Bestselling author and financial guru Harry Dent shows why we’re facing a “great deflation” after five years of desperate stimulus — and what to do about it now
Throughout his long career as an economic forecaster, Harry Dent has relied on a not-so-secret weapon: demographics. Studying the predictable things people do as they age is the ultimate tool for understanding trends. For instance, Dent can tell a client exactly when people will spend the most on potato chips. And he can explain why our economy has risen and fallen with the peak spending of generations, and why we now face a growing demographic cliff with the accelerating retirement of the Baby Boomers around the world.
Dent predicted the impact of the Boomers hitting their highest growth in spending in the 1990s, when most economists saw the United States declining. And he anticipated the decline of Japan in the 1990s, when economists were proclaiming it would overtake the U.S. economy.
But now, Dent argues, the fundamental demographics have turned against the United States and will hit more countries ahead. Inflation rises when a larger than usual block of younger people enter the workforce, and it wanes when large numbers of older people retire, downsize their homes, and cut their spending. The mass retirement of the Boomers won’t just hold back inflation; it and massive debt deleveraging will actually cause deflation—weakening the economy the most from 2014 into 2019.
“I have worked in the highest level of U.S. politics and see a disaster in the making as the government employs endless stimulus plans and bailouts that destroy the very free market capitalistic system that has made it the richest major country in the world. Harry Dent adds the reality of aging societies and slowing demographic trends to show why such reckless debt-driven policies are certain to fail.”
~ David Stockman, author of The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
“Harry Dent has drawn on his unique approach to demographic forecasting as a speaker at my events for twenty years. Over the last three decades, he has accurately predicted the 1990s surging markets, Japan’s twenty-year economic tailspin, and the U.S. market peak in 2007. His ability to help people understand, in simple terms, some of the most important forces that have helped shape our economy is invaluable. Read this book and find out what impact Harry believes demographics will have on our economy in the coming years.”
~ Anthony Robbins, entrepreneur, author, and peak performance strategist.