Category: Demographics
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Children & Retirees: 7.5 Million Reasons Our Economy Isn’t Growing / Economics / Demographics
Rodney Johnson writes: A few weeks ago my lovely wife and younger daughter, who is still in high school, traveled to Texas for a birthday party. It wasn’t just any party, it was the centennial celebration for my wife’s great aunt.
More amazing than this lady’s longevity is the fact she’s not alone. She and her two sisters (my wife’s grandmother and her two great aunts) all live together, ranging in age from 91 to 100. We call it “the house of little old ladies.”
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Will Ever More Boomers Selling Retirement Assets Change Investment Prices For Decades? / Stock-Markets / Demographics
When investors pour cash into a market, all else being equal – prices rise. And when investors pull cash from a market – prices fall.
If we accept that simple relationship, and agree that the basic laws of supply and demand apply to investments just like they do to the rest of economics, this could mean that we are in the early stages of a tidal reversal in the investment markets – which just may change everything when it comes to our future income and standards of living.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Population Decline and the Great Economic Reversal / Economics / Demographics
George Friedman writes: In recent weeks, we have been focusing on Greece, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. All are still burning issues. But in every case, readers have called my attention to what they see as an underlying and even defining dimension of all these issues — if not right now, then soon. That dimension is declining population and the impact it will have on all of these countries. The argument was made that declining populations will generate crises in these and other countries, undermining their economies and national power. Sometimes we need to pause and move away from immediate crises to broader issues. Let me start with some thoughts from my book The Next 100 Years.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Clash of Generations - Why Millennials Still Live at Home; Not Jobs, Student Debt, or Housing / Economics / Demographics
A New York Fed research paper wonders What's Keeping Millennials at Home? Is it Debt, Jobs, or Housing?
The paper says "it's a mystery" why the housing recovery did not have a bigger impact on millennials living at home.
The research paper, written by Zachary Bleemer, Meta Brown, Donghoon Lee, and Wilbert van der Klaauw notes correlations to debt, jobs and housing.
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Thursday, November 13, 2014
The Most Destructive Generation Ever / Economics / Demographics
I’m afraid I got to delve into a particularly unpopular topics once again today. Blame it on Bloomberg. They ran a piece on the Silent Generation (people born between 1928-’45), which finds it self in a ‘sweet spot’ but refuses to spend enough. A funny problem: the by far richest group in the US doesn’t spend, while those who would like to spend, for instance to build a home and a family, are too poor to do it.
I know I’m not going to make myself popular with what I have to say about this, but then I’m not running for US President, or Miss Universe for that matter. Besides, people should be careful about taking things personal that are not.
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Wednesday, October 01, 2014
Bubble Trouble - What 2014 Demographic Trends Show About Urban Life / Stock-Markets / Demographics
Demographic trends clearly show that as any emerging or more developed country urbanizes, people tend to have fewer kids. Urban life costs more and people tend to be more highly educated and naturally, they want to better educate their kids… so they choose to have one or two.
Nearly 25% choose their well-paid careers and social life over having children.
Almost all developed countries are experiencing a slowing down of their economies due to fewer kids and sluggish demographic growth.
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Monday, August 25, 2014
Go Forth Multiply And Replenish The Earth / Economics / Demographics
And Inherit The Debt of your Parents
A supposedly alarming national population simulation commissioned by South Korea's National Assembly and published this week says that by 2750 (perhaps that was a typo for 2075) the country's population would be extinct. The report said that South Korea's extreme low fertility rate (about 1.25 children per female in her reproductive life) is outpacing the decline of neighboring Japan's population but the report admitted that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Singapore have even lower fertility rates. Several EU28 countries, including former “big family” Italy and Spain have fertility rates close to Japan's 1.40 children per female, far below the 2.2 to 2.3 needed to simply maintain the present population.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Our Population Growth Totalitarian Future / Politics / Demographics
“On the first Christmas Day the population of our planet was about two hundred and fifty millions — less than half the population of modern China. Sixteen centuries later, when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, human numbers had climbed to a little more than five hundred millions. By the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, world population had passed the seven hundred million mark. In 1931, when I was writing Brave New World, it stood at just under two billions. Today, only twenty-seven years later, there are two billion eight hundred million of us. And tomorrow — what?” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World Revisited – 1958
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Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Demographic Trends in the 50-and-Older Work Force / Economics / Demographics
Courtesy of Doug Short: In my earlier update on demographic trends in employment, I included a chart illustrating the growth (or shrinkage) in six age cohorts since the turn of the century. In this commentary we’ll zoom in on the age 50 and older Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
But first, let’s review the big picture. The overall LFPR is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution). The result is the participation rate expressed as a percent.
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Thursday, April 17, 2014
Overpopulation Is Not A Problem For Us / Politics / Demographics
On a day like this, when Bloomberg runs the hilarious and preposterous headline “Euro Periphery Emerges as Haven as Bonds Rise”, and markets are up because the Chinese government announces a 7.4% GDP growth number, which might as well be 4.7% for all we know given the opaqueness and rosy bubbly with which Beijing is known to “calculate” these numbers, let’s talk about something entirely different. And what better to talk about than a topic I know beforehand will antagonize a substantial part of my readership? And add a title to match that?
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Saturday, February 22, 2014
U.K. House Prices vs Supply, Immigration, Population Growth and Demographics Crisis / News_Letter / Demographics
The Market Oracle NewsletterJanaury 10th , 2014 Issue # 1 Vol. 8
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014
How to Survive the Demographic Cliff and the Spending Wave / Economics / Demographics
For today's Outside the Box, my longtime friend Harry Dent is letting us have a look at chapter 1 of his latest (and I would say his greatest) book, The Demographic Cliff: How to Survive and Prosper During the Great Deflation of 2014-2019. Harry's grasp of the impact of demographics on economies and investments is unexcelled and unambiguous. We all know that demographics really matter, but Harry has looked deeper and harder and understood better than any of us.
One of the key insights Harry brings to us is the concept of the Spending Wave. In other words, it's not just when you and the rest of your generation were born that matters, it's when you spend. At what age does your spending peak for housing or for child rearing or travel? Harry and his team have developed really good numbers on all of this, and from that data they have been able to consistently predict major macroeconomic trends. Harry summarizes the recent decades and the coming ones like this:
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014
U.S. Retirement Sunset Math: Number of Employed vs. Population Over Time / Politics / Demographics
As we face retirement sunset demographics, inquiring minds might be wondering how many people are left to foot the bill for retiree Medicare, health care, public union pensions, and Social Security promises vs. the number of people collecting benefits.
The following charts from reader Tim Wallace will help put things into perspective.
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Thursday, January 09, 2014
U.K. House Prices vs Supply, Immigration, Population Growth and Demographics Crisis / Housing-Market / Demographics
The long-term battle being played in the UK housing market is that of limited new build supply always trying to play catchup with ever increasing demands as a consequence of the UK's growing population and changing demographics which is set against many other developed countries that are either experiencing falling populations such as Germany and Japan or have ample space to build far beyond that demanded as a consequence of population growth such as the United States and of course not forgetting eastern europe as a consequence of emigration. Therefore this analysis as part of a series on the UK housing market seeks to gauge the likely impact of population growth and the ageing demographics crisis on UK house prices over the next 20 years.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013
China's Next Baby Boom Will be a Boon for U.S. Business / Economics / Demographics
George Leong writes:
There you have it; the latest great news out of China, I think, will help drive sales of some U.S. companies going forward.
The news? There are going to be more babies born in China over the foreseeable future. In a surprise and strategic move, the Communist Party of China decided it was time to increase its baby population and look towards the future of the country.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Zero Population Growth – A Forgotten Fear / Politics / Demographics
EXIT THE HYSTERICS
Government-friendly environment and development aid NGOs avoid this one like the plague: they never say the world is massively overpopulated and left that role for a few privileged hard line speakers - like Obama's chief science adviser John P. Holdren, guru ecologist Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome and its WorldShift Network, and a few others. Occasionally, reputed organizations like Britain's Royal Society joined in with arguments for ZPG, calling for a “radical rebalancing" of global consumption, to go hand-in-hand with linked and stronger attempts to curb the rapid rise of global population.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Seniors Are Stealing From Our Young, the Looming Entitlement Spending Catastrophe / Economics / Demographics
Hedge fund icon and former Chairman, President and CIO of Duquesne Capital, Stan Druckenmiller joined Bloomberg Television's Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker on "Market Makers" for a full hour and said, the government must address entitlement spending "This is the first generation where a 30-year-old's net worth is less than his parents...If you look at the older people, there net worth has doubled." Druckenmiller also said it would be a big deal for financial markets if the Federal Reserve were to completely end its asset purchases over the next 12-months.
Druckenmiller said he sees no bear market as long as fed prints money, prices will respond to actual QE exit, he doesn't see many investing opportunities, he is very focused on who the next Fed Chairman is, and thinks there are too many hedge fund managers.
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Wednesday, September 04, 2013
How Fed Policy Has Devastated Three Generations of Retirees / Economics / Demographics
Retirement can be an unpleasant prospect if you’re not ready for it. This week’s Outside the Box is in in-depth report on Americans' retirement prospects, which comes to us from Dennis Miller, a columnist for CBS Market Watch, and editor of Miller’s Money Forever. It's not just the Boomers who are trying (often in vain) to retire this decade; it's also Gen-Xers, who are the most indebted generation (and the one that saw their assets depreciate the most in the Great Recession). The Millennials haven't been spared, either; in fact, over time they may be the hardest-hit, since near-zero interest rates are keeping them from compounding their savings in the early years of their careers, when the power of compounding is greatest. In addition, the difficult post-college job market and sky-high levels of student loans have kept most Millennials out of the stock market, and they are far less likely than previous generations t o open a retirement savings account.
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Thursday, August 22, 2013
China's Unprecedented Demographic Time Bomb Problem Takes Shape / Economics / Demographics
Chinese society is on the verge of a structural transformation even more profound than the long and painful project of economic rebalancing, which the Communist Party is anxiously beginning to undertake. China's population is aging more rapidly than it is getting rich, giving rise to a great demographic imbalance with important implications for the Party's efforts to transform the Chinese economy and preserve its own power in the coming decade.
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Thursday, August 08, 2013
U.S.Demographic Trends and Economic GDP Growth / Economics / Demographics
For today's Outside the Box we have a very special research piece by Rob Arnott of Research Associates and his colleague Denis Chaves. Rob was with us at Leen's Lodge last week, and in the final evening discussion session he asked an interesting question having to do with demography and GDP growth. I was intrigued by it, but the group soon moved on without fully exploring Rob's idea; so I mentioned it to him again later, and he was good enough to send along the following paper.
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