This anecdote seems somewhat shocking. This is a case where the fleer's children are actually in town. If X is to be believed, then every boomer thinks narrow-mindedly about their nice nest egg in Florida and leaves what you are describing. Living in southern Florida, and around middle to upper middle class (but not Naples/Sarasota-like money), I see a lot of boomers/silents who are in a state of functional estrangement from their millennial and Gen X adult children. What I am still trying to suss out is how much of this is driven strictly by the "grass is greener"/nest-egg mentality of those actually retiring or if it is the cultural indoctrination of the younger generation against the importance of family honor/loyalty. My guess is a combination. Would love an actual analysis on this.
Good article! I would add, though, that "think[ing] generationally, not transactionally" doesn't necessarily mean keeping a family business within the family. Over the course of my career as a lawyer representing small businesses, I've seen too many examples to count of parents passing their businesses on to their children, only for the children to run the businesses straight into the ground, leaving customers upset and loyal, hard-working employees without jobs. I've also had the misfortune of working alongside colleagues whose main qualifications for their jobs were their parents' status as owners of the business (or something similar, like being the spouse or paramour of an owner).
Rather than selling out to private equity or a huge, faceless corporation based outside the locality, a good approach may be to train up a trustworthy, meritorious subordinate to succeed the owner and to purchase the owner's equity, perhaps on installments over time, when the owner is ready to move on. Another good option, if the company is too big to sell to a single buyer or to a small group of buyers, is to transfer it to the employees en masse via an employee stock option plan (ESOP).
We Americans are so obsessed with our supposed meritocracy that we're blind to a fact of life the rest of the world is well aware of, that nepotism is a real scourge.
Thankfully, there does seem to be a growing interest in alternate ownership structures that don't require going public, which can also bring many problems.
Behind what we are seeing was there a reality of owners, not apprenticing followers? Hence selling out to someone else is the only option. Is this the reality of developing a management class, but not a next generation of ownership class.
Perhaps, but I see the issue as more deeply rooted in economic structure. Private equity can vastly outspend the local aspiring “owner class” when acquiring a company. They benefit from greater access to cheap capital, along with regulatory and tax advantages, leaving locals unable to keep up.
A surprising number of young people are blaming capitalism, but as I have said before, the real enemy isn't capitalism but corporatism, favoring Wall Street over Main Street.
We still haven't confronted the problems laid bare by the Global Financial Crisis, in 2008. ☹️
Thanks for a helpful commentary, Aaron. I do see some young people launching businesses in Indy, such as Jefferson Electric, or Buck Westrick with landscaping. Or all these people selling subscriptions on substack.
FWIW -- a contact recently moved from Wall St. to down here in the South to launch a venture as a business broker / lower-mid market M&A investment banker, helping Boomers do exactly this: sell their small-to-mid-sized local businesses and retire.
He told me that initially he thought there would be some cultural resistance from the prospective sellers to what he's doing. Some skepticism that he would do right by the employees, customers, other stakeholders in the company. He was all geared up to convince these prospective sellers that everyone would be taken care of.
But so far, he tells me he has encountered virtually no questions of this sort. All anyone he talks to wants is the largest possible price tag before cashing out and moving on. Of course, the other part of this is the kids generally have no interest in taking over the family business, either.
Good observation. I will point out that we have had preached and observed here at our church is that nowhere in the Scripture is idea of retirement. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Israel, the OT prophets and the Apostles didn't retire. We are called to serve until the Lord takes us home. After you have finished earning a living our calling as Christians still remains - to further His kingdom. There are myriads of ways to do so, but I don't think moving to Florida (or any other locality) to just lay around, play golf, shuffleboard, etc. is God-honoring.
In today's world where modern medicine defeats the maladies that once carried many people off as soon as they began to weaken with age, people may live years even decades, in frail condition in which they are incompetent to run a business or work. Retirement is a vastly better solution than euthanasia.
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." - Proverbs 29:18
I can hardly think of anything showing less vision than just lazing around a golf course with folks even older than yourself. Everyone deserves a break, but idleness is dangerous to one's observing the second half of that verse.
Sure, get your vacation, but then get back in the fight, no matter how old your are!!
It's not realistic to expect people to work as their bodies and minds become decrepit. One of our economic and political problems is that too many people are clinging to their positions too long when they should be making way for their children and grandchildren. Our government suffers this problem to an extreme extent.
Thanks for your comment, but I must object that you misunderstood mine. The article is about local business and civic leaders who achieve so much success, that they sell out to hedge funds or whoever and then head to Florida, abandoning their leadership post, so to speak, and impoverishing the locality where they achieved much of their success.
This has played out repeatedly, as so many businesses — e.g. banking and media as just two examples — have consolidated since the 1980s, and is a real problems. Cities that used to have two or three newspapers, for example, are left with only one that is struggling. Major lending decisions are made thousands of mile away from the local community, or perhaps by an executive who has been transferred in, for only a short time, or soon, maybe by an AI model that knows nothing, personally, about the community.
It's quite obvious that we are starving for leadership at all levels of society. Problems fester, a lot of money may be spent, but little is really solved. I'm not arguing that aging Boomers should remain in the same roles forever; my main point was that the entire Boomer concept of retirement is terribly flawed. They still can have a valuable leadership role in various part-time capacities, but not if they abandon the society that needs them.
Of course, this all requires that an aging civic leader have a positive vision for the future (Prov. 29:18), and I suspect this is where much of the difficulty lies. Being so focused on their own generation, too few Boomers have given serious thought to helping subsequent generations climb the ladder after them, even though that would be a great way to spend one's later years, and a role that wouldn't impose the stresses of a full-time job.
For *reasons* I am "unable" to work (the market's verdict not mine) since I made the mistake of having too many birthdays. But I am certainly not sitting around in lazy idleness. I volunteer, I pursue certain hobbies (biking, gardening, writing., learning a new language...) and I am very active in my church. Not all worthwhile activities are remunerated by the market. If someone retires to unpaid but active works, I see nothing problematic about that.
Exactly. And I'll also note that I got to grow up around a lot of elderly people; it was an education in several ways. It's sad that many young people today have never even spent a large amount of time with their own grandparents, let alone gotten to know a variety of older folks.
There's a term we use in the homeschooling community, 'age segregation', which describes how kids in public schools are all herded into classes to spend all their time with other kids their own age. This is NOT how children are supposed to grow up!!
When I was growing up I had no real friends in my grade. There were kids I hung out with at school, but my actual friends were older or younger than me.
Great article. I think about these sorts of things a lot, in particular how successful people nowadays tend to switch out their local friend group for a new group of bicoastal folks. The extreme example has been the nerdy tech billionaires hobnobbing in Hollywood, which still looks ridiculous to me.
It shows, also, how dangerous the notion of retirement can be. I'm not sure you can make an argument that retirement is unbiblical (for instance, Abraham moved away and remarried after Isaac married), but it's not prominent, certainly.
Also, gotta say that a classic case of checking out was our own Texas governor, Rick Perry, who after years of bashing California for its poor business climate, told an NYT interviewer how enamored he was with California, and thinking of moving there when he stepped down!!
I’ve heard of seniors snowbirding in Florida but not children abandoning their parents in the snow to go to Florida themselves, that’s cold…
I have to say, here in Austin we have more small, independently owned HVAC/plumbing/paving/roofing businesses than you can shake a stick at. (On the other hand, the medical practice I work at is the only one in the area that remains independent, all the others were taken over by big corporations during COVID, we only survived lockdown by sacrificing lots of salaries and roughing it out instead of selling out.)
Maybe the difference here is a regulatory one? Or is it that many entrepreneurial types had no choice but to flee to states like Florida during draconian lockdowns in their home states?
The parents have more money than their adult children, which is why the oldies are the ones snowbirding. Thought to point that out in relation to your first paragraph.
This anecdote seems somewhat shocking. This is a case where the fleer's children are actually in town. If X is to be believed, then every boomer thinks narrow-mindedly about their nice nest egg in Florida and leaves what you are describing. Living in southern Florida, and around middle to upper middle class (but not Naples/Sarasota-like money), I see a lot of boomers/silents who are in a state of functional estrangement from their millennial and Gen X adult children. What I am still trying to suss out is how much of this is driven strictly by the "grass is greener"/nest-egg mentality of those actually retiring or if it is the cultural indoctrination of the younger generation against the importance of family honor/loyalty. My guess is a combination. Would love an actual analysis on this.
Good article! I would add, though, that "think[ing] generationally, not transactionally" doesn't necessarily mean keeping a family business within the family. Over the course of my career as a lawyer representing small businesses, I've seen too many examples to count of parents passing their businesses on to their children, only for the children to run the businesses straight into the ground, leaving customers upset and loyal, hard-working employees without jobs. I've also had the misfortune of working alongside colleagues whose main qualifications for their jobs were their parents' status as owners of the business (or something similar, like being the spouse or paramour of an owner).
Rather than selling out to private equity or a huge, faceless corporation based outside the locality, a good approach may be to train up a trustworthy, meritorious subordinate to succeed the owner and to purchase the owner's equity, perhaps on installments over time, when the owner is ready to move on. Another good option, if the company is too big to sell to a single buyer or to a small group of buyers, is to transfer it to the employees en masse via an employee stock option plan (ESOP).
We Americans are so obsessed with our supposed meritocracy that we're blind to a fact of life the rest of the world is well aware of, that nepotism is a real scourge.
Thankfully, there does seem to be a growing interest in alternate ownership structures that don't require going public, which can also bring many problems.
This is ironically reminiscent of Atlas Shrugged.
Thoughtful article.
Behind what we are seeing was there a reality of owners, not apprenticing followers? Hence selling out to someone else is the only option. Is this the reality of developing a management class, but not a next generation of ownership class.
Perhaps, but I see the issue as more deeply rooted in economic structure. Private equity can vastly outspend the local aspiring “owner class” when acquiring a company. They benefit from greater access to cheap capital, along with regulatory and tax advantages, leaving locals unable to keep up.
A surprising number of young people are blaming capitalism, but as I have said before, the real enemy isn't capitalism but corporatism, favoring Wall Street over Main Street.
We still haven't confronted the problems laid bare by the Global Financial Crisis, in 2008. ☹️
Powerful piece. Perhaps one or two months in Florida, rather than six months in Florida, would be just the ticket. Two months is a lot of vacation!
Thanks for a helpful commentary, Aaron. I do see some young people launching businesses in Indy, such as Jefferson Electric, or Buck Westrick with landscaping. Or all these people selling subscriptions on substack.
FWIW -- a contact recently moved from Wall St. to down here in the South to launch a venture as a business broker / lower-mid market M&A investment banker, helping Boomers do exactly this: sell their small-to-mid-sized local businesses and retire.
He told me that initially he thought there would be some cultural resistance from the prospective sellers to what he's doing. Some skepticism that he would do right by the employees, customers, other stakeholders in the company. He was all geared up to convince these prospective sellers that everyone would be taken care of.
But so far, he tells me he has encountered virtually no questions of this sort. All anyone he talks to wants is the largest possible price tag before cashing out and moving on. Of course, the other part of this is the kids generally have no interest in taking over the family business, either.
Wow, that's really sad.
Good observation. I will point out that we have had preached and observed here at our church is that nowhere in the Scripture is idea of retirement. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Israel, the OT prophets and the Apostles didn't retire. We are called to serve until the Lord takes us home. After you have finished earning a living our calling as Christians still remains - to further His kingdom. There are myriads of ways to do so, but I don't think moving to Florida (or any other locality) to just lay around, play golf, shuffleboard, etc. is God-honoring.
In today's world where modern medicine defeats the maladies that once carried many people off as soon as they began to weaken with age, people may live years even decades, in frail condition in which they are incompetent to run a business or work. Retirement is a vastly better solution than euthanasia.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish:
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." - Proverbs 29:18
I can hardly think of anything showing less vision than just lazing around a golf course with folks even older than yourself. Everyone deserves a break, but idleness is dangerous to one's observing the second half of that verse.
Sure, get your vacation, but then get back in the fight, no matter how old your are!!
It's not realistic to expect people to work as their bodies and minds become decrepit. One of our economic and political problems is that too many people are clinging to their positions too long when they should be making way for their children and grandchildren. Our government suffers this problem to an extreme extent.
Thanks for your comment, but I must object that you misunderstood mine. The article is about local business and civic leaders who achieve so much success, that they sell out to hedge funds or whoever and then head to Florida, abandoning their leadership post, so to speak, and impoverishing the locality where they achieved much of their success.
This has played out repeatedly, as so many businesses — e.g. banking and media as just two examples — have consolidated since the 1980s, and is a real problems. Cities that used to have two or three newspapers, for example, are left with only one that is struggling. Major lending decisions are made thousands of mile away from the local community, or perhaps by an executive who has been transferred in, for only a short time, or soon, maybe by an AI model that knows nothing, personally, about the community.
It's quite obvious that we are starving for leadership at all levels of society. Problems fester, a lot of money may be spent, but little is really solved. I'm not arguing that aging Boomers should remain in the same roles forever; my main point was that the entire Boomer concept of retirement is terribly flawed. They still can have a valuable leadership role in various part-time capacities, but not if they abandon the society that needs them.
Of course, this all requires that an aging civic leader have a positive vision for the future (Prov. 29:18), and I suspect this is where much of the difficulty lies. Being so focused on their own generation, too few Boomers have given serious thought to helping subsequent generations climb the ladder after them, even though that would be a great way to spend one's later years, and a role that wouldn't impose the stresses of a full-time job.
For *reasons* I am "unable" to work (the market's verdict not mine) since I made the mistake of having too many birthdays. But I am certainly not sitting around in lazy idleness. I volunteer, I pursue certain hobbies (biking, gardening, writing., learning a new language...) and I am very active in my church. Not all worthwhile activities are remunerated by the market. If someone retires to unpaid but active works, I see nothing problematic about that.
Exactly. And I'll also note that I got to grow up around a lot of elderly people; it was an education in several ways. It's sad that many young people today have never even spent a large amount of time with their own grandparents, let alone gotten to know a variety of older folks.
There's a term we use in the homeschooling community, 'age segregation', which describes how kids in public schools are all herded into classes to spend all their time with other kids their own age. This is NOT how children are supposed to grow up!!
When I was growing up I had no real friends in my grade. There were kids I hung out with at school, but my actual friends were older or younger than me.
“All right. Saddle up. Let’s get back into the war.” PFC Conway, Sands of Iwo Jima,
Great article. I think about these sorts of things a lot, in particular how successful people nowadays tend to switch out their local friend group for a new group of bicoastal folks. The extreme example has been the nerdy tech billionaires hobnobbing in Hollywood, which still looks ridiculous to me.
It shows, also, how dangerous the notion of retirement can be. I'm not sure you can make an argument that retirement is unbiblical (for instance, Abraham moved away and remarried after Isaac married), but it's not prominent, certainly.
Also, gotta say that a classic case of checking out was our own Texas governor, Rick Perry, who after years of bashing California for its poor business climate, told an NYT interviewer how enamored he was with California, and thinking of moving there when he stepped down!!
I’ve heard of seniors snowbirding in Florida but not children abandoning their parents in the snow to go to Florida themselves, that’s cold…
I have to say, here in Austin we have more small, independently owned HVAC/plumbing/paving/roofing businesses than you can shake a stick at. (On the other hand, the medical practice I work at is the only one in the area that remains independent, all the others were taken over by big corporations during COVID, we only survived lockdown by sacrificing lots of salaries and roughing it out instead of selling out.)
Maybe the difference here is a regulatory one? Or is it that many entrepreneurial types had no choice but to flee to states like Florida during draconian lockdowns in their home states?
The parents have more money than their adult children, which is why the oldies are the ones snowbirding. Thought to point that out in relation to your first paragraph.