Who"s Going To Eat The Losses?

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via PeakProsperity.com,

Unsustainable.

Many more people need to understand what that word really means, and how it applies to pretty much everything in the current human living arrangement. Especially the so-called "developed" nations.

Here’s the dictionary definition:

Let"s take these three definitions one at a time.

First: our entire economic model, which dependent on borrowing at a faster rate than income (GDP) grows, is something that simply cannot be maintained at its current rate or level. Check.

 

Second: depleting species, soils and aquifers are all wildly unsustainable practices that are accelerating. Check.

 

Last (and most glaring of all): the world’s leadership (and we use that term very loosely) continues to insist on adhering to the indefensible idea that infinite growth on a finite planet is possible  Checkmate.

Said another way, the daily comforting stories we are told about how all of this somehow makes sense are just a load of nonsense. Each is entirely unsupportable by the evidence, facts and data.

What happens when a culture’s dominant narratives are not just unsatisfactory, but entirely unworkable? 

Well, for one thing, the younger generations that are being asked (goaded?) to step into an increasingly flawed future begin to resist. Which is completely understandable. They have nothing to gain if the status quo continues.

At the same time, the older generations mostly just settle into a stubborn insistence that everything will be fine if everyone will just do more of precisely what got us into the mess in the first place. Younger people should step up to make sure Medicare/Social Security/pensions remain fully funded, and buy the financial assets and homes of downsizing seniors at top dollar. The boomers have everything to lose if the status quo changes.

Why do I bother to tell you all this?  Why have I spent the last ten years of my life trying to alert the public of risks they keep telling me make them uncomfortable?  Because I care. Because I hope to help a few people preserve their hard-earned wealth. Possibly even save a few lives with this information. And, ultimately, to help people lead lives filled with greater connection, aliveness and joy.

The key to all of these better outcomes is having a clear-eyed view of "what is", and then being able to predict "what’s next". Which means that understanding is the first step. Informed action follows from that.

Mind The Gap

In the US, through selfish over-consumption, the baby boomer generation has screwed the prospects for following generations. It"s now doing everything to deny and defend its extraordinarily self-serving and short-sighted decisions, and delay the repercussions for as long as possible.

For the record, I seriously doubt the current younger generations would have behaved any differently were we to teleport them back in time  The boomers came of age when net energy from oil was still climbing and that ‘taught’ them about ‘how the world worked.’  When you have abundant resources, especially high net energy oil, you can pretty much do anything you want.

But today?

Not so much. A BIG fallacy of the past is that wars lead to rapid economic expansion afterwards. A more correct version of this is that the destruction of war leads to rapid recovery and rebuilding ONLY IF you also have access to abundant high net energy oil. If you don"t, wars only lead to destroyed economies.

Think of it this way: an 18-year-old who injures his knee has the resources of youth to help them recover completely. But an 80-year-old? Not so much.

This fallacy of thinking that we can just have another nice major war (North Korea?), or a few major hurricanes (Harvey, Irma and counting...), and then not only recover, but return better than ever is a dangerous delusion to hold. It"s no different than our 80-year-old thinking that taking up downhill skateboarding would be a safe and sensible thing to do. 

Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth (or lack of truth) so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception.

(Source)

The inter-generational resentment mentioned above is growing ever more extreme and it’s creating a significant social (and soon political) disturbance that will prove to be utterly disappointing for all. Already we see the signs in failing pensions having to cut benefits, young people opting out of such bulwarks of cultural stability as car ownership, marriage and having children.

If the DNC hadn’t straight up stolen the primary from Bernie Sanders, it’s quite possible that he’d have handily won the US presidential election and we’d already be feeling the effects of the political power of the next generation.

In this view, Trump is nothing more than the first (but not final) reflection of boomer denial backfiring badly. The sclerotic remnants of the past held fast and tried to jam Hillary down the throats of a very unenthusiastic electorate that long ago concluded that business-as-usual is literally a vision without a future. And so Hillary was rejected and Trump, the only alternative left standing, got the victory.

Who’s Going To Eat The Losses?

The US economic data to back up this decidedly dim view of things could not possibly be more robust and unassailable.

If we were allowed just one chart, just a single piece of data to back up this assertion, it would be this one:

The oft-cited and worried over ‘US federal debt’ of some $20 trillion is the lowest dark-blue shaded area on that chart .It’s not even 10% of the predicament the country faces

No country has ever dug out from under a debt + liability load anywhere close to that amount. It"s just too big a hole to climb out of.

With GDP growth stubbornly anemic for going on 12 years now, and no fresh sources of high net energy to fund future GDP growth, we can say this very simply about the promises our politicians are soothingly singing to us:

Any thought that these promises will be kept is delusional.

They won’t be kept because they can’t be kept. It’s really no more complicated than that.

Only one question matters when presented with a chart like this: Who’s going to eat the losses?

The keepers of the status quo, such as Hillary and Trump and their cozy relationships with Goldman-Sachs, et al., want the answer to be ‘the taxpayers’ (and not ‘the banks’). But they"d never publicly admit to that. So they pretend that losses will never matter, and instead promise perpetual prosperity for all.

So people, companies, communities and the entire nation of the United States makes plans and investments as if the above chart didn"t even exist.

This is no different than our 80-year-old refusing to draft a will because he simply can"t face the reality that one day he"ll need one. Such denial and self-delusion make a terrible strategy to live by.

The fact that you live in a world where the leaders of most countries are engaging in willful denial does not mean you have to be a victim to the consequences of their irrational delusion.

This is why having a clear-eyed view of the data, knowing your history, and forecasting the most likely outcomes are critical for positioning yourself for safety.

Those who do this empirically realize that the global economy is far more likely to contract, possibly viciously, before it expands. Given this, today"s global equity prices and non-investment grade bonds are absolutely mis-priced for such an outcome -- instead they"re practically priced for perfection, and thus due for a major correction.

Last week we issued a report warning of the multiplying number of important indicators signaling a coming market correction and economic recession.

*  *  *

In Part 2: How To Deal With Our Dangerous Markets And Failing Future, we explain why the fall from today"s market highs will be so painful, and where today"s concerned investor can look when seeking safe haven for their capital. We have the world"s central banking cartel for our situation, who have -- for the third time in less than 20 years -- blown a gigantic bubble.  Or rather, have blown a nested set of bubbles (stocks, bonds, housing), each of which will help accelerate the popping the others when the time comes. As with a developing hurricane, the time to prepare yourself for these eventualities is well before they actual manifest.  Once they’ve arrived, your ability to respond and react will be hampered by the fact that your efforts will be accompanied by those of thousand and millions of other people. Don"t be one of the panicked herd. Take prudent action today. Click here to read Part 2

These Are The States Where $1 Million Lasts The Longest

If you had a million dollars, would you retire?

For most Americans, the answer to that question would be no. Which is especially problematic for millennials, who, having been permanently scarred by the financial crisis, are investing at lower rates than members of Generation X or the Baby Boomers, making it more difficult for them to build wealth. Furthermore, the generation that now comprises the largest share of working Americans is having trouble saving money, thanks in no small part to their $1.3 trillion in student debt.

Their present financial predicaments suggest that millennials probably won’t retire in the large numbers that members of their parents’ generation will, primarily out of necessity. Even for some baby boomers, perennially low interest rates since the crisis – and possibly from here on out – have made things more difficult for conservative savers who may now need to redo their longstanding retirement plans to make do with less.

For workers in this situation, choosing a location where they can stretch their money the furthest in retirement is paramount. Enter a new study by GoBankingRates that measures how long $1 million will last in different locations around the country.

“A new report from GOBankingRates measures how long a million dollars would last for retirees 65 and older, state by state. It did that by multiplying the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ mean annual expenditures for that age group by a cost-of-living measure for each state, provided by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. The tally separated out annual spending on health care, housing, groceries, transportation, and utilities.”

The upshot is unsurprising: Retirees hoping to squeeze the maximum value from their dollars should head down south:

In Mississippi, retirees can stretch a million dollars for more than 26 years – the longest of any US state, according to the study. Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, Texas, Indiana and Alaska are also states where a million dollars can last for longer than 24 years.

The state where $1 million will be consumed most quickly is, unsurprisingly, California.  

According to Bloomberg, the study’s figures are conservative.

“These are conservative figures. They don’t factor in any entertainment or travel, which would make for a pretty grim retirement. Nor do they take into account how inflation might cut into purchasing power as we age. Inflation can take a bigger bite for seniors, because medical costs, which may account for a bigger chunk of expenses, have an inflation rate significantly higher than that for the broad economy.”

And while health-care costs are projected to rise, the study also doesn’t factor in any investment returns on the $1 million.

“Health-care costs for retirees will rise at an average annual rate of 5.5 percent over the next decade, according to HealthView Services, which makes retirement health-care cost projection software. To put that in perspective, from 2012 to 2016, the average annual broad inflation rate in the U.S. was 1.9 percent."

Of course, to many young people, one day having $1 million in assets seems like an impossible dream. One recent study suggested that 70% of millennials have less than $1000 in savings. But this is just one more reason why they should start thinking about retirement now.
 

Fourth Turning's Neil Howe Fears "Strong Parallels" Between 1930s And Today: "It's Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride"

This week on the MacroVoices podcast, host Erik Townsend interviewed Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning, an investing tract that’s found renewed relevance thanks to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who’s cited it as an inspiration for his (and by extension, President Donald Trump’s) worldview.

According to the New York Times, which published a story earlier this year explaining the theories encapsulated in the book, the Fourth Turning was “written by two amateur historians, making the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each, and that they can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter."

Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.”

Townsend shares Bannon’s enthusiasm, saying in his preamble that he believes the Fourth Turning is “the most important investing book of our time…I am such a big fan of this book personally that I literally named my own investment management company Fourth Turning Capital Management after Neil’s work.”

During the interview, Townsend and Howe discussed Howe’s conclusion that America is presently in the middle of a 20-year-long period of social, economic and political upheaval.  

Howe begins by explaining how the first book written by himself and William Strauss, with whom he also collaborated on the Fourth Turning, introduced him to the idea that America’s economy and culture follow distinct patterns. While studying cultural differences between generations of the American population, Howe says he began to notice a pattern, with one generation tearing down and reinventing some of the institutions, both physical and cultural, of the generation that preceded it.

“So, on the one hand, you have these turning points which are civic and institutional and involve politics and empire and the economy. These are the fourth turnings. And then you have these value-focused episodes which involve culture and religion and the interior of life, not the exterior of life. And of course our most recent awakening was in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, something a lot of us boomers today remember because they came of age during that period.

So this was an interesting pattern to us, and it was in The Fourth Turning where we sort of formalized that into looking at history moving through a series of social moods in a certain order. And we think there’s some very fundamental reasons for why we move through history.

And not just American, I should mention, but I think most of the modern world moves through history and cycles like this. They can be interrupted, they can be cut short, but there is a tendency for this. It’s manifested itself very strongly in American history. And we call these—each of these eras is about a generation long, they’re about 20, 21, 22, 23 years long, and we call them first, second, third, and fourth turnings.

The fourth turning is the final season of history, if you will, the final generation. And that is the period of crisis. That is the period when we tear down institutions that we’ve built, everything that’s dysfunctional. And we sort of rebuild things from scratch again. And it usually follows a period where—it’s bound up in a period where there’s complete disgust, complete distrust with what we have. And, usually under pressure by the younger generation, we kind of rebuild. These are the civic rebirth moments we’ve talked about earlier. That’s by way of introduction. That book was in 1997. You’re right, it’s about 20 years ago.”

In Howe’s more recent writing, he has cited the 2008 financial crisis as the catalyst that signaled the beginning of the most recent turning. But Townsend questions why Howe didn’t pick 9/11. For one, Townsend believes it had a more dramatic impact on how Americans view and feel about the US’s relationship with the modern world.

Howe says he didn’t choose 9/11 because it didn’t have the same transformational influence on markets that the financial crisis had. It also arrived too early: In 2001, most members of the millennial generation hadn’t graduated from high school yet, and most baby boomers hadn’t reached retirement age.

“A couple of reasons. One is that, although 9/11 changed America’s attitude towards the rest of the world, I think that the stock market boom and celebrity circus that’s here in the United States really hadn’t changed very much. And I don’t think you really had a shift, a fundamental shift, in America’s perception of themselves as a people, as their own country, to a fundamental degree until 2008. Also, 2001, as we explained to many people at the time, was simply too early. Every turning starts when each generation is beginning to move into a new phase of life. Back in 2001 boomers were not yet retiring, millennials were still—maybe the first one of them was barely graduating from high school.

So, this was not what we expected. 2008 really did coincide with the generational maturity of the turning, so to speak. And I think that, in terms of the basic shift in our efficacy of the social system, I think 2008 was a bigger change.” The crisis also ushered in an era where central banks exhibit total control of markets, which has created an “artificial quality,” Howe said.

“The economic emergency that occurred in 2008-2009 really catapulted us into by far the biggest economic emergency we’ve been in since the early 1930s. And, arguably, we are still living out the consequences of that with complete change in central bank policy, monetary policy, with sustaining these record low interest rates and arguable very high valuations in financial markets—almost anything pushed by that—and people still wondering how we’re going to get out from under that.

The constant discussion is when are central banks going to pull back on their balance sheets and actually go back to the old normal? So, I think there is the sense, even in this the booming markets that we see today, that there is this artificial quality: people think that there’s something wrong about this. We have not re-righted where we were. We are not letting price discovery and actual markets function the way they did before then.

So, I do believe that 2008 was the beginning of a whole new regime. And I also believe that the political dysfunction, the sense of political dysfunction—created during the two turns of the Obama presidency and, obviously, also into the Trump presidency—of government completely grinding to a halt is going to have some very powerful repercussions in the years shortly to come.”

Of course, there’s a certain futility in trying to determine the exact beginning and ending of a turning cycle while it’s still in progress. Townsend asks, since we can’t predict the future, how do we know that there isn’t an even worse crisis just around the corner? It’s a great question, Howe responds.

“It’s certainly a danger out there. Now we all just saw this morning how markets reacted to this war of words between President Trump and North Korea. I think that there is a rising tide of nationalism around the world. I think it’s driven by younger generations. And I should say not just nationalism but authoritarianism. And I would say these are strong parallels that we see between the decade we’ve been living through and the 1930s. Because it isn’t just what happens to/in the economy. I mean, you consider so many ways in which this last decade has recapitulated the 1930s, starting off with a financial crisis, worries about deflation, worries about declining fertility rates, and currency wars, and beggar thy neighbor policies, and radical attempts by monetary and ultimately fiscal policy to remedy the situation.

But also consider the geopolitical atmosphere of the 1930s. Which was a new world in which there was no concert of great powers, no great power who was taking responsibility for guiding or leading the world. Britain had largely retreated from its global influence after World War I.

The League of Nations had fallen apart. And the 1930s was the time when authoritarian leaders, and with growing popularity—growing numbers of people thought that that was actually a pretty good answer to the world’s problems. These regimes were doing whatever they wanted in their corner of the world with no one really to stop them.”

Evidence of the millennial generation’s contribution to the current turning can be found in the shift in political attitudes from those of their parents. Howe claims millennials are less interested in democracy, and that there’s a “growing appeal of authoritarian leaders that get things done.”

“And I think today we live in a similar era. Just look around the world today. You see a vacuum of any great power or concert of great powers who are orchestrating what goes on in the world. And basically people doing what they want and creating an increasingly dangerous world. I even think in the culture you find strong parallels. The decline in home ownership, for example. The decline in the birth rate and the fertility rate. The blanding of the popular culture that occurred during the 1930s is very similar to what’s going on with the millennials today. And the growing appeal among younger people, activists among younger people—younger people have a more collectivist or authoritarian notion of what kind of government works.

We actually wrote a piece recently called Are Millennials Souring on Democracy? And look at some of these recent opinion polls around the world showing that millennials are less interested. Not just in America but in Europe and East Asia. Not necessarily favoring liberal democratic solutions. It’s a growing appeal of authoritarian leaders that get things done. Well, you can see here in the United States we have a government that no longer thinks about the future at all and can’t get anything done. So you can imagine how turned off you would be if you’re a young person trying to think of the rest of your life.”

If Howe is correct, the US has another decade or so before the present cycle ends, and the next first turning, supposedly a period of economic and cultural renewal, begins. So, Townsend asks, with 10 years of turmoil left on the clock, what can Americans expect? Howe said Americans should be watching for "all these little problems to coalesce in one huge problem.""

“I think this is going to be the real rollercoaster ride. And I do think, not only—as you mentioned there are four stages to a fourth turning. One is the catalyst. The next is the regeneracy when we see some center of public trust beginning to grow around the new public agenda. We really haven’t seen that yet. Although you can look at various parts and begin to see certain—I would say particularly look at what young people are doing. Every fourth turning you kind of see where are young people going, who are they beginning to trust both on the right and the left. I think that’s an interesting marker. But then ultimately you move to the crisis.

And that’s when this new sense of public trust, which I think won’t really begin to appear once we begin to hit public problems that we have to solve. And I mentioned about two or three that we’re probably going to have to hit by the end of this year. And then, of course, comes the mid-term election next year. But that’s when that begins to grow.

And then the crisis, when all of these problems begin to coalesce into one huge problem. It’s when the Great Recession met all of these—the rise of fascism both in Asia and in Europe, and everything came together, currency wars, everything became part of a huge problem. Which, by the resolution, you see—and this is what happens at every fourth turning. All the little problems come together into a giant problem. And the giant problem gets completely solved.”

Americans – and investors, in particular – shouldn’t find comfort in the notion that the worst of the crisis has passed. Central bankers managed to engineer a quick recovery (in asset valuations, at least) with an unprecedented injection of freshly printed capital, but the magnitude of this intervention is preventing markets from working properly - what Howe calls “the valuation issue.”

Central banks’ willingness to keep us “not too far from the zero bound” has had myriad benefits for investors. But with US equity valuations still so close to all-time highs, Howe wonders: “Have we created a monster here.”

Listen to the rest of the interview below: 

America's Pension Bomb: Illinois Is Just the Start

We"ve written quite a bit over the past couple of months about the pending financial crisis in Illinois which will inevitability result in the state"s debt being downgraded to "junk" at some point in the near future (here is our latest from just this morning: "From Horrific To Catastrophic": Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss).

Unfortunately, the state of Illinois doesn"t have a monopoly on ignorant politicians...they"re everywhere.  And, since the end of World War II, those ignorant politicians have been promising American Baby Boomers more and more entitlements while never collecting nearly enough money to cover them all...it"s all been a massive state-sponsored scam.

As we"ve noted frequently before, some of the largest of the many entitlement "scams" in this country are America"s public pension funds.  Up until now, these public pension have been covered by stealing money set aside for future generations to cover current claims...it"s a ponzi scheme of epic proportions...$5-$8 trillion to be exact.

Of course, the problem with ponzi schemes is that eventually you get to the point where the ponzi is so large that you can"t possibly steal enough money from new entrants to cover redemptions from those trying to exit...and, with a tidal wave of baby boomers about to pass into their retirement years, we suspect that America"s epic ponzi is on the verge of being exposed for the world to see.

And when the ponzi dominoes start to fall, Bloomberg has provided this helpful map to illustrate who will succumb first...

Of course, if you live in a state like South Dakota, you may take some solace from the fact that your public pension is fully funded...don"t. 

Once the dominoes start to fall, and they will, those "ignorant politicians" we mentioned above will think they"re doing the right thing when they attempt to "socialize the issue" with federal bailouts and tax hikes.  Unfortunately, this is one crisis that will be too large for even American taxpayers to bailout.

Grant Williams: Get Out of Equities Before Boomers Are Forced To Sell Them

Authored by Stephen McBride via MauldinEconomics.com,

Last year, the first baby boomers turned 70 and that spells trouble for investors.

Speaking at the Mauldin Economics Strategic Investment Conference, Grant Williams, Co-Founder of RealVision TV, warned investors about the wave of forced selling by millions of retirees and the impact it will have on their portfolios.

Equities Make Up 70% of Boomers’ Portfolios

“Boomers are the largest generation in history to retire, and they’re doing so right now.”

In fact, according to Pew Research, 1.5 million Americans turned 70 last year and will do so every year for the next 15 years.

“When Boomers are retiring in their millions, they have 70% of their portfolios in equities… at a point in time when we are due a recession,” pointed out Grant Williams.

“And in recession, bad things happen… the average stock market drawdown in recession since 1980 is 37%.”

Just $136,000 Saved for Retirement

While boomers have their biggest allocation to equities they’ve ever had, Williams says the numbers don’t look good for them: “The reality is they don’t have enough money to retire.”

“According to BlackRock, the average Boomer has only $136,000 saved for retirement. Even with return assumptions fixed at 7%, when they’re more like 2%, you are talking an income of $9,000 a year… that’s $36,000 shy of the ideal retirement income,” adds Williams.

As such, boomers will be forced to look for income elsewhere. In the not-so-distant past, that has come from bonds.

As the below chart shows, once you hit the age of 65, you go through the most profound asset class shift since your 30s. You trim your equity positions and raise your bond exposure to lower the risk.

Source: Haver Analytics, Gluskin Sheff

However, with today’s yields, bonds won’t provide the needed income.

Even if boomers decide to stick to equities for higher yields, there’s another reason they will be forced to divest their equity holdings—one they have little choice in.

Forced to Sell 5% of Their Portfolios Every Year

Due to IRS mandatory minimum drawdown laws for retirement plans like IRAs and 401(k)s, when you turn 70 ½, you are forced to withdraw at least 5% of the value of the plan each year.

Williams thinks it will have profound implications: “Boomers started turning 70 ½ in April, this is a real problem and people don’t understand the ramifications of it.”

This forced selling will flood the market with billions worth of equities, which will push down prices.

Given that 15 million retirees will be forced to divest their equity holdings over the next decade, Grant has some thoughts on what investors like you and me should be doing today:

“Get out of equities. You might think you’re a wealthy guy… but if you have 70% of your portfolio in equities and you take a 40% haircut, you’re not a wealthy guy anymore.”

What Does This Mean for the US Economy?

For Grant’s thoughts on what the retirement crisis means for the US economy, big demographic trends, and more—watch the full interview below.

"Boomerang Kids": Adult Millennials Returning Home Is Crushing Baby Boomer Budgets

We"ve noted several times in recent months that, despite the "economic recovery", a record number of young "adults" are moving back home with mom and dad after college and staying there well into their 30"s. 

Now, as confirmed by a recent study conducted by Fidelity and the Stanford Center on Longevity, the added stress of caring for all those "adult" children is putting a severe emotional and financial strain on Baby Boomers with over 75% saying their adult children are cutting into their budgets and over 50% saying they"re generally less happy about life.  Per Fidelity:

Adult children who move back home is a common event mdash; one in nine Boomer parents surveyed said their kids returned "to the nest" in the past year. And it"s taking a toll: 68 percent of parents reported they are more stressed, and more than half said they are less happy (53 percent), less satisfied (54 percent) and have less leisure time (53 percent). Those new housemates come at a cost: 76 percent of parents said they face higher expenses. The health impacts are significant for women, as 46 percent reported sleeping worse and 40 percent reported gaining weight.

At one point in time in America, living at home with mom and dad after crossing out of your teenage years and into your 20s was embarrassing and something that was generally avoided at all costs.  And while hard times come and go, 20-somethings who were forced back into their parents" care worked their tails off until they could save up enough money to once again regain their freedom.

That said, these Boomer parents shouldn"t expected their basement-dwelling snowflakes to leave the nest, for the second time, anytime in the near future because, as we pointed out a few weeks ago, roughly one-third of all millennials live at home with their parents and one-fourth of them can"t be bothered with enrolling in school or finding a job.

According to the following chart from Bloomberg, there are 2.2 million millennials who live at home with mom but neither attend classes nor have a job.  Of those, 40% of them are already in their 30"s, they"re predominantly white and have a high school diploma of less.

And since they"re not employed, it"s only logical that 90% of the millennials living at home last year are still there this year. 

"Almost 9 in 10 young people who were living in their parents’ home a year ago are still living there today, making it the most stable living arrangement for young adults," the report said. "In 2005, the majority of young people lived independently in their own household (either alone, with a spouse, or an unmarried partner), which was the predominant living arrangement in 35 states. By 2015—just a decade later—only six states had a majority of young people living independently."

Meanwhile, for the first time in history, more young adults today are living at home with mom and dad than with a spouse.

We continue to be shocked that all of those kids out there with $250,000 Art and Anthropology degrees are finding it difficult to land their dream jobs.

The Baby Boom Tsunami That May Drown The Economy

Submitted by Stock Board Asset Management

In our most recent article Millennials: A Menacing Metamorphosis To The Status Quo breaks down an interview hosted by Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith. The interview discusses the massive generational shift occurring in the United States as the Millennial generation sets to stitch their beliefs and ideas in the American fabric. But there is an issue. The status quo i.e. the baby boomers are not ready to give up the reigns forcing a generational clash, and as described by Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith will continue for the next eight years. Such a clash will lead to economic and social consequences. In terms of crisis, Strauss–Howe generational theory provides an excellent blue print of this generational clash called the ‘Fourth Turning’, where the old older is dismantled giving way to the new order.

To continue the theme of generational shifts, we have come across an interesting presentation hosted by Mike Maloney of goldsilver.com called ‘The Baby Boom Tsunami That Is Set To Drown The Economy’. His analysis rhymes with Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith of a colossal change in demographics that is currently underway in the United States. Maloney outlines how the baby boomer generation is becoming a ‘max social burden’ on an economic basis and in his own language “mandates a stock market crash”. His thesis is simple and it’s all about the structural issues of an aging population becoming less productive and demanding more withdraws from the system.

Like a Tsunami, Maloney outlines in a series of graphs, the rise of the baby boomer generation in the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s. As the baby boomer generation morphs into the working and max spending period of life this has contributed to the massive stock market and real estate bubbles of the 1990’s and 2000’s. But times are changing as the baby boomers are now transitioning into max savers and ultimately max social burdens in the years of 2020-2030. During this time period, the working age and max spenders in society will have difficulties in supporting the aging population.

In 7 slides, Maloney highlights an actual wave of the baby boomers vibrating throughout time from ‘child’ to ‘max social burden’.

Bonus: Japan seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to an aging demographics. If Maloney is right about the US could we be turning Japanese? Most importantly, will the SPX500 mimic an early 1990’s Nikkei225 stock index?

Peak Savings: Wall Street Faces 20 Years Of Retirement Withdrawals As Boomers Hit 70 1/2

The United States is a demographic time bomb, plain and simple.  Over the next 30 years, the U.S. economy will face an unrelenting demographic transition as ~75 million baby boomers exit the highest wage earning years of their life and start to draw down what little retirement savings they"ve managed to tuck away while wreaking havoc to the public "safety net" ponzi schemes, like Social Security, that will almost certainly be insolvent in a decade.

Per the U.S. Census Bureau, over the 30 years, the number of people in the U.S. over the age of 65 is expected to double while those 85 and up will triple.  Needless to day, the overall population growth of the United States is a fraction of that which means that millennials are about to get crushed by their parents....so it"s probably a good thing they already live in mom and dad"s basement.

In aggregate, per the Wall Street Journal, Boomers have saved $10 trillion in various tax-deferred saving accounts.  While that sounds like an impressive figure, with 75 million Boomers, it equates to an average of $133,000 per person which, needless to say, is insufficient to fund ~20 years of retirement. 

But while the Boomers, and by extension taxpayers, are facing a harsh future, Wall Street has made a killing in fees off of managing the ever growing balance of retirement accounts as Baby Boomers have come of age.  But that all looks set to change as America"s aging population is forced by IRS regulations to take retirement withdrawals once they hit 70 1/2 years of age.

As illustrated by the chart below, over the past 2 decades Americans have consistently contributed more than they"ve withdrawn from tax deferred accounts, excluding recessionary periods.  But that all changed in 2013 and 2014 as the first wave of Boomers hit the magical age of 70.5 with a total of $25 billion of net withdrawals in 2014 alone.

Contributions to tax-deferred retirement plans outnumbered withdrawals through much of the 1990s and 2000s. That flow began to reverse as boomers entered their retirement years earlier this decade.

Investors pulled a net $9 billion from workplace retirement-savings plans in 2013, according to the Labor Department. In 2014 the withdrawals jumped to net $24.9 billion. Full-year information for 2015 from the Labor Department isn’t yet available, but large mutual-fund companies that manage the bulk of U.S. retirement assets say outflows continue to rise. Fidelity Investments expects 100,000 customers to take their first required distributions in 2017, up from 91,000 in 2016.

Still, distributions are expected to grow exponentially over the next two decades because of a 1986 change to federal law designed to prevent the loss of tax revenue. Congress said savers who turn 70 ½ have to start taking withdrawals from tax-deferred savings plans or face a penalty. Specifically, retirees who turn 70 ½ have until April of the following calendar year to pull roughly 3.65% from their IRA and 401(k) funds, subject to slight differences in the way the funds are treated by the Internal Revenue Service.

Moreover, mandatory withdrawals, as set by the IRS, grow exponentially as America"s Boomers get older.  While mandatory annual withdrawals are only ~3.5% of assets at age 70.5, that number grows to 8% by age 90.  And even though it may not sound like a lot, 3.5% of $10 trillion is $350 billion worth of assets that would have otherwise been paying Wall Street a handsome annual management fee.

U.S. law requires anyone age 70 ½ or older to begin annual withdrawals from their tax-sheltered retirement accounts and pay
taxes on those distributions. The oldest of the nation’s 75 million baby boomers cross that threshold for the first time this month, according to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate of when that demographic group began.

The obligatory outflows from 401(k)s and IRAs are expected to ripple through the U.S. economy, the stock market and a money-management industry that relies heavily on fees from boomers’ tax-sheltered savings plans and assets.

Boomers hold roughly $10 trillion in tax-deferred savings accounts, according to an estimate by Edward Shane, a managing director at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Over the next two decades, the number of people age 70 or older is expected to nearly double to 60 million—roughly the population of Italy.

Firms that manage 401(k) plans are trying to persuade clients to reinvest their withdrawals in other products rather than spending or donating the cash to charity. It’s another pain point for many traditional money
managers already struggling to keep some clients from shifting into lower-cost index-tracking mutual funds.

But don"t worry Wall Street, the average millennial has a massive $1,000 nest egg saved up to help you fill those annual $350 billion gaps.

New Study Shows Exactly Why Millennials Are F*cked Compared to Their Parents

January 14, 2017   |   admintam

(ZHE) Over the past few years, as the Millennial generation has grown into its own, in 2016 surpassing Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation according to the Census (Americans aged 18-34 in 2015 now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers aged 51-69), in the process becoming the fulcrum support of the US economy, it has also prompted many questions: why aren’t Millennials investing in the stock market? Why aren’t they starting families and buying houses? Why are they living in their parents’ basements well into their thirties? Why don’t they just… spend?

The latest answer to all these questions came yesterday following a new analysis of Fed data by the Young Invincibles group, according to which with a median household income of $40,581, despite being better educated, millennials now earn 20% less than boomers did at the same stage of life in 1989, who earned $50,910 some 25 years ago.

The analysis released on Friday shows other disturbing trends, which confirm that America’s troubling generational divide is all too real and helps explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Some examples: millennials have half the net worth of boomers; their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The generational gap is a central dilemma for the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, who pledged a return to the prosperity of post-World War II America. The analysis also hints at the issues of culture and identity that divided many voters, showing that white millennials — who still earn much more than their blacks and Latino peers — have seen their incomes plummet the most relative to boomers.

Andrea Ledesma, 28, says her parents owned a house and were raising kids by her age. Not so for her.

Ledesma graduated from college four years ago. After moving through a series of jobs, she now earns $18,000 making pizza at Classic Slice in Milwaukee, shares a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend and has $33,000 in student debt.

“That’s not at all how life is now, that’s not something that people strive for and it’s not something that is even attainable, and I thought it would be at this point,” Ledesma said.

Her mother Cheryl Romanowski, 55, was making about $10,000 a year at her age working at a bank without a college education. In today’s dollars, that income would be equal to roughly $19,500. Romanowski said she envies the choices that her daughter has in life, but she acknowledged that her daughter has it harder than her. “I think the opportunities have just been fading away,” she said.

The Fed data shows the extent of the decline. It compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation. Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is only earning slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989.

The home ownership rate for this age group dipped to 43 percent from 46 percent in 1989, although the rate has improved for millennials with a college degree relative to boomers. The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 percent less than it was for boomers.

While whites still earn dramatically more than Blacks and Latinos, reflecting the legacy of discrimination for jobs, education and housing. Yet compared to white baby boomers, some white millennials appear stuck in a pattern of downward mobility. This group has seen their median income tumble more than 21% to $47,688. Median income for black millennials has fallen just 1.4 percent to $27,892. Latino millennials earn nearly 29 percent more than their boomer predecessors to $30,436.

The analysis fits into a broader pattern of diminished opportunity. Research last year by economists led by Stanford University’s Raj Chetty found that people born in 1950 had a 79 percent chance of making more money than their parents. That figure steadily slipped over the past several decades, such that those born in 1980 had just a 50 percent chance of out-earning their parents.

This decline has occurred even though younger Americans are increasingly college-educated. The proportion of 25 to 29 year-olds with a college degree has risen to 35.6 percent in 2015 from 23.2 percent in 1990, a report this month by the Brookings Institution noted.

The declining fortunes of millennials could impact boomers who are retired or on the cusp of retirement. Payroll taxes from millennials helps to finance the Social Security and Medicare benefits that many boomers receive, programs that Trump has said won’t be subject to spending cuts. And those same boomers will need younger generations to buy their homes and invest in the financial markets to protect their own savings.

“The challenges that young adults face today could forecast the challenges that we see down the road,” said Tom Allison, deputy policy and research director at Young Invincibles.

For now, despite Obama’s recurring narrative of an economic “recovery” which unfortunately skipped some 75.4 million Americans, and despite Trump’s promises that he will somehow make it batter, it remains unclear just how this most important US generation will emerge from its demographic and economic doldrums.

Source: Financial Health of Young America: Measuring Generational Declines between Baby Boomers & Millennial

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This article (New Study Shows Exactly Why Millennials Are F*cked Compared to Their Parents) by Tyler Durden originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: State Farm. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.