CNBC asks, “Should people be more open to network marketing?”

It used to be that if you had a good job, you could feel pretty secure about your financial future. Many forces are now at work to eliminate that reality, not the least of which is the global recession (which, in my opinion is not going to ease any time soon).

Should people be more open than ever to network marketing (aka MLM)? If they very carefully pick a very good company, team, and mentors, absolutely they should!

The story of Michael Blattman entitled “Aging boomers face stark economics” and printed by CNBC illustrates the huge need for alternatives.  Here is an excerpt:

Not so long ago, Michael Blattman lived in the upscale Washington, D.C., suburb of Potomac, Md., earning $225,000 a year as senior vice president for a student loan company. As he reached his 50s, it never really occurred to him that his job wouldn’t last forever.

“To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really go there,” he said. “Yeah, there was always a risk. Everything in business is a risk.”

In January 2008, Blattman, along with 500 other employees, was laid off by his company. With an $188,000 severance, he wasn’t worried at first.

“The barometer was always something like five or six months until you landed something comparable,” he said. “So I figured, ‘Oh, OK, six months?’ OK, I could do this for six months.  And find the next one. Well, there was no next one.”

As his generation confronted an economic storm of historic proportions, Blattman found himself humbled — and living in a one-room apartment. After applying for 600 openings and getting only three interviews, he was still looking after two years.

…

Blattman gets some solace from the knowledge that he’s far from alone. More than 4 million baby boomers are unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For many, retirement at 65 is no longer an option.

Facing shrinking nest eggs and mounting bills, they need to work, but they wonder if anyone will hire them again.

“The hardest thing each day is to get up and say, ‘OK, what am I going to do today?’ It’s a constant cheerleading effort every day. The thing is, I’m the cheerleader. And I am the team.  So I’m all in one.”

Blattman starts every day checking out online job sites and sending out resumes for jobs that pay much less than his old salary.

“I have applied for jobs that are one-fourth, one-third of my previous income level,” he said. “And I would have been thrilled to get it. There are just too many of me and everyone else out there. I just wish there was a place for us, to kind of land.”

All the want, the wishing, can lead to worry and to stress.

“People who are in this position can have heart attacks, could get strokes, because of the intense stress levels,” said Blattman.

For Blattman, the chronic stress has induced him to grind his teeth, which has led to several root canals, damaged his implants, and worn away his bank balance. When his health insurance expired in August, he was left with $13,000 in out-of-pocket expenses.

It’s a double whammy: no job and no health insurance. Many boomers are in far worse shape than Blattman. Some have turned to free clinics. It’s just one indication that the health care crisis is really an economic crisis.  And for the boomers it’s only going to get tougher, according to Harvard financial historian Niall Ferguson.

“If they’ve done their homework, then they’ll be afraid,” he said. “Very afraid.”

More than ever, people are open to new alternatives.  If you have a good one, be proud of it and know that there are lots of people out there right now that really need what you have.