Do Baby Boomers Resent Their Children?

When new research came out recently about 20-somethings' financial struggles, the survey also revealed some encouraging news: Not only are members of Gen Y optimistic about their future, but older Americans--Gen Y's parents and grandparents--agreed that young people today have it rough. That kind of cross-generational solidarity suggests a mutual understanding and support network that Gen Yers desperately need to get on their feet.

After all, some experts have found that help from family members, in the form of emotional support or financial assistance, can make the difference between falling further behind and finding a way to move forward. Luckily, many of today's 20-somethings benefit from so-called "helicopter parenting" and continued closeness with their parents--one reason why at least 1 in 4 feel comfortable enough to move back home after college graduation.

But the comments left by readers in response to our recent articles on the subject suggest that a far stormier relationship might be lurking beneath those cheery survey findings. Comments left by older Americans are often full of resentment toward the younger generation, describing them as spoiled brats who don't know how to be frugal and lack any appreciation for what's been given to them.

In response to the finding that half of young adults have taken jobs they don't want in order to pay bills, a commenter calling himself "old unemployed guy" wrote, "The shock! The horror! It's called being a grown up and it really sucks. Fortunately there is a support group that meets at the corner bar every night."

Another commenter wrote, "The problem with Generation Y is that they're[sic] idiotic enough to believe government can fix the economy." Another focused on student-loan debt and argued that young people should not complain about having so much of it. Rick of Texas wrote, "We worked our way through school, and graduated without debt. I have two sons, and both worked their way through school. If you built up debt going through school, you have to pay it off."

A commenter calling herself Kathryn also disagreed with the premise that young people have it harder today. "Things are no harder now, than [they were] in their grandparents' generation. They just want more, and sooner. They see the house the earlier generations have, and automatically think that is what they should have," she wrote.

The harsh words also flowed in the other direction. A younger American, calling himself Danny of New York, wrote, "I am really tired of older Americans trying to talk about how younger Americans are stupid? The economy is crap, not because of us but because of you."

Another story that profiled a young man surviving on $20,000 a year drew similar ire from older commenters. They wrote that it was irresponsible to live without health insurance and that he was too young to understand how hard life would become once he also had a family to support.

These commenters raise questions about how older and younger Americans are truly getting along. We might be living together more than in the past, and be more involved in each other's daily decisions and lives, but do we like each other? What explains this intergenerational anger? Do older Americans resent younger ones, and if so, why? Does either generation really have it "better" than the other?

The unfortunate truth might be that the economy has made it harder for everyone--young and old--to feel good about their financial state. And that frustration easily pours out into angry comments.

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How to Communicate with Younger Colleagues

In today's workforce, baby boomers constantly interact with younger co-workers  and managers. These younger workers have been raised in a generation of social media, with connectivity always and everywhere. Individuals constantly update their status and current events via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, texting, and other technologies. If anything new or unexpected occurs, friends are notified immediately. This tendency to constantly update and make on-the-fly changes sometimes leads to reluctance to meet commitments for meetings and appointments.

When baby boomers were young, our technology was pretty basic. We called each other from a land line, mail was in written form and took days to arrive, and "being connected" meant you knew people, rather than were accessible 24/7. Making plans required planning in advance, and last-minute changes happened only for emergencies. Our lives may have seemed less flexible, but we generally met commitments and arrived on time.

With the advent of today's smart phones, people are perpetually connected. Why worry about making changes in advance when, with a quick text, plans are easily altered at the last moment. It is a new way of thinking. Being late has become acceptable as long as you warn your companion before the actual hour ticks by. Fewer people feel obligated to honor specific time commitments since they can quickly make changes on the fly. Without feeling a need to stick to a scheduled event, a mindset develops that accepts last-minute changes as the norm, often frustrating those patiently waiting at the other end.

Have you had the experience of arriving on time only to receive a last minute message that "plans have changed" as your young friend lays out an alternative agenda? Some young people make on-again, off-again arrangements for a visit which changes multiple times until the very last minute. I have learned to write in pencil on my calendar and believe the kids are coming only when they physically walk through the front door.

Another concern is the incredible distraction that perpetual connectivity encourages. Everywhere you go people are using smart phones to communicate and update their status. Lunches are interrupted, conversations misunderstood, and attention is diverted from where it should be directed. Not only does it give the impression that those on the other end are more important than the person you are currently engaged with, but it can be dangerous. Every day I see people texting while driving. There is a time and a place for connectivity. A balance needs to be maintained if we are to best interact with each other.

Respect for each other's time and busy life is a basic tenant of living and working together harmoniously. Calendars are typically packed with events for the weeks and months ahead as we carefully monitor and balance free time with our obligations. We count on others to be there when they say, and that most changes will be made in advance.

This new lifestyle with instant access everywhere is not a bad thing. It is a powerful technology with broad applications that can be more effective if better controlled and managed. Baby boomers should attempt to understand that this is how the younger generation operates and adapt accordingly. If you have an appointment, reconfirm as the date gets closer. If you experience a last-minute change of plans, don't get angry. At least you were made aware of the delay and understand what is happening, rather than wondering what is up. Feel free to inform others that you are a bit of a stickler when it comes to being on time, but realize that you may be in the minority. Since it appears that perpetual connectivity is here to stay, a little tolerance can go a long way.

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Aging in America Conference Attendees Told Who Will 'Transform Aging'

Aging in America 2012 Conference

The conference is held each year to allow those interested in aging and older adults to come together to talk, learn and advocate for their various agencies, businesses and institutions, as explained in the conference introduction. Three thousand attendees were expected for the event. With 80 million Americans reaching age 65 from 2011 to 2029, all aspects of American life will be affected, just as they have been throughout the lifetimes of the baby boomer generation.

Putting Effects of Baby Boomer Aging into Perspective

Ken Dychtwald, CEO of AgeWave and noted gerontologist, was one of the panel of presenters at the conference. Dychtwald said just as hospitals, pediatricians, schools and other institutions were strained by the volume of those people born from 1946 to 1964, so it is with health care and geriatric medicine today, according to the Huffington Post.

Solutions for Dealing with Aging and the Future

Baby boomers have done more than strain institutions and budgets throughout the decades. As Dychtwald stated, "Anyone who thinks (the boomers) will turn 65 and be the same as the generation before are missing out on the last 60 years of sociology. The boomers change every stage of life through which they migrate."

Rhonda Randall, chief medical officer of United Healthcare, said the single biggest factor driving the cost of health care upward is the care required for chronic diseases. Preventive care is becoming increasingly important -- and covered -- by health insurance providers.

Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatter reported Dychtwald's proposed solutions for the future in CrescentNews.com: Americans need to take control of their health by avoiding unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking and becoming/remaining overweight; more funding is needed for scientific research to eliminate, control and cure diseases affecting older adults; and more health care professionals need to be better versed in health and lifestyle issues associated with aging.

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One Big Reason Not to Rush into Early Retirement

 You might want to think twice about retiring early.  That’s because, new research has shown a link between early retirement and premature death.

Research by Andreas Kuhn, Jean-Philippe Wuellrich and Josef Zweimüller found that men, in particular, had an increased risk of death before age 67 when they retired early. To prove this, the researchers looked at a group of blue-collar workers from Austria, born between 1929 and 1941.

"We find that a reduction in the retirement age causes a significant increase in the risk of premature death for males, but not for females," the research said. "The effect for males is not only statistically significant but also quantitatively important. According to our estimates, one additional year of early retirement causes an increase in the risk of premature death of 2.4 percentage points (a relative increase of about 13.4 percent, or 1.8 months in terms of years of life lost)."

[10 Easy Paths to Self Destruction]

According to the research, this can be attributed to negative health habits of people during retirement.  These habits, which include smoking, drinking, unhealthy diet and limited exercise, contribute to 78 percent of casual retirement deaths, while smoking and drinking alone result in 32 percent of casual retirement deaths.

"Our results also suggest that preventive health policies should be targeted to (early) retirees," the research said. "Policies that induce individuals to adopt healthy (or avoid unhealthy) behaviors may have disproportionately positive health consequences for workers who (are about to) permanently withdraw from the labor market."

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10 Great Opportunities for Older Volunteers

If you have time and an interest in volunteering, you can literally create your own program. Aided by Internet sites that match needs and volunteers, along with other do-it-yourself online tools, boomers are rewriting the book on how volunteering works.

[See Top 10 U.S. Places for Healthcare.]

AARP has kicked off a large volunteer effort through its "Create the Good" program and website. "People want more flexibility in their volunteering," says Barb Quaintance, AARP senior vice president for volunteer and civic engagement. There is a preference for self-directed volunteer efforts: More than half of all boomers select this approach, according to AARP, as it allows them to satisfy their needs as well as those of the recipients they help.

Americans' willingness to volunteer has been steadily increasing, according to a survey from the government's Corporation for National & Community Service, which oversees the Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and related volunteering programs. Across different age groups, the rate of volunteering has grown dramatically. More than 26.5 percent of adults ages 45 to 64 volunteer, the corporation says, up from 22 percent 20 years ago. For older volunteers, the rate has increased during the same period, from 17 percent to more than 28 percent. In 2010, 21.9 million baby boomers dedicated 2.9 billion hours of service to communities throughout the country, most often with a religious institution--the most popular organizations through which this age group volunteers.

"The baby boomer generation is the largest, healthiest, and most educated generation in history," says Robert Velasco, II, acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). "While a large portion of older adults volunteer, it's crucial to not place them in the same category. Seniors aren't monolithic," he says. "All of them want to make a difference, but I think they may want to make a difference in different ways."

At the younger end of the senior age spectrum are people who are still working or have recently retired. They might have a preference for skills-based volunteering, in which they can put their career skills to work in volunteer settings. Funding cutbacks during the recession have increased the needs of nonprofits, he notes. Accountants are needed to work on agency finances. Social workers are needed to work with children and at-risk populations. Various nonprofits may need a range of skilled tradespeople--plumbers, electricians, and the like.

[See AARP Moves to Protect Social Security and Medicare.]

But it's the wave of younger volunteers that is changing the model. "There's a whole new world of volunteering," Quaintance says. In some cases, volunteers' demand for flexibility and control has been hard for nonprofits to accept. Some agencies are accustomed to recruiting volunteers who go where they are directed and do what they're told. "Nonprofits are waking up to the fact that they need to be more flexible," and it can be a difficult adjustment, Quaintance says.

On the Create the Good site, volunteers can access local volunteer needs by ZIP code and see these needs broken down into several categories: Show-Up, DIY (Do It Yourself), Online, and what it calls "5 Minute" opportunities that may be nonrecurring, relatively quick ways that people can help.

"The strategic nonprofits have figured out how volunteers can be a critical part of their solution," Velasco says. "Many boomers bring advanced professional and management skills that can help nonprofits increase their impact on community issues. Engaging boomers in more challenging assignments has the added benefit of increasing the likelihood they will continue to volunteer over a longer period of time because they find the work more engaging."

Here is a list of volunteering opportunities that might be of interest:

Preparing income taxes. The AARP Tax Aide program has more than 34,000 volunteers throughout the country who donate their time and expertise to help people with their taxes. It is a major example of "skills-based" volunteering, which is growing.

Road and waterway clean-ups. If it's green, people want to help. Weekend clean-up campaigns are great opportunities for people to improve their communities, meet like-minded neighbors, and get outside for some exercise. These activities also meet volunteers' growing interest in flexible and even one-shot volunteer opportunities.

Helping the helpers. Nonprofits have seen funding decline even as demand for their services soars. Skills-based volunteers are increasingly filling key roles at agencies that had been performed by full-time staffers.

[See The Secret to a Long and Happy Life.]

Applying for benefits. The steep recession has led to record increases in food and other assistance programs. Often, people need help in applying for benefits, to make sure they qualify and obtain benefits promptly.

Helping kids at school. Just about anything that has to do with children is high on the list of desired activities, ranging from reading to younger children, tutoring, helping coach sports teams, and assisting with a wide range of extracurricular enrichment programs. There are many other school-based volunteer opportunities, and the need will grow this fall because of widespread school funding cutbacks throughout the country.

Helping kids at home. The slow economic recovery has put tremendous stress on families, forcing all adults in a household to seek work and creating rising demand for home-based caregivers and after-school support programs.

Repairing safety nets. From assisting food banks to driving people to healthcare clinics, there is plenty of help needed. Cash-strapped governments and social-service support programs badly need volunteers to help meet a range of human needs.

Live the dream. There are loads of opportunities to volunteer in activities you've always wanted to try: working with animals, being a docent or tour guide, helping arts organizations, and the like. Someone needs and will appreciate having the benefit of your skills.

National and state parks. Parks often take an early hit when budgets are cut. The government regularly seeks volunteers to clean and even help manage the under-staffed and under-funded National Park Service.

When disaster hits. Americans step up when their neighbors are hurting. Recent weather volatility has produced unusually severe storm damage throughout the country, and a related increase in volunteer activity.

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Insight: Making France work again

ECUEILLE, France (Reuters) - Shirt manufacturer Marc Roudeillac was delighted when 48 of the 49 staff in his factory in central France voted to adapt their strict 35-hour week contracts to meet the up-and-down demand of the fashion trade.

Then the labor inspector stepped in and ruled the contracts must not be changed. So Roudeillac began an overtime system with 25 percent hourly bonuses. Again, the seamstresses were happy - until the government this year scrapped tax breaks on overtime.

"Now, no one wants to do overtime anymore - they say it's just not worth their while," Roudeillac said at his Confection du Boischaut Nord (CBN) company in the region of Indre, a two-hour drive south of Paris.

CBN is a small miracle of manufacturing: it is one of the few firms in Indre's once-buoyant local textiles sector to have withstood the onslaught of foreign competition, first from southern Europe, then North Africa and now Asia.

Yet the overtime episode is a telling insight into a France struggling with itself: the France whose appetite for work sits uneasily with the France whose priority is to sustain one of highest standards of living in the world.

In just over 30 years after World War Two, France lifted itself from the ignominy of Nazi occupation into a sleek and modern Group of Seven economy with world-beating industrial champions in sectors such as energy and aerospace.

Its welfare system is among the most generous in the world. A road and rail transport network means its companies are within hours of tens of millions of potential customers. It is a leader in luxury goods and is the world's top tourist destination.

But somehow that Gallic vigour is being lost.

Unemployment is at 14-year highs as plant closures mount, France's share of export markets is declining, and the fact that no government in three decades has managed a budget surplus has created a public debt pile almost as big as national output.

Louis Gallois, the industrialist charged by President Francois Hollande to address France's waning competitiveness, even warned in a November report: "French industry has hit a critical threshold below which it risks breaking apart."

The euro zone's debt crisis too has shone a harsh spotlight on France. The International Monetary Fund believes France could get left behind as Italy and Spain are pushed by the crisis into profound economic reform. Ratings agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's have stripped French debt of its AAA rating.

Diagnosing France's ills has created a whole new literary genre - the work of the self-appointed "declinologues" whose tomes compete on bookshelves to explain and fix the problem.

But the simplest test of France's health is whether a business like CBN can keep selling the world its shirts.

THE GLORIOUS...

One hundred years ago, local entrepreneur Marcel Boussac put Indre on the world textiles map when he ended what was known as the "black look" in France by introducing color into the clothes manufacturing process.

Boussac founded a conglomerate that acted as its own bank and insurance broker and in 1946 bankrolled the first Paris fashion house of an up-and-coming designer called Christian Dior. He had a stable of racehorses, a country chateau and was at one point reputed to be Europe's richest man.

Boussac, like millions of French, was the beneficiary of France's "Glorious 30" - 30 years of uninterrupted boom in which post-World War Two U.S. aid and heavy state planning wrenched its transport, energy, housing, financial and farming sectors into the second half of the 20th century.

It was a period of high wages, high consumption, full employment and very little foreign competition. And it all came to a juddering halt when the 1973 oil crisis sent energy costs soaring and capped the Western world's growth rates for good.

There are no racehorses or country estates for Roudeillac and business partner Richard Boireau, who arrive for work in modest family saloon cars and share a desk in a cramped six-meter-square office.

If their company survives, it is largely thanks to a 20-year alliance serving a major Japanese fashion brand - whose name they asked should not be published - and a manufacturing model pared right down to the bone.

A trained engineer, Roudeillac, 45, says 80 percent of CBN's costs are labor - the local mushroom-picker, beautician or school-leaver whom he and Boireau meticulously train to contribute to the CBN production line.

Because CBN gets the client to purchase the raw materials, and all other overheads are low, CBN's slender gross margin of around six percent depends on optimizing what Roudeillac calls the "productive minute" of the seamstresses.

"What we do is sell French labor - by the minute," he says of their daily output of 200 shirts and 90 jackets.

Now CBN wants to strike out and revive an 86-year-old French brand of shirt called "Lordson" which fell prey to the textile sector's decline but which CBN believes has potential in the high-end quality segment of the market.

The "Lordson" will feature a rich cotton that feels smoother on the back after three years of washes, sleek three-millimeter seams about half the size of normal stitching, and buttons stuck on with a special machine of which only three exist in France.

There is one snag.

"Given our costs, it is impossible to retail a "Made in France" quality shirt for less than 140 euros," said Boireau, who entered the trade sweeping factory floors.

"At 120 euros a shirt it works. But at 140 - not sure."

...AND THE PITIFUL

If veteran textile entrepreneurs like Boireau fear they cannot hit the price point on their signature shirt, it is a direct result of choices made by France after the oil crisis.

By 1980, French economic growth had shrunk to two percent compared to its pre-oil crisis rate of above six percent - a rate which France and most rich states have not seen since.

In the years that followed, governments around the world reacted in their fashion: Britain's Margaret Thatcher faced down Britain's unions in a drive to free up labor markets, while Scandinavian leaders sought to free their economies of debt.

In France, governments of left and right chose entrenchment: strong rises in public spending which helped ease the social and employment shocks but which sent national debt soaring from 20 percent of output in 1980 to its current record of 91 percent.

The next three decades are sometimes called the "Pitiful 30"

Unwilling to switch from a pre-oil crisis policy of boosting consumption with low sales taxes, French politicians used labor to fund the bulk of the welfare spend. The result, 30 years later, is that French labor charges are among the highest in the European Union with those in Sweden and Belgium.

The high productivity of its workers might have compensated for their rising cost. But decisions such as the 1997 cut in the working week from 39 to 35 hours meant many French were also starting to work less.

A 2008 paper on "the Liberation of French growth" by Jacques Attali, ex-adviser to Socialist President Francois Mitterand, calculated that while the French lived 20 years longer than they did in 1936, they worked 15 years less over their lifespan - a shortfall he labeled "35 years of extra inactivity".

"Even given that each French worker produces five percent more per hour than an American, he produces 35 percent less over his working life," he found in the 245-page report.

Even that would not be disastrous if employers simply hired more people - the whole point of the 35-hour week after all was to reduce unemployment by requiring more workers to be taken on to do the same job.

But small companies like CBN insist it was plain unrealistic to assume they can simply hire more people for the same cost and without disruption to existing work patterns.

"When they brought in the 35-hour week, I wrote a letter to our clients saying, "Sorry, but as of tomorrow, prices are going up 11 percent," recalls Boireau.

INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS

French laws which make it difficult to lay off workers have created the perverse incentive for employers to stop offering permanent contracts that in many cases equate to a job for life.

Instead they turn to temporary contracts when they need extra labor, creating for millions of French the very labor insecurity which the law was supposed to prevent.

While today the majority of French workers still benefit from a permanent contract, three out of four new jobs are on fixed-term contracts, often for no more than a month.

The split personality of the labor market is, experts agree, a major drag on its economy. At one end there is expensive but inflexible labor and at the other cheap but ill-trained and often demoralized fill-in workers.

Roudeillac acknowledges that CBN is one of the employers who turn to temporary labor to help with peak production periods - but he would prefer not to. "We could take on six or seven more people. But in France, hiring people is a risk," he said.

For think tanks such as the OECD, the solution is simple: the first group needs to hand over some of their job security to the second group by accepting more flexible contracts. Surely such a burden-sharing should be easy for a country built on the ideals of "Liberty, equality and fraternity"?

Not a bit of it. In the past 30 years, France became not one country but two: the France of the "insiders" and the France of the "outsiders". And the reason it is so hard to reform is that the insiders are determined to keep the rest out.

Those "in" the system include workers on long-term contracts, labor groups protecting their interests, and the mostly large companies who have found an accommodation with the system. Those left "out" are the growing army of temporary contract workers, small firms such as CBN who do not have the economies of scale to allay the high cost of labor, and of course France's three million-plus unemployed.

"Neither the employers nor the trade unions want real reform - they are both in the insiders' camp," explains Eric Chaney, chief economist for insurer Axa Group. "The employers are scared of strikes and unions don't want to change anything in the system because the people they are protecting are insiders too."

Hollande has begun his plan to restore France's competitive position with corporate tax credits linked to labor hires. He has also launched a public investment bank aimed to make up for France's lack of venture capital. At his behest, French trade unions and employers have a year-end deadline to negotiate rules offering more flexibility and greater job security.

Yet it is unclear whether any accord will crack the mould. A dramatic cut in labor charges is not on the table and the 2013 budget stays clear of spending cuts sought by the reform lobby.

As CBN's managers gear up to bring the world the Lordson shirt next year, they will need Hollande to go a few steps further in helping them sell the product of French labor.

"We need something better adapted to the world now," said Boireau. "It needn't take very much."

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Egypt opposition figure says Mursi deepening crisis

CAIRO (Reuters) - A leading member of Egypt's main opposition coalition said on Sunday that President Mohamed Mursi's decision to press ahead with a referendum on a new constitution was "shocking" and would deepen a political crisis.

"It is making things a lot worse," Ahmed Said, member of the National Salvation Front coalition and head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters. "I cannot imagine that after all this they want to pass a constitution that does not represent all Egyptians."

He said the Front would meet later on Sunday to make a formal response to Mursi's decision to scrap a decree that sparked deadly violence but stick to a referendum date of December 15 on a constitution that was drawn up by an Islamist-led drafting assembly.

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Rare Beijing protest takes aim at high speed rail project

BEIJING (Reuters) - Authorities in Beijing allowed a rare protest to take place on Sunday against a new high speed rail line, with about 300 demonstrators shouting slogans disrupting traffic in a busy eastern suburb.

Residents told Reuters they were concerned the new line from Beijing to the northeastern city of Shenyang would run too close to their apartments and local schools, causing excess noise and electromagnetic radiation.

They also complained the government had refused to listen to their concerns and accused them of faking an environmental impact assessment.

"I only knew this line was planned two weeks ago when I got a letter from the government thanking me for my support," said a protester who gave her family name as Zhang. "But neither me nor any of the other residents support this. They are inventing things."

Reuters was unable to reach government officials to seek comment.

Police allowed the largely middle-class protesters to march down a main road, where they briefly blocked an intersection shouting "down with the high speed line" and "change the route".

They peacefully dispersed later in the afternoon.

The stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party is wary of any protests, especially in the sensitive capital of Beijing, and often detain demonstrators or break up protests before they reach critical mass.

The party worries that the tens of thousands of sporadic protests over land grabs, corruption, environmental problems and economic grievances that break out every year could coalesce into a national movement and threaten its control.

In 2008, hundreds of people in China's financial hub Shanghai marched against the extension of the city's magnetic levitation train, or "maglev", worried it would emit radiation and sicken them. Police detained dozens.

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Egypt president scraps decree that sparked protests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi  has cancelled a decree that gave him sweeping powers and sparked violent unrest but did not delay this month's referendum on a new constitution that was a major demand of his opponents.

Islamist supporters of Mursi have insisted the referendum should go ahead on time on December 15, saying it is needed to complete a democratic transition still incomplete after autocrat Hosni Mubarak's overthrow 22 months ago.

Ahmed Said, a leading member of the main opposition National Salvation Front said the decision to press ahead with the referendum was "shocking" and would deepen a political crisis.

"It is making things a lot worse," Said, head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters. "I cannot imagine that after all this they want to pass a constitution that does not represent all Egyptians." He said the Front would meet later on Sunday to give a formal response.

The announcement that Mursi had scrapped his November 22 decree followed talks on Saturday that ran into the night at his presidential palace. Billed as a "national dialogue", the meeting was boycotted by his main rivals and had little credibility among protesters in the most populous Arab nation.

The April 6 movement, which helped galvanize street protests against Mubarak, said in a statement about the outcome of Saturday's talks: "What happened is manipulation and a continuation of deception in the name of law and legitimacy."

The constitution was fast-tracked through an assembly led by Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Liberals and others walked out, saying their voices were not being heard.

"A constitution without consensus cannot go to a referendum," said Hermes Fawzi, 28, a protester camped with dozens of others outside the presidential palace. "It's not logical that just one part of society makes the constitution."

Nearby were tanks and military vehicles of the Republican Guards positioned there to protect the palace after clashes in the past week between Islamists and their rivals killed seven people and injured about 350.

The military, which led Egypt through a turbulent interim period after Mubarak fell, stepped into the crisis on Saturday to tell feuding factions that dialogue was essential to avoid "catastrophe." But a military source said this was not a prelude to the army retaking control of Egypt or the streets.

DEEP RIFTS

After Saturday's talks, Mursi issued a new decree in which the first article "cancels the constitutional declaration" announced on November 22, the spokesman for the dialogue, Mohamed Selim al-Awa, told a news conference held around midnight.

But he said the constitutional referendum would go ahead anyway next Saturday, adding that although those at the meeting discussed a postponement, there were legal obstacles to a delay.

The political turmoil has exposed deep rifts in the nation of 83 million between Islamists, who were suppressed for decades, and their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms. Many Egyptian just crave stability and economic recovery.

Islamists and more liberal-minded opponents have each drawn tens of thousands of supporters to the streets in rival rallies since the November 22 decree. Mursi's opponents have chanted for his downfall while Islamists have said there is a conspiracy to bring down the nation's first freely elected president.

The National Salvation Front, whose members include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and former foreign minister Amr Moussa, stayed away from Saturday's talks.

Ahead of stating its formal position, Front spokesman Hussein Abdel Ghani said: "My first personal impression is that it is a limited and insufficient step. We repeatedly said that among our top demands is for the referendum to be delayed."

Despite such opposition, Mursi is gambling he can push through the constitution via referendum with the backing of loyal Islamists and many Egyptians who are desperate to move on. Only after a constitution is in place can an election be held for a new parliament, expected about two months later.

The Islamist-led lower house of parliament elected this year was dissolved after a few months by a court order.

DISTRUST

The new decree removed some parts of the old decree that angered the opposition, including an article that had given Mursi broad powers to confront threats to the revolution or the nation, wording opponents said gave him arbitrary authority.

Another article in the old decree had put beyond legal challenge any decision taken by the president until a new parliament was elected, reflecting Mursi's distrust of a judiciary largely unreformed from Mubarak's era.

That article was not repeated, but the new decree said "constitutional declarations including this declaration" were beyond judicial review.

The new decree outlined steps for setting up an assembly to draft a new constitution should the current draft be rejected.

Further, the opposition was invited to offer suggested changes to the new constitution, echoing an earlier initiative by Mursi's team for amendments to be discussed and agreed on by political factions and put to the new parliament to approve.

Amid the violence and political bickering, the army has cast itself primarily as the neutral guarantor of the nation.

"The armed forces affirm that dialogue is the best and only way to reach consensus," the military statement said. "The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe and that is something we will not allow."

The army might be pushing the opposition to join dialogue and for Mursi to do more to draw them in, said Hassan Abu Taleb of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

He discounted the chance of direct military intervention. "They realize that interfering again in a situation of civil combat will squeeze them between two rocks," he added.

But the military seemed poised to take a more active role in security arrangements for the approaching referendum.

A cabinet source said the cabinet had discussed reviving the army's ability to make arrests if it were called upon to back up police, who are normally in charge of election security.

According to the state-run daily newspaper al-Ahram, an expanded military security role might extend to the next parliamentary election and, at the president's discretion, even beyond that.

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Ghana awaits new president in test of democracy

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghanaians waited anxiously on Sunday for results to a leadership election  that was fraught with technical problems, but which officials hope will still burnish the country's reputation as a pillar of African democracy.

A leading local news outlet that was compiling results credited incumbent John Dramani Mahama with victory on Sunday, contradicting claims from the party of his top rival, Nana Akufo-Addo.

"I'm not so interested in hearing it from them. I want to hear it from the electoral commission," said Godwin Gone, a 42 year-old electrical engineer in the sprawling capital Accra. "I hope they will speak soon."

The poll is seen as a test of whether Ghana can maintain 30 years of stability and progress in a region better known for coups, civil wars and corruption.

An oil-driven economic boom has brought more wealth to Ghana but also fears that it could suffer the corruption and instability that often plagues energy-rich developing nations.

A cliff-hanger election in 2008, in which Akufo-Addo lost by less than 1 percent, pushed Ghana to the brink of chaos, with initial disputes over results driving hundreds of people into the streets with clubs and machetes.

"Peace cannot be taken for granted. So we are all working towards it," said Miranda Greenstreet, co-chairman of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, which deployed around 4,000 monitors for the vote.

Voting was plagued by delays after hundreds of newly-introduced electronic fingerprint readers - used to identify voters - failed on Friday and forced some polling stations to reopen on Saturday to clear the backlog.

But the problems were met calmly by the rival parties and ordinary Ghanaians, calming worries of the kind of street violence still common during elections in West Africa.

"This election has been hard, but we must remember Ghanaians are one and we must love each other and remain peaceful," said Wellington Dadzie, 69, a former soldier who lives on the outskirts of the capital Accra.

Late on Saturday, the General Secretary of Akufo-Addo's party said he had seen figures showing Akufo-Addo had won the vote with 51 percent - a statement immediately criticized by Mahama's party as "reckless and provocative".

OIL HOPES

A spokesman for Ghana's election commission was not available Sunday morning, but officials said results are widely expected later Sunday or on Monday. A run-off is possible December 28 if no candidate wins an outright majority.

Ghanaians are also choosing a new parliament, in which Mahama's National Democratic Party enjoyed a small majority.

Mahama was the vice president to John Atta Mills and replaced him as president in July after he died of an illness.

He has vowed to use the growing oil wealth to boost incomes and jumpstart development in a country where the average person lives on $4 a day.

Oil production in Ghana - which is also a big cocoa and gold producer - started two years ago and oil field operator Tullow Oil says it expects to boost output further in 2013.

Akufo-Addo, a British-trained lawyer and son of a former president, has criticized the ruling party for the slow pace of job creation and has promised to provide free primary and secondary school education.

But in a country where campaign messages rarely influence voting choices, many believe most of the 14 million voters will cast their ballots based on ethnic, social or regional ties.

Ghana has had five peaceful and constitutional transfers of power since its last coup in 1981, in stark contrast to the turmoil that surrounds it in the region.

Neighboring Ivory Coast tipped into civil war last year after a disputed 2010 poll and regional neighbors Mali and Guinea-Bissau have both suffered coups this year.

"These elections are important not just to Ghana but for the growing number of states and actors seeking to benefit from increasing confidence in Africa," said Alex Vines, Africa Research Director at Chatham House.

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