In the past few days, we’ve heard from two respected investment thinkers with two very different messages.
Larry Fink’s annual letter to BlackRock shareholders this week suggested that while there are challenges aplenty, capitalism will provide the ingenuity, energy and funding to solve them. Indeed, the only way the demographic headwinds and “retirement crisis” facing the world will be solved is by more people channelling more of their long-term savings into shares and bonds — as distinct from bank accounts (China and Japan) or gold (India).
Harnessing “the prosperity-generating power” of the stock market was the answer, he said. It worked for Fink’s mum and dad, an English teacher and shoe-shop owner, who could have lived beyond 100 without running out of money after putting
