2024-06-06
5 分钟Hi, this is Tom Lee Devlin, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
Here's an article handpicked from the latest edition of The Economist read aloud.
but they do not spend like it.
Instead, as we report this week,
the elderly are squirreling away money, motivated by ever-longer retirements,
the risk that they will need to pay for old age care,
the inevitable uncertainty about how long they will survive,
and the desire to pass on assets to their children.
Whereas in the mid-1990s,
Americans aged between 65 and 74 spent 10% more than their income.
The same age group has been a net saver in aggregate since 2015.
A similar picture is found across the rich world, from Canada to Japan.
A generation sometimes associated with luxury cruises and Chateau Margaux is in fact unusually miserly.
That matters
because retirees are so numerous and rich that their behaviour can drive capital markets.
America's boomers, defined as those born between 1946 and 1964,
have a net worth of $76 trillion or over $1 million per person.
For decades their saving for retirement has helped drive down interest rates which in the long run must move to equilibrate savings and investment globally.