--- Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 29, 2003 at 07:10:56PM -0700, Gautam > Mukunda wrote: > > > I would ask why, btw, you think that new savings > won't be enough to > > counteract the outflow. > > I guess I'm not being clear. It is a simple numbers > game. Right now > there are around 4 workers for every retired person. > The GS study says > there will only be 2.3 workers for every person 65 > and over in 2050. If > people retire at 65, there will be a lot more people > selling than buying > in 2050 as compared to now. Even if some people > delay retirement past > 65, the gap is so large that there will probably > still be a lot more > selling in 2030-2050 as compared to now.
There will be more people selling than buying compared to _now_, yes, but there probably won't be more people selling than buying. That's a clear difference. First because the selling thing might well be overstated. In a utility maximization sense, people seem to tend to underspend in retirement - that is, they retire with assets still in the market. So it's not clear that people over 65 will be "cashing out" of the markets completely. To some extent, probably, but not completely. At the same time, people under 65 will be buying in. It seems like we're going in circles a bit. I agree that growth will probably (not certainly, but probably) slow down, but there's a huge difference between that and a Depression. I haven't read the study you cited on capital flows - I'm definitely going to have to look into it. I would say, though, that $600B is a lot higher than _any_ estimate I've seen, and that includes investment bank work, World Bank work, and the CSIS's huge study on this topic. So that seems like something of a worst-case scenario to me. I'll have to look at it to tell you more than that. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
