{"id":36663,"date":"2013-03-06T23:08:29","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T04:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=36663"},"modified":"2013-03-06T20:09:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T01:09:49","slug":"how-to-survive-the-coming-generational-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/06\/how-to-survive-the-coming-generational-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Survive the Coming Generational Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Justice Litle &#8211; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">insideinvestingdaily.com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you think about Florida what comes to mind?<\/p>\n<p>For me it&#8217;s sunshine&#8230; golf courses&#8230; Lincolns, Buicks and<br \/>\nCadillacs&#8230; big-box &#8220;senior living&#8221; centers&#8230; and, of course,<br \/>\nubiquitous retirees.<\/p>\n<p>We may make fun of Florida as one big old folks&#8217; home. <strong>But by 2030 the average American will be older than the average Floridian is today. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That observation comes from Stan Druckenmiller, one of the most <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-022613.html\" target=\"_blank\">successful<\/a><\/strong> money managers of all time.<\/p>\n<p>Now retired &#8212; and worth billions &#8212; Druckenmiller made a name for<br \/>\nhimself running George Soros&#8217; Quantum Fund, as well as his own Duquesne<br \/>\nCapital <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-020413.html\">fund<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It was Druckenmiller, not Soros, who architected the famous sterling<br \/>\nshort that &#8220;broke the bank of England&#8221; in 1992. (Soros was the one who<br \/>\ninsisted on betting big on the trade and as the senior manager in the<br \/>\nfund got the media credit.)<\/p>\n<p>Druckenmiller&#8217;s long-term track record is astounding. He made average returns of over 30% over more than 30 years<em>.<\/em> If you had given Druckenmiller $10,000 at the start of his career, it would have compounded to more than $26 million.<\/p>\n<p>To deliver that kind of performance, Druckenmiller had to be skilled<br \/>\nat discerning future trends. And his latest prediction is not a pretty<br \/>\none. Druckenmiller sees a generational storm coming. In his own words<br \/>\n(via a Bloomberg TV interview):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>The seniors have a very, very<br \/>\npowerful lobby. They keep getting more and more transfer payments from<br \/>\nthe youth. But the demographics storm is just starting now&#8230; <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>What&#8217;s going to happen is we now have<br \/>\na working population &#8212; this is the way entitlements work &#8212; where the<br \/>\ncurrent workforce is paying for the benefits of the seniors. Since 2000<br \/>\nwe&#8217;ve had about 4.5 to 4.8 workers for every retiree. By 2050 that<br \/>\nnumber will drop to 2.4 workers per retiree&#8230; <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Supporting retirees without enough workers is like scraping butter over too much bread. Soon enough you run out of butter.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that today&#8217;s seniors are using their political clout<br \/>\nto take more than that which can be reasonably given in the form of<br \/>\n&#8220;transfer payments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The final result? Disaster. Think of those bankrupt California cities on a nationwide scale.<\/p>\n<p>Druckenmiller doesn&#8217;t mince words&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>And let me just say one thing. I am<br \/>\nnot against seniors, okay. I love seniors. Unfortunately I&#8217;m going to be<br \/>\none in the not-too-distant future. What I am against is current<br \/>\nseniors&#8230; stealing from future seniors.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Many of today&#8217;s retirees will cry foul at this accusation. They will<br \/>\npoint to their long history of faithfully paying into the system. They<br \/>\nwill say it&#8217;s not their fault that the cupboard is bare. They will say<br \/>\nwhat is owed is owed.<\/p>\n<p>But regardless of what&#8217;s fair and what&#8217;s not, Druckenmiller is right. A generational storm is coming. <strong>As<br \/>\ntens of millions of baby boomers hit retirement age, the system will<br \/>\nrun out of funds with which to pay them what is contractually owed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Retirees and retiring baby boomers will then cry havoc at the ballot<br \/>\nbox. Demagogue politicians will respond. And all hell will break loose.<\/p>\n<p>You need to prepare for this coming generational storm. It will impact every American, regardless of age, opinion or <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-030113.html\" target=\"_blank\">financial status<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Not all investment assets will withstand this storm when it hits full<br \/>\nforce. Some areas will warrant avoiding at all costs. Others will do<br \/>\nextremely well.<\/p>\n<p>One asset you definitely won&#8217;t want to be caught in, once the storm<br \/>\nhits full force, is U.S. Treasury bonds. When the realization sinks in<br \/>\nhow aggressively politicians will be promising the world to boomer<br \/>\nseniors &#8212; without being able to pay for it &#8212; bonds could transition<br \/>\nfrom &#8220;attractive&#8221; to &#8220;radioactive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you are heavily invested to the Treasury market, I strongly recommend you reduce your exposure before the coming storm hits.<\/p>\n<p>Carpe Divitiae,<\/p>\n<p>Justice<\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">insideinvestingdaily.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note<\/strong>: I&#8217;m putting the final touches on my new advisory, <em>Strategic Wealth Report<\/em>.<br \/>\nIn it I will follow powerful economic &#8220;mega trends&#8221; like the coming<br \/>\ngenerational storm in America. And I&#8217;ll recommend more concrete ways for<br \/>\nyou to play these powerful market forces. The first issue of <em>Strategic Wealth Report<\/em> will come out in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Justice Litle &#8211; insideinvestingdaily.com When you think about Florida what comes to mind? For me it&#8217;s sunshine&#8230; golf courses&#8230; Lincolns, Buicks and Cadillacs&#8230; big-box &#8220;senior living&#8221; centers&#8230; and, of course, ubiquitous retirees. We may make fun of Florida as one big old folks&#8217; home. But by 2030 the average American will be older than &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/06\/how-to-survive-the-coming-generational-storm\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to Survive the Coming Generational Storm&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}