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The geezers are coming! The geezers are coming! 

Demographic doomsayers warn slowing birth rates and graying populations will wreak economic havoc and torpedo stocks.

Yet the dire scenarios of zombie-like boomer hoards leeching off their working progeny have it backwards: Aging populations are always, everywhere signs of progress not threats to it.

Yes America, like most developed nations, is aging. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates 9.8% of US residents were 65 or older in 1970. At the start of 2023, it was 17.3%.

In 2000, there were 20.9 folks aged 65 and older for every 100 working age counterparts (What is called the OADR or Old Age Dependency Ratio). Now there are 30.4, and the OECD projects it will top 40 by 2050.

The trend will continue to be a major theme this century, with the Census Bureau projecting Americas agedness will peak about 2080. What to do? Invest in adult diapers? 

No. Celebrate.

Every major economy ages as it prospers.

Living standards increase and lifespans follow. Birth rates fall alongside infant mortality. American males born in 1900 on average lived to 46 and females to 48. Now, its 73 for males, 79 for females.

Tremendous advances in healthcare have given us extra fruitful and productive yearsin the US, Europe, everywhere.

Mick Jagger turned 80 before the Stones play MetLife Stadium this May. AARP sponsors that tour not a joke! But boomers aplenty will splurge big-time for tickets.

Want good demographics instead? Careful what you ask for. Nations with low agedness (hence low OADRs) near-consistently suffer poverty, short lifespans, high infant mortality, wretched economies, markets, ecologies, and lifestyles.

Still, demographics arent destiny. Innovation is. History shows agedness doesnt impede growth or stocks. In 1982, Americas OADR was 20. Weve since thrived, not dived. GDP tripled. The S&P 500 returned 11.8% annualized since then.

Yes, periodic recessions and bear markets strucklike always, everywhere. But growth continued and stocks climbed.

Doomers envision oldsters as penny-pinching parasites. Growth killers! Wrong. In 1984, Americans 75 and older spent just half what those 25 to 34 did. By 2023, that leapt to nearly 80%. Again, innovation-derived prosperity rules. Longer lifespans and increased retirement ages mean oldsters earnand spendmore. Yes, the 75-plus crowd only spends 59% of what 45 to 54 do (Americas highest spending bracket). But thats well above 1984s 39%.

We geezers invest, funding capitalisms growthy magic. We give to descendants who spend. Many of us work into our 80s. (Im 73no retirement in sight.) Like legendary financier Bernard Baruch once famously said: To me old age is always 15 years older than I am. 

Age isnt the detriment it was when Baruch was born in 1870. There are now fewer physically demanding and risky agricultural and factory jobs, and more services and information-related work.

Accumulated experience and technology can make oldsters increasingly productive, not less so. (Yes, I know President Biden cant string coherent sentences together consistently and dementia hits many all part of the stats).

Demo-doomsters also erroneously extrapolate recent trends. Who really knows if developed world birthrates keep falling? Or how immigration shifts skilled workers around? Or what efficiencies new innovations bring?

Stocks? They price factors impacting firms profitability three to 30-ish months out. Not further. Demographic trends evolve glacially over decades, giving markets eons to adapt.

So let the demo-doomers keep talking. They are only bricking up the wall of worry driving this bull market higher.

Ken Fisher is the founder and executive chairman of Fisher Investments, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and regular columnist in 21 countries globally.

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Red Sox move Buehler to pen as RHP eyes ‘reset’

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Red Sox move Buehler to pen as RHP eyes 'reset'

NEW YORK — The Boston Red Sox are pulling Walker Buehler from their rotation and sending the struggling right-hander to the bullpen.

“It’s going to be his new role,” manager Alex Cora said Friday before the Red Sox continued a four-game series with the Yankees. “We’ll figure out how it goes, maybe one inning, multiple innings. Whatever it is, we don’t know yet.”

Buehler’s next scheduled start would have been the opener of a four-game series in Baltimore on Monday. The Red Sox did not immediately announce who would take his turn. Right-hander Richard Fitts, currently with the Red Sox, and left-hander Kyle Harrison, who is at Triple A after being acquired in the Rafael Devers trade, are options.

“It’s obviously disappointing,” Buehler said. “It’s the first time in my career that I’ve been in a situation like that, but at the end of the day, the organization and, to a lesser extent, myself, kind of think it’s probably the right thing for our group and it gives me an opportunity to kind of reset in some ways.”

In his first season with the Red Sox after seven seasons with the Dodgers, Buehler is 7-7 with a 5.40 ERA in 22 starts and has allowed a career-worst 21 homers. He was 4-1 with a 4.28 ERA in his first six starts but is 3-6 with a 6.37 ERA over his past 16 outings. He also missed two weeks in May because of bursitis in his pitching shoulder.

“He’s been very frustrated with the way he has pitched,” Cora said. “I still believe in him. He’s a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Buehler last started in Wednesday’s 11-inning loss to the Orioles and allowed two runs in four innings while throwing 75 pitches. It was the ninth time this season he did not complete five innings.

After the game, he didn’t fault Cora for the quick hook.

“At some point, the leash I’m given has been earned,” he told reporters. “I think they did the right thing in coming to get me before the [Gunnar] Henderson at-bat. Our bullpen has been great. For me, personally, I think everything went according to plan until the fifth. You go double, four-pitch walk. The way I’ve been throwing it, it all kind of makes sense.”

Buehler also issued 54 walks in 110 innings this season for a career-high 4.4 walks per nine innings.

The Red Sox signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05 million contract in December. The deal contains an additional $2.5 million in performance bonuses. The Red Sox also gave Buehler a $3.05 million signing bonus and includes a $25 million mutual option for 2026 with a $3 million buyout.

Buehler was 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA and pitched 75⅓ innings in the 2024 regular season for the Dodgers after missing all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He helped the Dodgers win their second championship since 1988 by going 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA and pitched a perfect ninth for the save in Game 5 of the World Series against the Yankees.

Buehler’s only previous relief experience was eight appearances as a rookie in 2017. His last relief appearance was June 28, 2018, when he allowed a run in five innings after missing time because of a rib injury.

A two-time All Star in 2019 and 2021, Buehler is 54-29 in 153 appearances. He finished fourth in voting for the National League Cy Young Award in 2021 after going 16-4 with a 2.47 ERA in 33 starts when he threw 207⅔ innings.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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MLB-best Brewers put SS Ortiz (hamstring) on IL

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MLB-best Brewers put SS Ortiz (hamstring) on IL

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee’s Joey Ortiz went on the 10-day injured list with a strained left hamstring Friday, leaving the NL Central-leading Brewers without their starting shortstop.

The Brewers also reinstated first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers from the injured list and sent outfielder Jackson Chourio to a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Nashville.

Ortiz left a 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday after hurting himself while grounding out in the fifth inning. Manager Pat Murphy said he has been told it’s a low-grade strain, an indication that Ortiz’s stay on the IL might not be too long.

Ortiz, 27, is hitting .233 with seven homers, 43 RBIs and 11 steals in 125 games. He has batted .343 with an .830 OPS in August.

“I felt like I was finally kind of getting a groove going, especially offensively, that I was starting to swing the bat as I feel I can,” Ortiz said. “Things happen. It’s baseball. It’s going to happen. I’ve just got to do what I can to get back.”

Murphy said Andruw Monasterio will be the Brewers’ primary shortstop while Ortiz is out. Monasterio, 28, has hit .254 with two homers and 11 RBIs in 43 games.

Bauers, 29, was dealing with a left shoulder impingement and last played in the majors on July 18. Bauers is hitting .197 with five homers and 18 RBIs in 59 games. He had gone just 2-for-23 in July while dealing with the shoulder issue before finally going on the injured list.

“Since April, May, I’ve been dealing with it,” Bauers said.

Chourio, 21, hasn’t played since straining his right hamstring while running out a triple in a 9-3 victory over the Cubs on July 29.

“He’s got to be able to get comfortable standing on the diamond back-to-back days,” Murphy said. “He’s got to be comfortable playing all nine (innings) in the outfield back-to-back days, because you can’t bring him back here and then just [go] zero to 100.”

Chourio is hitting .276 with 17 homers, 67 RBIs and 18 steals in 106 games.

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Bronzed Beltré: Rangers honor HOFer with statue

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Bronzed Beltré: Rangers honor HOFer with statue

ARLINGTON, Texas — Hall of Fame third baseman Adrian Beltré now has a statue in Arlington to go with his bust in Cooperstown.

The Texas Rangers unveiled a life-sized bronze statue of the first-ballot Hall of Famer on Friday, one with him posed hitting a home run with his knee on the ground like he did so often in his career. Beltré is the third player to have a statue outside the team’s stadium, joining two other Hall of Famers, strikeout king Nolan Ryan and 14-time All-Star catcher Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez.

Beltré spent the last eight of his 21 big league seasons with Texas, the team he played with the longest. He retired after the 2018 season, had his No. 29 jersey retired by the Rangers the following year and was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame last summer.

The statue is situated where it appears that Beltré is glancing toward the old ballpark that still stands across the street. It was there that he became the first player from the Dominican Republic to reach 3,000 career hits on July 30, 2017, two years after hitting his 400th homer. That is also where he had all three of his MLB record-tying three career cycles, one as a visitor with Seattle in 2008, and two more with the Rangers, on Aug. 24, 2012, and Aug. 3, 2015.

The dedication came before the opener of a three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians. The Rangers on Saturday will present Beltré with a smaller version of his bronze statue and he will catch a ceremonial first pitch thrown by Mike Tabor, the Texas artist who sculpted it, and the first 20,000 fans entering the ballpark before that game will get replica versions.

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