Via Art Cashin of UBS: Demographics, Destiny And The Fiscal Cliff – Somewhat lost in the posturing is the fact that the Fiscal Cliff was put in place to force Washington to address the exploding government debt problem. That problem is greatly exacerbated by the rapidly changing demographics in this country. Bill Gross, Bill Frezza and others have recently explored this connection and complication. Here's a bit from a tenured veteran of Wall Street, Jim Brown of the Option Investor:
That December 7th attack launched the greatest economic boom of our time once the war was over. That was the baby boom generation. A population explosion in the years after the war increased births by more than four million a year. The "leading edge" boomers (1946-1955) total more than 38 million and the "late boomers" 1956-1964 accounted for another 37 million. Since population demographics have shown the most consumptive years are those between age 40-55 we are heading into a period where consumption (spending) is going to decline sharply as the boomers retire.
