On Sun, Jun 29, 2003 at 08:30:28PM -0700, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > There will be more people selling than buying compared to _now_, yes, > but there probably won't be more people selling than buying.
I don't think we're communicating. I am saying that there will be more supply compared to demand for equities in 2050 compared to now because of the change in demographics. Neither of the papers you cited dispute this. So, the question is, what will happen as a result of the increased supply relative to demand? Law of supply and demand says that equity prices will fall until demand meets supply. Part of the reason the stock market has had such an amazing run since 1982 is the opposite of this trend as the baby boomers save and buy equities. The only factors I can think of to counteract a drop in equity prices are: people delaying retirement, or increasing numbers of non-US buyers of US equities (if the latter happens, it will probably be at the expense of investment in developing economies, which would be unfortunate). I think both of these will probably occur to some extent, but everything I've read suggests that this won't be enough to prevent prices from dropping and the economy from slowing. Perhaps increased productivity could be the saviour, but that only seems possible if some major technological advances are made soon, and it doesn't seem that there is a lot of investment in the necessary basic and applied research now, nor is there likely to be a big increase in the near future. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
