Aging Boomers To Leave Trillions To Kids – Or Will They?

Say you are a millennial or Gen Xer – that is, anyone born after 1964. You are, if a Gen Xer, pondering retirement with some anxiety, and watching in horror as your body enters middle age. If a millennial you’re possibly just stressed out about everything, or so the stereotype goes, anything but that distant mirage called retirement.

One thing is certain though – both those groups, and other institutions, are intently watching that huge pile of Boomer money, the multi-trillion-dollar wealth transfer that has bulked up spectacularly over the past decades. Where is it going to go to, how, and what will the recipients do with it?

There is a danger in thinking of this too simplistically, that the death of the boomers will mean boomer children gathered for the reading of the will simply be handed huge cheques with which to go frolic in the sunshine. Others see the looming wealth transfer as a vast turbo for the stock market, assuming that hordes of inheritors will park their money in stocks (bonds are too boring and pay nothing – not an easy sell to jaded youth) if the world survives the coronavirus meltdown (and if it doesn’t, there will be much bigger worries at hand, like trying to learn how to grow a carrot or chop firewood with that dull axe in the garage).

Of course the answer is far more complex than that; some inheritors will travel, some will invest, some will buy houses, and some will party like its 1999. Some stubborn boomers will not die for a very long time – recall that the Boomers are defined as being born before 1946 and 1964, or now aged between 74 and 56 – spring chickens here in the western world. How they will spend it is purely speculative and individual, but it’s worth considering some of the aspects that we know will happen for sure.

Demographically, children of boomers have tended to move to large centers, become urbanized, and not as enamored of the two cars in a two-car garage in the suburbs boomer mecca. A large question then becomes: what happens to all that boomer habitat?

A Google search of boomer homes indicates somewhere between 20 and 30 million homes in the US (and probably directly proportional in Canada) own homes (the number depending on vacation properties, rentals, etc.) are owned by boomers. Most of these are in suburbia, where millennials are not all that keen on hanging out. So, as one Wall Street Journal article from late 2019 asks, Boomers: Who’s going to buy your 21 million homes?

This is an important question, because much of that boomer wealth is tied up in those paid-for homes. Now, how does that muddy the waters?

We’ve tended to see the wealth transfer as a bunch of cash being thrown to inheritors, but what if the inheritance is millions of McMansions and other suburban treasures that few millennials want? What happens to the value of that pile, and, for the tail end of boomers and Gen Xers, what happens to the value of that real estate?

Given the fact that millennials prefer experience to stuff – that is, they tend to be motivated by things other than bigger fancier cars and bigger fancier houses – they may choose to take time traveling, or extreme-sporting to deal with anxious lives, or lord knows what. But we do know also that the younger generation is not nearly as interested in the stock market, so maybe that vast wealth transfer will turn out to be anything but what we imagine.

For more stories, visit Todayville Calgary

Terry Etam

Terry Etam is a twenty-five-year veteran of Canada’s energy business. He has worked at a number of occupations spanning the finance, accounting, communications, and trading aspects of energy, and has written for several years on his own website Public Energy Number One and the widely-read industry site the BOE Report. In 2019, his first book, The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity, was published. Mr. Etam has been called an industry thought leader and the most influential voice in the oil patch. He lives in Calgary, Alberta.

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Trump: Tariffs on Canada, Mexico to take effect next week

Published on February 26, 2025

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MxM News

Quick Hit:

President Donald Trump confirmed that a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico will take effect next week. The move is intended to pressure the neighboring countries to take stronger measures against undocumented migration and fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. Despite discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump stated the tariffs will proceed as scheduled.

Key Details:

The tariffs were initially set for February 4 but were delayed by 30 days following conversations with Trudeau and Sheinbaum.
Trump emphasized the need for “reciprocal” tariffs, stating the U.S. has been “mistreated very badly” by many countries.
Canada and Mexico have threatened to retaliate if the tariffs are implemented, which could impact over $900 billion in U.S. imports.

Diving Deeper:

President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his administration will move forward with imposing a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican goods, effective next week. The decision aims to pressure the two countries into taking stronger actions to curb undocumented migration and fentanyl trafficking into the United States.

Speaking at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump stated, “The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule.” This declaration comes as the new deadline approaches on March 4, after an initial delay of 30 days from February 4, following phone conversations with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

During the press conference, Trump emphasized the broader issue of tariff reciprocity, claiming, “We’ve been mistreated very badly by many countries, not just Canada and Mexico.” He stressed the need for fairness in international trade, stating, “All we want is reciprocal. We want reciprocity. We want the same.”

Although Trump did not explicitly mention fentanyl or migration in his remarks, his statements apply additional pressure on Canada and Mexico to address his administration’s concerns. According to the White House, Trudeau informed Trump on Saturday that Canada has achieved a 90 percent reduction in fentanyl crossing the U.S. Northern Border and that Canada’s Border Czar will visit the U.S. next week for further discussions.

Together, Canada and Mexico account for more than $900 billion in U.S. imports, including vehicles, auto parts, and agricultural products. Both countries have indicated that they will retaliate if the tariffs are imposed. In a concession to inflation concerns, Trump noted that energy imports from Canada would face a lower tariff rate of 10 percent.

The move underscores Trump’s continued focus on securing U.S. borders and achieving trade reciprocity, while also setting the stage for potential trade conflicts with America’s closest trading partners.

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COVID lockdowns in Canada cost small businesses $60 billion in first year alone

Published on February 25, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By AnthonyMurdoch

In the first year of COVID lockdowns Canada’s small-to-medium-sized businesses, many of which are family-run, lost a combined $60 billion in gross profit, according to recently released statistics.

On February 18 Statistics Canada released a report regarding “Borrowing, repayments and bankruptcies” from Ottawa’s Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program, finding that businesses with less than $1.5 million in annual expenses “experienced a drop in gross profit, totaling a loss of nearly $60 billion” from 2019 to 2020.

The CEBA program was struck in March of 2020 to give out businesses affected by COVID lockdowns interest-free loans of up to $60,000. The loans came with strings attached, however, and had to be paid back by a certain date to only have to pay a partial amount back.

The report noted that the COVID lockdowns, which were imposed by all provincial governments as well as mandated by the federal government for the agencies it ran, from 2020 to most of 2021, were “most challenging for client-facing industries.

Businesses that reported the biggest declines in gross profit were “client-facing ones, such as food service and drinking places, hotels, and offices of dentists and physicians,” noted the report. Many of these are family-run businesses.

When it comes to bankruptcies, the report noted that they rose sharply from about mid-2022 to early 2024, notably coming after businesses had to start repaying the CEBA loans, which came due on January 18, 2024.

COVID vaccine mandates, as well as lockdowns, which came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.

In many provinces, such as Alberta, small and medium-sized businesses also fought back via lawsuits against their governments and health agencies, which put in place COVID rules.

LifeSiteNews reported last November, that a class-action lawsuit on behalf of dozens of Canadian business owners in Alberta who faced massive losses or permanent closures due to COVID mandates, was given the go-ahead to proceed by a judge.

As a result of COVID dictates, many Canadians fought back, most notably in the form of the 2023 Freedom Convoy, which saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Freedom Convoy’s two main leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews reported extensively on their trial, the verdict of which will be released on March 12.