Why we can't make the old spend enough to save the UK economy

The number of households headed by someone over 50 is growing. Merryn Somerset Webb explains why that's especially bad news for Britain.

If you haven't watched our video interview with demographics expert Paul Hodges yet, you probably should. That's partly because it's very interesting, and partly because everyone else has and the conversation about the effect of demographics on economies is one I think you will want to be a part of.

After our interview, Paul sent me the graph below to illustrate some of his points.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.