A couple of posters (above) mentioned how shifting demographics are going to have an impact on pensions. One of the senior opposition MPs in the UK wrote a book called The Pinch about this, and it discusses how the Baby Boomers have ended up with the majority of the wealth in the country, whilst leaving their children to pick up the bills.
There's an article on it here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7214352/The-Pinch-How-Baby-Boomers-Took-Their-Childrens-Future-and-Why-They-Should-Give-it-Back-by-David-Willetts-review.html
A poster on the UK Motley Fool site commented that baby boomers had largely been the beneficiaries of buying assets (such as housing) during a period of high inflation, which kept the purchase price low, and then repaying them during a period of low inflation, which kept that side low.
Taking Piston Broke's comments onboard, if we get high inflation then people who're highly geared on property (investors, FHBs) will have the inverse of the boomers' scenario. Namely they will have purchased an asset that is priced for repayments in a low interest environment (and hence paid a high price), and then face expensive repayments. That won't be pretty.
The other thing has struck me is that with low inflation the expectation should be that asset prices will rise slowly.
Taking a detour off topic, I'm starting to think that a lot of the speculative trading by hedge funds is actually damaging the rest of the economy. Traders are trying to generate high returns (to earn their bonuses), and ramping up, or buying into, bubbles. That's possibly what's happening with gold, and also with the anti-Euro punts.
Hobo-Jo - I hope that my comment is from a more accurate source than the first one.
There's an article on it here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7214352/The-Pinch-How-Baby-Boomers-Took-Their-Childrens-Future-and-Why-They-Should-Give-it-Back-by-David-Willetts-review.html
A poster on the UK Motley Fool site commented that baby boomers had largely been the beneficiaries of buying assets (such as housing) during a period of high inflation, which kept the purchase price low, and then repaying them during a period of low inflation, which kept that side low.
Taking Piston Broke's comments onboard, if we get high inflation then people who're highly geared on property (investors, FHBs) will have the inverse of the boomers' scenario. Namely they will have purchased an asset that is priced for repayments in a low interest environment (and hence paid a high price), and then face expensive repayments. That won't be pretty.
The other thing has struck me is that with low inflation the expectation should be that asset prices will rise slowly.
Taking a detour off topic, I'm starting to think that a lot of the speculative trading by hedge funds is actually damaging the rest of the economy. Traders are trying to generate high returns (to earn their bonuses), and ramping up, or buying into, bubbles. That's possibly what's happening with gold, and also with the anti-Euro punts.
Hobo-Jo - I hope that my comment is from a more accurate source than the first one.