Shrink? I don't know where you get your ideas. Is this part of "the economy is bad," bullshittery meme which has been going around for... Oh, the last 50 years or so? Factual headlines posted yesterday now that real numbers have been processed: "U.S. household income posts record surge in 2015, poverty falls" Everything now is pretty much the same as it's always been and the people who say otherwise run those aluminum hat, pyramids on Mars, death of fiat websites for crazy people. Please read this FIRE blog article about the dangers of weak thinking: http://livingstingy.blogspot.ca/2016/08/mental-health-prosperity-and-urban.html
Well, shoot. You seem to be on a crusade to douse the financial conspiracy theory types with a blast of your logic. I don't fault you for desiring to spread knowledge and optimism, but I believe you have strawmanned me.
I didn't say the US economy is shrinking, I said US economic growth is shrinking. Which is true. For the past 10 years, US economic growth has averaged 3.09%, which is down from 5.44% for the 10 year period before that, which is down from 6.37% the 10 year period before that, which is down from 10.02% for the ten year period before that. Doesn't change much whether you slice it up into 7,8,9,10,11, or 12 year periods - the trend is that growth is significantly shrinking. I have no axe to grind with the US and no reason to try and deceive this forum.
The question I'm putting to the forum is whether this growth will continue to slow, and how will that affect index fund performance.
If the current trend of the last 40 years continues, we'll average under 1% growth over the next ten years.
So, if you're not concerned, I'd like to know - is it because you don't think the current trend will continue, or you don't think the US averaging 1% growth each year will mean we'll have low index fund returns?
I ask because there are wiser and more educated minds here than my own.
Hopefully we can have a substantive discussion here. Thanks everyone for your contributions so far.