Demographics, Debt and Deflation (Harry Dent and John Mauldin's Outside the Box)

A Decade of Volatility: Demographics, Debt, and Deflation

By Harry S. Dent, Jr., author of The Great Crash Ahead and editor of Boom & Bust

To watch a video version of this presentation by Harry Dent,
please click on the following link:
http://survive-prosper.com/A-Decade-of-Volatility/

Most of you reading this expect inflation in the years ahead, right? Well, I don't. In fact, I am firmly in the deflation camp.

Just think about it. What has happened after every major debt bubble in history? What happened after the 1873-74 bubble? Or after the 1929-32 bubble? Did prices inflate or deflate?

We got deflation in prices… every time.

This time around, with the latest bubble peaking in 2007/08, the outcome will be exactly the same. There is deflation ahead. Expect it. Prepare for it.

But the bubble-bust cycle that history has allowed us to see is not the only reason I'm so certain we're heading for deflation and a great crash ahead. I have other, irrefutable evidence…

For one, there is the most powerful economic force on Earth: demographics. More specifically, the power of the number 46. You see, that's the age at which the average household peaks in spending.

When the average kid is born, the average parent is 28. They buy their first home when they're 31… after they had those kids. When the kids age into nasty teenagers, the parents buy a bigger house so they can have space. They do this between the ages of 37 and 42. Their mortgage debt peaks at age 41. And like I said, their spending peaks at around 46.

From cradle to grave, people do predictable things… and we can see these trends clearly in different sectors of our economy, from housing to investing, borrowing and spending, decades in advance.

VIEW ORIGINAL VIDEO POST HERE and Outside the Box post HERE