Baby Boomer Age Wave Theory

  

If you didn't already know, a monsoon of crying babies flooded the U.S. and Europe shortly after WWII when soldiers returned home. Since everyone commenced baby-making at the same time, the "Baby Boomer Generation" was born. Because of their size as a generation, Baby Boomers have had a real effect on U.S. and European economies.

There are two main ingredients in the Baby Boomer Age Wave Theory:

1. The generational tidal wave of Baby Boomers is now headed into retirement.
2. Economist and writer Harry Dent found that people spend the most money around age 50.

With all those Boomers looking like P. Diddy with their cash-money, celebrating the big 5-0, Dent concluded that U.S. and European markets would soon be booming. The idea was that the biggest generation dropping the most cash on the economy would result in market peaks. Most Boomers were celebrating their 50th between 2008 and 2012, meaning the economy is now (theoretically) on the downhill slope. But don't hate the players, hate the game. It's WWII's fault, not Grandpa's.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: How to Stay Rich91 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop. how do you stay rich after you get rich ? spend less than you

00:08

make. how's that sound yeah genius. well but pretty obvious and

00:12

easy to do if you earn enough money to do so, right? so if you're watching this [man sits down to eat]

00:16

video you're either rich or you plan to be, and you want to stay that way pretty

00:21

much forever until your doing you know the backstroke Six Feet Under.

00:25

well the way in which you got rich in the first place here matters a lot. for

00:29

many a long successful corporate career got them to the nice houses the

00:36

convertible Ferrari the private school for the kids the custom golf club set

00:40

and the wine collection. their wealth just accumulated slowly over time but

00:45

likely in two forms. in America most senior executives receive nice cash

00:49

salaries half a million a million a few million dollars a year. they live off

00:54

that pay and save some of it. but their real wealth usually comes from partial

00:59

ownership in the big corporations they run in the form of stock options. well at

01:04

the end of a career the options might have compounded for decades and be worth

01:08

tens of millions of dollars or more. typically the executives slowly sells [stock chart]

01:13

off those options in retirement and looks back on an awesome corporate life

01:17

optimizing the sale of soap or lawn fertilizer or car tires or whatever they

01:22

did to get rich in the first place. not a bad way to go if the corporate gig is

01:26

for you and you don't read about these people going bankrupt very often because

01:30

a well let's face it they're probably pretty boring. or at least their career

01:34

selling soap was, and B they got rich slowly accumulating wealth quietly

01:39

almost hidden to them and to their friends over long periods of time. they

01:44

were technically probably rich in their mid 40s or so and they just continued to

01:48

dance the dance that brought them to the party in the first place.

01:51

so that's the get rich slow plan and it is time-tested it works. but what about [people throw a party]

01:56

the get-rich-quick plan you're a 260-pound runner with a four point four

02:00

second forty. you can read so you were accepted to Alabama where you don't

02:05

graduate. you're drafted by the Jaguars and you get a

02:08

million dollar signing bonus. your buddies ask you hey pal what time is it

02:12

you look confused they say Ferrari time and ah here's

02:17

where our story gets sad. you forget a whole bunch of things mainly that it's

02:21

likely your NFL career will be short and when it's done you will likely have the

02:26

earning power of a high school football coach. like you know 50 60 grand a year

02:31

or something like that not terrible just not rich. oh and there's this other thing

02:35

called the taxes. that million dollar signing bonus was really nine hundred

02:40

fifty grand after agent lawyer fees travel and other stuff then he paid [equation pictured]

02:44

taxes of three hundred fifty grand and netted six hundred K in your pocket. but

02:48

you just went out and spent four hundred fifty grand buy that Ferrari so now you

02:53

have just one hundred fifty grand left in your pocket to buy that home how's

02:57

this shoebox look. so you wait hope your rookie seasons a hit and as you drive

03:02

around in your Ferrari you wonder if people will laugh at you if you happen

03:06

to flame out and you realize too quickly that if you go to sell the car in two

03:10

years that'll maybe bring you 200 grand. and yeah Ferraris depreciate fast. sad

03:15

story but way more interesting than the soap seller. in fact most NFL players

03:19

like eighty percent of them go fully bankrupt. which means that another ten to

03:23

fifteen percent of them end up just really really really not wealthy. how can

03:28

this be if they played in the NFL at least at one point wouldn't you have [pie chart]

03:32

considered them to be rich or at least rich ish? no but something bad clearly

03:36

happened here. well in almost every case at least one of three things happened.

03:40

they spent too much money spent on junk they didn't need or couldn't afford like

03:44

that Ferrari. B they invested their savings into restaurants or bars or

03:48

other things where the odds of success were vastly stacked against them winning.

03:53

or see they got divorced. yeah always a financial killer there. well want the to

03:57

long didn't listen version don't spend your money like you're gonna make your

04:02

current salary for the rest of your existence.

04:04

stuff happens enjoy life but protect yourself by holding on to enough savings

04:08

as should things take the ugly turn. invest wisely and all that and maybe see

04:13

a marriage counselor. if you want to know what it all boils down to, keep making

04:17

money yeah you never have enough because you know

04:19

what's gonna happen. that doesn't mean you need to pound the pavement selling[man goes through air port]

04:22

vacuum cleaners till you're 95 but you also shouldn't call it quits at 45

04:26

because you're finally a millionaire yeah a million bucks just ain't what it

04:30

used to be.

Up Next

Finance: What Do You Need to Retire?
209 Views

What do you need to retire? Retirement - think: 401k, pension fund, IRA, roth IRA, etc. All of these savings socked away while you worked hard are...

Finance: What Does a Personal Wealth Manager Do?
84 Views

What does a personal wealth manager do? A personal wealth manager helps individuals reach their financial goals. To do this, they ask questions lik...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)