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>People in advanced economies stand to inherit around $6trn this year—about 10% of GDP this is mixing apples and oranges. Let's say the stock market yields 10%

>People in advanced economies stand to inherit around $6trn this year—about 10% of GDP this is mixing apples and oranges. Let's say the stock market yields 10% annual returns on average (it doesn't, but it's a round number in the ballpark). Let's say you inherit a million dollars. That million dollars invested in the stock market would return $100,000 to you as annual income. THAT number is comparable to GDP which is a measure of income. So, in other words, "people in advanced economies stand to earn annually from their inheritances less than 1% of GDP (yawn) not 10%" other nits, the baby boomers were an unusually large population group in an unusually prosperous and healthy period of history: we've known they would die for quite some time and we've known they would leave a lot of money. It's not "a trend" and it's not "news". It's a well known anomoly, a blip/bulge passing through the system. It's interesting but it's not alarming.

gruez 2y ago
>this is mixing apples and oranges. Let's say the stock market yields 10% annual returns on average (it doesn't, but it's a round number in the ballpark). Let's say you inherit a million dollars. That million dollars invested in the stock market would return $100,000 to you as annual income. THAT number is comparable to GDP which is a measure of income. So, in other words, "people in advanced economies stand to earn annually from their inheritances less than 1% of GDP (yawn) not 10%" I get where you're trying to go with this (ie. "you can't compare stock vs flows!"), but you've patterned matched too aggressively. There's nothing wrong with using GDP of a country as a benchmark. Sure, it's comparing stock vs flows, but GDP of a country is nonetheless a valuable yardstick when comparing sums, for instance comparing debt to GDP levels. As long as they're not directly comparing the figures (eg. implying that the whole country is going to be inherited in 10 years time or whatever), it's fine.

gruez 2y ago

>this is mixing apples and oranges. Let's say the stock market yields 10% annual returns on average (it doesn't, but it's a round number in the ballpark). Let's say you inherit a million dollars. That million dollars invested in the stock market would return $100,000 to you as annual income. THAT number is comparable to GDP which is a measure of income. So, in other words, "people in advanced economies stand to earn annually from their inheritances less than 1% of GDP (yawn) not 10%" I get where you're trying to go with this (ie. "you can't compare stock vs flows!"), but you've patterned matched too aggressively. There's nothing wrong with using GDP of a country as a benchmark. Sure, it's comparing stock vs flows, but GDP of a country is nonetheless a valuable yardstick when comparing sums, for instance comparing debt to GDP levels. As long as they're not directly comparing the figures (eg. implying that the whole country is going to be inherited in 10 years time or whatever), it's fine.