ABSTRACT
When information about the growing upscale elderly market reaches the ears of the public policy establishment, there is often a threatened and defensive reaction. This is puzzling and annoying to the business community. This chapter offers an explanation of this public-private conundrum. In "Gold in Gray: Reflections on Business' Discovery of the Elderly Market," Meredith Minkler is concerned with the increased level of attention the business sector is granting the elderly population. The fears that are evident in Minkler’s essay seem to fall into two categories: that efforts to develop and capture the aging market may tend to create needs where none exist, and that they divert attention from the needs of the low-income elderly. There is partial truth in each of these statements. Americans value their rights to spend money as they please and enjoy the availability of perhaps the widest variety of goods and services in the world.
