The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History
The greatest wealth transfer in history...
A few interesting facts:
Baby boomers - very roughly those born between mid-1940 and 1960 possess 70-80% of the disposable wealth in the US and the UK. https://www.usnews.com/pubfiles/USNews_Market_Insights_Boomers2015.pdf
Baby boomers are preparing to retire due to age and, health related factors .
In the US, an estimated $30 trillion will be transferred to the next generation in inherited cash, investments, and business ownership. https://nypost.com/2018/03/13/get-ready-for-one-of-the-greatest-wealth-transfers-in-history/ In the UK, boomers will be disbursing half of the nation’s wealth. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-generation-of-wealth-asset-accumulation-across-and-within-cohorts/
This stands to be the largest transfer of wealth in history.
In my opinion, all of this presents the greatest opportunity for a resurgence of economic equality in the nations which have enjoyed the greatest prosperity in the world in the last century.
It is coming to bear more and more clearly that economic inequality is a great problem in North America, the UK and those nations that claim to be democracies. There is an expanding gap between the wealthiest class and the lower class - with the middle class rapidly shrinking into the latter.
The retirement of the baby boomer generation means that control and influence of wealth is shifting to a generation of individuals who have different economic priorities than their predecessors. While the gap between the top percentile and the rest has only widened under the boomer’s watch https://web.archive.org/web/20130710193649/https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/06/29/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-americas-future.aspx , those following have the chance to reverse that. The Millennials, who grew up while financial crisis brought stress and job loss to the family and strewed society with myriad accompanying problems, view economic wealth from a community benefiting orientation rather than that of personal gain.
As owners of small to medium sized businesses (SME's: $1M - $20M annual revenue), the generation now coming to economic leadership stands to bring a huge impact to bear on economic inequality. In terms of control and influence, it seems to me that it will fall to the collective power of such business owners, acting on their own behalf and on the behalf of those they employ, in the halls of policy-making, to effect the changes needed to restore wealth equality. The exiting boomers have had their day and enjoyed the surge of personal and corporate prosperity. However, the rules they established are failing the next generations. So it is up to far-sighted business owners who want to be in control of their own part of the economic equation to begin to right the imbalance.