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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Real Man who wrote (895)	9/10/2007 11:38:33 AM
From: stan_hughes	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71426

Well hoohah, beneath the Vi Bear lurks a closet social optimist -- "I'm sure another great depression is not on its way -g- Well, the only problem I see that could make it happen is energy, or the lack of cheap energy. But... we (humans) will find something if we work hard on it" I used to be an idealist too, but the older I get and the more I learn about what makes the world tick, the more cynical I become, at least in terms of my macroeconomic views of what lies ahead in the early 21st century. Ever since I saw the Dow finally break upward from 1000 in the early 1980s I've correspondingly pondered when the end of this "Baby Boomer Boom" would start to form, i.e. that tipping point when the Boomer demographic would start looking to cash out of their retirement stash of the big residential home and their stocks that they've bid into the stratosphere, now to move into annuities and income funds and government bonds so they can clip coupons and travel on the cash flow. I've also always suspected the mass exit from non-income producing RE and stocks would start to happen sooner than most people expected (even those who are looking for it) due to a strong degree of front-running 'to be on the safe side' by those who want to ensure they get out at an acceptable level rather than get caught on the backside of what most financial planners will tell you is an inevitable coming decline. Given that the early Boomers turned 60 last year and are starting to pack it in, it's easy for me to view what's happening right now as a not-so-distant early warning of a classic 'more sellers than buyers' scenario for the stock markets in the coming years -- perhaps a lot of years -- Echo Boomers will similarly not find many buyers for their McMansions among retirees who can't walk up a flight of stairs. IMO Boomer demographics are going to alter which asset classes are to be preferred in the future in the same way that Boomer demographics drove up the stock markets in the first place. This viewpoint is also part of the reason why I find it difficult to picture the development of a mass reliance by the retirement demographic on gold to save the day (no income to be had from it) even if a percentage of retirees actually understand the purchasing power protection element inherent in gold. Current events such as energy and/or food shortages will no doubt distort and either improve or worsen the manner in which this liquidation occurs and also determine which sectors get hit more than others, but IMO it's still going to happen at the macro level -- and if the CBs manage to blow up the financial system at the same time, that's just going to make the whole situation that much more painful to experience for anybody that gets caught in the crossfire at an age when they don't have enough time to replace their stash. So there, how's that for being bearish .