A friend of mine asked me how I relate what Jeremy Grantham says about slowing economic growth and looming environmental problems with my plans for early retirement.
I was not familiar with him so I did a little reading. For those of you who aren't familiar, Jeremy Grantham is famous for having predicted economic bubbles (e.g., the housing bubble, internet bubble). He predicts that growth in GDP will slow from here on out and that a series of environmental problems (e.g, global warming, natural resource supplies) will cause economic problems.
Let me preface this by saying that I still know very little about him or his ideas. My very first impression was if he's right, it spells doom and gloom for those who aspire to FIRE. But then I read a little more and my second impression is that what he says isn't so bad. For example, when he gives intelligent-sounding reasons for why he expects growth in GDP to slow in the future, he also states that growth in GDP and stock market returns are not correlated and that you can still have healthy growth in stocks at lower GDP. Like so many talking heads, he often makes shorter term predictions on stock market performance but I'm in the accumulation stage of my portfolio, so I'm not concerned if stocks are down for the next 7 years (bring it on!).
Do you have knowledge/thoughts about his ideas that would be helpful to Mustachians?
