BOOMER DEPRESSION

(The following was submitted July 7, 2011 to the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and ran as a letter to the Editor about 10 days later.)

Regarding the current economic mess and the hopeful politicians and economists who suggest that "recovery" is just around the corner, I have just had a more unsettling thought.

A partial cause of our shared misery may well be the aging "Baby Boomer" population and a concurrent drop in consumer spending and investing, especially in real estate. We "Boomers" have been the single largest cohort to ever move through the markets! We are the "pig in the python," so to say. And though now we may HAVE a lot of money, we are neither spending it nor investing it much in real estate! I would expect that the savings rate might actually go up over the next decade.

I am almost 65 years old, and I know I will not likely buy another piece of real property, and I am not going to be buying many cars in the future, either. My grandparents bought a new 1959 Olds sedan (in their late 60's) and drove it for over 13 years. It was their last car! My mother, at age 70, bought a new 1990 Lexus, her last car, and I sold it for her in 2006. Old people don't buy cars like we "Boomers" did. Now, we are getting old. Maybe we should invest in "Depends" instead!

I fear that the US economy got "addicted" to the huge "Boomer" cashflow between 1960 and 2005, and now we are in long-term withdrawal!