One of the masterminds of the world’s luxury good market is Bernard Arnault. The NYT has a piece about his family empire.
When we were in Italy this summer, I was fascinated by the luxury good stores that were smart enough to place their modern purses and shoes alongside ancient ruins. These are some of my pictures.
“A 12-year-old schoolboy from a small rural town in the Bay of Plenty has caused a seismic shock-wave in New Zealand’s golfing scene – winning a national title after only having played three rounds of golf in his life…. Bayleigh also has autism; until recently, he spent most of his time in class under his desk, not speaking.”
I’m going to start talking more about homelessness. In the meantime, check out this article in the WSJ that explains that Boomers are starting to slide into Homelessness. “The fact that we are seeing elderly homelessness is something that we have not seen since the Great Depression…” Also on my reading list: Jennifer Egan’s piece in the New Yorker.
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Apt. 11d 
My MIL lives with us for two reasons. One is that when she retired she also seemed to be just a year from dialysis (but her numbers have improved over the last 8 years! hurrah!). But the other was that after a) a financially tumultuous marriage with a dreamer/entrepreneur b) a divorce, she ended up in her 40s with basically no savings and no real estate. She worked hard and ended up with decent-ish retirement savings in what I think would be a 401(k) there – investments from which to draw an income, but not a set defined benefits pension.
I’m glad she’s not getting squeezed on rent because I don’t think she’d be in a good place financially. She contributes to our household but it’s less, and when some of her investments tanked we just had her hold the funds so she wasn’t losing as much portfolio.
I also have a kid in university who probably won’t be able to rent much in Toronto, horrific time for starting off, for quite some time, and a 12 year old. Rents are up across Ontario, but especially in the major cities, they’re tough.
So what I’m seeing is that Gen X is going to end up sandwiched not just caregiving wise but real estate wise. I’m not alone among my peers in having kids live at home longer, or having parents moving in (or buying a home where there’s a separate apartment and everyone contributing together.) Those are the non-generationally-wealthy Boomers, like my husband’s side of the family. My parents, conversely, own three homes (florida/toronto/rental in toronto) and are just fine. They inherited a fair amount of wealth at one point, but also hit the real estate lottery.
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Ann from NZ
Coming from the seriously unaffordable country of NZ, and the worst city for house prices – Auckland – we’re seeing quite a bit of this elder homelessness.
People who have missed out on the house lottery (thanks for the phrase, Jen) – sometimes through no fault of their own [I have a friend in her 50s, who went through a tough divorce 20 years ago – and, despite now earning a good income, has zero prospect of ever owning a house again, as a single woman] – and who have been renting, while on reasonably good incomes, run into a brick wall when they retire.
NZ has a reasonably good public pension scheme (superannuation) – but the payments are predicated on owning your own home in retirement. With the small subset of people who didn’t, also having public housing. This is supplemented by any retirement savings that you have (we have about 20 years of a public scheme (Kiwisaver) where your employer is required to match up to 3% of your salary).
That has pretty much fallen over, in the last 20 years. Increasing numbers of people are reaching retirement with either no home, or still owing a very hefty mortgage. Retirement savings don’t go far in that situation.
Combined with skyrocketing house prices, we’ve also had steeply increasing rents, and a major shortage of housing (meaning that landlords can pick and choose their tenants). We’ve also had sharp increases in cost of living (everything from rates (annual local government land tax), through to electricity and telecommunication charges, to just basic foods). General unaffordability is increasing for everyone.
The traditional solution has been for older people (who are not homeowners) to retire to smaller towns, where they can either afford a house, or afford rent. It’s not ideal – since they’re leaving behind their social networks. But this is no longer working – the small town houses are also out of their price range, and there are no houses to rent.
Homelessness (priced out of the market) is a huge election issue here. And no political party seems to have a handle on a workable solution.
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In-laws are asking us to move near them. They want us to build a house on their land. This is the hidden downside of work from home.
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The official reason that isn’t happening is because if I need to get a new job, I’ll be better off in the city. The real reason is neither of us is willing to live in a place where elected officials say the 2020 election was stolen.
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