Lots of people moved in to U.S. cities over the past decade – but what happens next? See my post on Seeking Alpha for more.

Here’s a quick quiz – which would you rather do: 1) Live in poverty or 2) Live with your spouse?  A lot of baby boomers seem to be choosing (1), although they may not actually know it.  Trouble is, boomers are ending their marriages in droves, and splitting up what are really very inadequate retirement assets.  So just when it seemed that the baby boomers could not make the dream of retirement even more elusive, they have apparently found a way to do so. Read more →

This is the first in a series of blogs about the way that demographics are going to affect your investments.

Yes, I know there has been a lot written on the topic, and most of us know the basic theory.

The boomers poured a lot of money into the markets over the past couple of decades, and they made the markets go up. Now they are getting old (sorry if that term offends anyone, but the first wave of boomers is cashing in their pension checks as we speak) and they are going to be pulling the money out of their retirement accounts. This will make the markets go down.

Really? Is it as simple as that? Read more →

Oh the labor shortage thing: it get dredged up every so often, and not without cause. We all know the theory behind it, more or less. The boomers are aging, and they are going ot exit the labor force. The generation coming up behind them was not nearly as plentiful in numbers, so they won’t really be replaced. So, as long as the economy keeps growing and nothing major (immigration, labor force paritcipation rates etc.) changes, then there will be lots of unfilled jobs out there. Read more →

Here’s an interesting study (by non-profit consultants Convio)  on how the different U.S. generations are doling out money to charity.  Turns out that everybody is still pretty generous in their giving (recession or no recession), but that not all charities are doing a good job in reaching the people that might write the checks. Actually, not all people give by writing checks when they give, which is part of the problem. Read more →

Baby boomers are going to retire and take down the pension system. Generation X is lazy. Generation Y is spoiled and undisciplined, and they’ve pretty much blown out their eardrums by having them stuffed with ipods all the time anyway. Read more →