iPod sales are booming. Home prices keep climbing.

But one sector of the economy has gone, uh, limp:

(from Business Week-not linked due to registration requirements-excerpt is within fair use)

Judging by the tons of TV and print ads that pitch erectile dysfunction drugs, you would think the big three — Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra — were selling as briskly as beer at a football game. After all, what could be more marketable than a pill that helps aging men perform better in bed?

It’s not working out that way. Despite gargantuan ad budgets, sales are trailing expectations for all three contenders. Viagra’s worldwide sales fell 11% last year….

The article goes on to blame the, uh, dropoff on too many free samples and lack of market penetrati… (never mind, let’s try again)….the fact that only 15% of men who “need” erectile dysfunction drugs have tried them.

I dunno. From here, it seems more likely that the ED problem is nowhere near what the pharmas want us to believe (the article claims that 30% of adult men suffer from ED–puh-leeze). And maybe, just maybe–middle-aged men aren’t as hopelessly obsessed or for that matter insecure about their sex lives as we’ve been led to believe.

Thanks to changes to the system made in the mid-80s (as a result of the work of the Reagan-appointed Greenspan Commission), the age at which a person can collect “full” Social Security benefits has been raised from 65 to as high as 67, depending on when you were born.

Two examples:
- Anyone born between 1943-1954 must wait until Age 66.
- Anyone born in 1960 or later must wait until Age 67.

The large majority of the participants in the retirement classes I teach believe that the Full Retirement Age is still 65 for everybody.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you if you didn’t know….