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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (53299)	9/13/2004 11:34:54 AM
From: AC Flyer	Respond to of 74559

>>AC - a demographic recession?<< Yes. There is convincing evidence - to me anyway - that Depressions are primarily caused by sustained secular failures in demand. (We're talking about something far more significant here than the ripples in the economic pond caused by the level of interest rates and the price of oil, btw). Aggregate consumer demand can be predicted very closely by an integral function of the population distribution by age and per capita spending by age, both of which are known data series. Thus, Depressions and certain other aggregate economic phenomena are primarily demographic in nature. The onset and severity of Depressions can be affected by the timing and size of waves of technology introductions, by the quality of fiscal and monetary policy and by other external factors, but the primary cause of Depressions is a sustained and significant reduction in consumer buying. The current 14 year Japanese malaise has demographic roots and so did the US Great Depression, which was caused in part by the abrupt and prolonged cessation of immigration into the US at the beginning of the First World War (in 1914). >>Might the US "depression" start long before 2012? Every day we see stories of unreliable SS and unaffordable health care cost. If the public starts to take this situation seriously, might they stop SPENDING on WalMart crap and bigger houses and start setting money aside? << This is all just noise, Steve. If you want to know what is likely to happen, turn off the TV and do a little thinking for yourself. The so-called SS crisis is imaginary and has been manufactured purely for political reasons. In the US, we will all receive our SS payments. It sure does get the little guy to bounce around his cage, though. However, if you want to live a real - as opposed to imaginary - SS crisis, move to Italy around 2015. Health care? Similar story. I try to stay out of hospitals and doctors' offices as much as possible, for they will kill you if you give them a chance. >>As I watch the news this morning on yet another airline filing bankruptcy, I can't help but think of the disposable income change between the old airline industry and the new startups. The difference in success is "wages"!! Well wages and benefits. As more companies are doing away with health care coverage and retirement - the worker then becomes responsible. If the wage earner gets less and has to pay for benefits before were covered - will this not effect discretionary spending?<< Steve, wake up and smell the coffee. How can you live in America and not understand that this is the Invisible Hand of Capitalism at work? This is the process - Creative Destruction - that makes us all wealthier over the long term. Btw, I am really enjoying seeing all the Union dinosaurs at USAir and United go through the reality meat-grinder. Before they are done, they will all have collectively-bargained themselves onto the unemployment line.