patrick.net

I have no idea, really.

Too many variables.

You've got to divide the future into possible cases.

As things are set up now, 2020 is basically when everything blows up.

The front half of the baby boom will be 63-74 and hitting SSA retirement age.

So 2022 will be when the front half hits medicare, too.

This is going to be an immense wealth suck for us -- the baby boom had to put an extra 2.6T+ into the system 1986-2008 and they're going to want it back.

This means higher taxes on everyone else, and all taxes come out of rents (and home values).

Then there's "ObamaCare". If this survives the next 2 years the upper middle class will be partially subsidizing the lower quintiles' health care bills. More money getting pulled out of our wallets.

Then there's the national debt itself. Will it be $25T by 2020? Interest alone will be $750B/yr, and that's at 3%.

What about oil? $15 gas is entirely possible.

What new policies, changes in tax system, green energy industrial revolution can jumpstart the economy... ?

Avoiding my typical pie-in-the-sky stuff, I think the system is just going to come under increasing stress. We could pave the high desert in solar power arrays and save our bacon (it'd be a better investment than high speed rail) but if that's going to happen we'v got to start planning now.

But what might also happen is the money supply expanding such that prices get another 0, along with everyone's incomes. That would solve some problems, and of course make buying a house now a screaming deal.

Los Angeles Renter says

Which would mean we would have 30 years of ZERO housing appreciation from 1995-2025.

Yes, Back to the norm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble

Robert Shiller's plot of U.S. home prices, population, building costs, and bond yields, from Irrational Exuberance, 2nd ed. Shiller shows that inflation-adjusted U.S. home prices increased 0.4% per year from 1890–2004 and 0.7% per year from 1940–2004, whereas U.S. census data from 1940–2004 shows that the self-assessed value increased 2% per year.

SSA is in dire situation and the kind of debt we are in I don't think why anyone would think we would be on our feet very soon - What Troy said! http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-disability-verge-insolvency-090119318.html

actual prices will probably be double what they are today