Housing Trilogy
The Boomer Trade: A One-Time Monetary Windfall and Why It Cannot Be Replicated
Between 1971 and 2021, the American homeowner cohort participated in a 50-year monetary regime characterized by a closed gold window, sustained inflation, and a 16-percentage-point fall in interest rates. The wealth transfer this produced — from younger workers to housing asset holders, mediated by the dollar's debasement — was the largest peacetime intergenerational redistribution in U.S. history. It cannot be repeated. The post-2021 cohort is being asked to pay out the windfall at terms the underlying economic reality cannot support.