You’ve probably never heard of Harry S. Dent. Until the other day, I hadn’t. But then I was expounding the Slog’s theory that Bernanke, King and Co should’ve kept interest rates high in order to keep Silvers spending, and this bloke on the other side of the dinner table who’d been looking bored said, “Ah, then you’re a Dentist” and I said no, I’m a retired adman and he said no, I mean a follower of Harry S. Dent.

Let me say right off I’m not recommending Harry. He’s one of those I Can Change Your Wife writers whom you sort of have to admire for their persistence, but you wouldn’t want to read their books – or have lunch with them. But he too has expounded the idea for some time that a depression must come – because the baby-boomers don’t do credit after a certain point. We, it seems, were the last generation who didn’t believe that a credit card is infinite, free money.

The Slog’s last posting to refer to this a couple of weeks back again suggested that older people need interest-rate stimulation, not quantitative easing. In a recent interview with Dent, this is what Brett Owens at Seeking Alpha had to say:

‘Bernanke & Co can’t get the baby boomers to take on more debt because of where they are in the spending cycle. It’s a time to save, not spend, in their lives. Hence, the Keynsian solution that “worked”  so well during the 20th century is shooting blanks here in our 2008-2010 and counting Depression.’

So there you are: maybe you didn’t read it here first after all.

Related: Silver spending and interest rates.