careinke wrote:Another thing to consider, is today both spouses usually work, and single parent homes have risen dramatically, so of course more working boomers will show up.
That was my first thought, upon seeing that green line.
BUT, why wouldn't that trend also show up quite a bit for people in their 30's and 40's as well? After all, that trend has been going on for several decades, and it certainly wasn't all at once.
I find the slope of the green line vs. all the other lines ENTIRELY unconvincing, barring some sort of credible, meaningful data to back it up.
And glancing at the "usual arm waving doomer" nature of Mish's "economics" site, let's just say, I don't expect to find much of that.
You were absolutely correct re your "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" comment, as a principle when data is presented like that, UNTIL credibly proven otherwise.
For example, doing a quick search on US working population demographics, the first appropriate (re subject and detail) hit I get is from the BLS. A credible source.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdfSee table 3 on page 5. Under the "change in thousands", the last section, it shows the age 45-54 working populations having a net increase from 2000 to 2020. Just the opposite of what the bogus looking chart above from "Mish" shows.
Also, with an aging population, some of that uward skew for older people is built in (again, playing games with statistics, if they're not ADJUSTED for such things -- if we're trying to learn something valid vs. make bogus points, of course).
See the continuation of table 3 on page 6, where the overall population by decade percentage growth statics CLEARLY show how much more growth was going on overall in the older population (baby boomers), and was actually shrinking in the 35 to 44 year olds, for example.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.