Are the Baby Boomers killing the economy? Many are starting to cash in their chips as many are retiring. Others are finding themselves in dire straits with no life savings. They wanted to bring peace to the world, but seems they have taken a piece of the economy with them. Can this be their defining moment as a generation or will they gently go into the night and stiff Generation X and all other generations with the bill?
Self-absorbed, self-indulged, and self-loathing, the Baby Boom generation at last has the chance to step out of the so-called Greatest Generation’s historical shadow. Boomers may not have the opportunity to save the world, as their predecessors did, but they can still redeem themselves by saving the American economy from the fiscal mess that they, and their fathers and mothers, are leaving behind.- Michael Kinsley
What happened in Japan in the 1990s was a demographic shift into retirement, where a large portion of the population went from a lifestyle of earning, saving and spending to a lifestyle of not earning, living off assets and spending less. This resulted in less demand for investments like stocks, less demand for housing, and less demand for material ‘things’ — and the prices of all these fell.