[al_borland]

Maybe. A lot of these calculations are usually based on historical averages for the US stock market. For the economy to keep moving, they need people to spend their money.

Eventually it may all even out, where people spend so much once they hit a certain point in their life/portfolio, that it allows for everyone else to be saving and investing everything in the first few decades of life. But a transition period where everyone stops their mindless consumerism would be rough on markets. Sales of “wants” would collapse and the stocks would fall right with them. At least that’s my theory.

I also often wonder if the stock performance we’ve seen is simply a result of the way the population has grown. If we are seeing slowing growth, or even population decline, can we expect the markets to contract right a long with the population. What will that mean for everyone’s retirement accounts?

[toast0]

Except for some extremists, I don't think the advice is to save and invest everything. Instead, you should try to be saving and investing a meaningful amount of your income.

[harmmonica]

I appreciate what you're saying here, all of it, and wonder some of the same, but my comment was likely overly cryptic because I didn't mean anything about consumption.

[dmoy]

> . If we are seeing slowing growth, or even population decline, can we expect the markets to contract right a long with the population. What will that mean for everyone’s retirement accounts?

Shit, the bigger scarier one is housing and ss. A huge percentage of people's retirement is either directly in housing (i.e. their house is their only asset), or indirectly in housing via their (mbs or other mortgage related bond products). If population declines housing prices may crater, and if population declines ss payouts may also crater. Gonna be a rough period of time (decades?).

[al_borland]

I have this theory that a big driver of the lack of housing, and the resulting high prices, is due to the lower rates of marriage. More single occupancy homes means more homes are required. This goes hand in hand with a declining birth rate. So this breakdown in the family structure could be at least partially responsible for both the rise and collapse of housing prices. That’s kind of interesting.