Monday, February 28, 2011

Where are the Baby Boomer Nest Eggs?

From the Daily Bell:
It was never a reality; it was fiction. Stock markets go up because of the way the system has been built. Central banks and modern stock markets are the two halves of an efficient, middle-class money-extraction mechanism. Prompted by money stimulation, markets run up and – in America anyway – suck consumers' money into "opportunities." Then the market crashes, the valuations are diminished, jobs are lost and the contraction begins. Many who cannot stand the losses, psychologically or otherwise, sell out at the bottom – much as they have bought at the top – and the contraction of the middle classes continues apace. Lives are destroyed and families' hopes and dreams are ruined.
As economies undistort without the endless goad of monetary stimulation, people would gradually begin to be self-sufficient again. Nuclear families would collapse and extended families would reappear; this is the logical solution to old age, not frantic investing leading to the selection of an old-age home where one is likely to be abused before dying.