IN FINANCE, KIRK KERKORIAN’S A GUITAR HERO. . . COULD IT WORK FOR MCCAIN, TOO?

Gail Marshall

The Fresno Bee Editorial Opinion Blog
June 27, 2008

The name of Kirk Kerkorian, billionaire investor and Armenian-American
Fresno native, photo right, popped up in a recent blog titled "Is 80
Really the New 50?" posted by the Anti-Ageism Task Force on the Web
site of the International Longevity Center — USA. When it comes
to making us rich, we don’t care how old the guy is. What do you
think? The item says that: Newsweek’s Daniel Gross writes that 80 is
new the 50 in his column "The Money Culture". Gross notes the multitude
of "frisky septuagenarians" who dominate CNBC, the financial news
network. To wit, recent coverage of power elders has included that of:
Carl Icahn, 72, corporate raider George Soros, 77, power trader Warren
Buffett, 77, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK A) CFO Kirk Kerkorian, 91,
auto industry tycoon Gone is the retirement age of 65, writes Gross,
calling these elder pillars of industry "business guitar heroes"
who are taking a cue from real-life rock stars like Mick Jagger, 64,
and Tina Turner, 68, still selling out stadiums.

But, it isn’t so easy for the rest of us, Gross notes, turning to
expert Ken Dychtwald, chief executive officer of the consulting
firm AgeWave, an organization which specializes in aging and the
workplace. Dychtwald said: "There is still enormous resistance and
unwillingness to consider older people for job hires." But, Gross
counters that CT Partners, an executive search firm, recently conducted
an ad-hoc poll on its Web site, asking managers whether they’d hire
a 72-year-old CEO (a thinly veiled reference to John McCain).The
answer? Yes, by a comfortable 10% margin. And the Arizona Republic
recently cited our own poll on the McCain matter. Sixty-six percent of
respondents to our question of whether McCain was too old to run said
that the age of a presidential candidate mattered less to them than
the candidate’s health. So, perhaps, little by little, society will
follow the lead of business world visionaries and politicians alike.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress