Question

Part 1: summarize the article, just one paragraph

Retirees head to Latin America, where middle-class money can buy upper-class lifestyle

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/colombia/article154093359.html#storylink=cpy

Part 2: Link the article to two concepts from chapter 11 (Consumer Identity: social class and lifestyles)

Book: Consumers Behavior, Buying, Having, and Being, Student Value Edition, 11/E Michael R. Solomon, Saint Josephs University

ISBN-10: 0133451151 ISBN-13: 9780133451153

Answer 1

Part-1:

Summary of the article, Retirees head to Latin America, where middle-class money can buy upper-class lifestyle, written by Jim Wyss in Miami Herald.

The colonial town, Cuenca, in southern Ecuador is cobbled streets.It exudes a lazy, old world charm. But it is also on the cutting edge of a very modern trend: providing a safe haven for U.S. retirees who have found themselves unwilling or unable to live out their golden years at home. And the trend is expected to grow as waves of baby boomers exit the workforce ill-prepared for retirement. The Social Security Administration was sending payments to 380,000 retired U.S. workers living abroad in 2014 — up 50 percent from a decade ago.

The city of Cuenca alone was home to almost 10,000 foreign retirees, most of them Americans from Texas and Florida.In Cuenca, a city of about 350,000 people, retirees found robust public transportation, an extensive museum network, solid healthcare and markets bursting with fresh fruits and produce. The city is trying to combat local fears that the retirees are both driving up land prices and bleeding the public healthcare system, she said. And the language barrier has become a source of local irritation. Starting in about 2009, Cuenca became a viral sensation on retirement websites. International Living, an influential publication, ranked it the top expat retirement site several years running. As newly arrived retirees began blogging, there was a snowball effect.

“The internet has changed everything,” said Dan Prescher, a senior editor at International Living who recently moved from Ecuador to Mexico to be closer to his family in the United States. A full 73 percent of the retirees in Cuenca, according to the city’s survey, said they found out about the city via “best of” rankings online.

President Rafael Correa, who stepped down last month, also poured the nation’s oil wealth into hospitals, roads and infrastructure that have made the country rich with public services.U.S. retirees who used to be slaves to their automobiles rave about the 12-cent bus rides (with the senior discount) and free symphonies.

There are drawbacks to life abroad, of course. Some seniors said they felt isolated amid the language and cultural barriers, and felt that they had to be on guard from being fleeced by local merchants who saw them as walking ATMs.