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Comment by cgore | Hacker News Reader

The legal structure that replaced pensions with 401k's and the like is considered the main source of the bubble. It isn't a coincidence that the dot com bubble happened right as all the baby boomers were hoping to retire.

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The dot-com bubble was late 90s very early 2000s. The established dates of birth for the baby boomer generation are from 1946-1964. In the year 2000 this puts the age range of the baby boomers from 36-54 years old. That means none of the baby boomers were retirement age. So I'm not sure how your explanation of them retiring is correct?

36-54 is exactly the years that you will be told by everybody you know to go to a financial planner and "get serious about retirement".

Most people do their investing before they retire.

I have never heard that 401ks caused the bubble and would love to see more than one source that says this.

Before the 1970's most professionals and union workers had fixed-benefit pensions run by large corporations, supervised by accountants with very serious looks on their faces. As 401(k)'s became common for normal workers, instead of just perks for C*O's, all of a sudden their was a massive influx of money into the DJIA and NASDAQ, just as the baby boomers "save for retirement", mostly influenced by people like Jim Cramer and other dancing-finance-clowns.

Also notice that the housing crash happened just as all the baby boomers' children go off to college and they decide to down-size from their McMansions since they are empty-nesters now.

Thirdly notice how now medical expenditures nationwide are climbing greatly now that they are all becoming old and sickly. The next 10-15 years are a great time to be in the medical field, even with ObamaCare. But then as they die off it will be a horrible place to try to get a job.

You think all of the benefit money wasn't in equity markets before 401ks came about? You are taking one potential impact and over exaggerating in every case, but especially in your housing bubble theory.

The baby boomers are a major demographic event, and those will always have economic impact.

I would love to see a mix of new versus old homes sold from 2001 - 2006. If more than 60% are old, then you might have a leg to stand on, but you are probably wrong.

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