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» The Graying Planet Revisited
www.dennergroup.com • 2003
For anyone seeking to understand the future and exploit that knowledge to his or her own advantage, there is no greater truth than the saying, "Demography equals destiny".
More precisely, it's the intersection of demography, technology, and psychographics that determines precisely what's going to happen. However, demography is by far the most powerful and most predictable of these factors. And today, demography is pointing toward wrenching changes that will redefine our basic assumptions about employees, consumers, and investors.
The most significant change is that the aging of the Baby Boom generation will result in a labor shortage that threatens to bring the economy’s growth to a screeching halt. In the United States, conventional wisdom says this will lead to real GDP growth of just 2.4 percent and 7 to 8 percent nominal equity returns from 2011 to 2030. That’s much lower than pension plans need to meet people’s expectations for retirement, as we will discuss in Trend 5 this month. Worse yet, Europe and Japan aren't expected to even come close to these numbers.
Read more: http://www.dennergroup.com/content/view/45/195/