This is a short think piece from my friend Neil Howe at Saeculum Research. The San Francisco Fed, among others, has come out and talked about how their data supports the concept that demographics – the fact of retiring Baby Boomers – explains the low wage inflation we see. Neil refutes that conclusion with his own data, which I think has better sources, in that the SF Fed didn't really have the ability to dive into the demographics as deeply as Neil has done. When you break the data down into age groups, the effects go away. In fact, the Boomers may be (very slightly) contributing to wage growth, which would of course not be good for younger Millennials. Three pages of copy but they are important pages in that understanding the direction of wage growth is going to be key to understanding the fragmentation of society and how we are splitting into different political tribes. These issues are going to be very important to our portfolios and businesses in the coming years.