Topic: People over 65 having most of wealth in US (Read 221 times)

It is natural that most of the wealth of the world is concentrated on those that are older, not only they had worked for longer but they have also inherited the wealth of their parents and grandparents so this is not a surprise at all.

However the current generation does not have the same opportunities that they had and when we think of the concentration of wealth that is taking place then I think it is useless to think in those terms and instead we should think about how much wealth is being held by the wealthiest 1%? And I am sure we will find out that they are holding more wealth than ever before, and as such it is not a surprise that the younger generation is looking to invest their money in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of investing in stocks and other similar instruments which are overvalued.

The younger generations will take 40 or 50 years to reach that age yet. It's a lot of time, surpassing even my longest term predictions. It's impossible to say where crypto market will be at that point and if it will still exist by there. Meanwhile new technologies can be developed, political changes can happen, new governmental models be implemented, some countries can disappear, another ones can appear, Mars might be colonized, money could decrease its importance in people's lives, as the tendency is that life becomes more sustainable and less dependant on others as time passes... There are so many possibilities.

I just hope younger generations can thrive in different spheres, not only financially, and that the world reaches a higher level of average prosperity.

Well they've come from a time when it was easier to save up. We don't know how liquid these seniors are but in general people of that age tend to be conservative with their investments. Best case scenario is they have children who are at least familiar with crypto and willing to invest a portion of the inheritance.

Crypto market contributes a very small fraction of the world economy. In the US 76% of wealth is with the people above 65 years of age. Among that what will be the percentage of people to hold cryptocurrencies, maybe a 30% and here the wealth out of cash is being taken into calculation. If cryptocurrency wealth is also calculated there won't be big variation. This means crypto market is now connected, but isn't prepared enough to contribute to the economy. With time we can experience difference.

for crypto investors to hit this statistic of United States it will require a high level of investment discipline high enough to hold even in the midst of heavy dips. Not every crypto investor will hit that  statistic of wealth accumulators except for investors with diversified portfolio and those who also invest in solution solving innovations and not just crypto alone because crypto only covers a fraction of the world economy still not enough to affect the economy

Can you post a link to the source of this information?
We don't know what will happen with the cryptocurrency markets after 30 years,when the younger generations retire.Maybe the cryptocurrency markets will evolve into something different,or maybe they will disappear.Technology is becoming obsolete pretty fast and we shouldn't be planning 30 years ahead.
Your info actually shows that the room for growth of the crypto industry in the USA is kinda limited,because the young people have really small amount of the total wealth in the USA.
 

The reason for that is very simple....

The retirement age for many people are 65 years, so most of those people received Pension or retirement benefits and they were able to pay off their large debt or buy expensive assets that they normally could not afford.

The younger generation will eventually also reach that age, but I seriously doubt that Bitcoin will still be as strong as it is today, by the time that they reach retirement age. (A lot can happen between now and then)  

I will much rather capitalize on the short-term volatility and use that to pay off as much debt as possible, before I reach retirement age.  

 It is not "mass" adoption yet if you ask me, but it is not a low number either. We need over a billion people to make this a viable alternative easily. Anything under that is a question mark, not a bad rate, by the way, even today we are doing fine, I am not talking about finally being decent, I am talking about being "clearly" an alternative to the current fiat system, not even a small question mark left in anyone's mind. People still do not know about what an NFT is when I asked if 1+ billion people were interested in crypto, nobody we know would ask what it is, they would be either invested in crypto and know it, or they would not be interested but still know it, because 1+ billion involved means 7+ billion aware and that's the difference. We do not need everyone to be involved but we need EVERYONE to be aware of everything even if they do not join us.

The journey to mass adoption already begun, we are slowly seeing adoption by many millionaires and businesses, that could be a great start and sooner or later the younger generations will also follow that since those businesses will succeed with a help of cryptocurrency. Those people over 65 already knows what to do with their money, they can’t afford to miss this opportunity to create more wealth.

Cryptocurrency is surely going to be the next big wealth creator to young people and this is already showing in the economy. Now investors in cryptocurrency are taking over the place. I have read of  some big traders online and they are making huge profit from cryptocurrency. Old face of rich people will soon be replaced with younger billionaires that Elon musk is already part of it.

The world revolves around, the peak of the industrial era was their time and they manage to enjoy everything they have worked for. If you checked the last world war II in 1945, subtract it from 2022, that's a 77 years difference. That was the beginning of the journey of old people we have today as to why they control the most wealth in the US. Though there is now a change of civilization from the industrial era to technology, that's why the new richest people are all coming from tech companies, for example, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and other young billionaires.

Industrialization revolutionized the financial system with stocks and bonds but now that bitcoin is here kicking ass, we will soon dominate the system, there are going to be younger crypto billionaires that will soon shake everywhere.

I think there is no science behind it. Older people are tend be wealthier than the young ones because they have been working for a long time and they already save enough but younger people that are involved in cypto have an advantage because the earning rate will be two times faster here than what the older people did before.

It is not only the age of the crypto investor that will grow but the crypto market will grow as well. Sure most older people right now did not like techy stuffs because they do not have it before in their era but we can always tech them if ever they want to experience what crypto be like. Apart of it, we have crypto icons (celebs/famous personalities) that are already old. Age does not limit them.

i believe the majority of those who are currently crypto investors are on average under 40 years old, if we compare it to the age of 65 you said then it is the next 25 years.  In the next 25 years, there will definitely be many changes and developments in crypto, besides that it is very likely that mass adoption can occur at that time.  today's crypto investors will definitely have a great future.

The fact is the generation wealth have been passed down to centuries but that only a small fraction of population, with people being over 65, they have already worked hard their entire life and they have saved up a lot as well, thus making everything quite positive for them. On the other hand right now in the middle of the pandemic and the collapsing economy, we cannot really show a light on the people who are struggling to make things work, where countries even ban them for protesting and take over their bank accounts, we don't really have anything to say here. Cryptocurrencies are soon going to change much more than that, early investors have gained quite a solid ground perse.

This is interesting data, I didn't know that. In my country and the neighboring ones, there's a strong idea of poor elder people, which is largely true because their pensions are lower than the money they actually need to survive, and they don't usually work because they're old. So I'm surprised the situation is so different in the US. I wonder, though, if this wealth is related to their lives (working while being young and saving up), due to the economy flourishing lately (so, basically, due to the current workforce), or due to inherited wealth. It's also worth noting, I think that while millennials are earning 20% less than boomers, while Zoomers are doing quite well and are expected to take over the economy soon. I don't think cryptos play a major role in all this, though, because they are largely not part of the main traditional economy.

You can be correct and in fact it could be in many other country like that but however I can ask where did you get your statistics from to back up your claims. Such kind of information require source for further knowledge and research.

Well again the reason for that is because wealth in time past was built either from history of the family lineage and their fathers which people say someone is born into royal family or with a silver spoon. Also it was from hard labour and work, also with planning, investment and embezzlement of public money.

We are going to see changes in the age of being wealthy soon with cryptocurrency investment by the youth.

Those elderly people have invested most of their life in working so they have earned enough wealth to sustain their living but due to their age, I don't think they would still be able to learn about cryptocurrency since most of them aren't techy anymore. I guess the most effective way is to have them guided when it comes to crypto investment by their trusted family members.

Me either I am not suprised by this because these people who aged 65 years old have the most wealth or been saved already a good amount of money for their retirement. They are the type of people who work their entire life to earn money, build empire or create business so that they will be retired on their early age and enjoy life. But now, the time has changed though business is still relevant the case is that younger generation have the high chance to get wealthy because of the use of technology and especially cryptocurrency.

This is the scenario of the whole world where 10% of people hold the majority of the wealth. It's obvious that there are too many wealthy people that are old. All these people work their entire life to expand their business which pays off in the way they become mature. Everyone doesn't have the luck to be wealthy in his early ages. Today's young generation who have managed to enter the crypto market early could enjoy the same lifestyle too.

If you'd like to hear what you want to hear, yes, part of this wealth will probably go to crypto. The older generation who's not too involved and aware of the nitty gritty of crypto would definitely avoid investing in crypto-related businesses. People naturally wouldn't invest in things they don't fully understand. The younger generation, on the other hand, who has seen the rise of crypto and foresees a brighter future would be risking their wealth on crypto-related businesses because they see it as the next big thing.

That's how wealth shifts from one generation and trend to another. There was a time the richest persons were those who are involved in oil and cars and steel and then the trend changed and the richest persons are the ones who are involved in the internet and e-commerce and telecommunication. So perhaps the next trend would involve crypto.

I am not surprised by this. Boomers have very big retirement portfolios, many in the 7 figures. And most boomers have houses which are paid off which they bought for maybe 5% of what it’s worth now.

Now take some new grad. Tons of debt. Job doesn’t pay much due to no experience. Has loans and most likely can’t get a mortgage because doesn’t have down payment.

Why is that an issue?

Younger people are lower on the economic ladder due to lack of education and experience, and as their live progresses, they gain more education/experience, and therefore are able to gain more wealth over time worked. Bitcoin disrupts this by giving younger people more economic freedom, but even in a Bitcoin based economy, wealth inequality will exist with the wealth disproportionately attributed to people that are older and have worked more. Again, that's by design.

If you create thread from an article, make sure you included the article too [1]

Become 65 years old people wouldn't automatically make you rich, it's based on your hard work from your young age to matured. It's doesn't make sense at all, some young people under 20 years old can become a millionaire too and doesn't need to wait until 65 years old. Also if those millionaire young generations already reach 65 years old, it doesn't mean they will buy Bitcoin as much as he can... they will invest what make they become rich.

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[1] https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-of-americans-ages-65-to-74/

OP, both of these statements almost seem to be complete non sequiturs.  The first sentence about wealth being concentrated in the senior citizen population shouldn't cause any alarm.  Unless you're a person who made their fortune early in life (or inherited it), the tried-and-true method for accumulating vasts sums of wealth is to do it over a very long time period.  So who would the richest folks be?  Yeah, the boomers and whatever generation Warren Buffett belongs to (don't crucify me if he's a boomer; I'm too tired to check).

The second statement begs the question "Just where are the crypto markets going, and in what state will they be once the average 21-26 year old shitposting bounty hunter that makes his/her living from bitcointalk reaches retirement age?".  Nobody's got the scoop on that, so it's pointless to even write something like that.  There are no guarantees bitcoin or any other crypto will be around in 40+ years.

Yeah and it still will work on the market when all of the youngsters who know cryptocurrency tell them about investment in crypto and will tell them the benefits of their investment in crypto. It is sure that the market will get a high value with their investment and their next generations will also get a profit multiple times than the current value of their wealth.

Well they worked hard for it at the least, so it's not really that much of a shocker to know that they are the group that holds majority of the wealth in the country. Soon, those assets will be transferred to their family, perhaps someone younger than them, and the wealth transfer continues. Crypto gave a chance to the younger generation to amass wealth early on and be expert investors at a young age. Give it a few years and those new money will grow old too, and becomes part of the statistic of old people owning most of the wealth in the US.

 I am not really that much shocked about this. You build wealth the longer you live, at least that is the case for majority of the people, and you are also inheriting everything from the previous generation as well. Which means that you will grow a lot of wealth when you are over 65. This is also the case for the previous generation and will be so for the next generation and so forth like that forever. You can't expect a 20-30 year old person to have as much as a guy who worked maybe 50 years and also got the assets from their parents who passed away after working 50 years themselves, thats 100 years worth of work and investments on a single person, versus a person who worked maybe 10 years and haven't inherited anything just yet.

Right but we don't know that some people above 65 might learn cryptocurrency when they knew about the cryptocurrency and become interested in the technology even if it existed for years or other new technology now but most of people at that age would fit what franky1 have stated which the money going in is decreasing so getting rid of personal belongings to have money which will be needed for important matters.

That's probably right, we cannot expect someone above 65 to start learning about cryptocurrencies and start learning about new technology and that's normal however there are still a few old people who are interested in new technologies, on the other hand, years after years when you get older you can take less risk and usually, people when they get old they do not have interest in investing the money instead they try to have FIAT currencies, especially in cash that's maybe the reason to say why people above 65 got most of the wealth in the USA.

yep, agreed

a 15yo is ofcourse not going to have anything..
never working = no savings at all.. no car. not even started a mortgage let alone able to pay it off

someone thats ~35 is still paying off their mortgage so even if they live in a $300k house. they dont own all $300k of it
also the 35yo has only worked for 15 years so has small amount of savings and small amount of pension invested.

as soon as someone is ~65. they are:
at full allotment of pension(havnt started spending it yet)
just about still working so still income coming in
would have paid off the mortgage so would now be at full asset allotment of that.
and worked 45 years to have got alot of savings..

however.  that number 65. its the peak of the mountain. .. and next comes the drop off
as they get older beyond 65 their wealth decreases. because money is going out but no money is coming in.
reaching 70. their savings and pension start to decline more noticeably as they start to spend it.  
less mobility means house goes into disrepair and that value shrinks too.
too old/feeble to drive, so gets rid of the car.
needs extra care/nurse support so surrenders house over to a retirement village community manager

people spend 45 year trying to climb the mountain to reach that golden mountain tip.
but within 10-20 years they are not only back at ground level. but can be 6 foot below ground level

Not every person at this age that has knowledge of crypto will become billionaires like those old capitalists, some of them might plateau along the way and some might quit in crypto altogether. And the one's that's going to get successful are the ones that will be able to gain a lot of successful investments.

What part of this wealth is locked in illiquid assets - big house in a quiet, peaceful neighbourhood? All this data shows "net worth" (houses, flats, cars) not money that someone is willing to gamble on highly volatile asset.

Speaking of gambling on highly volatile asset - the best way is to do it using someone else money. Just like microstrategy is doing it. Dead company whose annual profits are barely enough to pay off the interest on the debt is able to gain bilions to invest in bitcoin making a this deal with ... i dunno who  - if bitcoin pump we will pay you 6% profit of your investment if bitcoin will dump we will declare bankruptcy and you will loose your money. Who TF is buying theirs corporate debt papers instead of bitcoin directly?

Nevertheless ... imagine this:

Bitcoin just started to eat its portion of corporate debt bubble cake

People over the age of 65 accounts for 76 percent of all wealth in the United States.

Consider where the crypto markets will be when the younger generations that have grown up with cryptocurrency reach the age of this group...