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• Boomers are attractive volunteers, and it's not just the sheer strength of their numbers -- 77 million. They are living longer. They are more educated than previous generations. And, especially appealing: They bring well-honed skills and years of real-world work and life experience.
• "What we have with the transition of the boomers across the traditional age of retirement is a great opportunity," says Dr. Erwin Tan, who heads the Senior Corps program at the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency in Washington. Senior Corps helps connect older Americans to service jobs.
• "The question for us is how can we as a country not afford to mobilize this huge source of human capital to meet the vital needs of our communities," said Tan, a geriatrician. He says nonprofits are retooling to attract more boomers by offering a variety of skills-based opportunities as well as more flexibility, such as nontraditional hours or projects that don't require a trip to the office and can be completed at home.
• Mike Carr of Fort Wayne, Ind., is exactly the kind of skillful boomer sought by communities.
• ___
Few expect any major shifts from Fed after a 2-day policy meeting
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve has given the public increasingly more information about its work and its thinking. More doesn't always mean more revealing.
• Investors aren't expected to learn much from the Fed's latest policy statement Wednesday or from its updated economic forecasts or from Chairman Ben Bernanke's quarterly news conference.
• Most economists think all that information will confirm a few common beliefs: That the Fed plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows through 2014. That it isn't going to launch any new program to ease long-term rates unless the economy weakens. But it isn't ruling out such a program, either.
• "There is a lot going on in terms of communication, but nothing is going to change in terms of policy responses," predicted Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
• That expectation marks a change in sentiment from three months ago. After their policy meeting in January, Bernanke and his colleagues hinted that they were edging closer to a third round of bond buying. The Fed's bond purchases have been in (Continued on page 33)
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