series starts in earnest with the following post, which will outline how we will proceed in the days, weeks, and months ahead.