Valuation changes have generational consequences. Stocks were relatively cheap in the early 1980s, when median Boomers were thirty-somethings buying stocks (cyclically adjusted P/E ratios ran 9 to 12). Stocks are now expensive, as the median Boomer turns sixty-five and begins liquidating. For each successful seller there must, of course, be a buyer, and domestically, the natural buyers are the young. The generational effect is that the Boomers bought low and sold high thanks to accommodating public and private actors (which they controlled). Should P/E ratios revert to historical norms, the
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