Who are the AARP?
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Think the AARP is just a non-partisan, non-biased, non-profit advocacy group for the elderly?
Think again:
It's one thing to arrange member discounts for things like airfares or car rentals, or to sell an endorsement (e.g., "The Official Airline of the American Bar Association"). But the AARP is far more of a Leviathan than that -- it engages in brazen for-profit business under the guise of "non-profit status." They sell insurance policies. They sell prescription drugs. They sell a magazine.
And then they have the hubris to claim they're "not like a corporation"?
Feh.
A for-profit corporation has "customers." A lawyer has "clients." A doctor has "patients." A magazine has "subscribers." The AARP has "members."
Do the semantics really make any difference?
And -- like for-profit corporations, lawyers, doctors and magazines -- the AARP can only endure by keeping their currentcustomers clients patients subscribers members and acquiring new ones. In the AARP's case, they choose to do so by peddling lies and fear.
And in so doing they claim the moral high ground?
Feh.
Other exposés of the AARP here and here. Meanwhile, the official list of the AARP's various tentacles can be found here.
UPDATE: Here's an anti-AARP website.
Related Posts:
Social Security: Return of the Flying Pigs
Social Security Reform 101
Think again:
The nonprofit group has an operating budget of nearly $800 million, without parallel in Washington. AARP also makes millions from royalties, investments and sales of insurance policies and prescription drugs.
"We are not like a corporation. We bring in money in a kind of social enterprise and that money goes into the good work that we do," AARP CEO Bill Novelli told FOX News.
AARP also publishes the largest circulation magazine in the country, from which it earns $77 million in advertising. It also earns $300 million each year in royalties from the use of its name on dozens of consumer products and insurance policies.
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AARP collects more than $200 million in dues every year from its 35 million members.
...
The organization manages an investment portfolio of $912 million. In 2003, it invested $737 million of its portfolio in stocks and mutual funds, earning returns of $60 million.
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AARP also collects premiums from members who buy AARP-approved insurance. Before turning the money over to the insurance companies, however, AARP invests it in short-term securities. In 2003, this maneuver raked in $24 million.
It's one thing to arrange member discounts for things like airfares or car rentals, or to sell an endorsement (e.g., "The Official Airline of the American Bar Association"). But the AARP is far more of a Leviathan than that -- it engages in brazen for-profit business under the guise of "non-profit status." They sell insurance policies. They sell prescription drugs. They sell a magazine.
And then they have the hubris to claim they're "not like a corporation"?
Feh.
A for-profit corporation has "customers." A lawyer has "clients." A doctor has "patients." A magazine has "subscribers." The AARP has "members."
Do the semantics really make any difference?
And -- like for-profit corporations, lawyers, doctors and magazines -- the AARP can only endure by keeping their current
And in so doing they claim the moral high ground?
Feh.
Other exposés of the AARP here and here. Meanwhile, the official list of the AARP's various tentacles can be found here.
UPDATE: Here's an anti-AARP website.
Related Posts:
Social Security: Return of the Flying Pigs
Social Security Reform 101
Related Posts (on one page):
- Young Man, There's No Need to Feel Down...
- Who are the AARP?
Posted by KipEsquire on
7 January 2005
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