It's even worse than that because all these articles are written on the assumption that you can get a 3 to 5% return from your money per annum. With shrinking rates of profit and economic collapse looming, that assumption is very suspect.
I mean, Piketty posits that a period of low/no growth tends to also correspond to low/no inflation. The real material cost of things is going to shift as we divorce ourselves from the global economy. If you can't get cheap imports from China, Marx will tell you what that'll do to the price of a coat.
But we're still a post-industrial society. If nothing else, a shrinking population will produce a vast surplus of hand-me-downs and other used goods. Same thing with housing.
What's ultimately going to change is the relative cost of things. Water will be scarce but consumer goods will be over-abundant.
It's even worse than that because all these articles are written on the assumption that you can get a 3 to 5% return from your money per annum. With shrinking rates of profit and economic collapse looming, that assumption is very suspect.
I mean, Piketty posits that a period of low/no growth tends to also correspond to low/no inflation. The real material cost of things is going to shift as we divorce ourselves from the global economy. If you can't get cheap imports from China, Marx will tell you what that'll do to the price of a coat.
But we're still a post-industrial society. If nothing else, a shrinking population will produce a vast surplus of hand-me-downs and other used goods. Same thing with housing.
What's ultimately going to change is the relative cost of things. Water will be scarce but consumer goods will be over-abundant.
Also private investment firms buying "safe investments" and "adding fees" might be one possible way personal 401ks tank in the next few decades.